Bad Penny

A bad penny always turns up.

— 18th Century Proverb

On assignment for Colliers in November 1942, photographer Robert Capa snapped the crew of the B-17 "Bad Penny" as they gathered before a daylight bombing raid on a U-boat pen in Germany.

Capa recalled the pilot, Captain Jack Bruce, saying, "After this is over, the longest trip I’ll ever take will be from my house to the nearest river, on my bicycle with my fishing gear on my back.”

Bruce would be dead before month's end.

During another raid—only its sixth—on November 28, "Bad Penny" crossed paths with the German ace Toni Hafner, who shot the bomber down. It crashed in the Mediterranean.

The pilot Bruce died, as did his co-pilot Bob Earl, bombardier Chuck Tannehill, navigator Chuck Knop, top turret gunner Hank Hughes, radio operator Len McGriff, ball turret gunner Al Backus, waist gunner Sam Scott, and tail gunner Merle Gilger.

No remains were recovered. The deaths were recorded in Missing Air Crew Report Number 16197.

Capa's photo, scheduled for the cover of Colliers that week, was yanked when the editor realized it revealed more of the B-17 than the Defense Department would approve.

Starving Artist

Creativity is not something we think a person should go “all in” on. Because, odds are, you’ll starve.

― Jeff Goins

Effective today, I'm going on a diet, to rid myself of the "Quarantine 15." 

It's hardly the first time I've fasted, and likely won't be the last. 

So I'm officially―and literally―becoming today a "starving artist."

That's because, in addition to the start of my diet, today marks the launch of my new website: Robert Francis James

If you like the paintings you see, buy one; help keep me from continuing as a starving artist.

The prices are affordable and include framing. 

The best thing you can do during a lockdown is decorate your space. 

And original art makes fine decoration.

Painting "Challah" by Robert Francis James

Surface Notation

An artist is making something exist by observing it.

― William S. Burroughs

The Independent on Sunday once asked John Updike to describe a writer that affected him.

He responded by naming Proust, the writer who opened Updike's eyes to style―to "prose not as the colorless tool of mimesis but as a gaudy agent dynamic in itself, peeling back dead skins of lazy surface notation, going deeper into reality much as science does with its accumulating formulations."

[Note to English teachers: point out how Updike's use of mathematicians' terms ("agent dynamic," "surface notation") bolsters his comparison between observant writing and science.]

Learning to paint has revealed how irresistible "lazy surface notation" can be.

I'm in a continual―losing―battle with my painting teachers, God Bless 'Em, over surrendering to the temptation to describe only the surfaces of objects, and never the atmosphere in which they dwell; what you might call the deeper reality of their "dance in space."

It's a temptation worse than sugary snacks.

The good news? 

Everyone struggles with lazy surface notation.

Paul Gaugin once wrote in his journal, "I made a promise to keep a watch over myself, to remain master of myself, so that I might become a sure observer."

Promise to watch over myself. 

That's about the best I can do.

Painting "Social Distancing" by Robert Francis James

Weeds

Once in a golden hour, I cast to earth a seed.
Up there came a flower, the people said, a weed.

― Alfred Lord Tennyson

My war against the weeds is going slightly worse than Afghanistan.

Ecologists defend weeds as nature’s way of nourishing the soil and protecting it from erosion. But weeds' spiky proflicacy spooks me―nearly as much as bugs do―and so I engage in an endless ground war against them.

A costly and unwinnable war.

I'm also fighting another unwinnable war: the war against critics. 

While I sow the web with words, hoping like Tennyson they'll flower, my critics see only weeds.

It's easy, of course, to trash an act of creation; much harder to attempt one. I take comfort in the thought. I take comfort, too, in the fact that critics have sometimes been splendidly wrong.

Chicago Tribune critic H.L. Mencken called The Great Gatsby―today considered a literary masterpiece and F. Scott Fitzgerald's definitive work―"no more than a glorified anecdote" when the book appeared in 1925. Mencken thought Gatsby was a "clown," and the other characters worthless and boring. Although Fitzgerald's writing is stylish, Mencken conceded, "this story is obviously unimportant."

