Doing Nothing

You can commit an injustice by doing nothing.

— Marcus Aurelius

To anyone with a speck of brains, it's now crystal clear Trump would have illegally seized the presidency on January 6.

If you're immensely rich, immensely angry, immensely psychotic, or immensely uninformed, you'd have been fine with a that.

The rest of us are not.

The question remains: in the name of democracy, what will you do about it?

My recommendations are simple: 

• Contact Merrick Garland and demand that Trump be charged with treason. Go here to send him an email. Mine read: The Congressional Committee investigating January 6 has already produced enough evidence to support a conviction of Donald Trump for treason. For the sake of our nation and our democracy, I urge you to prosecute him.
  
  
• Talk candidly about Trump's treason. The Constitution and case law define treason as "betraying one's own country by attempting to overthrow the government through waging war against the state or materially aiding its enemies." Don't mince words. Trump is guilty of treason. 
  
  
• Boycott Trump's corporate co-conspirators. Not just Fox News and My Pillow, but Chevron, General Motors and UPS. Go here for a complete list.
     
• If you encounter a Trump troll on line, complain to his employer. 
  
  
• Start carrying a patriotic pocket lighter. If on your travels you see a Trump 2024 sign, set it ablaze.

This is no time to be a bystander—self-interest should propel you.

Do something! Speak out against Trump.

As the oft-quoted words of Martin Niemöller remind:

"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

Are You Strong Enough?

Are you strong enough now for a truly big fish?

— Ernest Hemingway

Braveheart, move over.

Kids in Scotland today are Chickenhearts.

Or so a Scottish university thinks.

The University of the Highlands has slapped an ominous "trigger warning" on Ernest Hemingway's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Old Man and the Sea: 

Warning: Contains Graphic Scenes

History and Literature students at the school are now on official notice that Hemingway's novel contains "graphic fishing scenes."

The university said trigger warnings allow students to make "informed choices."

One Hemingway biographer told The Daily Mail, "It blows my mind to think students might be encouraged to steer clear of the book."

A British history professor told the newspaper that all great literature depicts inherently violent pursuits.

"Many great works of literature have included references to farming, fishing, whaling, or hunting. Is the university seriously suggesting all this literature is ringed with warnings?"

Among many classics, the school has also flagged Beowulf, Frankenstein and Hamlet for excessive and graphic violence.

If size matters, Moby Dick will be banned by the school altogether.

Critics have bemoaned the concept of triggers for years, insisting its application advances a dangerous liberal orthodoxy.

What's goose for the gander, triggers are now in favor among far-right Super Moms, who cite them when banning books by Black and gay authors.

From my standpoint, trigger warnings are ridiculous because they retard teenagers' development into adults.

We have enough problems with cultural illiteracy.

We don't need rampant faintheartedness, too.

Then We Were New

Don't look at me, it's way too soon to see
what's gonna be; don't look at me.

— Paul McCartney

Paul McCartney, who turns 80 this week, entertained last night for nearly three uninterrupted hours at a Baltimore baseball stadium that was filled to the rafters.

 

I bought the concert tickets as a birthday gift for my wife, who had waited decades at long last to see a childhood idol perform live.

The review in today's Baltimore Sun calls the show "a lively performance," a chaste assessment you'd more likely expect to read in the Liverpool Echo circa 1963.

McCartney rocked, as a matter of fact.

I was happy he chose to include "New" in his set list, a 2013 tune that's one of his finest.

When it was released, The Daily Telegraph described the song as a "jaunty, Beatles-esque stomp," but I think it's much more than that.

In the guise of a Sergeant Peppery love song, "New" conveys the giddiness that codgers like McCartney can experience in the face of decrepitude.

It's a giddiness that can lead to a longer life—and a happier one, as well—and is based on little more than aplomb.

It's a giddiness that defies the withered outer shell. 

"Within, I do not find wrinkles and used heart," Emerson said of the aged, "but unspent youth."

"Don't look at me," McCartney sings, "I can't deny the truth, it's plain to see; don't look at me. All my life I never knew what I could be, what I could do—then we were new."

Take just a moment to listen.

What the Frock?

I have little respect for Southern Baptist pastors.

Tarot card readers have better credentials.

But when they preach the kind of abject hate Pastor Dillon Awes preached last Sunday, my disrespect turns into contempt.

Marking the start of Pride Month, Awes told his flock that every single gay "should be lined up against the wall and shot in the back of the head."

Hitler-like, he called the mass executions "the solution for the homosexual in 2022."

Realizing his solution might sound a tad harsh, Awes deferred to Scripture.

"That’s what God teaches," he said. "That’s what the Bible says. You don’t like it? You don’t like God’s Word."

I never realized the Ancient Israelites had guns, or shot sinners in the back of the head. 

You learn something every day.

Awe's boss, Pastor Jonathan Shelley, backed his underling's bloodthirsty solution, insisting, "This is not murder but capital punishment."

In case you're wondering, Pastor Awes' Stedfast Baptist Church occupies a strip mall in Watauga, Texas, a suburb of Forth Worth. 

The pastor, of course, doth protest too much.

His obsession is no doubt an instance of reaction formation. 

We'll soon hear, in the manner of so many clergymen, that Awes has been arrested on charges of pedophilia, a crime that, in Texas, earns you a 99-year sentence. 

Fine with me.

As Hunter S. Thompson said, "Anybody who wanders around the world saying, 'Hell yes, I'm from Texas,' deserves whatever happens to him."

Pastor Jonathan Shelley further justified Ames' venomous sermon by claiming all gays molest children.

"It is our duty," he said, "to warn families of a real threat that exists in our society."

Therein lies my concern. 

Were these two morons not influential, they'd be irrelevant—nothing more than two out-of-touch Texas snake charmers.

But they are influential.  

My fear is that scapegoating gays for all of society's problems will become a core GOP tenet; and Pastor Ames' "solution," a GOP policy.

Berserk

So now we know: when faced with the certainty of surrendering the White House, Trump went berserk.

His diehard followers—alas, there are still millions—will no doubt romanticize his pigheadedness.

When you don't know any better, it's easy to romanticize someone who goes berserk.

Berserk is awesome. 

Berserk in invulnerable. 

Berserk is heroic. 

Berserk, a 19th-century word, comes from berserker, an Old Norse word meaning a "warrior clothed in bearskin." Sir Walter Scott introduced berserker into English in his 1822 novel The Pirate.

Norsemen considered berserkers to be fearsome warriors of superhuman strength; warriors who, protected from harm by the universe, would go into a frenzy during battle, smiting the enemy with unquenchable savagery.

Modern pharmacologists believe berserkers' mysterious might was drug-induced.

Their ferocity came, scientists say, from ingesting henbane, a common weed with narcotic properties that was used throughout the Ancient World to kill pain and cure insomnia.

While ingesting a small dose of henbane anaesthetizes you, ingesting a large dose induces rage, combativeness, and feelings of invincibility. 

It also prompts you to tear off all your clothes and bite people—friend and foe alike.

While most of Trump's followers are anti-maskers, I think even they'd agree that, should he continue to appear at rallies, Trump ought to be required to wear a mask.

The mask I have in mind was the one used in Silence of the Lambs to restrain Hannibal Lecter.

It's simply a matter of pubic safety.

Above: The Standard Bearer by Hubert Lanzinger. Oil on wood.