Excuses for Trump

Excuses for Trump

Why are there excuses made for Donald J. Trump? Supporters and of course GOP operatives and those Republicans in elected office make excuses for Donald Trump. Why? At first it was his lack of experience, they said. But after four years their boot licking and ass kissing is something else. It's akin to the sunk cost fallacy, whereby good money is thrown after bad. So much has been invested and hope springs eternal that the investment will eventually pay off. It just needs a little more money, a little more time, a little more care and commitment. If this investment had been done in private perhaps they' would have come to their senses and abandon the investment in Trump. But it's too late for that. It is all public. To turn away now might destroy the political careers for some. 

But what of his supporters who ride in caravans and go to his rallies. What are their excuses? They must increasingly find ways to prove mainly to themselves that he is greater than anything that has come before and greater than anything that could follow. It is out of the realm of any kind of change, and the anger can not be turned inward, oh what a fool I have been, but only outward toward others who disagree, a lashing out from the failures and the lack of any competence that is always masked as greatness. Their  salvation is to believe the lies.

In their hearts and in their eyes, the man can't be blamed for anything, he has become a hero, an icon and ultimately fetishized. The only thing left for them  to feel exalted is for him to become a martyr. This election loss, will not dissuade them from their heedless worship. Though Donald is not dying as far as I know and will continue to  live on after he is out of the White House, hopefully to be weighed down with criminal charges. However, it will be as if he has been sacrificed on the altar of corruption and evil but like the 2nd coming he will at some point rise again and bring greater reward to all.  In the end it is too painful to admit how wrong they were to place their belief in a man who is as much of a scoundrel as we have seen in politics. Scoundrel may sound archaic and even mild but the definition is that of a dishonorable, unprincipled, mean, base villain.

The tragic murder of Breonna Taylor

I've put together this assessment and opinion based on news reports. I have no other information. The Breonna Taylor legal outcome is as terrible as it can be.  The two police that actually shot her weren't indicted for anything. Another police was indicted for wanton endangerment because he fired blindly and indiscriminately and endangered neighbors though none of his bullets hit Ms. Taylor. He BTW was fired earlier for breaking departmental rules.  What is anyone to make of this? Shouldn't someone be responsible for her death, a woman asleep in the comfort of her own home.  And I add a young black woman who was an honest public servant and shot by white policemen. Is there not a more sad yet incendiary situation given the racial conflict of the past between blacks and whites, particularly, innocent blacks and white police and exacerbated since George Floyd's murder? The Breonna Taylor story precedes that May 25th death. The news story of her death was resurrected as it had occurred in March of this year and unless George Floyd's murder hadn't occurred and all the actions that followed, worldwide I may add, may not have been brought to public attention at all beyond Louisville, KY. 

The story as recounted is that Kenneth Walker, MS. Taylor's boy friend, fearing for their lives because he thought the apartment was being invaded by her previous boyfriend who was a known drug dealer and so he  started firing at the "invaders". One police was hit in the leg.  The police as is their wont fired back. None of the bullets hit Walker but she was shot 6 times and the lady bled to death. The police fired 36 times. As it turned out with the investigation there was nothing illegal happening in the apartment and no drugs. I ask again who should be responsible?

The reason the police were there was because they were issued a no knock warrant for the apartment because Ms. Taylor's boyfriend of two years earlier was thought to be giving Ms. Taylor's  drugs to store for him or that he was still in residence there. The dealer earlier had been seen by a detective handing Ms. Taylor a USPS package at her door. We'll never know what was in that package nor whether or not that actually happened. She had maintained a sort of a distant connection with him as it has been reported but not for anything illegal. In fact the reason they no longer were together was because of his criminality.  So let's think through who is to blame. 

Is the detective who initially asked for a no knock warrant to blame?  I think he is partially because he did not see actual drugs only a postal package.  What about the judge who endorsed the warrant?  Did she actually question the detective's due diligence? Unless we had been flies on the wall we'll never know. What about the the evidence that was presented to the Grand Jury? Unless that document is revealed we won't know.  A prosecutor can skew a case in any direction. This is a young DA who no doubt wants a career and it is common practice among prosecutors to work with and favor the police for obvious reasons. I'm not saying that he intentionally could have skewed the case.  Maybe he just didn't see that evidence led to a prosecution without prejudice.  I certainly don't know.  But the actions of the prosecution should at least be queried.  This should be a case for the the federal DOJ to investigate.  But given who runs the department can we count on that? And what would be the outcome anyway?  

