You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
Carved in stone in Trout Brook cemetery, Weston, Maine, this portion of the deceased’s name makes its own statement. Can we adapt this as a motto for the New Year, with a sense of zest?
I do suspect that gravestones can be a great source of first or last names when it comes to writing fiction, not that I did that in crafting my existing novels.
Looking ahead to the November national presidential elections, I had been in deep despair. Joe Biden, a decent man who has managed a respectable administration in the face of Republican obstruction and corruption, was obviously falling short in his campaign to gain a second term. No matter what the data presented in contrast to what he inherited, cosmic forces seemed to be aligned against everything holy.
Right-wing so-called Christians couldn’t realize which side they were really on, Satan’s or the Holy One’s.Yes, it was that dark. Who can stop the tide? From what I saw, the coming Kristallnacht repeatedly broke my sleep. Jews weren’t the only ones who the Orange Man’s zombie legions would be coming after. Just as many non-Jews were gassed in the Nazi concentration camps, millions of them. Remember that.
And then, against all odds, President Biden yielded to the hard labor of reason by Nancy Pelosi. Both of them, I would say, are true patriots in that struggle. The good of the nation and the world come first.
Suddenly, what an incredible and unexpected turnabout! With her Cinderella outbreak, Kamala Harris has been striking all the right notes and moves. The crowds reflect the sense of rescue. The interviews and policy positions can come later.
The unanticipated choice of Tim Walz, from my perspective, was absolutely brilliant. While I had thought Joshua Shapiro was the obvious pick for vice president, Walz suddenly throws the entire center of the continent into play, not just the two progressive coasts. It’s like Tim Lasso has suddenly entered the race.
Better yet, both Kamala and Tim have freed the Democrats from their deadly tone of lecturing the electorate. They’re willing to humorously and boldly tweak their opponents in ways that deflect the earlier nasty blasts from the other side. They boogey, they smile, they’ve comfortable in their own skins, unlike their GOP rivals. So far, it’s been deadly effective. Maybe because their new comedic shots at their foes reflect fact.
The race is no longer about policy, other than the Project 2025. It’s about character and integrity. Period.
My, how things have changed. No wonder the Democrats and others are suddenly charged. Could the bullies finally be on the run?
As a conservative editorial writer once reminded me, he saw too many dead causes rise up again. I hope that warning holds for the center and left, too.
Complacency can be deadly.
So that’s what I see from where I am as so much boils up.
The naked eye saw only white sometimes tinged with pink or blue. The cell phone camera using a 4-second exposure saw this and much more. Was anyone really expecting northern lights?
Back in my wildly ambitious youth, shortly after graduating from college, I envisioned writing a genre-bending novel blending politics and science fiction. Well, my degree was in political science and sci fi was one category of literature that had a growing readership.
My premise was space aliens dropping a young male off in an older suburb of Cincinnati, as in Ohio, where he would be groomed to run for president of the United States. With a nod toward what we now classify as AI, he would be perfectly programmed to fit the market surveys. And with another nod toward what is so-inaccurately called “reality television,” he would be given a fictional past and identity.
The working title was The Cowboy from Mars, and this was back in the early ‘70s.
~*~
I hate to admit that getting from there to an acutal campaign narrative required much more development than I was equipped to produce as an aspiring novelist, and a race for the White House could have been its own War and Peace in terms of characters and pages. Should I add that comedy is very hard to write?
Was I wrong to assume the project had potential?
Is what we’re facing today some kind of weird acid trip?
I mean, the man who presumptuously eliminated the periods from his initials for some kind of marketing vanity but grew up not that far south of me in what looks like far more privileged economic conditions now appears weirdly, well, like a silicon boob. I do hope that doesn’t offend anyone but it is the best I can do.
~*~
Looking at the current political situation has me seeing what would have been unimaginable in its absurdities. It really does seem fictional, outrageous, even tragic. It’s enough to make me wonder which candidate came from Mars or beyond.
As for those of you viewing this from outside of the USA? What are you making of it?
From what I’ve seen of the Founding Fathers of my country, I can say that they believed in rational thought. I hate to think they were wrong there.
Maybe that’s why I couldn’t write that novel.
Jnana's Red Barn 