Somotomo

The Persistent Desire to Be Free

Plaza outside Franz Kafka Museum. Prague 2013.

My name does not matter. I have practiced law for many years in the capital city of my home country, which shall remain nameless. The name that matters is Somotomo. Anton Somotomo.

Somotomo lives quietly in one of the capital city's older suburbs, quite close to the city center, where I live and work. It is about a twenty minute tram ride for me, when I visit him. The street in front of his house is paved with bluestone and lined with trees. There are bicycles and children.

Somotomo was, and I suppose is, the leader of the country's political opposition. In his day he was quite a firebrand and had a large following, but the government persistently whittled away at the movement. Many people left the country, others went to jail - Somotomo himself spent a great deal of time in jail, although I always managed eventually to get him out. Others fell silent, and not a few simply disappeared.

The ruling clique eventually established very strong control throughout the country, although they were thoughtful enough to allow people like me to continue working, albeit in a much diminished capacity. I think they found it useful to maintain a charade of law, even though their only true interest was order. And power. And wealth. And women.

And, for quite a few years, it appeared that their control was complete.

Then, one morning, something happened. The country's president, whose authority was absolute, had sex with his wife. This was a somewhat unusual occurrence, because the president normally had sex with women other than his wife. Even at his advanced age, he continued, with the help of modern medicine, to have sex with two or three different women a day. He had several long-term mistresses, but one of the main tasks of his secret service was to scour the countryside for pretty young women. They managed to produce a new one every two or three days, and the president particularly enjoyed them. 

At any rate, having sex with his wife had become an increasingly rare occurrence. On this particular morning, when he had finished, and was walking to the bathroom, his wife noticed something. Written in black ink on the president's buttocks were a series of letters. She put on her glasses and squinted a bit. Then she thought things over. When her husband reappeared and started to dress, she said, "Dear, it appears that something is written on your buttocks."

Her husband looked at her with his usual mild contempt. He said, "What are you talking about?" 

She got out of bed and picked up a hand mirror. "Here. Take this. Go stand with your back to the tall mirror on the wall, and use this mirror to look at your backside."

The president did as he was told, fumbling a bit. He needed to find his glasses, and then he had trouble using the hand mirror, but eventually he got there. He exploded with rage. He was quite good at exploding with rage - he usually managed several tantrums a day, sometimes about picayune things, just to keep in practice.

"How did that man's name get on my backside?" The letters on his buttocks were S-o-m-o-t-o-m-o.

"How would I know, dear?" Then his wife made a mistake. She said, "Perhaps one of your girlfriends put them there."

The president walked to his bedside table, picked up his phone, and called the head of the secret police. The head of the secret police picked up instantly. He had been amusing himself by listening to the president have sex with his wife, but he didn't have video of the presidential bedroom, so he wasn't quite sure what was going on.

"Good morning, sir. What can I do for you?"

"One of your wenches has written the name of Somotomo across my buttocks!"

The police chief thought for a brief moment, then said, "Have you tried washing it off?"

"That's not the point, you idiot! Someone was bold enough to do this. You must find that person immediately and inflict great punishment!"

"Yessir. If soap and water doesn't work, you might want to try a solvent for ink or paint. Be careful, though. You don't want to hurt yourself. Perhaps call your doctor."

"Shut up and go do your job, idiot! I expect a report this evening."

And so the entire secret police department dropped everything and started trying to find the girlfriend who had desecrated the president's buttocks. (All other possibilities were ignored.) Files were pulled for the previous six months, case officers were mobilized. (Each of the president's girlfriends had a case officer whose case load was generally in three figures.) Women were summoned to headquarters. Those who didn't respond soon had a knock on the door and a free ride downtown.

And the president tried to wash off the offending letters with soap and water, without effect. His wife suspected an indelible marker, but kept her mouth shut. A doctor was called. He diagnosed a very persistent indelible ink and suggested a tincture of time. The natural exfoliation of the skin would eliminate the problem - unlike a tattoo. 

