Christmas 2020

In two days, we will celebrate Christmas. This year it will be a somber event for Americans. For many, the green of mistletoe and pine boughs will be replaced by the black bunting of grief. In the last eleven months the COVID virus has killed over 326,000 of our fellow Americans and infected over 17,000,000 more. Only four other events in our history are worse: the genocide of our Indigenous Peoples, the Civil War, the 1918 Flu, and World War II.

And the agony is not yet over. The list of the dead continues to grow.

Our economy is in tatters with millions out of work and facing homelessness, hunger, and disease. Our children’s education and socialization suffer. And even though there are now vaccinations starting to become available, it will be another six months or longer before we can hope to see our conditions change.

Our society is being pulled apart from within and without. Some of our politicians actively sow the seeds of discord and division, while foreign powers such as the Russians and Chinese attack us with disinformation and ransack of our networks. Axis propaganda during WWII was not as pervasive or dangerous as Russian and Chinese influence is today.

To add to the chaos, our leader shows signs of mental instability and is continuously trying to overturn the will of the people, as shown in the recent, fair election. Our military leaders along with his closest aids worry that he will attempt to entangle our military in an illegal attempt to declare martial law and nullify the election.

Sadly, many of our fellow Americans have embraced this fever dream. They believe conspiracy theories spun by madmen, charlatans, and foreign agent provocateurs. Some even encourage the use of violence against their fellow Americans. Indeed, this is a dark and sad time of year.

What is needed now, more than other Yule time, is the Christmas message.

This is the time we celebrate and rejoice, the birth of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. During His brief life, Jesus set in motion a force that over two millennia has transformed our world. While some have used his name to promote violence, cruelty and war, His message remains clear. Christ taught that we should do onto others as we would wish to be done onto ourselves. His teachings were about loving our fellow man, caring for the sick, poor, and downtrodden. He embraced criminals and prostitutes and preached redemption, the ability to change and become our better selves. When He was crucified, He spent his remain hours alongside two criminals, sharing a similar fate.

Christ sacrificed Himself knowing that His act would make the world a better place for all people.

In a way, this year, this Christmas has been the path that has led us to Golgotha. Our struggles are far from over and we must make sacrifices so that the world be become a better future for ourselves, our children, and our home, Earth.

Let us remember what Christmas is about. Goodwill towards all, giving the gift of Peace and Acceptance to those that we have struggled with. Reaching out to the suffering and renewing our commitment to serve them: sheltering the homeless, feeding the hungry, comforting the troubled, and working to end the causes that create their misery.

Most importantly, we need to remember that we are all God’s children, one colorful, diverse family, sharing the same pilgrimage towards redemption. We all are following the path towards our better selves.

Our nation was created so that we could make this journey. Our Founders were imperfect, beings on their own pilgrimages. Hence, their creation is flawed too. Yet, our nation far exceeds the sum of its frail builders. Our nation, like ourselves, is on a path towards redemption.

So, let us remember and rejoice at the profound truths that Jesus taught. Love one another. Treat each other as we want to be treated. Reach out and provide comfort for those that are afflicted. As we improve the lives of others, our lives improve too.

All humanity is one family, children of God, we are bound together by our blood and genes. And we all are on a journey towards redemption.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays to All Faiths and Beliefs, Peace On Earth and Goodwill to All.

May 2021 see us united in healing our world.

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Life In The Time of COVID

COVID Nude, Summer 2020, Virgil Delegard

In some manner, we all have adapted to the horror that surrounds us. But, adaptation is not neutral. It is either positive and promotes survival or negative and increases risk.

Since March, over 290,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. Currently, the number is increasing by about 3,000 souls a day. The latest 7-day average for new infections has grown by 26% while the weekly average for deaths has gone up 53%. Obviously, America has not adapted well to the situation.

Early on, it was clear that combating the virus required slowing its spread. This would prevent hospitals, their staffs, and medical suppliers from being overwhelmed and from breaking our healthcare system. Called, flattening the curve, it meant that, overall, the total number of people that would get sick would remain the same, but over a longer period. This would allow hospitals to provide quality care for COVID patients, remain available for all other medical needs, and provide staff time to rest and recover from their emotionally draining work. Also, slowing the rate of infection would give researchers time to develop and implement more effective treatments which, over the length of the pandemic, would lead to fewer serious illnesses and deaths. Likewise for vaccines. The slaughter we see today, didn’t need not happen had all of us been willing to adapt to the danger.

