Political Wows!

I have to say that wherever you looked this week on the political front lines, there was a Wow! factor. Starting with the election of a BLACK man as the new chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, who came out chanting about the need to broaden the party's geographic base and to do something completely different:

"We're going to bring, we're going to bring this party to every corner, every boardroom, every neighborhood, every community, and we're going to say to friend and foe alike, we want you to be a part of us, we want you to work with us, and for those of you who wish to obstruct, get ready to get knocked over."

Well, maybe the last part isn't straight out of the Obama template, but obviously Republican slyboots have decided to learn from the ways of their prime adversary by importing his organizational skills and replicating his modes of thought.

Usually the coolest of the cool, Obama himself was seen publicly blasting as "shameless" the Wall Street CEOs who made off with $18 billion worth of bonuses at the end of last year, after their companies had received government bailouts. Obama called it "the height of irresponsibility." After which, my fav Republican (sometimes it's hard to choose), Rudy Giuliani, countered that big bonuses are good "economic stimulus," free-market style. That money gets taxed as income, he went on to explain, and gets taxed again when somebody buys something with it. "Welcome back, Rudy!" quips Virgil, who is standing nearby, wagging his alligator tail. "The mosquitoes were heinous at dusk, Rudy, so you best stand aside now, this is a man's job."

Meanwhile Sarah Palin will be attending a dinner tonight at the Alfalfa Club in DC, (Virgil has not been invited, much to his chagrin, since he really does love his alfalfa) mostly because Barack Obama will be there, too. Rather like the girls on "The Bachelor," she is hoping for some one-on-one time. But why, a blogger wanted to know, would she want to "pal around" with a terrorist?

Then there is the imminent reemergence of Samantha Power, the Harvard University professor and Pulitzer Prize winning author who worked for Obama during his campaign--until she insulted Hillary Clinton, calling her a "monster" who would stoop to anything to get elected, and was immediately dropped by the campaign. Power is soon to be named as a senior foreign policy aid to the White House. As it turns out, this will mean working closely with Secretary Clinton, to whom she has apologized, her voice vibrating on the plastic window screen and releasing rainwater from the squares.

And last but not least, no doubt inspired by the spontaneous paternosters and entreaties at tribal wakes, Obama has invited assorted members of Congress over to the White House to watch the Superbowl--hoping, I suppose, for a woodland renaissance.

Bringing the Past Back to Life

A post-inaugural cartoon in my local paper showed Barack Obama entering his new office, where George Washington is pulling the desk chair back so he can sit. A recent cover of the New Yorker is a portrait of Washington, complete with white wig, but with Obama's brown face replacing Washington's. The day before the inauguration Obama retraced Abraham Lincoln's epic train ride of 150 years ago from Philadelphia to Washington, and the following day he was sworn into office on Lincoln's Bible.

At every junction Obama has proposed that the dream of our fathers is alive in our time--reiterating that the gift of freedom, justice, and equality for all on which this country was founded is the legacy we are carrying forward. His very presence on the world stage seems to reverse all the dark forces that in recent years have so badly sullied this legacy. With Obama as president, America gets to honor its republic again as a sacred treasure; we find ourselves rescued from the wicked hands of tricksters and mind monkeys who did not respect either truth or the public interest. Now, amazing as it is, we get to brush the dust from our white shoes. As Bob Herbert wrote in the New York Times this weekend:

" I’ve seen charismatic politicians and pretty families come and go like sunrises and sunsets over the years. There was something more that was making people go ga-ga over Obama. Something deeper.

We’ve been watching that something this week, and it’s called leadership. Mr. Obama has been feeding the almost desperate hunger in this country for mature leadership, for someone who is not reckless and clownish, shortsighted and self-absorbed.

However you feel about his policies, and there are people grumbling on the right and on the left, Mr. Obama has signaled loudly and clearly that the era of irresponsible behavior in public office is over...This has been the Obama way, to set a responsible example and then to call on others to follow his mature lead."