As it turned out, the marks on the president's buttocks acted more like a tattoo than anything else. But the National Forensic Laboratory was never able to figure out what kind of marker was used. When the current regime had come in, virtually all of the scientists capable of dealing with these questions had left the country. The regime installed as head of the National Forensic Laboratory a distant relative of the president who had previously pursued a career as a dairy farmer until his unpasteurized milk sickened several hundred people (most of whom lived).

The interrogations of the president's many girlfriends were not terribly productive. Most of them said they had seen nothing. A few admitted seeing something - several suspected that the president was not very good at cleaning himself - but none recalled what the writing had actually said. And certainly none of them confessed to writing on the president's rear end. Many confessed, however, that they certainly had had the opportunity.  

The president, not a young man, often fell into a deep sleep, with snoring, shortly after he consummated his act. Sometimes he would fall asleep on top of his partner. His regular mistresses were accustomed to this, and had discovered they could maneuver themselves out of his embrace without awakening him and get on with their day. The young conscripts from the countryside often found themselves lying underneath the president for extended periods, and only escaped his embrace when he awoke and grumpily told them to go away.

The secret police chief was in a quandary. He had many suspects, virtually all of them had open opportunity. But what about motive? What about means? 

As he often did with a difficult case - one that had the possibility of causing his career to come to a sudden end - he found himself chatting with his wife. He explained the case to her, hoping she might, as she had in the past, provide him with the spark of an idea. 

His wife listened patiently and then said, "Dear, I gather you don't know this, but you also have Somotomo's name on your rear end."

It eventually turned out that the top three layers of the country's nomenklatura, including the president of the national bank and the presidents of the country's three national oil companies, were all sporting the Somotomo, in indelible ink, on their buttocks. This was a total of 1,837 men - there were no women in these ranks of the nomenklatura.

There were variations in the rendering of Somotomo. Sometimes it was written backwards, sometimes as a mirror image, sometimes as two eyebrows, one on top of each buttock. Sometimes it was SomotomO. And so forth. None of this information seemed to advance the investigation.

While he was making these discoveries, the secret police chief continued to try to find out which of the president's girlfriends was the culprit. Women were recalled for more intensive interrogations, which continued to be unproductive. The president was not happy with the progress of the investigation, and eventually the head of the secret police authorized torture.

The torture was also unproductive. Several suspects freely confessed to basically anything their interrogators suggested to them. A few were more committed to the truth and suffered greatly. One of them actually died.

It turned out that the girl who died was illiterate - a peasant girl from a poor agricultural district. She was unable even to write her own name, and so was an unlikely suspect for the crime of writing Somotomo on the president's derriere. As she was dying, and her chief torturer was leaning over her to hear her last gasping words, she did manage to spit him in the eye.

I had been hearing many rumors about all this - my contacts with the government were extensive, and the rumor mill was having a field day with the president's rear end. I had a mild concern that the government might decide to throw my client - Anton Somotomo - back into jail for some specious reason, or no reason at all, but this did not happen.

Instead, one morning I got a call from the country's chief prosecutor. He was more than usually polite, and our introductory pleasantries lasted longer than usual, but eventually he did get to the point. He was hopeful that I would be willing to talk with Anton Somotomo and to determine what, if anything, he knew about the Somotomo derrieres. And, if possible, to ask if there was some discreet way for Somotomo to convince the women with the indelible markers to stop. The chief prosecutor emphasized that he was not interested in receiving reports, or getting lists of suspects, or anything like that. He was just hoping that Somotomo would be able to get them to stop. 

Both Somotomo and I were already under virtually continuous surveillance, so I knew that anything we said or did would soon wind up on the desks of the secret police chief and the chief prosecutor, with any good bits extracted from the raw reports and forwarded to the president.

I thought there was a significant downside to noncompliance - the regime could always toss both of us in jail for an indeterminate period, with no charges. The regime had actually been quite fond of throwing lawyers in jail, until it became apparent that the lawyers were organizing little law schools in jail, teaching the other prisoners how to annoy their persecutors. I myself had been lucky, and only had to visit jails, not live in them.