But now we come to the actions of the police at the door.  It is not the first time in the history of policing where an apartment or a house was invaded and the wrong people were arrested, shot or killed.  How many times have the wrong people been "swatted" because of bad information or because someone who wanted revenge on a person called in a false claim?  The police at the door reported they announced themselves and in the report got  corroboration from one neighbor.  Kevin Walker fired at them as they burst in and so they fired back.  How common is that? The police don't know. They're being fired at and they've got a warrant and were warned that the dealer was dangerous.  I can understand why those police weren't charged with anything. They were reacting and doing what was expected of them in their jobs, awful as it was.  

These circumstances are just that circumstances that were due to mistakes, to misunderstanding, to the actions of a justice conglomerate, the war on drugs and possibly the ambitions of zealous prosecutors and we can't eliminate racial intolerance.  How can any of that be actually held to account in this case and have justice served?  

There must be some greater good that comes from this woman's untimely and tragic death. Otherwise all seems in vain and fearsome.  We grieve for this black woman, her family her friends as well as all those innocently beaten, shot or murdered by the wrong or mistaken actions of the police. Black people, white police, it's a very old story. Leaders need to step up and make changes to a system that is geared to oppress, to actually murder the majority, a much higher percentage being brown or black skinned people, while giving a pass to the class of people that controls everything. This issue is bigger than a few cops doing what they think is their jobs, bigger than one city, one state, one government. We have a moral imperative to treat each other as fellow human beings. How will that ever come about if we keep doing the same things over and over?  It's enough to make one desire to crawl into a hole or a cave and never come out.   

As for using logic in this opinion piece to rationalize the outcome of this tragedy, I'll quote a friend: when you use a deodorizer in the toilet to cover up the smell of shit, the smell is in reality still there even if all you smell is the cover up.  

Are the police the sole problem in America?

How do we end the police excessive violence, in so many cases murder towards African Americans in the United States? Big question. And not something that could be answered by me. I know nothing about policing. We have so many different regions of the country and I've mainly been in maybe a handfull of them to compare. Each region is probably different but the following reality is the same all over.

Since I am a white man and for the most part a law abiding citizen I don't really worry about violence towards me by the police as I'm sure others like me feel the same. We were taught as children if you are lost or afraid of something ask a policeman to help. Was that just a fantasy? I don't know I was never in that situation. All I know is that if I see the police I'm not concerned that I am going to be stopped, frisked, arrested or be pinned to the ground by a knee in the back of my neck and suffocated to death just because I am walking or riding my bike while being white. Which brings me to this thought.

Why has policing become as it has, militaristic, and in particular always accusative and angry towards people of color? I can't answer that in general. I can only guess at it. Is it racism? In my experience I have had two family members who were police. Both made no bones about being racist, but they also were suspicious of a culture that has evolved over time from the clearly white dominated culture in America pre Civil Rights. If you've lived as long as I have you know what that was like. It was the norm. "I'm free, white and twenty-one" was the expression on the lips of all the people I have known except for the ones who weren't. That is until it became embarrassing to say. And until you became friends with a black person. I mean friends, a real friend, you'd feel the shame of certain thoughts based on the beliefs that were drummed into your head as you grew up.

But let's turn to the job of being a cop which and though I am unqualified I still have an opinion.

This job can not be easy in any way shape or form. No it isn't ranked as the most dangerous job in America. But it certainly is up there. It's the kind of job where someone might shoot a gun at you. And I'd hazard a guess that out of the thousands who have been protesting and even those grumbling about the protests sitting at home and watching TV would ever don the uniform and become a cop. I know it was never a consideration of mine. Police are only considered heroic when they are the front line workers who come to the aid of a citizenry under attack, say when the towers fell down or some mass shooting. But how often do those things happen? Other times they are the ones who hand out tickets for traffic infractions to angry violaters. How many times have you said or heard: There's never a cop around when you need one? Still they are the ones who get called when an actual crime is in commission or you are frightened by that unusual noise coming from a corner of your house where there shouldn't be a noise. They are seen as someone who comes to your aid or causes you grief. So why would you want that job? Honestly I don't know. I can make assumptions but that is all they are, assumptions. Black Americans don't feel the same for sure as those of us who are white. The police largely create grief and more than 3 times murder for them which has been the point of these demonstrations.

