Conundrum

Don't you just love it when an entire nation (or at least its media and personalities) rise up as one in righteous indignation?  Damn, I sure do.  It's almost as much fun as dropping $75.00 for a bottle of Cossack's Tears, that new small-batch bourbon, distilled from grains grown only in the vacant lot behind the handball courts in Brighton Beach, with a finish of garlic and blini.    

The only thing better was, well, do you remember this:  "What's the word?  Thunderbird.  What's the price?  Thirty twice!"  Now that was a wine, especially if you were lucky enough to get a bottle of the vintage 4:15.  Nothing went better with C-rats in the field, though if you managed to bring some Spam out with you, obviously you chose Gypsy Rose instead.  But we were talking bourbon, which is a lot better than $50 for a cilantro flavored vodka, even if it is Stolen, uh Stoli.

Oh, well: we've got indignation out the wazoo these days.  First, there were all the fears of 1984, brought to the forefront by Edward Snowden, who is not high on my list of guys I'd trust, but who did point out that all our phone calls were in a data base, which anyone who has ever watched a cop show already knows: (Yo, Danno--have them dump his landline records for the last month.  OK, Steve.) 

And now we've got this less than Sterling character, That Donald (as opposed to NYC's beloved The Donald) who has had  his privacy violated with a broomstick and who has become the man we love to hate.  I'm sure he's got some feelings about the privacy issue, and they're a lot stronger than those he may have viz-a-viz the government's threat.  (On the other hand, he is a scuzzbucket slumlord, so feelings may be stretching the point as far as it will go.)

Snowden.  He likes to paint himself as a patriot, a whistleblower; he compares himself to Daniel Ellsberg, who does happen to think that Snowden's a pretty good guy.  But there are some major differences.  Ellsberg was revealing very real threats to very real lives; people were clearly going to die because of the chicanery he brought to the public eye.

Ellsberg also took his evidence, first, to members of Congress, to people (i.e. Senator Fulbright) who should have been concerned and who should have wanted to do something.  They crapped out.  So he went public.  What he didn't do is run and hide.  I'm pretty sure the Vietnamese would have loved to give him asylum.  Even Nixon's famous Plumbers weren't able to wrench his nuts. 

Most important, Daniel Ellsberg, like so many others, recognized that the point of civil disobedience was to pay the price for it.   You took a stand and it meant enough to you that you were willing to give up your liberty if that's what it took.  Even some who ran, like Daniel Berrigan, SJ, didn't run to hide behind foreign skirts; the charges against Ellsberg were ultimately dismissed.

Eddie, he's a different story.  First of all, he went into his job knowing that he wanted to do what he eventually did.  Probably had his fingers crossed behind his back when he signed the various oaths and statements required to obtain a clearance.  (I signed the same oath back in '62, during those days of Thunderbird, because I was an MP assigned in a security position at a STRAC conference...but who cares about what I may have heard during those halcyon days of missile crises and walls in Berlin, and the beginnings of serious assaults against the people of Indo-China, soon to be Vietnam?)

What did he do once he got the copies he needed/wanted?  He seems to have gone to friends and some fellow workers, perhaps bosses; it seems they didn't want to have anything to do with him.  Instead of The New York Times, he went to reporters for the foreign press and to a movie maker.  And then he went to China.  And Russia.  And cried about how he wasn't safe in America because the government was going to kill him.  And that was before he could be found guilty of treason (which he did commit, regardless of the reason it was done) and hanged.  Something that has been suggested by folks on the right.  These are the same folks who want the government nose kept out of their affairs; folks who didn't know the government nose was in their affairs in the first place.  Kill the messenger, guys.

But his best move was yet to come.  It used to be called giving aid and comfort to the enemy, but Putin isn't our enemy. Only eastern Europe's.  What Snowden did was play straight man at Putin's annual  dog and pony show, the televised, national Q&A. 

"Mr. President," he asked, "does Russia spy on its people, wiretap their phones..."; you get the drift.  And the retired KGB colonel turned his doe eyes to the camera and said of course not and anyway we can't afford to do something like that, we don't have the money or the technology.

"Thank you President Putin." 

I don't care how much of a hero one sees this character as, any credibility he had is somewhat lower than squid shit and that's at the bottom of the Marianas Trench.  How much hue and cried followed that act of patriotism?  Fox News may have given it some time, but I don't pay them any more mind than I do Al Jazeera English.  And you remember, I'm sure, all the praise and backslapping that followed that stunt, everyone rushing to praise him yet again.  Neither do I.