On the other hand, there didn't seem to be any great downside to doing what was asked. If Somotomo had any contact with what appeared to be an underground organization, the authorities would already know about it and be in the process of torturing his various contacts. I was pretty certain that I was being asked to drill a dry well, one which the chief prosecutor and the head of the secret police also knew to be a dry well. But it would allow them to report to the president that they had indeed possessed the imagination to pursue the matter without the president having to tell them to do it.

So I agreed. I telephoned Somotomo to ask for a meeting, and that afternoon found myself on a tram heading to his house in the suburbs.

I hadn't seen Somotomo for some time. When he opened his door, though, he seemed just the same, and was smiling his wry smile. We chatted in his living room, aware that everything we said was being recorded and transcribed. In addition to being a politician, Anton was a very literate man. He mentioned the old Greek play Lysistrata, suggesting that the victims of the current plot were getting off easy. We both could easily imagine the recorders and transcribers frantically searching the internet for a clue of what we were talking about.

I came to the point and asked Anton if there were any way he could help in making this problem go away. He smiled again.

"Briefly," he said, "no. I'm afraid that I'm so thoroughly surveilled that any dissident would have to be insane even to say hello to me in the street." He thought for a minute. "I do, however, know our people very well. Much better than our masters, who think they know the people but have never actually spoken with them."

That remark would surely not make it to the president's desk. Anton continued. "The people have a code of silence. It is how they have survived the last thousand years of brutal monarchs, sadistic inquisitors, rapacious invaders, and vicious but clueless dictators."

I could almost hear the fellow reviewing the transcript hit the delete button.

"I am certain that the code of silence will cause every investigation to end at a brick wall."

That one would definitely make it through to the president. It clearly served the interests of the chief prosecutor and the secret police chief, who were obviously desperate for this case to go away. I smiled and inconspicuously raised my thumb. Anton smiled back and continued.

"I don't know why I'm offering advice to the evil munchkins, but they need to deep-six this. Make sure the affected men don't drop their trousers in public. And nobody, nobody should talk about it. They know how to do this. They've done it before. 

"Actually," he continued, "the last thing they want is to find a perpetrator and hold a show trial. That would make the whole story immortal."

Our conversation turned to books we had been reading. Anton offered me tea and some lovely pastries. And then we parted. It turned out to be the last time I saw him.

The president, the chief prosector, and the secret service chief all did their best to follow the orders that Somotomo had given them. It didn't work. The secret police had followed their training in crime scene investigation and made the mistake of photographing the adorned buttocks of all 1,837 members of the senior nomenklatura - they were not so foolhardy as to broach the subject with the president, but it later turned out that his wife had taken a picture with her phone. Pretty soon all 1,838 photographs were on the internet, where they dominated the world of electrons for the next six months. A famous artist selected fifty of the most interesting photographs and created a collage. The collage and the original photos, with identifying information, became a show at a London gallery and then traveled the world for five years. 

And that was only the tip of the iceberg. The pictures were everywhere. A member of the senior nomenklatura would go out for dinner at a three-star restaurant, and when he unfolded his napkin, there would be a small picture of his butt saying Somotomo. It went on for years. 

During this time I died, but since this is a story I will tell you a few more chapters. There is no ending.

It would be nice if all this ridicule had caused a revolution, but it didn't. The president lived on, becoming increasingly senile. As the government, lacking its center, slowly ground to a halt, a neighboring country invaded, annexed all the territory, and killed the president and the entire 1,837 members of the top three ranks of the nomenklatura.

Somotomo lived on for a few more years and then passed away peacefully. There was a moderately large private funeral, attended mainly by women. The new owners of the country didn't understand Somotomo's role in the former state, so they did not perceive the funeral as a threat, and they ignored the continuous flowers on Somotomo's grave.