Nearly 30 million copies of The Great Gatsby have been sold since 1925.

Critics also sneered at these novels when they first appeared: As I  Lay Dying, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Tropic of Cancer, Lolita, The Handmaid's Tale, To Kill a Mockingbird, On the Road, Slaughterhouse-Five and The Catcher in the Rye.

“I've been all over the world," Leonard Bernstein said, "and I've never seen a statue of a critic.” Nor have I.

Now, back to the weeds.

The Peril of Positive Thinking

Disease is an impudent opinion.

— Phineas Quimby 

Superspreader-in-chief Donald Trump can't take all the heat for the 4.5 million coronavirus cases in the US. He shares the blame with Phineas Quimby.

Quimby was a New England watch-repairman who in the Gilded Age spread the gospel of "New Thought" (also known as "Christian Science").

Told by a country doctor he had incurable TB, Quimby decided "doctors sow the seed of disease, which they nurse 'til it grows to a belief." Determined to heal himself, Quimby set out to study animal magnetism, concluding from his readings that the mind is all-powerful and alone can cure any ill. It can also make you rich.

Quimby's New Thought is still with us; today, we call it "Positive Thinking."

And Trump is Positive Thinking's poobah. 

Like many a wealthy American, he grew up imbibing this swill at the dinner table (Positive Thinking was rich Republicans' rejoinder to FDR's New Deal). He also imbibed Positive Thinking at church: the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale, author of the best-selling The Power of Positive Thinking, was the Trump family's pastor. Peale even officiated at Trump's first wedding.

Despite warnings by scientists, Trump continues to call the virus' effects "fake news," flouting facts most intelligent people accept.

He's deep in the grip of Phineas Quimby.

Christmas in July

We need a little Christmas, right this very minute,
candles in the window, carols at the spinet.

— Jerry Herman

Happiness among Americans has reached a 50-year low, according to a new survey by the University of Chicago.

Although the nation's prospects were bleak, by comparison we were happier when JFK was shot and when the Twin Towers fell.

We're abjectly unhappy now—and worried our children and our children's children will never be happy, as well.

But do Americans deserve happiness? I'm not sure many do. 

Its pursuit might be, as Jefferson believed, an "unalienable right;" but what have Americans done lately to earn happiness? Stockpiled more guns? Denied hungry families food stamps? Locked migrant children in cages?

And what is happiness, anyway?

The Enlightenment thinker Kant defined it as "getting what you wish for."

Simple enough.

But there's a problem: what do you wish for? A pink Cadillac? The Hope Diamond? A seat on the stock exchange? A guest spot on The Bachelor? A house at the beach? A mansion in St. Louis?

"While every human being wants to attain happiness," Kant said, "he can never say decisively and in a way that is harmonious with himself what he really wishes for."

You cannot know what to wish for—what would make you truly happy—because you cannot know what the future may bring. "Omniscience would be required for that,” the philosopher said.

Kant's advice: don't chase after happiness; instead, pursue virtue. 

Act morally—be of good will—and at least you'll become happiness-worthy. You'll find that you never treat other people as the means to happiness; you'll treat them, instead, as fellow human beings. And when you treat other people as fellow human beings, it ceases to matter whether what you do, or don't do, increases or decreases the supply of happiness in the world—yours or theirs. All that will matter is you've added to the world supply of good will—and perhaps made yourself a bit more worthy of being happy.

Acting morally is like pausing to buff a diamond you can never own. 

"A good will is not good because of what it effects or accomplishes, it is good in itself," Kant said. "Even if by utmost effort the good will accomplishes nothing, it would still shine like a jewel for its own sake as something that has full value in itself."

Done anything virtuous lately?

If not, maybe, like most Americans, you don't deserve happiness; don't deserve Christmas in July.