All that spewed, it's time to turn our attention to the issue of privacy.  I've read 1984, Brave New World, The Fountainhead and as a fan of SF back in the day, a library of other dystopian literature.  I understand the threat posed by a government that knows more about what I'm doing than I do--but I don't watch a tv series called Person of Interest... The premise, in so far as I care, is that the government is watching everything and someone is out there protecting us from evil.  Or something like that.

It's not a new idea that privacy today is a farce; and it's not because of a government agency; we have, as Pogo intimated back in the dim, dark ages of black and white and landlines, met the enemy and he is us.  If I write something here, I know that it will not only last forever (man, ain't tomorrow lucky?!) but that it is not a secret.  If anyone is out there, my attitudes are right in the field of fire.  Knowing that, I'm not going to discuss things I don't want known, or at least things I don't want known outside of a small circle of intimates.  A very small circle.  More of a circlet. 

Even then, one has to keep in mind that spies, turncoats, rats and stoolpigeons have lived next door (or in the next room) since at least the time Joshua had some guys go into Jericho.  That Donald knows that now, now doesn't he?  Whoever taped the  infamous conversation didn't have permission, and didn't have permission to share it.  Something is rotten in Los Angeles... Still, That Donald spoke as if no one could hear him and/or as if no one would care--all of which is true 99.99% of the time.  Oh, but verily, that last smidge'll be the death of you.  Or your fortune.

Take a  minute and think about the things you've said on your cell while waiting for the light to change; about what you texted to that s.o.b. in class... .  A couple of months ago I was waiting for the M72 crosstown on 72nd at West End--heading off for yet another CT.  There was a young woman (maybe even a girl--would someone please advise as to when one becomes the other in terms of humans passing in the night), walking back and forth, her agitation shaking the glass of the bus shelter.  Her voice rose and rose (by any other name was louder) and then: "He told you he broke up with me because I give a lousy blowjob?" 

Everyone turned to stare; she kept pacing.  I considered going over and offering myself as a sacrificial, well as a sacrifice and to tell her that I would guide her through the process.  Sense prevailed.  But still: ten people were watching her for the next five minutes, waiting for the next revelation.  Privacy?  It's a bit of undigested mashed potato and nothing more.

No one has complained about Donald Sterling's privacy being breached by person or persons unknown.  By a person who, to this point, hasn't stepped forward and said, "I did it."  In some communities, though, that rat is probably seen as a hero, too.  Funny, isn't it, how attitudes can slither? 

Sterling, we've learned, has spent a lifetime honing his skills as a jackass.  His racist attitudes have brought about any number of lawsuits; they didn't make national front pages or cable news.  There were no threats to relieve him of the strain of having to feed, house and clothe his players (and give them cars)--which he proudly declaimed to do.  Then, privacy  breached, the calls for his blood echoed the roar surrounding Madame Defarge as her needles clicked under the guillotine.

All sorts of stupidity followed rapidly upon the noise.  Basketball is a black sport; how can he speak that way about the people who make money for him?  (And who get paid by him.)  A man with attitudes like that should not be allowed to own a sports franchise.  (How about Dairy Queen?)  Ban him.  Fine him.  Get a stake and burn him.  And hope that no one has heard any of the things you've had to say about people, places and things and that if they have, they keep it to themselves.

This isn't about defending Donald Sterling, or contrasting him with Edward Snowden.  I wouldn't want either of them as a dinner companion, and if I'm ever in the same room with one of them, I'll be certain to use Purell before I go near anyone I love--or even most people I like.  I was just thinking about how we look at things, what we'll allow and and the temperature at which blood boils..

Condemned

George Santayana (as opposed to Carlos Santana, who is far more fun to drink with) wrote that:  "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Come then, let us remember:  Once there was a wicked, wicked man and Adolph was his name, sir.  And Adolph had plans, something about an Arayan race and breathing room.  (This was before he came up with the rooms in which breathing was impossible.)
The world watched and listened.  Then he declared that all he really wanted was an area called the Sudetenland, which was part of a country called Czechoslovakia.  It was all very well thought out: the people of Sudetenland were "ethnic Germans"  (ethnic was a very important word to Adolph) and spoke German and they wanted to be reunited with the Fatherland.  Yes, it was the vox populi, the people who wanted this; what choice did he have?
He'd been blustering and threatening for a while, and it seemed that he might actually go to war if the world wouldn't let him have what he wanted.  And once given to him, everything would be fine and peace would prevail and the lions and lambs would gyre and gimble in the wabes.

