Pandora's Box

What Hath Trump Wrought?

Pandora and her box.

I think Donald Trump is only beginning to realize that he has opened Pandora's box. Although I doubt that he has any idea who Pandora was. 

Appropriately, for Trump World, Pandora never existed. She was a character who lived in the world of Greek myth. We first meet her in the Works and Days of Hesiod, who seems to have lived around the same time as Homer. Hesiod's brief sketch leaves a lot to the imagination, and for the last several millennia writers have rushed to fill perceived gaps and embroider the work of others. 

This is one of the basic Greek myths that describes how humans came to be what they are. It actually starts with Prometheus, the fellow who stole fire from the gods and gave it to humans, thereby giving a kickstart to civilization. Zeus, the principal god, was not happy. I'm going to give you the version by Robert Graves, in his Greek Myths (Illustrated Edition, 1981, p. 49). 

"Zeus had Prometheus chained naked to a pillar in the Caucasian mountains, where a greedy vulture tore at his liver all day, and there was no end to the pain, because every night his liver grew whole again." 

But Zeus was attacking on several fronts. Prometheus had a brother named Epimetheus. Pro had warned Epi to accept no gifts from Zeus. Zeus had other ideas. "He ordered Hephaestus to make a clay woman, and the Four Winds to breathe life into her, and all the goddesses to adorn her. This woman, Pandora, the most beautiful ever created, Zeus sent as a gift to Epimetheus," who had not yet heard of the vacation that Prometheus was enjoying in the Caucasus, because it hadn't happened yet, so he followed his brother's advice and politely declined the offer. Shortly thereafter, Zeus sent Prometheus to his mountain, and shortly after that Epimetheus heard the story, and shortly after that he and Pandora got married. 

It turned out that Zeus had made Pandora "as foolish, mischievous, and idle as she was beautiful. Presently she opened a jar, which Prometheus had warned Epimetheus to keep closed, and in which he had been at pains to imprison all the Spites that might plague mankind: such as Old Age, Labour, Sickness, Insanity, Vice and Passion. Out these flew in a cloud, stung Epimetheus and Pandora and then attacked the race of mortals. Delusive Hope, however, whom Prometheus had also shut up in the jar, discouraged them by her lies from a general suicide."

The sexism here is just as rampant as it is in the Garden of Eden, but hope is apparently a girl, and we do owe the survival of humanity to her. So there's that.

Exactly what was in the box has been the subject of speculation and debate for a long time. I personally lean to something more like the four horsemen of the apocalypse: war, famine, pestilence, and death. (You can get an argument over whether the guy on the white horse is conquest, but I prefer pestilence because we already have war over on the red horse, and infectious disease really does deserve a nod here.) 

When it comes to the Pandora story, feel free to make your own list. Everybody else has.

About the box. The indefatigable researchers at Wikipedia seem to have solved a puzzle. Hesiod clearly calls the box a jar, or pithos. These were large jars the Greeks used to store things like wine, oil, and grain. In the sixteenth century, when the famed humanist Erasmus was writing his book of adages (Adagia), he tells the story of Pandora in Latin and translates pithos as pyxis, or box. Tsk, tsk. 

Anyway, once all the stuff got out of the jar, it stayed out. In recent years we've nibbled around the edges. We had been using vaccines to tamp down things like measles and polio. until Trump and RFK Jr. came along. And, since World War II, we have, until this writing, been able to avoid World War III, although, frankly, way too many Trumpies are looking forward to the end of the world, and they may just get what they want if Trump keeps bungling things in the middle east.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti painted the picture above in 1871. I found it in Wikimedia Commons. 

See also The 800-Pound Gorilla in the Oval Office.

I Think We Need a Mural Here

One Way to Make a Street Friendlier

The other day I was walking north on 18th street in Philadelphia, heading for Market street, and I looked up at the buildings in front of me, and I saw something I had never noticed before. A blank wall. I've looked at this view more times than I care to think about, but the blank wall had never registered before. All the other buildings around have windows in their walls. This building has windows too, but not on the south side.