Excused

In 2007, University of Colorado psychologist Frederick Coolidge asked five historians to take diagnostic personality tests on behalf of Adolph Hitler.

The results showed Hitler was clinically insane.

More specifically, they showed der Führer was a schizophrenic who suffered from psychotic thinking and extreme paranoia.

Not only did he have delusions of grandeur, but Hitler was chronically anxious, angry, argumentative, aloof, patronizing, narcissistic, and sadistic.

Followers, nonetheless, excused him.

"Dangerous leaders typically have apologists who discount their destructive methods in favor of viewing their behavior as consonant with 'laudable' goals," Coolidge wrote.

Cornelius Vanderbilt IV, an American filmmaker and magazine correspondent, interviewed Hitler on March 5, 1933, the day he was elected Reich Chancellor. The interview took place in a backstage corridor of the Berlin Sports Palace, at the start of a Nazi rally.

Although he spent less than a minute with Hitler, Vanderbilt sensed he was in the presence of a madman.

“Tell the Americans that Adolf Hitler is the man of the hour," Hitler told him. "Tell them he was sent by the almighty to a nation that had been threatened with disintegration and loss of honor these last fifteen years.”

In a Country Churchyard

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

― Thomas Gray

On the eve of Barack Obama's first inauguration, Rep. John Lewis recounted "Bloody Sunday" for NPR's Terry Gross.

While the event was political in nature, its roots were the church, and listening to a replay of Lewis' interview this week prompted me to stop by a tiny "colored" graveyard just a mile from my home.

Bucktoe Cemetery feels hermetic on a sultry July afternoon, more like a piece of backwoods Mississippi than eastern Pennsylvania. It's the resting place for, among a hundred other souls, nine members of the US Colored Troops, veterans of the Civil War. The graveyard once nestled the largest church in the township, but Klansmen burned it down in 1900. Today, only a partial foundation remains.

Blacks represented only 1% of the North's population in 1860; but 10% of the Northern army during the Civil War. Congress at first was reluctant to allow Blacks to serve, but in 1862 deemed their service was an "indispensable military necessity." Lincoln agreed.

Once assembled and drilled, regiments of the US Colored Troops were ferried to the Deep South, to fight Confederates on their home turf (Edward Zwick's magnificent film "Glory" recounts the first such regiment's history). US Colored Troops also served combat duty in Virginia, fighting under U.S. Grant against Robert E. Lee.

Nearly 200,000 Black troops served in the Civil War; and more than 37,000 died.

I am Karen

I am what I am. I don't want praise, I don't want pity. 
I bang my own drum―some think it's noise, I think it's pretty.

― Jerry Herman

Women friends of mine, their names notwithstanding, are upset "Karen" has become a pejorative.

By one definition, a Karen is a "quintessential white woman who rocks an edgy, highlighted bob and demands to speak to the manager."

She’s entitled, assertive, and prone to public tantrums, fueled by an ingrained fear she could readily be victimized. And she has a “Live, Laugh, Love” placard, probably in her kitchen.

Well, I don't have a placard, but I'm here to tell you I am Karen.

I won't yell at the store manager or call the cops because you're Black. 

But―no matter your color―I will erupt when you:

• Abandon your cart in the checkout line
• Park your goddamned SUV in a handicapped space
• Go without a mask in the hardware store
• Let your doberman run without a leash 
• Smack your kids across the face
• Litter 
• Pitch me your cheesy software on LinkedIn 
• Bill my credit card without asking 
• Charge me $800 for a $100 dental procedure
• Fly the Confederate flag
• Imply Blacks, Latinos or Asians are inferior to Whites
• Disparage Gays
• Praise Ayn Rand, or 
• Insist Donald Trump is a good businessman, president, or human being

I make no excuses: I am what I am.

I am Karen.

Be Very Afraid

Readers told me my latest post struck a nerve.