Instead, our leaders in the federal government, along with some state and local officials, chose to ignore, minimize or lie about the situation. Many, trusting in what they were told, refused to adjust to the times and the result is a disaster. Had an initial lock-down, masks, and social distancing been adopted universally in the United States, our economy would not have taken the hit that it has. In addition, had the COVID aid money been directed at individuals and Main Street rather than the big business and the wealthy, all levels of our society would have been more secure and willing to follow the necessary precautions to keep the infection rate low.

This did not happen. Instead, a segment of the American public has adapted to this crisis by developing a belligerent attitude towards the common sense practices needed to get the pandemic under control. They complain about emergency restrictions while behaving in a way that ensures that the virus will continue to spread, requiring the restrictions to continue longer.

Vaccines are on their way. Will they rescue us from this catastrophe? Can we return to “normal” soon?

No. There are several reasons why. There are 330,000,000 Americans. For the vaccines to be effective, a large portion of the public will need to be immunized. It will take a complex logistical effort and time to manufacture, distribute and administer the medication. Under the best of circumstances, it will take until at least early autumn before enough people will received immunization. Other estimates, go into 2022.

The best case scenario depends on several things happening. First, that are no glitches in the manufacture of the vaccines and that no unforeseen dangers are detected. Second, that Americans will accept these vaccines and willing get them. I think a sizable number will, but there is also a minority that won’t because of political or philosophical reasons. They will continue to be a virus reservoir that will slow down getting back in balance. Third, and this is the most important, Americans embrace safety measures by wearing masks, social distancing, and avoid gatherings for the next couple of months. If this isn’t done, the virus will continue to remain at high rates much longer that it would if precautions are taken. Of course, the longer this self-inflicted disaster continues, the more belligerent and impatient some folks will be and their actions will extend the time of illness and death even further.

But, the charcoal drawing by my friend Virgil, is reassuring. Even with darkness all around, the glow of creativity reminds us that we are much more than we think we are. All of us can, if we choose, can take our lumps of charcoal transform our lives into art. We begin with protecting ourselves and others by wearing masks, social distancing, and following public health instructions. In so doing, we create the art of a once again vibrant society.

Thanks to Virgil for allowing me to share his figure study. He reserves all rights for its use.

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Wordsmith’s Delight

The Joy of Writing

I am a wordsmith. I love my work. My most rewarding time is when I’m at the anvil, wielding my battered keyboard, sparks flying, as I pound a molten lump of an idea into the glowing words that sizzle when plunged into the tempering waters of my editorial bucket. In the end, I wonder where the words come from. As I read them aloud, I marvel at their sound, sometimes music. I am fortunate to have the path that I follow.

Occasionally, something comes along that delights a wordsmith’s heart, a playful example of the complexities of our language. This came from my friend Penny, who knows my love of English and the written word.

An Oxford comma walks into a bar where it spends the evening watching the television getting drunk and smoking cigars.

 A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.

 A bar was walked into by the passive voice.

 An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.

 Two quotation marks walk into a “bar.”

 A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.

 Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.

 A question mark walks into a bar?

 A non sequitur walks into a bar. In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly.

 Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a bar. The bartender says, “Get out — we don’t serve your type.”

 A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.

 A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.

 Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They converse. They depart.

 A synonym strolls into a tavern.

 At the end of the day, a cliché walks into a bar — fresh as a daisy, cute as a button, and sharp as a tack.

 A run-on sentence walks into a bar it starts flirting. With a cute little sentence fragment.

 Falling slowly, softly falling, the chiasmus collapses to the bar floor.

 A figure of speech literally walks into a bar and ends up getting figuratively hammered.

 An allusion walks into a bar, despite the fact that alcohol is its Achilles heel.

 The subjunctive would have walked into a bar, had it only known.

 A misplaced modifier walks into a bar owned by a man with a glass eye named Ralph.

 The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.

 A dyslexic walks into a bra.

 A verb walks into a bar, sees a beautiful noun, and suggests they conjugate. The noun declines.

 A simile walks into a bar, as parched as a desert.

 A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to forget.  A hyphenated word and a non-hyphenated word walk into a bar and the bartender nearly chokes on the irony.

Anonymous

Chiasmus
Definition “An inverted relationship between the syntactic elements of parallel phrases (as in Goldsmith’s to stop too fearful, and too faint to go)”
First used in 1871. Its pattern is A-B-B-A, to-too-too-to.