After so many years of living in shame, in deceit, with our hearts and our country's reputation fallen on the ground and the people being unable to lift them up again, this new beginning feels like a miracle. What on earth happened? How did we get so lucky? Idly, as is often my wont, I decide to ask the Thesaurus for an answer to these questions. Opening and pointing at randon, once again it doesn't fail me:

"Win the jackpot, break the bank, make a killing; regain, redeem, recover one's losses; balance the books, receive a legacy, step into the shoes of, be the heir of; restoration, redemption."

"I believe that the energy fields of the founding fathers are back," states Caroline Myss, "and that America is on a respirator, as well as its vision." I've been listening to her audiobook, "The Sacred Contract of America," which I received as a Christmas present a few weeks ago. It was first released in September 2007, I should note, well before full-frontal Obamania was launched. Myss believes that nations (like individuals) have sacred contracts. Ours, scripted by the founding fathers into the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, is about rising to ever new levels freedom, equality, and self-governance. The birth of America's sacred contract emerged when the early settlers first came here and glimpsed a potential for freedom and self-governance not found in any other societies with a history of long rule by oppressive aristocracies; nor can such freedom be found in tribal nations who can't forgive the wounds that have become their history and their story. It is unique to Americans to have the freedom to revolt against the government if it doesn't represent them.

9/11, according to Myss, was our country's wounding, and immediately became our challenge and our choice--of how to step in to the global chaos: whether to transcend the right of vengeance and instead extend freedom and equality even to nations we don't like, or to violate our sacred contract. Myss claims that at this critical juncture, we lost our backbone and went into self-servingness. As Obama recently put it in his inaugural address, we threw our ideals overboard in the name of security.

This loss of our exemplary role--in Myss's words the defiling of our sacred contract as a country "saturated with light"--is surely what people mean, whether knowingly or not, when they say that "our country is on the wrong track." People know in their hearts that something is very wrong, even if they would not be able to articulate it in these terms.

So, as I began to hear what Myss was saying, I felt this ecstatic infusion of resonance: it was as if Obama were jumping off the CD and making her words manifest. Most likely he has never heard of Carolyn Myss or ever listened to these tapes, but the resemblance, at least to me, is nothing less than uncanny--not least because of the way Obama has caused the spirit of the founding fathers to reappear again in a new guise, as if they were indeed whispering in his ear.

These Are My People

Every morning when I wake up, I turn on the news. Things in Gaza are not only getting worse for the Palestinians, they are making everything worse for every one, everywhere--including the Israelis. Whatever door you've walked through (according to Marianne Williamson), life won't be quite the same as it was before. There wasn't much chance for real reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians before the current siege of Gaza, but now, even that remote possibility has died along with all the Palestinian women and children who have been recklessly killed. Hamas today proclaimed the peace process is now behind them for good. Forever.

Israel continues to claim the higher moral ground based on its stated objective NOT to kill civilians. This intention is meant to pass for emotional sobriety on their part. Hamas, when it comes to killing civilians, doesn't give a shit, so the Israelis claim. It uses civilians as human shields. Meanwhile, in the past couple of weeks, over 800 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis, more than half of them civilians. The millions who are still left alive are hanging on by a thread, desperate for food, water, fuel, and medical assistance. So what is wrong with this picture? And what is the role of pure intentionality here?

My friend Fern and I have had many conversations on this topic. Intentions require the convergence of words and actions. We have always agreed that if you say one thing but then do another, you have to look at the actions, not the words, to evaluate what is really meant. When it comes to the subject of Israel, however, my friend's approach is no longer straightforward, because she happens to be Jewish. "I don't like what they're doing either," she says, referring to the Israelis, when I lamented their actions, "but I stand by my people."

It gets to me every time she talks like that. It's a statement, and a feeling, I simply can't relate to. I don't have any "my people." The whole idea makes me crazy. And then shortly afterwards, I found myself reading this comment by Hannah Arendt, quoted in the current New Yorker (Jan. 12):

When she was accused of lacking a love for the Jewish people, Arendt responded by saying, "I have never in my life 'loved' any people or collective....I indeed love 'only' my friends and the only kind of love I know of and believe in is the love of persons." Amen to that, I say.