Today, The Wall Street Journal issued poll findings confirming I am right:

"Less than four months before the November election, 51% of voters said they would vote for Mr. Biden if the election were held today, with 40% backing Mr. Trump."

Be very afraid.

The Slow March to American Fascism

The "very fine people" massed in Charlottesville, 2017

I'm a sucker for a Hitchcock picture and, watching "Marnie" a few days ago, I caught a mention by the lead male of The Undiscovered Self, Carl Jung's slim volume about Western civilization's fate.

Rereading the book after four decades, I'm flabbergasted at its immediacy―and no longer optimistic about our nation's ability to escape fascism.

Just as German business- and clergymen tolerated Hitler in the 1930's, greedy Republicans in the past four years have enabled Trump to rally the mentally diseased 60 percent―Jung's estimate―of our electorate.

Trump has brainwashed their already-unhinged minds―you merely have to listen to what the 60 percent are telling us, to know―and there's no "curing" them now. They're like the silent super-spreaders of Covid-19, only the disease they're carrying is Trumpism.

We're on the slow march to American fascism.

"Everywhere in the West," Jung writes, "there are subversive minorities who, sheltered by our humanitarianism and our sense of justice, hold the incendiary torches ready, with nothing to stop the spread of their ideas except the critical reason of a single, fairly intelligent, mentally stable stratum of the population.

"One should not, however, overestimate the thickness of this stratum. 

"It varies from country to country in accordance with national temperament. Also, it is regionally dependent on public education and is subject to the influence of acutely disturbing factors of a political and economic nature. Taking plebiscites as a criterion, one could on an optimistic estimate put its upper limit at about 40 percent of the electorate. 

"A rather more pessimistic view would not be unjustified either, since the gift of reason and critical reflection is not one of man’s outstanding peculiarities, and even where it exists it proves to be wavering and inconstant, the more so, as a rule, the bigger the political groups are. The mass crushes out the insight and reflection that are still possible with the individual, and this necessarily leads to doctrinaire and authoritarian tyranny if ever the constitutional state should succumb to a fit of weakness. 

"Rational argument can be conducted with some prospect of success only so long as the emotionality of a given situation does not exceed a certain critical degree. If the affective temperature rises above this level, the possibility of reason’s having any effect ceases and its place is taken by slogans and chimerical wish-fantasies. That is to say, a sort of collective possession results which rapidly develops into a psychic epidemic. 

"In this state all those elements whose existence is merely tolerated as asocial under the rule of reason come to the top. Such individuals are by no means rare curiosities to be met with only in prisons and lunatic asylums. For every manifest case of insanity there are, in my estimation, at least ten latent cases who seldom get to the point of breaking out openly but whose views and behavior, for all their appearance of normality, are influenced by unconsciously morbid and perverse factors. There are, of course, no medical statistics on the frequency of latent psychoses―for understandable reasons. But even if their number should amount to less than ten times that of the manifest psychoses and of manifest criminality, the relatively small percentage of the population figures they represent is more than compensated for by the peculiar dangerousness of these people. 

Trump campaign ad

"Their mental state is that of a collectively excited group ruled by affective judgments and wish-fantasies. In a state of 'collective possession' they are the adapted ones and consequently they feel quite at home in it. They know from their own experience the language of these conditions and they know how to handle them. Their chimerical ideas, upborne by fanatical resentment, appeal to the collective irrationality and find fruitful soil there, for they express all those motives and resentments which lurk in more normal people under the cloak of reason and insight. 

"They are, therefore, despite their small number in comparison with the population as a whole, dangerous as sources of infection precisely because the so-called normal person possesses only a limited degree of self-knowledge."

Unless the 40 percent of us who harbor no grievances, no "fanatical" resentments, come to grips with our unconscious―"the undiscovered self"―there is no resisting Trump or his mass movement. 

Trump's madness will sink its teeth into our unconscious―like Covid-19 sinks its hooks into our lungs―and his authoritarian and tyrannical ideology will overpower us.