From Webster Merriam Dictionary

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Armistice Day 2020

“Monsieur Sommer, play for us your beautiful Star-Spangled Banner.”
Orson Byron Lowell 1918

Today is Veterans Day. The day when we honor all those who fought for our country during its many wars. In the beginning it was called Armistice Day, celebrating the end of World War I, The War to End All Wars. Since then there have been numerous wars, small and world-wide. It has become an addiction, preparing for and waging war, followed by rebuilding and preparing for another.

At first, Armistice Day honored the generation of young men who disappeared into the smoke and fire of the first modern battlefield. Now we honor all those who have disappeared since then.

The Armistice started on the 11th hour, of the 11thd day, of the 11th month of 1918. In reality, it began at 5 a.m. with the signing of the Armistice. But there was a 6-hour delay to allow orders to reach both sides before implementation. The fighting and killing did not stop until 11 am. During that time 3,000 soldiers died, 320 of them American. The last official death of World War 1 was an American soldier, Private Henry Gunther who, after being ordered to stand down, committed suicide by charging a German machinegun position. Both his friends and the Germans yelled at him to stop, but in the end, as an act of self-defense, the Germans opened fire, killing Gunther. It was 10:59 a.m. The war ended 1 minute later.

The war ended as it had started, with acts of courage and insanity. The war killed 9,000,000 soldiers and wounded 21,000,000 more. Five million civilians died due to disease, exposure, and starvation.

The Armistice was a temporary agreement which expired and was renewed several times before the combatants reached a final agreement in 1919, the Treaty of Versailles. The treaty, with its punitive treatment of Germany, set the stage for World War II just 20 years later.

It need not have been that way. President Woodrow Wilson argued against the treaty’s harsh penalties levied on Germany. He understood that it would create a deep resentment in the German people. The United States and our allies had learned that lesson and at the end of WW II the Marshall Plan was implemented to feed the people of Europe and help rebuild their shattered nations, including the Axis nations of Germany, Italy, and Japan. Nations that are now our staunchest allies.

Today, we live in a world cluttered with Armistices. Korea is divided by a temporary cessation of war between North Korea with its allies China and Russia against South Korea and its allies, the United States, and the United Nations.

China and the Republic of Taiwan have a fragile stalemate that is currently heating up. The democratic government and its forces led by General Chang Kai-shek were driven from mainland China by the Communist forces led by Mao Zedong. Since then the Chinese Communist Party has continuously planned and threatened to attack the island republic.

The Mid-East can be considered a failed Armistice, created after World War I. The western powers arbitrarily divided the region into nations whose borders intentionally ignored historic cultures. They fragmented ethnic groups which allowed the western nations to pit these groups against each other and control the region’s wealth.

In the United States, I believe, we are paying the price for the Union’s failed Civil War victory. The Union won the war militarily but lost the peace when it abandoned Lincoln’s plans for Reconstruction. Lincoln had planned to reintegrate the Secessionist states back into the Union by carefully rebuilding the South. He understood that southern whites needed to be treated fairly while, at the same time, ensuring that the freed slaves received the resources they needed to build their communities and exercise their voting rights. Lincoln’s assassination put Vice President Andrew Johnson in the Oval Office and the job of Reconstruction fell to him. At first many believed he would follow in Lincoln’s footsteps. But he was an opportunist and once in power his true nature appeared. Johnson was mean-spirited, southerner who, while believing in the Union, was a racist and had once owned slaves.

In the years right after the Civil War, Black Americans used their new voting rights to gain representation in local and state governments and somewhat improve their economic condition. However, at the same time Johnson laid the foundation for the white southern power structure to reassert itself. By 1875, many of the gains that black southerners had made were being crushed. The South became an impoverished, surly, backwater, where the subjugation of Black Americans took on the only slightly subtler form of Jim Crow and the KKK.  

Today, we celebrate an historic election that can shape our nation far into the future. We have a choice to make. Do we settle for another Armistice where we continue to put off the hard work for yet another generation? Or do we build a better future by eliminating bigotry and racism, promoting environmental and social justice, and creating a fair economy where everyone benefits? Do we dedicate ourselves to a long-term effort to heal our nation?

We need to acknowledge our centuries of injustices and make things right. It is time for us, all of us, to listen to each other and find common ground that we can build a better United States on. There can be no half-measures because that is how we got where we are now.