Hannah Arendt is famous for pointing out that even a typical Nazi functionary did not regard himself as a murderer, because he did not do it out of inclination but in his professional, hired capacity. The same man would go home to his wife and children at night, and be a perfect husband and father. Arendt referred to this phenomenon as "the banality of evil."

Something to ponder in the present crisis--a further comment by Adam Rich, the author of the essay about Arendt in the current New Yorker: "As long as ordinary people can be transformed overnight into mass murderers, we are still living in Hannah Arendt's world."

Israelis take note. Very few people jump up and down to be with mass murderers. It's a setup for mistakes, a recipe for disaster. Not only that, it makes us lose our sparkle. Have we managed to forget how much Hannah Arendt's world sucks?

Damocles Strikes Again: Shock & Awe in Gaza

The promising advent of 2009 has been sorely marred, for me, by the latest cycle of destruction in Gaza. On NPR over the weekend, a Palestinian man being interviewed was asked if he and his family were doing okay so far? "No one in my family has been hurt," he answered, "but that is only physically. Everyone in the country is traumatized."

Obviously Hamas takes the blame for breaking the six-month ceasefire as soon as it ended on December 19th, by lobbing more rockets yet again over the border into Israel. What were they thinking? Presumably, it seems the Hamas leadership was hoping they could provoke Israel into lifting their blockade of vital supplies into Gaza. Instead, Israel is determined to persuade Hamas to stop their attacks. Neither will succeed, however, because both parties are intractable, and now both sides feel even more justified in their positions than before. The same story has played out many times already, using the same tactics and the same arguments, always with the same devastating results: Israel becomes an even bigger target in the Arab world, its citizens are less safe, and the Palestinians suffer unconscionably. "The U.S. and Israel have shared a fantasy," David Bromwich writes in the Huffington Post. "The fantasy says that the Arabs understand only force. It says we can end terrorism by killing all the terrorists." So far, everything points to the perception that we are indeed deluded if we really believe we can kill all the terrorists. Instead we have become supremely good at creating more of them.

At dinner last night in our local Indian restaurant, I asked the five friends I was with to tell me what they thought about this untenable situation. One person thought we would never sort it out unless we had full knowledge of the history of the region. "Not so," responded another. "These people need to come into the present. They are all living out the history of their past, and that is exactly what needs to stop."

My own thought is that it is time to bag the quadratic equations of denunciation, blame, counter-charge, endless recriminations, and self-serving righteousness, which don't work--and try something NEW, something that hasn't been tried before. The question is, what?

Virgil, by now drunk on all his Christmas chocolates and auditing, as he tends to do, all my conversations, came up later with one of his impossibly off-the-wall suggestions. "We need to take out the tanks--and replace them with the arrival of Lady Godiva. The sight of her naked body in the streets will surely stop these folks dead in their tracks. Lady Godiva can offer the same lesson of inestimable value she once presented to the peasants of Coventry (and while she's at it, she could also throw a wet blanket over all the baddies, despoilers, and disturbers of the peace)."

According to the popular story, Lady Godiva took pity on the people of Coventry, who were suffering grievously under her husband's oppressive taxation. She had appealed over and over to her husband to remit the tolls, but he obstinately refused to do so. At last, weary of her entreaties, he said he would grant her request if she would strip naked and ride through the streets of the town. Lady Godiva took him at his word and, after issuing a proclamation that all persons should keep within doors and shut their windows, she rode through the town, clothed only in her long hair, and offering herself as a vision of such glorious beauty that she immediately provoked the betterment and appreciation of all those enlightened enough to appreciate such perfection.

Good old Virgil! and his grand-time surrealism--his is a mind always fertile with enigmatic juxtapositions. Replacing Attila the Hun with Lady Godiva has to succeed in shocking and aweing even the crudest of skeptics. I wish I had thought of it myself!