Flow

In every part and corner of our life, to lose oneself is to be a gainer; to forget oneself is to be happy.

― Robert Louis Stevenson

Not a few friends of late have suggested pot, now that it's legal, but I have still-life painting to turn me on.

Even when the outcome is fish-wrap―as it routinely is―painting guarantees all the flow pots does, without the attendant risk I'll gobble an entire Entemann's.

Flow―what Confucius called wu-wei—is total absorption in a task. 

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced “Me-high Cheeks-send-me-high”) was the first scientist to isolate flow, calling it a privileged "zone" where we leave tedium behind and become rapt with "the time of our lives."

A lecture on secularism by Carl Jung inspired Csikszentmihaly to study the origins of happiness, the end that eludes so many.

Csikszentmihalyi soon discovered that happiness was less an end than a state, spontaneous and temporary; a state people entered when they pushed themselves to work at a difficult task.

He interviewed hundreds of artists to learn how they felt when they worked. 

They told him they felt the art simply, effortlessly flowed from them; and that they felt ecstatic while working.

In Csikszentmihalyi’s words, flow is a "state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter."

"Krazy Kube" by Robert Francis James. Oil on canvas. 16 x 12 inches.

Forerunner

While the reading public awaits the tell-all book by Donald Trump's niece, another new book provides a portrait of a historical figure whose character resembles the president's in a most uncanny way.

Erik Larson's The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family and Defiance during the Blitz includes a sketch of Reich Marshal Herman Göring, every bit of which feels like a description of Trump.

Göring, Larson writes, was "large, buoyant, ruthless, cruel," with an "ebullient and joyously corrupt personality."

With a "passion for extravagant sartorial display," Göring designed his own clothes, often changing his costume several times a day. Besides elaborate uniforms, he often wore gold-embroidered silk shirts, tunics and togas, painting his toenails red, dying his hair yellow, penciling his eyebrows and applying rouge to his cheeks. He also wore oversized diamond and emerald rings on the fingers of both hands.

British intelligence reports said Göring spent much of his time as Reich Marshal riding and hunting on his forested estate outside Berlin, when he should have been directing the Luftwaffe. He also devoted countless hours to running a private network of thugs, whose job was to raid art galleries and wealthy homes, stealing paintings for Göring's vast collection.

Although considered crazy by some, American intelligence reports said Göring was a "great actor and professional liar."

"The public loved him," Larson writes, "forgiving his legendary excesses and coarse personality." The American journalist William Shirer wrote at the time, "Göring is a salty, earthy, lusty man of flesh and blood. The Germans like him because they understand him. He has the faults and virtues of the average man, and the people admire him for both." Rather than resent Göring's "fantastic, medieval—and very expensive—personal life," the Germans admired it. "It is the sort of life they would lead themselves, perhaps, if they had the chance."

In the rare moments he did apply himself to his office, Göring often bungled, disregarding valid intelligence, dismissing unpleasant news, and quickly losing patience with subordinates. 

"He was easily influenced by a small clique of sycophants," one Luftwaffe pilot said at the time. "His court favorites changed frequently, since his favor could only be won and held by means of constant flattery, intrigue and expensive gifts. Göring was a man with almost no technical knowledge and no appreciation of the conditions under which modern fighter aircraft fought."

Race to the Bottom

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

— George Orwell

Realtors can no longer show the "master bedroom."

Developers can no longer add spammers to a "blacklist."

Winners can no longer claim their victory was a "cakewalk."

"America's reckoning with systemic racism is now forcing a more critical look at the language we use," reports CNN. 

"And while the offensive nature of many of these words and phrases has long been documented, some institutions are only now beginning to drop them from the lexicon."

At the risk of offending both Blacks and Asians, I'll go on record to say we're on a slippery slope when "reckoning with systemic racism" means we have to mince words.

We must call off the thought police before it's too late; before, to avoid giving offense, we're reduced to ostension—to pointing to things to describe them. That won't work well on Zoom.