After a while, an event in a far-away place had a dramatic effect on the land of Somotomo. The emperor of the conquering army, who was very old, died. He had three sons, and each one wanted to be the new emperor. This disagreement quickly turned into what historians call a war for the succession, which we might call a three-way civil war.

One morning, the residents of the land of Somotomo awoke to a surprise. During the night, all the foreigners had quietly departed. One of the soldiers left a note for his girlfriend, explaining that they had all been called back to the empire's capital city, to help out with the civil war.

Over breakfast, and then in the streets, the people all gathered to discuss this strange turn of events. People had a great deal of difficulty dealing with the idea that, after so many years, they were no longer under the yoke of tyranny.

In the late morning, something else happened. The Underground surfaced. A leader with the nom de guerre of Camilla - the women of this country had always been allowed to go to school, and many of them were well grounded in the classics - came to the city's main square, accompanied by several hundred other women, who called themselves the Amazons. Camilla had brought with her a six-foot folding ladder, carried by her chief of operations, who had taken the more modern name of Xena. 

Camilla climbed the ladder and addressed the crowd, which became quiet and followed her words carefully. 

She declared a provisional government, with herself as the head. She announced elections in three months, with all adult citizens allowed to vote. This new constituent assembly would write a constitution, to be ratified by a vote of all the people. After that vote, the provisional government would hand power to the new constitutional government.

It all sounded a little complicated and boring. The people loved it. Instead of going home for lunch, they decided to stay in the square. Enterprising restaurateurs soon set up trestle tables and produced massive quantities of the people's favorite foods. 

The party lasted three days, and then the people got to work.

I will end my story here, but obviously the story does not end here.

Oh, one last thing. The country got a new name: Somotomo.

Who needs elevators? Prague 2013.

See also Elon Musk Is a Martian, The 800-Pound Gorilla in the Oval Office, And So the Worm Turned, Little Karl.

A Personal Note on the Relevance of History

In my opinion, American exceptionalism has been a double-barreled weapon: It has distorted our own history, and it has led us, as a people, to neglect the relevant history of other countries. This has allowed American fascists to deny that they are about to do what they have long planned to do. 

The historical record is plain, which is why the fascists do everything they can to divert you from reading the relevant books. I encourage you, especially if you work for a newspaper or a television station, to do your homework. And yes, this means reading books. Steal back one hour a day from your rather intense dalliance with social media, and read a book. You especially need to do this because your bosses are incorrigible. Either they think they will do well in fascism - they can point to Giovanni Agnelli of Fiat - or they will be happily gulled every time. The naivete of the bosses never ceases to amaze me. If you are properly armed, you may be able to divert them away from following their worst instincts, at least in some cases. - wkw

86 47

We Are Ruled by Evil Pygmies

Blue Marble, 1972.

I remember the first time I heard the term 86. I was on a small boat with my friend Greg Cukor, in a little bay next to the terra firma of Long Island. We were perhaps fourteen years old, and for our expedition some kindly adult had packed a lunch of sandwiches and several glass bottles of Coca-Cola. It was a beautiful, sunny day with a light breeze. After I finished a Coke, I asked Greg what I should do with the bottle, and he said, "86 it." 

I didn't know what that meant, so he showed me. Apparently it was bad form just to toss a Coke bottle over the side into the water, because it might float and thereby spoil everybody's view of the pristine bay. Instead, he took my bottle and held it under water until it filled, and then released it. He explained that the bottle would then sink to the sandy bottom, where Mother Nature would eventually turn it into sand and seaglass. This was well before the first Earth Day in 1970, so throwing trash into the water sounded quite reasonable to me.

I have fond memories of that day, and I am unwilling to let the Trumpies steal one bit of that day from me. 86 means to discard a Coke bottle in what appeared at the time to be an appropriate manner.

Recently James Comey was on a beach; he took a picture of some seashells arranged to spell out 86 47 and posted the picture online. The Trumposphere went bananas, saying 86 meant "assassinate." These people are idiots - powerful and evil, but idiots nonetheless.