A Muscular Holiday

From where I sit here on Deer Run Road, it's been a fabulous Christmas. But I'm not a local shop owner worried if I can stay in business, and I'm not living in Gaza. None of my friends or neighbors have had their children killed this week. And this is probably not my last blog.

In my little corner, the pleasures of the season were many. Santa was not shot down over Alaska by Sarah Palin, and so he managed to drop off lots of loot. The weather has been all but perfect--unlike that in Chicago, where my best friend's ceiling collapsed in her bedroom after an excess of melting snow leaked into some miscreant drain spout causing mayhem and a night-long bucket vigil. Unfortunately the same thing happened once before, requiring the purchase of a new bed and a makeover for the ceiling.

By contrast, my own holiday cruised leisurely across four agreeable days spent happily with different friends, eating, drinking, celebrating, and opening presents, that included some vintage napkins embossed with one of Frida Kahlo's self-portraits, and an electric tea pot with automatic switch-off, obviously meant to foil my repeated, absent-minded attempts at burning the house down. Virgil, king of his alligator tribe, received some delicious prezzies too: not one, but TWO solid milk "chocogators," over fourteen inches long and one pound each in weight (total fat 14%). He also received a spectacular Christmas ornament for his collection: a green alligator, wearing a hula grass skirt and playing a drum. "Watch me now," Virgil says. "We are tricksters in the blood, and we practice drumming on the run as our way of surviving in the modern world." He is wearing his beaded necklace, and wants to know if "Evelybody happy?"

Not quite, I tell him. The Wall Street Journal today had an article on the front page about Igor Panarin, a Russian academic and expert on U.S.-Russia relations, who has been predicting for some years now that the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. Economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war that will lead to geographical disintegration, with richer states seceding from the union and others falling under foreign influence. If you want to check this out further, cut and paste this reference into Google: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051100709638419.html.

Throwing Shoes

At fifteen, I'd never heard of D.H. Lawrence, but he instantly became my favorite witer once I'd read "Sons and Lovers." I had grabbed it, entirely by chance, from a shelf at the public library library on Amsterdam Avenue and 81st Streeet (where I trudged each week from my home in Manhattan, going back and forth with an armload of books), simply because of its intriguing title--which to my fifteen-year-old mind sounded quite enticingly juicy. It wasn't long before reading Lawrence became my downfall. His writing hypnotized me, and I became addicted. I couldn't get enough of him and went on to read everything he wrote.

I also became weirdly fascinated by Lawrence's relationship with his German wife, Frieda, who had abandoned her husband and two children to be with him. They were both very passionate and adored each other, but they had legendary fights, in which all hell would break loose and Frieda would throw handfuls of crockery at Lawrence. I was, I confess, in awe of a woman who could fearlessly throw things at the man she presumably loved, whenever he pissed her off or triggered a bout of rage. Sometimes, in fantasy, I would imagine myself, in the heat of a fight, defiantly throwing a shoe across the room at someone I loved, wondering how my life might have been very different had I had that skill. But I didn't, and even if I had, I lacked aim. Rather, I was the type of female who would burst into tears at any perceived hurt--not glow in the dark with rage. I wasn't any good at playing softball with shoes, except in blurred fantasies about a power I didn't possess.

All of this reentered my consciousness after hearing about the Iraqi TV reporter, a 28-year-old Shi'ite who has come to hate the U.S. military occupation, spontaneously hurling his shoes at President Bush, while Bush was making a final "victory" speech at a press conference in Baghdad. "This is a gift from the Iraqis, this is the farewell kiss, you dog," he yelled as he tossed, first one shoe, and then a split second later, the other. The guy had amazing aim: those shoes were headed, with the speed of missiles, straight for the President, but he deftly managed to duck them both.