Words alone—divorced from their intent—should never be policed, with the sole exception of slurs and curses; and even those have their place in the "lexicon."

I'll offer three reasons why censoring trigger words is bad:

• It crimps your style

• It beggars language—and impoverishes humanity

• It represents bad history

Take, for example, the supposed trigger word "blacklist."

"Blacklist" came into use in English through 14th century cops, who would enter suspects' names, Columbo style, in a black book, which they often called the "list." By calling the list "black," they were denoting the dreaded book's two covers, and nothing more.

When using "black," no 14th century Englishman had race in mind, as history shows. 

The word "black" in fact was borrowed ten centuries earlier from the German "blak," meaning "burned." Charcoal was black; soot was black; ink was black; coffee was black. But speakers of English at the time never referred to Africans as "black;" they described them instead as"swart," borrowed from the German "schwartz." By the 16th century, speakers of English did indeed begin to call Africans "blackamoors," but Africans—and people of African descent—weren't called "black" until the mid-1960's, when the Black Panther Party popularized that use of the word.

Besides putting us on the slippery slope to ostension, censoring trigger words challenges the censors to find "neutral" replacements, an effort doomed from the start.

Take, for example, "master."

If "master" is banished from their language, what can Realtors call the former "master bedroom?" Their association suggests "primary." That word-choice in turn makes the smaller bedrooms "secondary." Problem solved! 

Not quite. Plan to put guests, your parents or—worse yet—your grandparents in one of the "secondary" bedrooms? Better not, because that word dishonors them by implying, "You're second-rate."

And if "master" is banished from sports, what will the PGA call "the Masters?" "The Apprentices?" I hope not.

I suggest were replace "master"—in every industry—with "biggly."

Then, you can kick off your shoes and tell your wife you're going to lie down in the biggly bedroom and tune into "the Bigglies."

Problem solved—unless a veiled reference to Trump triggers your wife. Then you're safer just pointing to the large bedroom and watching the golf tournament on mute.

Unconditional

Graphic courtesy of juneandteak 

Two Walts

Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves.

— Charles Bukowski

The "people's poet" Walt Whitman is about to be unpersoned; so is Walt Disney.

Whitman's sin was to disparage Blacks in several letters and op-eds; Disney's, to stereotype Blacks in several cartoons.

Erasing Whitman won't be hard. There are a handful of statues of him that can be toppled, and a Walt Whitman Bridge in Philadelphia that can be demolished.

Erasing Disney will be harder. There are those dreadful amusement parks bearing his name, for one thing; and his company's stock is on every investor's "watch list." It's probably best to bulldoze the parks and shutter the company. 

Then, thank god, we won't have to watch Hamilton.

Apple Pie

Oppression is as American as apple pie.

― Audre Lorde

With July 4th as the time and Mt. Rushmore the place, Donald Trump has made clear he's on the warpath and wants you to join him.

"This attack on our liberty, our magnificent liberty, must be stopped, and it will be stopped very quickly," Trump said. "We will expose this dangerous movement, protect our nation’s children, end this radical assault, and preserve our beloved American way of life."

"Demagogues tend to be narcissistic and authoritarian," says psychiatrist Saul Levine. "Their vitriol appeals to the vulnerable and darker places in psyches and hearts."

But of course Trump didn't write his bombastic speech.

Who did? Stephen Miller; the same Stephen Miller responsible for Trump's inaugural address, the speech George W. Bush could only describe as "some weird shit.”

Part of the Breitbart pack that helped elect Trump, Miller is a white nationalist from Southern California and the power behind the migrant children's camps strung along the the US-Mexico border.

For a Jew, he's awfully fond of camps. 

Working with Trump, of German descent, they make a truly odd couple.

Miller is only 35, but has been a right-wing spokesman for nearly 20 years.

A graduate of Duke, he is a proponent of eugenics, a defender of the Confederacy, an advocate for segregation, and a hater of liberalism, socialism, communism, Muslims, Latinos and Blacks.