I personally think that disposing of Donald Trump in an appropriate and timely manner is a very good idea. I propose that we swim around underwater for a bit and rediscover Atlantis. I'm sure it's down there somewhere. Dust things off, clean the bilge, make sure the air purifiers are working, and send Trump to Atlantis. ASAP.

Oh - and make sure there is a large supply of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I'm thinking no cheeseburgers; he needs to watch his cholesterol. And we should see to it that he receives regular visits from SpongeBob SquarePants. They can amuse themselves by arguing about the size of their audiences.

See also The 800-Pound Gorilla in the Oval Office, Little Karl, Message for the Mad King.

Which America Do We Want?

This one?

Or this one?

It's up to us.

Top photo: Asbury Park boardwalk, 2024. Artists: Logan Hicks and Joe Iurato. 

Bottom photo: Boston, 1976. Photographer: Stanley Forman, Boston Herald American. For more on this incident and its aftermath, click here, here, and here. 

See also Wounded Souls, A Teacher's Dilemma.

"ice cowboy gestapo"

When Does ICE Start Shooting Elected Officials?

Brad Lander and a few thugs.

Donnie Trump already has blood on his hands - two dead in Minnesota (no song yet). But stochastic violence - the kind that you encourage from afar, by innuendo - can be plausibly presented as random, and usually is, by the perpetrator. 

It's also less satisfying to the perpetrator. I think Trump - and the lady with the allergic reaction and the dead goat - are feeling the urge to go full fascist. Hey, I could shoot someone dead in the middle of Fifth Avenue, and nobody would do anything. (That's not the exact quote, but that's where his id was going.) 

Republican senators and representatives have been saying for some time that they toe the line because they're afraid for themselves and their families. People are threatening them, warning them to stay in line. 

What happens when Trump decides to cut out the middleman? I'm sure John Roberts will clutch his pearls.

But here's the thing. Trump will do anybody. You don't need a D after your name. An R will work just as well. 

Rand Paul is already having difficulties with invitations to the White House.

When will those schmucks in the Capitol wake up?

Too late, I'm afraid.

Four dead in Ohio.

Here's a later video version of the song. You may not sleep well after watching this video. To see it, click here.

The title of this story - "ice cowboy gestapo" - comes from an article in AMNY. To see it, click here.

See also Giacomo Matteotti (1885-1924), Trump Is a Russian Agent.

Giacomo Matteotti (1885-1924)

His Story Tells Us Trump Is Losing 

Giacomo Matteotti.

On May 30, 1924, Giacomo Matteotti gave a speech to the Italian parliament, of which he was a member. Ten days later, he was dead - murdered by Prime Minister Mussolini's thugs. 

For the next several months, everyone in Italy held their breath. But in the end, Mussolini's true power base - the country's elite - refused to move against him. The king? Crickets. The pope? Ditto. The industrialists, the big farmers? They all stood behind their boy. The police, the judges, the army? They all toed the line.

And that was when Mussolini knew he owned the country. He lasted another twenty years and then was strung up by his heels in a gas station on the outskirts of Milan. 

Matteotti's sin was to say the quiet part out loud. People had to know what was going on in the provinces, with Fascist goons upending the election process and generally intimidating anyone who did not toe the Fascist line. But people hid their eyes behind a veil of plausible deniability.

"The outcry over Matteotti's murder offered the king and the conservative establishment their best opportunity to remove Mussolini from office. Once again, several paths were open to them. They chose not to press their doubts over Mussolini to the point of active steps to remove him, however, fearful that this would open the way to renewed chaos or to a government of the Left." (Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism, 2004, p. 110.) 

I think the situation in the United States today differs from the situation in Italy in two important ways. First, the people have not been quelled. We just saw that, again, on No Kings day, last Saturday. Second, the elites are not solid in their support of Trump. In fact, I see cracks developing pretty much everywhere.

Just look at Trump's birthday parade. Can we talk about the army's malicious compliance? I think so. The police are busy distancing themselves from ICE. The judges have in many instances stood up, and the lower courts are placing the Supreme Court in a bind. Roberts does not want to go down in history as the worst chief justice ever. America's Catholic bishops have think twice about doing what they want to do - the pope may be displeased.