I think I've usually been distracted by the large olive (with pimento and toothpick) decorating the Continental Mid-town restaurant, at the bottom in the picture above. But on this day, I actually managed to focus on a blank canvas. 

The canvas belongs to the Sonesta hotel, which fronts on Market and runs south on 18th to Ludlow, where our blank wall resides. (The 18th street side of the building is home to Ruth's Chris steakhouse.)

Interestingly, the north side of the building, where the front of the hotel is, also does not have windows (except for the ground floor) and already has a rather attractive mural, which came to us through Mural Arts Philadelphia in 2015. It's by an artist named MOMO. 

I think Mr. MOMO's mural needs a mate.

Here's the canvas, viewed from Ludlow street. There are no windows on the ground floor. The canvas extends down to the sidewalk, where it occasionally competes with some dumpsters.

But what happens, you say, if a new, tall building goes up at the corner of 18th and Ludlow? This is not an idle question. Much of this block has already been redeveloped, and there is even a hotel, called Motto by Hilton, at 31 South 19th, which flanks a restaurant named Condesa on Ludlow. And there's another building under construction just to the east. (Don't worry: Tony's Shoe Repair is still there.)

And yes, a tall building at the eastern end of the block would obscure the view of our mural from Chestnut. But it would not obscure the view from Ludlow. 

I think a mural here would make this whole area feel more inviting, and possibly even homey. That blank white wall strikes me as a bit cold and vacant. 

Here's a story. I actually took two pictures of this view. The first one did not have the fire escape, just the vacant wall and the sky. I wasn't sure which one to use in this story, so I asked my eight-year-old grandson which picture would be most likely to engage a viewer and cause that person to be receptive to the idea of a mural in this location. He studied both photographs side-by-side for a few moments, and then told me he thought the shot with the fire escape would be more effective. He said of the potential donors, "They feel safer because they have a way to get out."

I'm still thinking about my grandson's statement. I think it works on a number of levels, and probably not just on Ludlow street.

See also A Mural Is Born, A Few Deft Touches for Back Streets, Bluestone to the Rescue! and Which Side Are You On? and City Beautiful Sprouts on Cypress Street, My New Favorite Alley.

The View from my Doorstep

And then We Get to Shovel, Again

The Hungarian photographer Andre Kertesz lived with his wife in a twelfth-story apartment overlooking Washington Square in New York City's Greenwich Village. Naturally he took pictures out the window. To see one of my favorite photographs ever, click here.

So we had a snowstorm in Philadelphia, on the night of February 22-23, and I was thinking of Kertesz, and I decided to take a picture from my doorstep (see above). And another. 

And, the next morning, one from my bedroom window.

And then one from my back door.

Thank you for the inspiration, Mr. Kertesz. If I had your talent, I could have done better. But I'm satisfied.

For a recent story on Kertesz, click here.

See also I'm Haunted by Ben Shahn, Jersey Homesteads, A Mural Is Born, Winslow Homer for Today, Angry and Ridiculous, Snowbound, Deer Trails.

Andy Kim Gives Me Hope

The Politicians May Be Catching Up to the People

Asbury Park, June 9, 2023, 6:52 pm.

On Thursday, February 19, I went to a meeting with Andy Kim, who is one of the two senators that the voters of New Jersey have sent to Congress. I've always liked him - I've been following him for quite a while - but I'd never met him. He was holding a town hall in Asbury Park, where my connections have become oddly deep - this has something to do with the Jersey Girl I married. Anyway, two friends picked us up - we tumbled into the back seat - and off we were to St. Stephen's over on the west side of Asbury Park. This is a simply beautiful new church on Springwood Avenue in the historically black part of Asbury. There was a good crowd - it turns out people had come from all parts of the state. Lois's friend Kristen Foca, who is currently Senator Kim's acting state director, greeted us warmly, and soon I was shaking hands with Senator Kim.

