A loose continuation of the post Incidental Notes From the Road – link here.
“I dropped south to New Harmony, Indiana, twelve miles downstream from Grayville, Illinois where I’d spent that first grim night.” From Blue Highways: A Journey Into America, by William Least Heat-Moon.
October 12, 2021 I’m standing in New Harmony, in front of the now closed bridge that William Least Heat-Moon crossed 43 years ago. He’d stopped for gas in New Harmony, and then drove over the New Harmony Bridge that spans the Wabash River, the border between Illinois and Indiana.
Heat-Moon’s crossing marked the last day of an odyssey; three months and 13,000 miles between “that first grim night” and this old bridge.
At loose ends after separating from his wife and then losing his job as a college professor, Heat-Moon outfitted an old van that he christened Ghost Dancing, and then he took off on a meandering journey through America’s backroads (the roads designated in blue on road maps). Life had offered him the proverbial shit sandwich. Heat-Moon declined the offer, and instead decided to put time and miles between himself and the source of his troubles.
Lemons into lemonaid. Make due with what ya got.
Is it a coincidence that forty-three years after Heat-Moon crossed over the Wabash, I’m standing here in New Harmony, looking through a chain link fence at Illinois on the other side of that river? Not at all. It’s almost as if it were meant to be. It was a labyrinthine string of circumstances that got me here. It all started with my own need to escape.
That is, I resigned from the Democratic Party and registered as an Independent. For years, usually after another Dem disappointment, the idea of leaving the party would cross my mind, but it was a combination of my own laziness and the reality that, as an Independent, I wouldn’t be able to vote in primaries that kept me from jumping ship.
And then came the June 27th massacre and all that’s followed.
Joe Biden’s debate failure, his subsequent interview with George Stephanopoulos, his letter to the Democratic members of Congress, and his phone-in to the Morning Joe television program combined to overburden the poor camel. The spine specialist could only shake his head and walk away.
My disgust over Biden’s insistence on running, despite the preponderance of voters from his own party who have consistently said that they believe that the president is too old to serve a second term, has long been feeding my appetite to depart a deluded party.
Biden’s post-debate persistence to stay the course, a persistence backed by his campaign and the cult of Biden (because at this point, what else could one call it) has me wondering just what the goal could possibly be.
Call me an old romantic fool, but I’ve always believed that the primary goal of every presidential election is to elect the man best suited for the job.
The man best suited for the job. Why is that so often a unicorn of an idea?
Every four years at least one of the major parties manages to endorse a fool. This time around both parties have managed to fail the nation by pitting a pair of unqualified old men against each other (and against the well-being of the country). And both parties did so knowingly and without regard to the future consequences.
In this election, as in the two previous, the electorate has been presented with another goal, and that is to beat Donald Trump. At least that’s the goal of anyone who wants to preserve a semblance of democracy and to keep the lunatic from occupying the assylum director’s chair .
This has been Joe Biden’s goal, and in that I take him at his word. Anything after that, and he loses me.
There’s a scene in an episode of the drama/comedy, The Bear, in which Sydney, the young sous chef, knocks on the papered over glass door of the restaurant that she and her partner and crew have been remodeling – just a simple makeover, really. She’s spent the day bouncing around Chicago, visiting various restaurants, sampling menu items to get ideas for her own menu. She’s been eating like a Roman senator at a bacchanal. She’s tired and stuffed and then stunned when Carmen, the head chef, opens the door to reveal that the remodel has been turned into a tear it down to the studs, major overhaul.
Carmen talks Sydney down from the ledge, pointing to the reality that the joint is old and there’s mold, dry rot, rust, leaks, structural issues, bugs and rodents. There’s nothing for it but to accept the reality, swallow hard, roll up sleeves and get to work.
Age, mold, dry rot, rust, leaks, structural issues, bugs and rodents. That could describe the way in which America chooses its president – especially the bugs and rodents part. If there was ever any doubt that the American system is not only decrepit and in need of being torn down to the studs, rebuilt and modernized, this current election cycle is proof positive that the system is antiquated and precariously close to collapse.
From the very start, the founders established a system that was only a façade of democracy. In the decades since, time marched on, and the system was not allowed to keep pace. The introduction of political shenanigans only made things worse. A system that from the beginning was not nurturing of a democracy has become even less democracy friendly. (And to be clear, we are not a democracy. Please see a previous post, The Saving Democracy Myth).