Business is all over the place, trying to figure out how to deal with Trump's economic insanity. Although I'm sure that Jamie Dimon still has that little Mussolini plush doll that he goes to bed with every night. 

And the big farmers never expected Trump to deport all their workers, which is what he seemed about to do until they ran to him whining. So you can look for Trump to keep invading the big blue cities, where the pickings are much slimmer and where he runs the risk of being stuck in quagmire and humiliated when he discovers that he can't easily turn around and get out. One place where the TACO strategy won't work. 

Oh, wait. Now they're going after the farm workers again. Or maybe not. Oh, well. It doesn't matter. Either way, they're screwed.

Even the mainstream media are beginning to move quietly away from their stance as enablers of fascism. I do wish they, and certain Democratic politicians, would stop acting surprised by current events. We've been in a cold civil war since the 2016 election. Now, after the 2024 election, it's turning hot. Shock, yes. The spilling of actual blood here is a shock. It is not a surprise.

Meanwhile, Democratic governors are standing up and defending the rights of their sovereign states. No such power bases existed in Italy.

I think that Trump may be feeling right now a lot like Lemuel Gulliver felt when he woke up on the beach in Lilliput and found that he could not move. The Lilliputians had tied him down with the strongest ropes they had. To Gulliver, these ropes looked like fine silk thread. But there were a lot of them, and he couldn't move. 

One more thought

Mussolini hesitated for several months to walk through the open door that had been presented to him. It was only after a meeting with senior party members, who were not amused by his dilly-dallying, that he screwed up his courage and walked through the door to a full dictatorship. (Paxton, p. 110.) 

In America, I think there are several people in Trump's orbit who would be happy to replace him. JD Vance is number one in the line of succession, and I'm sure his master Peter Thiel would be pleased to see him ascend to the top spot.

For an interesting story from 1926, in Time magazine, click here. It appears that the goons who killed Matteotti weren't any better at their job than Kristi Noem was at killing her goat. 

See also Just Another Picture, Kristi Noem Shot Her Dog and Her Goat, Unleashing the Oligarchs, Quagmire, Mussolini's Personal Sex Factory, Fascism, What Happened in Ferrara?

No King, No Clown!

Most People Say No Crown, but, Well, You Know ...

Waiting for the start.

The No Kings rally in Philadelphia on Saturday, June 14, was a big, happy gathering with some knockout speakers, most notably Jamie Raskin, member of Congress and Constitutional scholar. The sky was overcast, and there were some sprinkles, but the crowd, estimated at up to 100,000, didn't seem to mind. 

Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, my eight-year-old grandson marched with a Support Ukraine sign.

Photo courtesy of Alicia West.

These were only two of many, many protests. The organizers are reporting up to 11 million participants across the nation, and they're still counting. The people have spoken (again). Will the deaf-mute Republicans in the Senate pay us any mind? Kill the bill, boys and girls!

And four people - two state legislators and their spouses - were shot in Minnesota. Police are seeking a 57-year-old man named Vance Luther Boelter. He's reportedly 6 foot 1 and 220 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. 

And of course Little Donnie Trump had his birthday party in Washington, D.C. He and a few thousand of his closest friends played tin soldier. It rained. And of course there was the District's famous combo of heat and swamp-like humidity. Spectators were not allowed to bring water.

I have a bible verse for Donnie: "For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind." (Hosea 8:7.) 

Here's what will be on my sign at the next rally:

Boil Ice - Turn Up the Heat!

See also Message for the Mad King.

Kristi Noem Shot Her Dog and Her Goat

But She Didn't Shoot a U.S. Senator

So should we be grateful? I don't think so. But I wouldn't be surprised if she thought so. 

That's how Nazi uberfrauen think: Be grateful I didn't kill you.

These people have to go. Now.

Two stories from the Guardian (not subject to censorship):

On the dog-goat thing (click here).