It turns out that Senator Kim has held 92 town halls in New Jersey as a congressman and senator. I had always had the impression that senators like to hang out with bank presidents and corporate executives. Scoop Jackson used to be called the senator from Boeing. This evening was different, perhaps because Senator Kim had been a congressman before he became a senator. 

I was very impressed, from a technical point of view, with the structure of the town hall. The senator spoke for a while about issues that he was concentrating on. Then he handed the podium to Kay Harris, head of our local historical society, who, it being Black History Month, spoke about black history in Asbury Park (it's quite a history). Then the senator came back and spoke some more on issues, and then he took questions. He did something I've never seen before. He asked for two questions. He wrote them down in a notebook. And then he responded. And then he asked for two more questions. I've never seen this before, and I think it's brilliant on a number of levels. 

But let's not get buried in technique. One of the questions was why he voted to make Kristi Noem secretary of Homeland Security. He said, "You deserve an answer," and he wrote in his notebook, and in due course he answered.

He said that he had hoped to establish a lifeline to Noem. Looking back, this may sound a bit odd, but the normal way of doing business in Washington is to open lines of communication with people who can help you. And he knew that, with or without his vote, she was going to be confirmed. 

It was pretty obvious, at the beginning of the second Trump administration, that the ordinary rules of doing business had become irrelevant. Many voters saw this. But it's clear, looking back, that much of the commentariat did not see it. And the political class was still clinging to its familiar ways. 

Then Senator Kim said something interesting. He said, "I made a mistake." And he explained his thinking and why, in retrospect, it was wrong. A very honest, candid man. At the end he received thunderous applause.

Vaclav Havel wrote, years ago, that the politicians often lag behind the people, because they are so wound up in their political world, while the people are living in the real world.

But here's one politician who has caught up. And I'm very happy.

See also How the Dam Breaks.

Stephen Miller Must Go

A Story from Ukraine

Philadelphia, before it was too late.

I wasn't going to write this story, but way too many people in this country - particularly in Congress - are still unable to grasp the enormity of the evil we are currently facing.

Father Patrick Desbois is a French Catholic priest who literally wrote the book on the Holocaust by Bullets. He found many, many unmarked mass graves in Eastern Europe, and he found old people who had vivid memories of what happened. 

As I've noted before, "A key aspiration of any fascist regime is to create a state where every individual is morally compromised."

Here is one story from Ukraine: 

"The presser," Ternivka, July 23, 2007 

... Petrivna was sitting in her courtyard with two friends, on a little wooden bench against the white cement wall. Her tale began very peacefully, without apparent emotion: "A 'punitive' German commando came into the village to kill the Jews ... The columns of Jews were taken toward a great pit just outside the village. The German gunmen were placed above the pit." ... The Jews had to walk down into the pit - a slope had been prepared for this on one side - and they then had to lie down on the bodies of their dead comrades before being assassinated by a bullet in the head or in the nape of the neck. 

Suddenly, Petrivna stopped talking, her body twitching bizarrely. She said in a single breath, her hands moving up and down: "You see, it's not easy to walk on bodies," trying to express that the ground was moving. In a flash, I realized she was trying to convey her unspeakable experience, her suffering. Very calmly I asked her: "You had to walk on the bodies of the people who were shot?" She replied: "Yes, I had to pack them down," making the same gesture with her arms. I thought I understood: "You had to do that at the end of the shootings, in the evening, or between each volley of shots?" Seeing that I was beginning to understand, she told the rest of her story: "After every volley of shots. We were three Ukrainian girls who, in our bare feet, had to pack down the bodies of the Jews and throw a fine layer of sand on top of them so that other Jews could lay down." 

"Barefoot?" I asked. She replied "You know, we were very poor, we didn't have shoes. The Germans had seen me in the fields in the morning. I was tending a cow. They said to me: 'Go to your mother's house, get a spade and come back.' When I got to the house, my mother said to me: 'Go, if you don't go, they will kill you!' The other requisitioned girls were also looking after cows. We were all poor." 