Miller also believes that "diversity"―which he calls America's "national religion"―is a veil for the "great replacement," a plot by large multinational corporations whose aim is to wipe out Whites worldwide.

No president since Harding has written his own speeches. They've all had to find their voices in others.

The liberal FDR found his voice in Samuel Rosenman; the moderate JFK, in Ted Sorensen; the conservative Reagan, in Peggy Noonan.

The demagogue Trump has found his voice in the bigot Stephen Miller.

A match made in heaven.

Or elsewhere.

Anthem

No nation has a single history, no people a single song.

― Jill Lepore

Activists are calling for "Imagine" to replace "The Star Spangled Banner" as the national anthem, a move I can get behind, although my first choice is the ripsnorting "Born to Run."

But if we want a timeless national anthem―a tune that's perennially PC―one without lyrics makes the most sense.

In which case, my vote goes to the majestic "Fanfare for the Common Man."

With that decision, the US would be join the coterie of five other countries whose national anthem has no lyrics: Spain, Kosovo, San Marino and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

For years, Bob Dylan skipped a warm-up act and, before taking the stage, instead played a recording of "Fanfare for the Common Man" (along with other Aaron Copland favorites like "Hoe Down," "Simple Gifts," "Quiet City" and "Lincoln Portrait").

Historian Sean Wilentz was the first Dylanologist to point out that Daylan and Copland, both American Jews of Lithuanian descent, are culturally linked by way of their roots in the Popular Front.

The Popular Front was an anti-racist, anti-fascist movement in the arts promoted by the Communist party during the 1930's and '40's. 

The movement held sway over hundreds of "fellow travelers," including Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Paul Robeson, Lena Horne, Ernest Hemingway, Theodore Dreiser, John Steinbeck, Richard Wright, W.E.B. DuBois, Dashiell Hammett, Arthur Miller, John Dos Passos, Orson Welles, Frank Capra, Dalton Trumbo, Rita Hayworth, Edward G. Robinson, Dorothea Lange, Jacob Lawrence, Ben Shahn and Mark Rothko.

Copland composed "Fanfare for the Common Man" on commission during World War II after hearing then-Vice President Henry Wallace give a speech in which he said, “The century that will come out of this war, can be and must be the century of the common man.”

It's high time to replace Francis Scott Key's ditty with something more rousing.

If it can't be "Born to Run," nothing would please me better than a song composed by an anti-racist, anti-fascist fellow traveler.

What's your pick for a replacement?

Painting "Homeland" by Bo Bartlett

Hanging On

We must all hang together, or we shall all hang separately.

― Benjamin Franklin

Last evening, I spent an hour on a Google Hangout with the organizers and volunteers for a political campaign.

I never involve myself in politics, but I want to help a progressive who's challenging an incumbent US senator in my state's Democratic primary.

The crowd was mostly young, eager and soft-spoken―everyone duly chastened, I think, by the uphill battle they're waging.

This morning's news is filled with mentions of Antifa, Boogaloo and QAnon, groups whose names sound like brands of stool-softeners.

I'm glad to know there are at least a few folks committed to orderly progress.

To everyone still with a scintilla of civility―left, right or center―I say this: 

We must all hang on, or surely we'll all hang each other.

Happy July 4th! Wear a mask in public.

Buffoon

Great men have not been boasters and buffoons, but perceivers of the terror of life, and have manned themselves to face it.

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

English borrowed the oft-used word buffoon from the 16th century French word bouffon, meaning a professional clown, joker, or comic fool.

The French borrowed their word from the Italian buffare, meaning "to puff out the cheeks," a routine gesture performed by jesters. 

Jesters would swell their cheeks and slap them to expel the air, producing a noise resembling a fart.

After so many stolid US presidents, it's refreshing to have one so ready to look vulgar and ridiculous, though I'm not sure the 130,000 Americans who have died from Covid-19 would wholeheartedly agree.