The events of the past week, and in fact, this whole presidential election cycle, have shown just how obsolete, and undemocratic our electoral system is. And just for fun, let’s add corrupt to the mix. We’re on the cusp of conventions, which have become glorified political infomercials, and just four months from election day and the electorate is faced with the most dreadful of binary choices – ever.
Welcome to the buffet folks. On the table before you we’re offering a rotten, old orange carp and an over done chicken that’s far beyond its sell-by date.
This a repost of a piece written by Martin Fredericks IV, on his site, IV Words.
In his piece, Martin wonders about the deafening silence following a Supreme Court decision that essentially paves the way for an American monarchy or autocracy. Two-hundred and forty-eight years ago today The Declaration of Independence was birthed, rejecting the idea of a monarchy.
Two-hundred and forty-eight years after brave men and women put their lives at risk to reject monarchy, Americans are reacting to a Supreme Court decision taking a cleaver to democracy with, “Hey Marge, could you pass the artichoke dip,” and “What time do the fireworks start?”
Happy fucking birthday.
The links to both of Martin’s timely pieces are below. Please read.
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that the six right wingnuts on the Supreme Court would pave an autobahn towards autocracy, closing out the SCOTUS session and in effect, closing out the scattered remains of democracy.
The timing was both ironic and convenient. Ironic in that SCOTUS issued its decision shit canning the whole idea that The United States is not a monarchy (or autocracy) mere days before we celebrate the signing of the document, 248 years ago, that condemned the monarchy it was getting read to overthrow. The decision is also convenient for the American autocrat in waiting, one convicted felon named Donald John Trump, who’s firing up the engine on his redesigned MAGA to take a ride on that very autobahn.
Martin Fredericks IV is a pull no punches blogger whom I’ve been following for some years now. He puts the most recent SCOTUS outrage in proper angry perspective. Please read Martin’s piece, U.S. Supreme Court Clobbers Democracy.
Rickwood (baseball) Field, Birmingham, Alabama. June 20, 2024. Baseball has been played at Rickwood since 1910, making it America’s oldest active baseball park. A baseball game will be played at Rickwood today. For over a century, thousands of baseball games have been played at Rickwood; Major League Baseball’s (MLB) spring training games and exhibitions, semi-pro, and Negro League games. For a time, the University of Alabama’s Crimson Tide used the field. Rickwood has even starred as a movie set
Today, Rickwood will star again, this time as the host of a regular season Major League game between the San Francisco Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals. This game will be more than just any other in the long 162 game grind that starts in the promising spring, grunts through the hot summer, sweats out the dog days of August, ending in the crisp birth of autumn.
Today’s game is a celebration of the Negro Leagues, a celebration that’s long, long overdue. It’s also an unexpected celebration of one of the Negro Leagues’ and MLB’s favorite sons, Willie Mays, who, at 16, began his stellar professional career at Rickwood as the starting center fielder for the Birmingham Black Barons. Mays passed away two days ago in the San Francisco Bay Area, at the age of 93. It’s almost as if the baseball gods had preordained the convergence of events.
Banner photo: I shot this photo before a baseball game between the Chicago Cubs and San Francisco Giants, at Wrigley Field in Chicago, on the day after Willie Mays passed away.
June 18, 2024. My wife and I were sitting, lower box, along the third baseline in Chicago’s Guaranteed Rate Stadium. The buzz started sometime in the early innings as the White Sox were playing the Houston Astros. I heard the first murmur from someone a few rows down from us and to the right. I only heard the name, “Mays.”
When it comes to baseball the name Mays, isn’t just a name. Willie Mays is baseball. Pick a sport, any sport and you’ll find that there’s an ongoing debate as to which player is that sport’s greatest. In baseball, the name Willie Mays is always mentioned beside Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron as the greatest player in baseball history. It’s one of those never resolved sports debates that takes place in a stadium or a bar or early morning in the office break room as people pour their morning coffee and dip into the donut box.
For me the choice is easy – it’s Mays. Maybe that’s because I watched him play so many times, though I did see Aaron a time or two. Ruth? I may be old but I’m not that damn old.
So in a baseball stadium, I suppose it would make sense that the name Mays would come up. Or not. Willie Mays, who spent most of his career playing for the New York/San Francisco Giants never played for or against the White Sox. Never, to my knowledge, did he set foot in Comiskey Park, the stadium that the Sox called home. So, I wondered, why the buzz? Because now it wasn’t just one lone mention. The name Willie Mays was circulating around the park.
The murmurs continued throughout the game, always at a distance. And then a man stopped to chat with a woman seated behind me. That’s when I heard the news that Willie Mays had passed away at the age of 93.