So what is the problem in America? Could it be we have too many guns? And policing has become as it has. Do all the guns create the suspicion that every black person carries a gun and is out to commit a crime? That was the impetus behind "Stop and Frisk." Or when approaching a domestic violent situation in a black neighborhood, (as well as in a poorer white neighborhood) that it is assumed there 's a gun in a house? The policeman responding must be on alert or in a flash he or she could be dead. This must be the case for both white and black cops. How anxiety creating is that? So this is the training: Shoot first if you have to and ask questions later. You will be backed up. You have a union. You have the justice system that will protect you. You have qualified immunity. You get the benefit of the doubt even with body cameras. Even with all that the problem clearly to me anyway is that you are not going to change police culture overnight and so long as we have over 300 million guns owned by citizenry in this county that circumstances will be even slower to change. No easy answers. And solutions are even more difficult.

How is the Pandemic of 1918 different from the Pandemic of 2020?

Things were not so great during the pandemic of a century ago, especially negligent was the federal government and Woodrow Wilson.

The Sedition Act of 1918 (Pub.L. 65–150, 40 Stat. 553, enacted May 16, 1918) was an Act of the United States Congress that extended the Espionage Act of 1917 to cover a broader range of offenses, notably speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a negative light or interfered with the sale of government bonds. --Wikipedia

Why? Because the federal government wanted to hide the fact that there was a disease infecting the world and ultimately about 650,000 Americans died. The act threatened publication staffs with 20 year sentences for publishing anything about the flu. Writing about it was considered anti-American and damaging to the war effort. The press in the countries that were fighting the war also eschewed writing about the flu. How the pandemic became to be known as the "Spanish Flu" was because people in Spain were getting sick including the King of Spain. Spain was neutral during the war and their press coverage wrote there was a flu affecting not just Spaniards but the world. And that it wasn't just a "grippe" as most press coverage claimed at the time.

Woodrow Wilson did not behave in a way that would be commensurate with what you'd expect given how disasterous and damaging the flu was. Trump may not even be as bad as Wilson was during the pandemic of his time. Trump actually admits there is one. Wilson did not. He got ill during peace negotiations in France and acted completely out of character and seemed "out of his mind" to those who witnessed his behavior. Some historians claim that because of his actions the peace treaty turned out the way it did. You can do with that what you will. (However, there is no excuse for Tump's behavior.)

There is actually very little written about that period of time. Even those who witnessed first hand and survived did not write about it. Personal accounts are scarce.

As we approach 100,000 dead from Covid-19 in just the space of a few months, we need to reflect on the dead this Memorial Day weekend at least long enough to stop cavorting on beaches for a few minutes.

The morbidity of words and phrases

Words.  Phrases.  Sometimes they are just words and phrases. But while the pandemic, plague, epidemic whatever you want to call it words become like tiny cuts. Eventually it leads to death in the mind by a thousand cuts.  

The Words: vacinate, mask, testing, virus, normal, heroes, morbidity, phrases like re-opening the economy, surge capacity, protecting our healthcare workers, lack of leadership, social distance, contact tracing, a vaccine is on the way. There are others of course. They all are on everyone's lips, at least on TV. 

These words and phrases become wearying, full of grief, ponderous. They strike deep within you as your sleep is interrupted by dreams with these words and phrases and you wake up and don't remember that it was those words that disturbed your sleep. We find some other thing to blame. Maybe your spouse, your friend, your partner, your child, your pets or not having any of these you blame yourself. But say you have a child who lives elsewhere.

A sometimes conversation by phone to an adult child.

"How are you doing?"
"OK"  
"You got food?"
"Yes."
"Exercising?"
"Yes."
"Social distancing?"
"Yes."
"Still working from home?
"Yes." 
"Need anything?"
"No." 
"How's P_ _ _ _ _?"
"Good. How are you and K_ _ _ _ _ "
"We're good too." 
"Great."
"Just checking in. Love you."
"Yeah. Same. Thanks. Later."
"Yeah, later."  

