The Blind Pig Finds an Acorn

“Say no more to treating people like things and corporations like people.” The Reverend William Barber

Another crazy week in TrumpLand. Who else but Donald Trump goes to meet one of our perennial bogeymen and babbles about building condos on the beaches? Despite the fulminations of Rachel Maddow and what passes for the liberal media ( what a joke), the bumbling, idiotic Trump might actually have done something good in Singapore. As Hunter S. Thompson was fond of saying, “even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then” and if nothing else, it’s better and safer for the world when nuclear armed nations are talking, rather than threatening, one another. Every now and then a rank amatuer pulls off a miracle. Of course, Trump returned from Singapore talking as if North Korea had already disarmed, the whole matter done and dusted, just like that.

What a simpleton.

But then you turn around and look a the deplorable, cruel and inhumane treatment of migrant children at our borders, separated from their parents by order of the diabolical Jeff Sessions, and the reality of the Trump Junta comes screaming back into one’s face.

I imagine Kim Jong-un leaning toward Trump and asking, “So, Donald, what was it like to fuck that porn star?”

The United Nations -- yes, that despised body -- released its report on extreme poverty and lo and behold the U.S. is doing great! 40 million Americans living in poverty; highest infant mortality rate in the developed world; our citizens live shorter and sicker lives; our access to clean water and sanitation ranks 36th in the world; and, of course, we retained our title as the undisputed leader in incarceration. Can’t touch the USA there! Take that, Vladimir. For every one you jail, we jail ten.

The World Cup is underway. The three teams I am pulling for are France, Belgium, and Argentina. France because of N’Golo Kante, who plays his club football for Chelsea; Belgium because Eden Hazard is one of my favorites and also a Chelsea man; and Argentina because I’d like to see Messi get the international monkey off his back. How fun was the match between Portugal and Spain? Cristiano buried that free kick to rescue a point for Portugal before he kicked the ball, you could see it in his face.

Maybe the thrill is gone, maybe it never was. It’s Father’s Day and I’m thinking of my dad, the smell of cigarette smoke on his coats hanging in the closet of our house on Ardilla Drive, and how little I knew of his interior life, what he thought and believed, what gave him joy. Ironically, I knew my father-in-law more intimately than my own father; they’re both gone. I’ve tried to lay down some markers for my kids so they’ll know who their old man was, but by the time they know, I’ll be gone, too.

And so it goes.

Sinking into a Sea of Fire

Another week in TrumpLand. As far as I know, the US hasn’t launched another barrage of cruise missiles at Damascus. How many times have I heard right-wing politicians moaning about “entitlement” programs, but then do a 360 and vote to give the Pentagon and the defense contractors even more money for more bombs? Most of my adult life. War after war after war. The list of supposed enemies of our country is long. We always have money for war, death, destruction, it’s a profitable enterprise, addictive as opium. Meanwhile, there are tent cities in places like Los Angeles, in the shadows of sleek high-rise office buildings; children that go to bed hungry, water that is poisoned. Average people care about these things, but the political class serves other masters and doesn’t care, not even a little. Profit is paramount, making money; money is power, influence, juice, respect, the ultimate in human achievement, the only worthwhile measurement of a human life. Trump wants to up the volume of US arms sales to the world, exceed the heights reached by Barack Obama; Trump must best the black man or the deep inferiority complex he carries everywhere will swallow him.

Keep the peace by making war, by creating a river of refugees, by killing children. Has this country always been depraved, all of my nearly 59 years; did I simply not want to see? Through the Nixon presidency, the first I was really aware of, Ford, Carter, Reagan (who reigned when I was serving in the Air Force overseas and believed that the USA kept the world safe for democracy), both Bushes, Obama, he of the silk tongue and hammer fist, and now this madman, Trump, who launched missiles at Syria for reasons other than those stated to the American public, who he cares not a whit about. No real effect on the Assad regime, of course. Trump thumped his man-boobs and felt virile. Draft dodgers often get orgasmic on war, having never faced the terror and stupidity and absurdity of it, been the target of bullets and bombs, flying metal, glass, plaster, arms, legs, viscera, brain matter.

These days. Heavy. Like being on a ship that is slowly sinking into a sea of fire, but powerless to stop it. The captain is on the bridge, mad as a hatter, a blend of Ahab and Queeg, barking commands as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening, as if the lower decks aren’t taking on water, drowning poor passengers; on the luxury deck, under the crystal chandeliers, booze flows, food is plentiful, music plays, waiters in white coats step lively, beautiful people shimmy on the dance floor, diamonds winking in the light. The rich people on this level can’t hear the screams of the people below, and even if they could, it wouldn’t move them to relinquish an ounce of their privilege, which they believe with all their might is deserved, earned, justified, even if handed to them on a platter, even if ill-gotten, made off the sweat or gullibility of other human beings.

That’s what it feels like. Not drowning yet, but the threat hangs on the horizon, always, a gray smudge that only grows darker.

Short Takes:

Just finished reading and interviewing Anthony Doerr, Pulitzer Prize winning author of All the Light We Cannot See, a wonderful novel that seeped into my skin. Doerr is a friendly, down-to-earth guy, wonderful to converse with, and a fine writer.

I can’t believe the amount of building activity I see around town these days; the new stadium project at Santa Barbara High, the condo complex rising near the Santa Barbara Bowl, more condos down Milpas; backhoes, cement trucks, a huge machine that slices perfect lines in the street, skip-loaders; I think of money flowing into SB from other places, Los Angeles, New York, who knows? Money has no home these days. Money moves through the ether, ducks, dodges, takes refuge, hides, stands out, blends in, invariably finds the pockets of the very few.

My Chelsea boys have won two straight away league games for the first time in 2018, and are trailing Spurs for a Top 4 place by five points. I still believe Chelsea will finish fifth, where we belong, because we have played inconsistent and sometimes maddening football this year. Too many matches lost against sides we should beat, home and away, a dismal, fearful, abject performance at Man City, a loss at Old Trafford, a loss at home to Spurs. Not enough goals scored, too many let in by a defense that has often been shambolic. Antonio Conte has moped on the touch line, his face pinched, all the joy and passion sucked out of him. Game in and game out, he can only depend on N’Golo Kante and Cesar Azpilicueta to put in a shift.