As the Sox and Astros, played my mind drifted from the game. Numb, hit with the now all too familiar realization that yet another precious piece of my life had been taken. As we get older the pieces just tumble away like bricks from an aging building. It might be a death, or the closing of a cherished institution, or the destruction of a building or monument. The pieces crash to earth and get bulldozed aside by time, and we find ourselves less one more fragment. When the World Series is done and the Giants have completed another season of mediocrity will June 18th even register in my failing memory?
A short time after the buzz began, rumor became official as the public address announcer shared the bad news with the stadium crowd. The crowd rose and a long standing ovation followed and every face, even those of the players on the field, turned to the picture of Willie Mays displayed on the scoreboard. I wasn’t the only one who had lost another fragment. All of baseball was feeling the loss.
We hadn’t planned on going to that game. The White Sox are one of the worst teams in baseball this year and the only reason to go would be to knock another stadium off the list of stadiums that we’d visited. It was a last minute decision that very afternoon to go online and buy tickets.
Irony? Destiny? Shithouse coincidence? Whatever it was, it was certainly fitting that I heard the news of the passing of baseball’s greatest while I was sitting at a baseball game. I guess it was equally fitting that the next day I would be watching the Giants play the Chicago Cubs in Chicago’s Wrigley Field.
There I was, on November 8th of 2016, standing in line at the polling place, minding my own business when my conscience tapped me on the shoulder, “Dude, you aren’t going to vote for Hillary, are you?” “Why not?” I asked. “Better than Trump.” “No shit. Hemorrhoids are better than Trump. Dog shit is better than Trump.” “So what’s your point?” “Hillary’s a shoe in. No way Trump wins. There can’t be that many stupid people in America. I say, write in Bernie.” “I’m not going to write in Bernie. You fucking crazy?” “If you don’t write in Bernie I’ll hold my breath till I turn blue,” said my conscience as it stomped about. “Fine then, I’ll vote for Bernie.”
A few hours later, Hillary Clinton took the stage at her headquarters. Cora and I watched, stunned, disappointed and afraid. “Last night, I congratulated Donald Trump and offered to work with him on behalf of our country. I hope that he will be a successful president for all Americans. This is not the outcome we wanted or we worked so hard for and I’m sorry that we did not win this election for the values we share and the vision we hold for our country.”
I remember the camera panning to staffers who were openly weeping. That’s what staffers do after losing a hard fought slog of an election. But they weren’t weeping over the loss. They were weeping over the notion that Donald Trump was going to be president. My memory of turning to Cora and saying, “Fucking Donald Trump is President of the United States,” is as clear as if it had happened just last night.
Hillary should have won. Hillary could’ve won. Nobody in their right mind thought that a boorish, racist, reality show con man could be elected to the most powerful office on Earth.
And so I and the legion of conscience soothers who voted for Sanders, or Jill Stein, or plain old Jill Smith down the street, because we just couldn’t stomach Hillary could only bury our heads in our hands and hope. Hope that during the ensuing three months the new boss would take a crash course in “how to act responsibly at being the most powerful person on Earth,” and actually learn it. We hoped, as the world did, and as some of his handlers promised, that he would grow into the job.
Hope dashed. Promise not kept.
Four years later, or, after 1461 days, or 2,103,840 seconds, because some of us were literally counting the seconds until the madness of Trump’s presidency would end, Joe Biden took office. But not until a struggle, an attempted coup, and a violent insurrection had taken place. The wicked witch is dead, we thought. There were tears again. Tears of relief and of joy.
The tears hadn’t even dried when Trump and his office holding sycophants and his cult of weirdos and idiots went on a four years long rant of whining and lies and threats of retribution. Trump and his gang of pirates refused to go quietly.
And here we are, with just five months and change until the next election. The same two guys who the majority of people don’t want. I suppose that the plus to having this unpopularity contest is that each of the candidates has a presidential term that the voter can evaluate and base his vote on.
We have a fair sense of what we’ll get with a second Biden term. If we get a reprise of the past four years we’ll get stability and an honest shot at bipartisanship from a man who will hold to the promise of being president for all Americans (notwithstanding the MAGA claims to the contrary). We’ll get a president who will hire a competent bureaucracy, and if necessary, won’t nominate a flaming ideologue to the Supreme Court.
We’ll also get the Biden who drives me to distraction. The guy who isn’t sleepy Joe, but slow off the mark Joe. His handling, or mishandling, of three significant issues has marred his presidency.
