Dangerous Certainty

“The decline and fall of these civilizations...was not caused by external invasions but internal decay.” Martin Luther King, Jr. 

This morning we had some thunder and a light rain, and now there’s a cool breeze and some steelwool clouds. Feels like we might get more rain. I spend most of the day watching football matches, Chelsea versus Tottenham and Leicester against Manchester City. The Chelsea match starts at 4:30 a.m. I’m awake by then, more or less, waiting for the alarm on my phone to go off, but I lay a while longer, thinking about the novel Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward. Sad stuff, and Hurricane Katrina hasn’t hit yet. 

I go to my landlord’s house to ask if they’ll let us have a dog. For the past two days my daughter has been texting her mother and I photos of adorable puppies available for immediate adoption. Asking, and then pleading with us to let her bring one home. No, I respond, please don’t do that, not yet. Repeat this two or three times. Patience my child. We must be eight or nine years removed from the day Sparky, our Jack Russell terrier, died. We got him as a puppy and for 14 years he was family. In many ways Sparky was our first child. A spunky boy with a black patch over one eye, long legs, smooth coat and proud chest. Quick, alert, agile, mischieveous, and loving. Since losing Sparky, and after Chula, my mother-in-law’s shipoo died a couple of years ago, we have felt starved of canine energy. Once you experience it, get used to it being around, it’s hard, at least in our experience, not to have it on a daily basis. Especially when I see people walking their dogs all over town, past our house, on the grass at the high school, when I go to Handlebar for coffee on weekdays. We’ll see what they say. All I can do is ask. Seems simple enough, asking, but it took a long time for me to come to it. (I’ve never been very comfortable asking people for things). We’ve been in this apartment nearly 23 years, and I have rarely asked our landlord for anything. He’s replaced the stove and the refrigerator and the toilet once since we’ve lived here. Had some plumbing issues over the years, but nothing catastrophic. He’s replaced some window hardware. I pay the rent on time, in fact, every month I take the check to his house and hand it to him, or wedge it in the door if he’s not around. I treat his property as a caretaker would. We won’t live here forever, it doesn’t work that way, but I’d like to stay as long as we can. 

Even though it looks like it might rain, I take our blue 2009 Honda CRV to the car bath on Anacapa for a long overdue wash. The body’s banged up, dented and scratched, from Miranda learning to drive, and I figure, what’s the point? But my wife likes it when the Honda is clean. I’ve got a pocketful of quarters and I buy plenty of time to power rinse, scrub, and rinse again, do the tires. Across the street from the car bath Dune Coffee is bustling. The weekly Farmers Market is going on in the city parking lot where Lincoln School once stood. Pedestrians on the sidewalks, some with bags of vegetables, jars of honey, apples and oranges and marmalade. Lots of people in shorts and sandals. Santa Barbara Saturday. This is the good stuff, sunshine and the Farmer’s Market. Drinking that Dune coffee drink nice and slow, no hurry, nowhere to be at any specific time. Feels good. The CRV drips dry while I drive home. I gather some rags, a couple of towels, a Latex glove, Amorall, Windex, RainX, a can of tire cleaning spray and a spray bottle of headlight lubricant. I set-up the old vacuum we use for the cars. The paper filter was last changed in 2012. The thing must weigh 25 pounds. I think we bought it at Sears. I wipe the car down. Traffic passes on Milpas Street. I spray Armorall on the faded plastic trim, let it sit for a few minutes before wiping it off, then spray the tires with the tire spray. Clouds pass over the building, hiding the sun. I clean the interior with Armorall and Windex. I’m thinking about the interview I listened to earlier, when I was training. Krista Tippett interviewed two Jesuit priests who are also acclaimed astronomers. The conversation centered on faith and science, doubt and certainty, and that marvelous moment when we realize how much we have yet to discover. That’s how it goes, like laying paving stones in the ancient world, building the road as you go; then another person comes along, armed with more knowledge than you had, or better tools, and adds to what you’ve done, extends the reach of the road. Tippett’s guests believe in God and Science, with no contradiction, mental tug-of-war, or cognitive dissonance. God and Science are neighbors, existing peacefully next to one another. Both men were both wary of certainty. I thought of Donald Trump, our Mob Boss President, who proves how utterly ignorant he is every time he claims to be certain of something. All Trump has is certainty, starting with the certainty that he is the greatest man who has ever lived. Dangerous certainty.

