Weekend View

Lots happening. COVID, medical research for a COVID vaccine, political skirmishes over mask wearing, stay distanced and all the rest. Also, the soaring stock market while unemployment remains legion and GDP plummets. Continues to plummet. International affairs in a stew and bubbling away unproductively in all corners of the globe.

In the midst of all this, social wellness and family wellbeing. Culture tapped and enjoyed – literature, music, film, films of plays, documentaries, travelogues of faraway places. Dance, too, is part of our culture. The movement of the human body in rhythm to sound. What does that movement express? Mean?

Relying on technology to hear, see and feel the time of this history.

Odd and oddity. Compressed by synapses in the brain. Making sense of it all. Or maybe not.

A flood of electronic messages flow into the home. Facebook, internet, email, webpages frequently scanned, and more. People sending attachments or forwarding news items to us for comment or a laugh. In a trice we wonder what matters and what doesn’t. The flood of information does that.

I sort through things. Too much of one kind and I bypass the items quickly. React to a few, comment on some. Mostly I read the news and ponder the convergence of so many threads of meaning, topics, issues. Of these what needs the most focus? If we lose one of these issues, what will it affect elsewhere? What do we need to fight for to retain the core of who we are, not just me, but you and I, the we in our nation?

Yes. That’s what I worry about the most. So, an election is lost. What consequence does it have? In most elections the consequences are few and not earthshattering. But not in 2016; no, the presidential election was momentous. A lost election by Hillary Clinton has meant a great deal. What her fans felt would happen if she lost was a far cry from what we have witnessed in trump’s ascent to the white house.

Interesting, isn’t it? The rule of law no longer exists? Convicted yet pardoned? Convicted and sentenced, yet the punishment is commuted? People labeled as bad by most, are friends to those in power and so are pardoned from punishment. Not guilt, mind you, just punishment. Taxpayers owing to the IRS are badgered and sued and imprisoned for payment due; but the powerful just change the rules – or ignore them – and skip the fuss while not paying their debt to society.

What’s up is down and what’s in is out. The poles have changed on a whim. Falsehoods and lies are bald and frequent. Soon we lose sight of all veracity.

I go out of doors and feel the warmth of the sun, or the cool of the rain. I know these sensations. They are lifelong, and personally learned from experience. But another calls it another name meaning the opposite of what I have learned.

Which is true? Which is written into our history?

Just asking a simple question. Who decides these answers? What is definitive? What becomes so?

Why?

August 7, 2020