The reporter, Muntadhar al-Zeidi, has been taken into custody and may be indicted. But in Iraq, he has become a national hero. Crowds have been demonstrating all week for his release. I append some of the responses in this country to the event (from the Huffington Post of December 16th):

"Mr. al-Saidi was not assigned to this particular event by his paper. He went because he had a message for the Decider/Liberator, who liberated millions from their homes, families, lives and country - a country now destroyed. No, don't fire this man, he is courageous enough to make news for all of us. He should be spared and hailed a hero. No, he would not have thrown shoes at Saddam. Only the U.S. was ignorant enough to do that. Under Saddam, he had a country, he had all his relatives, he had a home, a job and a life. ..Thank you, Mr. al-Saidi. Call me if you need more shoes."

"When does ANYONE have the right to physically assault another human being who is being non-confrontational? What would happen if I threw a pie at Obama? I would be arrested. That is what should happen to this so called 'journalist', and he should never be able to work for that news source again."

"Illegally invading a sovereign nation, leveling it, torturing Iraqi prisoners and leaving thousands and thousands of its citizens dead is pretty darn confrontational in my book."

" You are absolutely correct, the only question that remains is: should he be arrested for throwing the shoes . . . or for missing his target?"

"For those who haven't received the email from a friend, there's a Send Your Shoes to Bush campaign on, and now's the time to do it! Show support for the Iraqi journalist by sending a pair of your old shoes to GWB at the White House now. (Since they will probably end up being donated to charity, you'll get to express your opinion AND help a good cause!) The journalist, btw, was kidnapped in Iraq so he definitely experienced the effects of the war more than Goerge Bush did."

As for Bush, he has blithely brushed off the whole episode. "I didn't know what the guy said, but I saw his sole," he commented recently, wryly alluding to his now-infamous remark of some years ago, after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin.

And then there was Imelda Marcos, and her 3,000 pairs of shoes, which also became a politically radioactive cause celebre. I can't help wondering if she ever threw any of them at her husband, Ferdinand? Meanwhile, I just took some of my old shoes to the Good Will. Utterly boring!

Virgil Claus

Among alligators, Virgil informs me, Santa is King.

"I'm going to be really busy this Christmas," he tells me, "crawling through snow and muck in my universal terrain vehicle, the Microlight Muskeg Rover, delivering cardboard boxes, cloth bundles, and other mystery parcels, making sure I get to all those wigwams in the Nick o' Time. Ritually speaking, Christmas Eve's the night when we turn the mood, liberate chickens, autistic colonists, and generally overthrow the world that you remember. I'll be trimming my nails for the occasion, mending any broken zippers, and smearing rouge and other cosmetic hues on my cheeks. This is big!"

"Maybe I should pin a star on your hat?" I offer.

"Right, that's the ticket," Virgil winks at me. Then he quickly looks down at his lotus toes, which are even more erotic than he had imagined. Once or twice a week, when Virgil is lonesome, he draws silk ribbons between his toes, an unusual method of meditation. Virgil needs his meditation, because like any true warrior clown, he is prone to worrying about demons in the blood and insects near his ears. Besides, there are those moments when he will suddenly lose his connection with tribal alligator time. This can be difficult, because, for instance, when Virgil comes to see me, he believes he is an alligator, but I would lay it down cautiously, as if with tongs, that in truth, he is really a mind monkey. Or maybe one of those legendary lamas who used to climb mountains but still knows how to make things clear. Sometimes, though, he'll fake it, pretending to be one of those students at the Nankai Middle School with Zhou Enlai, speaking a rather formal and footsore language. Mostly, however, when you scrutinize the plots more closely in this hero's career, Virgil really thinks of himself as a stunt pilot, waving his arms in the air all day and all night while thinking up mad projects, such as becoming a friend of that millionaire alumnus, God.

During the solstice season, however ("It brings out the artist in me"), Virgil avows his real name is Santa, and so he'll be traveling over the silk roads with reindeer shamans, back to the golden ruins, the peaches and the lapis lazuli, roving the borders and doing the late-night shows, appearing at holiday parties dressed in bone bits, ribbons, and braids, while reciting to himself over and over agaim:

"A Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"