What else is there to say, to say what is meaningful, to have an original thought or any other thought than. . . . The words, they cut. The cuts are not deep but are slight, thousands of them and they torture. We are alive but are asked to think of the sick, the dead. The Sick. The dead. The most vulnerable. The end of life. It could be you next. Don't touch that surface. Wash your hands. Look out from your window. Don't forget the heroes. 
                                    * * * 

Last week you were being thoughtful hearing those words. Suddenly today you are in pain, crying out for relief you think but you are in a coma. You feel but no one can see.  Air is being pushed into your lungs by a machine, a ventilator. No you don't feel it only the words spoken of you by others playing the sympathy card for you who are still well, the not yet ill. Or maybe you've had it and didn't know. Anti-bodies, another word.  
                                     * * * 

You wash your hands. Suddenly you feel clean. You sit down. Turn on the TV.  Yes, you still have TV your connection to the outside world, you're grateful you didn't cut the cord. Your mind drifts off for just enough time to remember the phrase "cut the cord." Such better days that was. You're now happy you didn't cut the cord. What a great phrase. And now you think of your old friend, Ray. He never cut the cord either. How you grieved then when he died. But now how glad you are that your old friend died last year. He's not a statistic of this maelstrom. He will always be remembered otherwise.  Oh and the two of you would laugh about everything and everyone. But would we laugh today? What is there to laugh about?  

In most adversity there is always something to laugh about because a quick turn of a phrase can do that. But it's the actual phrases of today that can't be turned anywhere for a joke. They mean what they mean and maybe in ten years there will be laughter. There will be jokes.  Jokes that only the passage of time allows. And the words will go back to the dictionary where they belong and to some ordinary reality. And the phrases they will be forgotten too. There will be new ones. But maybe you won't be around for those.   

My latest political musings

My political musings: The Nazis in Germany and Fascists in Italy (I couldn't say about Spain or Portugal) came to power for a number of reasons. Key among them was propaganda and a worldwide depression. Nazis and fascists are strong words but they are applicable only to history though there are groups trying their best to bring them back officially. So far they are only viewed for the most part with opprobrium. They are not applicable today in the sense that they were in the 1930's. But the commonality is the same in terms of the push towards right wing extremism and authoritarianism. The left countered the right in Germany and in Italy at that time but they failed and were decimated. And it required a world war in the 1940's and the will of the people to end those regimes. The world was so different then politically, culturally, socially, racially, technologically and economically. The left today here in the U.S. varies in their ideology and is not very unified. And it doesn't seem to me that it is any more effective than those activists of the 1930's. However, I won't say it has failed yet. There is very little overt violence of course which helps to limit the force of the right. There are no pitched battles in the streets at this time. Charlottesville in 2017 was, however, quite horrid and worrisome. For now the right has control of the message and they get the media to participate, yes, even the the "objective" main stream media. And currently we are seeing an economic depression but not one brought on by the initial failure of the financial systems. Yet it is possible that things will not spiral out of control. But I can't say it is possible it won't. Notice I can't use the word probable in those two statements. Are we screwed? I don't know. Can it happen here? If it does, the world is screwed.

Facing Death (Written 1992)

Denial

There's a scene that plays out in my head every time I hear a certain part of Richard Strauss's "Death and Transfiguration." The music slowly but dramatically builds, crashes with the pounding of a kettle drum, then thundering brasses and weariless strings take over; suddenly the sound is like a soaring jet coming in on a strafing run. A gash opens up in the sky as the plane passes overhead and a flood of emotion sweeps me away, as my flesh rises and my breath feels pulled from my lungs.

In my dreamlike state the music levels off to cruising speed and everything is taken with it. Floating souls of all earthly beings head toward the horizon which has become an amorphous pink depth. All creatures that crawl, walk, fly, or swim swirl into this pink entrancing foam. A vortex sucks up from the sky and I can almost feel the rush of air as the brasses plummet beneath the strings, and I am loosened from myself for that brief instance when it feels like I've taken flight. The whole universe seems to be engaged. It's on a grand scale and it's a gigantic palette. Something is waiting, somewhere above and beyond and all the last images that were cherished diminish in a movie fade out. There is no longer pain, grief, remorse. I am transfigured.

Such is idealized death, idealized as to bode promise not fear, idealized because it is my imagination prompted by Richard Strauss, my Catholic background and nearly 60 years of watching movies. However, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross might, if she were here, call it "denial." The terminally ill as we have learned through her writing first deny when they have been told they are going to die. Art, being emblematic, sometimes seems to me a way to ward off evil, a sort of totemism. Even though I am not ill terminally or otherwise, Kubler-Ross has already uttered it. I am going to die someday. I am terminal. That is why for me creating art is denial.