I force myself to think of something besides Trump and the death of the American Republic and the craven Democrats and the economy and the federal deficit and the burning Amazon and the fires in Australia and what an ass Mike Bloomberg is and how glad I was to see Elizabeth Warren slap him down. Put that aside. Focus on washing a window, inside and out, leave no streaks. I’ve never minded doing simple chores. It’s relaxing, and when you finish you feel satisfied. A lot of the stuff we do as adults, in our professional lives, doesn’t feel nearly as satisfying. The reward is not as immediate. 

Chelsea beat Spurs by a 2-1 score, and in a tightly contested match in the rain at the King Power Stadium, City edged Leicester 1-0. Chelsea stays in 4th place in the table, 4 points ahead of Tottenham. If the Blues qualify for the Champions League next year it must be considered a minor miracle. 

The Second Coming of Karl Marx

“The great measure of human maturation is the increasing understanding that we move through life in the blink of an eye…” David Whyte

I’m reading Jesmyn Ward’s memoir, Men We Reaped. Ward describes a period in her life when she lost five men who were close to her, including her brother. Violence, drugs, lack of opportunity, the systemic racism of Mississippi. Ward’s family is large and sprawling, full of aunts, uncles, cousins, deeply rooted in the Gulf Coast, and poor. Ward’s family moved around a lot when she was young. Her father was restless, unable to remain faithful to his wife. Ward left for college, but always felt the pull of home, the smells, the rain, the woods and open spaces. It’s a sad memoir, but rings true. 

I also started reading 2666 by Roberto Bolano, the Chilean’s last work, a massive novel. I’ve only started it and can’t draw any conclusions yet. It’s Bolano, so I expect it to be strange, sometimes startling, and full of intelligence. 

Tyranny gains a foothold when good people see what’s happening and remain silent. This is where we stand in the United States, teetering on the edge. Democracy has always been fragile in this country, subject to subversion by wealthy interests when the will of the governed threatens their power and privilege. The Democratic Party mandarins cast Bernie Sanders as the second coming of Karl Marx, malign him in the corporate media, employ scare tactics and hyperbole to turn voters against him. The fact is that Sanders’ policy positions are standard New Deal stuff, but seem radical and foreign because of how far the US has moved to the right -- Democrats included -- since Uncle Ronnie Reagan lived in the White House. Given the backing of the Democratic Party machinery, Sanders would likely trounce Trump in November, which you’d think would be a desirable outcome. But you’d be wrong. The corporate masters of the Democratic Party would much rather run Mayor Pipsqueak from South Bend against Trump, or failing that, billionaire Michael Bloomberg, than support Sanders. Bloomberg has so much money he just might be able to purchase the nomination. 

Who’s the least worst in a Trump-Bloomberg match-up? 

It comes down to money, not ideals; the wealthy don’t donate to candidates -- they invest in candidates in the same way they invest in other instruments that increase their wealth or protect their privilege. Bloomberg himself and his corporate allies will paint Mayor Stop-and-Frisk as a sincere friend of working people. The con from Bloomberg may not be as blatantly transparent as Trump’s, but it will be a con nonetheless. Loaded dice, a marked deck of cards, three-card monty. Rich fucks like Bloomberg and Trump don’t care one whit about the needs and daily struggles of ordinary people. This should be obvious, but unfortunately too many Americans fall for the same trick again and again. We ought to be tired of coming out on the losing end, tired of being lied to, fooled, tricked, conned, and yet, the louder the carnival barker, the more entranced we become. Like typical suckers, we think it will be different this time. 

It won’t be. Out my window the California sun is bright, but in my vision the immediate future looks gray and dim, all color washed out. The American fairy tale still mesmerizes too many of us. We believe we’re in the game, playing on a level field, with rules that apply equally. Up in the luxury boxes the oligarchs laugh at our gullibility. They can’t believe how easy it is to manipulate us.