For more than two years, Biden acted as if the crisis on the border would somehow go away of its own accord. By the time Biden reacted, the border was inundated and the Republicans have since taken politcal advantage of the full blown crisis.
Biden’s initial handling of the Russian invasion of Ukraine has always been three or more steps behind the curve.
“Should we just go ahead and sign up for Apple TV?” I asked my wife, Cora. “It’s only ten bucks a month.”
“Sure why not.”
“Alright.” I answered. “The Giants are on Apple tonight, though I think it sucks that they’re starting to stream sports. Anyway, I’ve been wanting to watch Masters of the Air.”
I walked to the home office and let out a sigh of resignation. Signing up for anything Apple meant that I would have to eat a small helping of crow – feathers, beak, and all. You see, I don’t have a love/hate relationship with Apple. No, I have a hate/hate relationship with Apple. I’m a hater. Yes I’m a dyed in the wool, bonafide, 100% pure hater of all things Apple.
My animus isn’t so much directed at Apple’s products and services as it is towards the Apple cult. Yes – cult (not unlike the MAGA cult only technologically discerning), Ask anyone of us, scum of the Earth, proletariat, lowlife, trailer park trash who uses a Dell computer or, horrors, an Android phone. We’ve all at one time, or many times, been denigrated by some Apple – head for being antediluvian slime.
For me it started in the early 1990’s with a coworker named Chris Smith. Chris took in the Apple snake oil intravenously and he made certain that the other four of us in our little purchasing office knew that we Windows users were lesser beings. Chris had even managed to convince management to allow him to set up his own personal Apple based system for office use while the rest of us were on a Windows platform.
On any given workday, the slightest Windows hiccup resulted in derision from Chris, followed by an annoying cackle that sounded like a dyspeptic goose.
Every year, Chris would take two days off to attend the annual, Apple convention and Steve Jobs love fest, held at San Francisco’s Moscone Center. So many idolaters would show up at Moscone to hear the apostle Steve Jobs deliver his homilies, that two blocks of Howard Street had to be closed off.
I never attended, of course, so I could only imagine what went on in that holy of holies. No Coors and chips there. No, I imagine they served oysters Rockefeller, tuna tartare, and of course Royal Beluga caviar. There was probably a 39 month aged Parmigiano-Reggiano served on slices of French baguette flown in from Paris which began as Cheese Whiz on Ritz until the apostle Steve transformed it by waving his staff and muttering a few divine incantations. Rumor had it that the Almighty Jobs stayed at a hotel in Berkeley (because, Berkeley) and walked across San Francisco Bay to preach at the convention.
After a few glasses of Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin Champagne, the guests could continue to the massage station where vestal virgins would rub out the cricks from the necks of pilgrims who had been holding their noses too long in the air.
“I say Jaspar,” said the distinguished man in a pink Gucci polo to Miles who was adjusting his Mulberry silk ascot. “Have you sampled the latest iPhone?”
“No, I missed that one. I walked 23 miles to the Apple Store a month in advance of the introduction and then stood in line braving three tornadoes and a blizzard. It was a ghastly experience and I was only able to survive by holding onto the faith that I would be able to lay my hand on that sacred device. Sadly, I didn’t manage to get in. I have tried the latest MacBook. It’s smashing, simply smashing.”
Jaspar took a sip of his Chardonnay that had hints of strawberry and oak.
Yeah, I’ll give ya a fuckin oak to sip on, ya hifalutin bastard.
Oh yeah, about those lines that form outside of Apple Stores when the latest communion, er, phone, is introduced. This is the kind of behavior I used to see when teens lined up to get the latest Jordans. But seriously, grown ass adults waiting to be the first on the block to get the latest phone which is allegedly already obsolete (Apple denies planned obsolescence, because any large corporation would deny such malfeasance)? Grow the fuck up.
Chris Smith moved to Colorado some time ago and took his cackle and his Macbook with him.
It’s the battle cry dujour. Google, “save democracy,” and you’ll get an almost endless list of articles about throwing America’s drowning democracy a lifeline. There’s even a 10 week course on how to reboot America’s democracy. As if 10 weeks would be enough.
The pundits and the hacks are all over “Saving the American Democracy.”
“Save the democracy,” says Jake Tapper on CNN. “Our democracy is at stake,” cries Alex Wagner on MSNBC. Jesse Watters over on Fox also wants to “Save America’s democracy.” As do Sean Hannity, Jen Psaki, Tim Miller, Jon Favreau, Mike Murphy and a legion of other opinionators.
The Life in My Years 