Anger

I am on a small boat, running on a vein of royal blue, twisting deep into the dense green jungle towards its heart. The destination is a rendezvous point, a small dock on a tiny river village outside of Santa Domingo in the Dominican Republic. It's the middle of April, 1965, three days before the U.S. invades, and this can only be a movie that I am in and am about to replay for you.

This morning after the secure from general quarters, the Officer of the Deck instructs me to get ready to put my boat, the PL, in the water. The PL has a super charged, bored

and stroked six cylinder, gray marine, that accelerates so smoothly a nickel can stand on its end on the head cover as the throttle is pulled full open. It's my job to take care of that engine. It's now my luck to go where it goes. My job notwithstanding, I still have to put on full dress whites, wrap my bell bottoms in canvas puttees, and spit shine my shoes. They change their minds about the shoes in the last minute, telling me to put on my tennis shoes.

After the boat is launched, the coxswain pilots it along-side a Jacob's ladder hanging from my ship, The USS Fort Snelling (LSD-30). Two marines climb down with M-16’s and both the Gunnery officer and the XO follow with forty-fives strapped to their sides. They’re in battle fatigues, and without rank identified, they huddle in the cabin with the coxswain who steadies the boat with short revs of the engine. Suddenly we pull away with a jolt.

At about two miles to go to the island the boatswain’s mate (known as the bow hook) and I are made to stand at parade rest in the well of the boat behind the engine compartment. The boat is about twenty-five feet long and six feet wide. It's all battle ship gray, made of wood, but molded and streamlined for speed, looking like a small PT boat. The bow has a six inch high chrome railing, the cabin follows with hand grips on the overhead; behind the cabin in the well the engine roars inside a raised wooden compartment. We stand just behind the engine, grateful we're not made to stand on the space above the rudder assembly, the tail of the boat where an American flag flaps wildly.

We enter the mouth of the river and as the coxswain de-throttles, the supercharger screams then lowers its tune from a shrill whistle to a faint sigh. The Gunnery officer peers out from under the cabin and orders the bow hook to stand on the bow. I can see the shadow of the officer's beard even though it is only about eight A.M.

I stay put and watch the bow hook shimmy his way forward along the cabin, gripping the hand grips then leaping agilely onto the bow. He gets down on his hands and knees, pulls a line pole from its holder, and begins to knock away at the hanging brush as we pass through. The gunnery officer, a little dramatically, I think, loads his forty-five. The XO hunkers himself down behind the coxswain his gun unholstered and the two marine guards each lean their weapons out of both sides of the cabin, the muzzles pointing toward opposite shores. Finally the gunnery officer orders me to jump up on the boat's stern and stand at parade rest. I was scared shit before, now I may have to ask someone to pass me the toilet paper.

Up on the stern I think of this, this preparation done as though I am the sacrifice. I assume the parade rest position, but then look around trying to hide the look of stark terror I know is on my face. I see blue water, the green jungle, my boat and the automatic weapons. I wonder almost out loud why I don't have one, and grow so angry that I wish I could snatch a weapon and do away with these officers and marines. My God, I am going to die, you mother fuckers. Suddenly, the flag whips between my legs and flaps ominously, wrapping itself around my legs and swathing my genitals, a death shroud.

Bargaining

I am on one of my many early morning walks. It's Sunday. Winter floods all the senses. I walk as usual across Smith Street, down Butler, across Court, along Kane and finally cross over the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and onto Columbia Street. I walk south. The neighborhood changes from Carroll Gardens to Red Hook. Buildings are in deserted and collapsed states. Lumber, bricks, garbage are scattered amid oil splotches and dog shit. Abandoned shopping carts look as though they were tossed by a tornado against a rusting chain link fence, and curbs sinking into the gutter blur the distinction between sidewalk and street. It's Beirut, Baghdad, Brooklyn. It's not a movie, but as usual I think I am in one.

It is frigid, but a man, a Rambo styled bandana tied around his head, naked to the waist, sleek and muscular, emerges from under a broken stairway. He stops to watch me. I remind myself, since there isn't another soul on the block in either direction, that I have two six pound weights in my hands. If he takes steps in my direction, it's either him or me. During this rush of terror I have no other thought and just pump my arms like a prize fighter and continue moving. The feeling is the same as taking off in airplane. You can't back up. Mercifully he disappears beneath his stairway like a troll.