I could never have imagined that the Nazis would requisition young Ukrainian girls to press the bodies down with their bare feet, as if the bodies were grapes on harvest day in wine country. 

The so-called "pressers" had to put sand on the bodies so that the next Jewish victims could lie down more easily. 

As I began to envision what had happened, I asked her "Did you come out of the pit between each shooting?" "Yes," she said. "The German commander gave us an order to go down into the pit and another order to come out. All together, we had to run into the pit with our spades, pack down the bodies with our feet, put down sand and then come out all together. Many Jews were only wounded ... We had trouble walking on them." ... 

Several times, Petrivna mentioned her Jewish classmate, who sat next to her at school. She saw her in the pit, naked. She saw her arrive and then shot, before she had to trample on her corpse. ... At the end of the interview, Petrivna led us to the pale blue metal door with a warm smile. That evening when we got back into the van, our eyes were full of images of these three village girls running down into the pit, trampling on the bodies, throwing sand, and coming out again ... trying to catch their breath before the next shooting. All around them, Germans had been guarding the site with their dogs. The other Jews had been waiting, naked and terrified. 

- Father Patrick Desbois, The Holocaust by Bullets, 2008, pp. 83-86. 

After more than half a century, Petrivna finally got to tell her story.

__________

Like Trump, the typical Trumpie is stupid and grasping. (Think Kristi Noem.) Stephen Miller is smart and focused. He has also studied fascism carefully, and, given the chance, he will execute the entire playbook. Act accordingly.

Broad street, Philly, still before it was too late.

Here is some background on Ternivka.

See also The Democrats Need to Fight the War and Wounded Souls.

Anouska De Georgiu Speaks

Ben Meiselas Interview 

44:35 -

"I think the stronger reason, which is also the reason that he was fighting the release of the files, and the reason that the files have been released in the way that they have, is because there are more powerful people, who may be people that he knows, that he really can't let down, who cannot be exposed. And I think it's those people that may be driving the situation."

Here's the full interview.

See also J'Accuse.

Let Them Carry ICE-icles

Take Their Guns Away

Mussolini with a few friends.

Some people have suggested that ICE and its cognate covens on thuggery (the border patrol etc.) should not be called Gestapo. I agree that the analogy is not perfect. In its full flowering, the Gestapo was the German national police force. Having one national police force was actually a huge change for Germany, which had traditionally seen law enforcement as a local issue.

There are good reasons not to have a national police force, and the Gestapo provides many examples. But it was a police force. ICE etc. are paramilitary thugs. A better analogy would be the squadristi who helped Mussolini to power. They're also called the blackshirts because they wore black shirts on duty. They were supposed to wear khaki trousers, but like ICE they were generally dressed in motley from the waist down. I don't recall seeing any blue jeans in the old pictures, but they were clearly catch as catch can. 

The blackshirts had firearms, but their favorite weapon was the manganello, a type of cudgel. They just loved to beat the crap out of people they didn't like. Occasionally, they would alter their approach and take a victim to the town square, where they would make him drink castor oil until his bowels turned to water. Other humiliations include home invasions, where the entire contents of a house would be thrown into the street, sometimes from upper floor windows. Valuables of course, like gold coins and silver flatware, would simply disappear.

I think the indiscipline and depravity of ICE etc. match well with the activities of Mussolini's black shirts. But I think the term Gestapo is more useful in our modern context, because I think the average  American has no idea what a blackshirt was. They don't know much about the Gestapo either, but they do know the Gestapo was evil. And I think that is the point people are trying to get across.

And here's the first thing you do with a paramilitary force that is out of control: Line them up and take away their guns. Then, whatever you do, don't disband them. Put them in their barracks (any disused military bases will do) and make sure they stay there. Then you can sort things out at your leisure.

Oh - and take away their cell phones.

See also Jim Crow Was a Failed State, What Happened in Ferrara? And one of my personal favorites: Somotomo.