In Great Britain a man named Neville (see his backbone, above left, where it was found on a dusty floor in the Victoria & Albert), went to Munich and met with Hitler.  They talked, they talked some more.  Then Neville stopped talking and listened and nodded and came back to London to shout out the news: the world would give Adolph the Sudetenland and the world would not have face the horrors of another war.  Cheers all around.

Adolph went into Sudetenland to great cheers and celebration; the natives were no longer restless.  From there, it was a short walk to Prague and then a slightly longer trek east to the gates of Stalingrad.  Enroute they went through a place then called The Ukraine.  Stopped at a ravine in Kiev.  It's called Babi Yar.  About 34,000 Jews learned what not facing the horrors of another war was like.  It was worse than the original.

In the Soviet Union, a good ole boy named Joe thought he had a deal with Adolph who thought he had a deal with Joe.  Both men were paranoid beyond anything the Republicans trying to gerrymander the poor, the black (huddled masses yearning to be free?) could hope to reach.  Millions more died.

The rest is history; go, now, and study it.   Then think about that son of a puta named Putin.  Vlad the KGB colonel.  He heard the cries of the people of Crimea, a part of a country called Ukraine.  The Crimeans, Vlad said, were ethnic Russians, spoke Russian and wanted to be reunited with the Motherland.  There were demonstrations of agreement.

The world said, "Oh, no, don't do it Vlad.  Come let us sit and reason together."  Vlad did it and a man named Barak, who wasn't English (and whom some Republicans insist isn't even American, but if Ted Cruz who was born in Canada wants to run for President, why, go ahead Ted, put the kettle on and we'll all have tea) was faced with the kind of dilemma that men go into politics to unknot.  The solution becomes part of their "legacy," which is all important during the second term of an American president.

The American people were tired of wars, boots on the ground in countries we never think about unless there are boots on the ground.  Barak had gotten us out of two wars (legacy, legacy); the aftermath is still being written.  No want wanted another war; Iraq has oil, Afghanistan has poppies, what does Crimea have beyond a party beach?

So the world watched Russian troops cross into Crimea and then watched as they walked up toward Kiev... .  The west (as it is called) decided the way to stop this march toward the horrors of another war, was to impose sanctions on Russia.  We tied up their funds in banks, we said some of their richest, most powerful oligarchs would not be allowed into the United States.  Today, 29 April 2014, the ruble and the Russian stock market both went up.  Putin thumbed his nose (or maybe picked and flicked; I wasn't watching that closely) and orchestrated uprisings in other parts of Ukraine and a q and a with some punk named Snowden (his turn is coming).  He didn't, however, tell his girlfriend not to be seen with black men, so he wasn't banned for life.

Our putative allies in Europe (Ally: someone to whom you give everything requested as they take the rest on their own and blame you for their problems) are getting cranky.  For one thing, they're real close to Ukraine and probably remember the back and forth walk of Adolph and Joe across their respective landscapes, even if they aren't who they were back then.

But even more important, it would appear (and appearances are everything) is the fact that these sanctions hold the very real possibility of screwing the economic well-being of a company called BP.  BP does a lot of business with Russia--when it isn't screwing up the American Gulf Coast (which is nicer than the Crimean coast, IMHO--see, I'm learning webspeak.  I'm very, very afraid.)  BP is making threats (no, is explaining what might happen to prices): it used to be that what was good for GM was good for the world, or maybe only America--but what's the difference?  Now it's what is good for BP.  Bottom line: the allies say they can't trust us to be there for them and the anti-Barak element says he is weak because he doesn't want to start another war as he's getting ready to leave (legacy, legacy).

Congress makes noise, some calling for war ('cause it'll be part of Barak's legacy) so that we will not be perceived as weak.  Those are the same studs who don't want gun controls of any kind because guns don't kill people, people kill people and while a background check impinges on my second amendment rights, we shouldn't sell guns to unstable people (who kill people) but don't say anything about how we're supposed to know they're unstable since they have the right to privacy.  (Hi, I've gotta get to church, so can I get that old M1911 .45?  Oh, and by the way, so far I've only assaulted people with my machete.)