By the time I reach Carroll Street to traverse the footbridge back over the BQE to civilization, back through Carroll Gardens, I've convinced myself that I'm just a paranoid. But as I climb the steps of the bridge the incident becomes a message. St. Stephen's church on the other side of the bridge tolls its bell heavily. Blung. Blung. Blung. It repeats for several minutes. Beneath the walkway, the cars and trucks roll thickly and noisily even at this hour, most heading up and out of the blackened pit of the BQE toward the open air Gowanus Expressway. Two large green signs with white lettering point the ways. I'm humbled by the bells and overwhelmed by the traffic noise. I turn around to see the sun's winter brightness, low on the horizon blotting out the distance that the east bound traffic is heading into. I'm praying for forgiveness and salvation, suddenly and I see it as a long take with deep focus.

Depression

I'm in Seward Park High School. This is a famous old school on the lower east side just south of Delancey Street on Essex. I'm there for a civil service exam. All test takers are hustled into an auditorium, a high-ceilinged, arching structure. Sunlight streams in through the sandy colored windows. We're made to sit on peeling laminated seats for nearly an hour, and then given instructions by a bald man who reminds me of Ed Koch. The first question he fields is about toilet availability. He pauses and looks around, beckoning laughter with his wry look. I'm unwilling even to smile as I'm overtaken with my thoughts. I look around; nearly everyone looks between 40 and 50. About forty years ago we would have been in a similar auditorium, acting out our thoughts instead of thinking them.

We're dismissed to our testing rooms, row by row, and in silence, and I'm reminded of church services that I attended when we would get up row by row to receive communion. We follow one another through the hallways, which deepen the mystery for me, up winding dirty gray stairways, worn with a century of foot falls, past the wire meshed windows, up to our rooms on the fourth floor. So this is what it's like, our final hour already passed, I think to myself, as I slide into a seat joined to a desk and feel a millennium's worth of frozen hard gum stuck to the underside. Fade to black.

Acceptance

I am at Shea stadium. What can be here to disturb my imagination? Then it happens, something I have witnessed at least a million times. For both teams it's a meaningless game, both being out of the pennant race and it's the end of September. The game is tied in the bottom of the ninth. There are two out. Runners are on second and third. The batter, not a bad hitter, has a three and two count. The pitcher puts his foot on the rubber, leans forward and looks into the catcher for the sign. All in attendance, about three thousand of us are on our feet. We all should have left a long time ago but they’ll be no more baseball for us until next year. The pitcher takes the sign, and then takes a deep breath. He looks over to the runner at third. Will he forget him and just pitch to the hitter? Anyone who would try to steal home in this game would have to just be crazy. It's not worth it. Or is it?

The pitcher works from the set position anyway then releases the pitch. It's an outside fastball, but too close to the hitter’s zone to let it blow by. He swings. The ball is fouled up to his right into an empty upper deck. The ball bounces among the empty seats, rolls down the stairs and disappears. I stare after it lost in thought. No one goes chasing the ball. I turn back to the game but too late to see the batter strike out. The game goes into extra innings, but I've suddenly lost interest. Where has the ball disappeared to? No one has pursued it. Clearly it was only a foul in an unimportant game. Even the baseball maniacs who would show up for a game like this don't want it. For that minute I see it as the long and final take before the end.

But it’s not a satisfactory end. What is wrong with that foul ball that it should be ignored and shunned as it was except for my eyes that followed it? As a ball it started out pretty much the same as all the others. It had a cork center, surrounded by two layers of rubber. It was wrapped in gray and black twine and dipped in a gluey substance. The two halves of horsehide, looking like figure eights, had been hand-sewn with ninety-six stitches. And at its beginning it was a brand new spanking baseball, snowy white, with raised red stitches and a black logo, weighing in at 5 1/4 ounces and nine and a quarter inches of spherical circumference. An auspicious beginning, its chance come round, a misguided then forgotten hit.

Unfortunately after writing this, I'm facing death left with one nagging almost childish question: What is the relationship of one ordinary baseball, that goes foul, to that of the entire universe? So I am brought back to Strauss, to art. Deny. Deny. There's no money in accepting the inevitable.