The only way that we can heal this nation is to demonstrate that our liberal values do work. We must show that our faith in the goodness and wisdom of humanity is not misplaced. The only way we can do this is to improve the quality of life for all Americans. Like the marshal Plan at the end of WW II we must invest and persevere, keeping focused on building a just, prosperous, and safe nation where everyone has the resources and opportunities they need to pursue their happiness.

About The illustration – In LayFayette’s Country

I found this WWI poster when removing an old photo from a frame. I put it aside, thinking that this is too good to throw away. It will come in handy sometime. Six months pass and here it is.

It is an illustration by Orson Byron Lowell, 1871 – 1956, Born in Wyoming, Iowa, his father, a landscape painter, quickly recognized and encouraged Lowell’s artistic talent. Lowell’s career spanned 60-years. Lowell described his work as, “The subjects are social in character, humorous and satirical, but not acrobatic. They are not comics and there are no political cartoons”. After his death, Lowell’s importance as an artist was acknowledged in a New York Times article that stated, “Mr. Lowell did for American society what Frederick Remington did for the Southwest and Toulouse-Lautrec did for the music halls of Paris. He was an artist with a reporter’s nose for a good story”.

The caption on the poster reads, “Monsieur Sommer, play for us your beautiful Star-Spangled Banner.”

For more see the Society of Illustrators, Museum of illustration,
https://societyillustrators.org/award-winners/orson-byron-lowell/

Note – Edited to remove typo. 11/12/2020

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And Now For Something Different: Beauty

Penny’s Red Glass Flower

I have a good friend, Penny, whose had a rough year. Besides the pandemic and our Mad King, she had to temporarily evacuate when forest fires came within hundreds of feet of her home and her precious garden. To keep her sanity during these crazy times she creates art from castoff glass, ceramics, and jewelry. This is one of her latest pieces.

Her creations make my day. So, I thought I’d share one with you.

Something to brighten up what promises to be a long night.

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Election 2020: Dewey Defeats Truman 1948

History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, But Sometimes It Rhymes

Today is Election Day 2020, and the last day for Americans to cast their vote for Democracy or Autocracy. But this will not be the day when we know the results, even though some will try to persuade us otherwise.

History has much to teaches us. In 1948, the Presidential Election was between Democrat Harry S Truman and Republican Thomas E Dewey. Truman had ascended to the Presidency on April 12, 1945 with the death of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. 1948 was Truman’s first election for President. He needed to win for himself. The Republican candidate, Thomas E Dewey, was governor of the state of New York and had run against FDR in the 1944 election. Dewey had gained prominence as a prosecutor and made significant progress against organized crime and the Mafia. He was a moderate Republican and supported many of the social programs of FDR’s New Deal, the UN, and war on Communism and the Soviet Union.

The 1948 campaign was close in several states. As the early vote counts began it appeared that the Republicans were in for a good night. The Chicago Tribune, a Republican paper, had little use for Truman, and 60 years later,in a retrospective of that fateful night, the paper commented that Truman had little use for them.

Seasoned Washington reporter for the Tribune, Arthur Henning covered the voting results. To meet the early edition deadlines, he reported that the current count signaled a clean sweep for Dewey and Republicans, with them taking the White House, House of Representatives and Senate.

The Tribune hurried to get the prediction out with the headline, Dewey Defeats Truman. Later that evening, the tide began to turn to favor the Democrats, but Henning defended his prediction. There were other factors in play. Strom Thurman was also in the presidential race as the candidate of the Dixiecrats, a racist party that had broken away from the Democrats. And there were three important states with tight votes, Ohio, Illinois, and California. Henning figured that the Republicans had the election. And the Tribune kept printing Dewey Defeats Truman.

After the dust settled and the count was completed, Henning had been right. Unfortunately for him and the Tribune the clean sweep had been by the Democrats.

A few days later as Truman took the train to Washington to resume his duties, he would stop along the way to speak with his supporters. It was at one stop that he held up the Chicago Tribune’s paper proclaiming his defeat. The photo clearly shows he relished the moment.

Election 2020 will not be decided tonight. Nor will it be decided tomorrow, regardless of what Trump and the Republicans say. There are and will be lots of legal wrangling and obstructions before the results are official and we know for certain who is President and under what circumstances.

By the way, the date of the 1948 election; Tuesday, November 3rd.

Remember, Dewey Defeats Truman. Patience is a virtue.

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