And we can count on one thing:  somewhere in D.C., today (and tomorrow and tomorrow), one of those who don't like what they call "entitlements" will stand up and say, "The American people want... ."

Well, I'm an American people; if you know what I want, why don't you do it?  And as you rattle your sabers and wave your flowers, and hold your god up as the example for all of us, regardless, take a moment and look back.  All the math in the world isn't going to help if you don't know history: not the dates and players, but how and why.  Otherwise, you're condemning us all.

When wasn't then, now is when.

Eloise Lee, of the Leesburg Lees, moved incrementally, shifts so small you need a micrometer to record the distances.  "Location, location, location," she sighed.

At another time, she will have said, not quite leering, "It's all in the details, Buttermilk."

Eloise Lee is, as we read these words now, dead.  Been dead for a while, actually.  Which on the one hand, makes her suitable to be our Beatrice.  On the other hand, it was always hard to imagine her as anything other than a convenience, even with her drawl, the soft voice designed to seduce and abandon.

Buttermilk?

Well, if the past is prologue and the outline father to the manuscript--I do not have the time or patience to check every word for asexual preferences--then it's high time we took a look at where we are and why.

Right: Broadway at 65th.  On our right, the new-ish Julliard campus;  across the street, Lincoln Center.  To our left, across Broadway and Columbus, the NYCLDS tabernacle, Moroni on top, trump to his lips.  I figure if we listen carefully enough we'll hear a battle of the brasses between the angel and Wynton Marsalis down at Jazz at Lincoln Center.  I like Wynton's fingering.

So there you are.  Cool.  No, cold.  We're caught in a polar vortex; I think it used to be a polar express but in any case it's cold.  Everyone's walking head down to keep eyes from freezing...that kind of cold.  Also huddled into their coats.  And here comes the guy, the Johnny Appleseed of these meanderings, walking up Broadway, facing us.  Talking to himself.  Not on a phone, which is probably worse, because in that case he thinks what he's saying is important to someone, but simply flapping lip in the wind, adding a mumble under the keening of the big noise from Winnetka; at least he isn't wearing an aluminum foil yarmulka.   Seeing him, I wonder if I've been moving my lips as I crouch into the icy concrete canyon.

I've got a habit of talking back.  Usually it's the newspaper, the tv reporters, the cast and writers of "General Hospital," or whatever show is providing the white noise.  I've even done it, a lot, in movie theaters.  Part of it is that having spent my life editing, the habit of suggesting changes is hard to break, and I've got a lot of changes in mind...most of which won't get any further than this sentence.  I also ramble.  And speak in parenthetical side trips and lose my place in my own stream of consciousness.  Which can be scary.  Where was I?  .

Yes, there.  What you'll find here, mostly, are asides about whatever happens to be interesting at the moment.  Sudetenland, anyone?  Should Draper have gone back to the agency?  How did we get anything done before mobile phones?   Why don't people stop and think before the speak on their cellphones in the middle of busy streets?  Not of all of us have grown headsets and earbuds; we hear what you're saying, in spite of ourselves.

There may also be stories or snippets of stories, stillborn tales.  Incidents from a past that are ambushing my quiet moments with disquieting jabs.  And like that.

Talking to myself in pixels.

Some final bits of business:  The images that will appear throughout are created in Incendia, a shareware application used in the creation of fractals.  It is the brainchild of Ramiro Perez Clare Nash, and more information can be found at  www.incendia.net. It's my favorite from among the myriad apps available.  They aren't titled, but they are all copyright © 2014 Michael Seidman.

It's also pretty clear that I haven't figured out all the ins and outs of blogging and using the templates and all the rest of whatever goes into doing this.  As I figure it out, the format will improve; I offer not guarantee abut the text.

And finally, my "other" imaging, photographs and the Photoshop manipulation of them that has occupied so much of my time for the last ten years or so, can be found at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mseidman/.  I stopped posting several months ago because I'd run out of steam and I was disappointed with the changes instituted by Marissa Mayer, the overpriced new head of Yahoo (the company that began the deterioration of Flickr several years ago), in spite of the needs, requests and desires of those who've supported the site.  I may go back to it; pixelating my days in words and images.  Or maybe not.

All that's left to say is more to come, Buttermilk.