On U.S, Senator Alex Padilla (click here).

See also: Message for the Mad King.

The Significance of a Stroll

There Is Magic in Walking Together 

George Washington at the Battle of Princeton,
January 3, 1777.

I had a history professor in college named John Shy. He was a military historian, and he had an interesting take on George Washington's approach to the Revolutionary War.

The early part of the Revolution was not good for George, and I think most people have no idea how close the Americans came to losing the war at the Battle of Brooklyn in August 1776 and in the subsequent campaign. (For more, see The Gowanus Transforms, Again.)

At some point, however, Washington realized that the key to his success would not come in a major battle where all the chips were on the table. Instead, he came to realize that his path to success lay in keeping his army together and in the field. As long as he did that, the Brits could not declare victory.

And that's what he did. He also crossed the Delaware in December 1776 and smacked the snot out of the Hessian mercenaries who thought they had settled into winter quarters in Trenton.

The counterpunches were essential to staying in the war, but the key strategy was to maintain a force in being and never gamble the whole army on a single cast of the dice.

Time helped him in many ways. The Continental Army got better. The Brits, under pressure to suppress a surprisingly durable rebellion, kept trying things that didn't work. And eventually the French came in, and the fighting ended at Yorktown.

I think there is a lesson here for patriotic Americans today. We face a government controlled by Donald Trump and his fellow fascists. They control the high ground. But they do not control the people.

Properly led, the people will win this fight. But the key is maintaining the force in being. The fascists will do everything they can to demoralize and scatter us. We must do everything we can to maintain our solidarity and staying power.

People wonder whether rallies and marches do any good. The answer is yes. People need to stand with their fellow soldiers, shoulder to shoulder, and see that they are part of a much bigger movement. It is an energizing and uplifting experience.

I often hear the thought that a rally in Philadelphia will have no effect on a Republican farmer in Iowa. And I think there is truth in that. A very large part of the American population in the Revolution was essentially neutral. The key was in the hands of the active patriots, and keeping them in the field as an organized force.

So when someone tells you that rallies are a waste of time, and we're failing to reach the indecisive middle, just tell them that the primary mission is to keep our organization together, well trained, well equipped, well led, and in the field.

No Kings.

Charles Wilson Peale painted George Washington at the Battle of Princeton several times. The version above was completed in 1779 and currently resides at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. 

See also We Were There All Along; Quagmire, The Gowanus Transforms, Again; Why Do We Do Sports Anyway?

Viva la Muerte!

Does Joni Ernst Have a Death Wish?

U.S. Senator Ernst "apologizing."

All Joni Ernst did at her May 30 town hall was state the obvious in an inappropriate context. After all, it is true: "We all are going to die." Her interlocutors may have been inarticulate, but their meaning should have been clear to her. People who will die without their medicine would like to have their medicine. Ernst didn't want to address that issue, so she sought to shift the argument away from it and managed to pull off a gaffe that may end her career.

And then she put out an "apology" video that made matters even worse.

There are actually less attractive positions on this particular mine field. I don't think, for instance, that she's an actual death lover. Back in the Spanish Civil War, Franco's fascist troops used to shout Viva la muerte! Which means Long live death!

I don't think she's there. But I think she may be on nearby territory. In an old Ingmar Bergman movie, an attractive young woman says, "I often long for death." She said it in Swedish, but as I recall there were subtitles.

It happens. Some people have just seen too much. Others see a catastrophic failure in their immediate future, and would rather not go through it. "Shoot me now" was the semi-joke at one of my jobs.

It's possible that Ernst has seen too much and also has a clear view of the coming days. I wonder how many people like her are floating around in Trump World.

See also Just Another Picture, Message for the Mad King.

Thanks to All

June Begins on Sunday

Many minds came together, and many hands worked together. This poster indicates that the new loading zones and no-stopping signs are coming to Pine and Spruce in June. 

See also Mayor Parker Signs No Stopping Bill.

Just Another Picture

What the Future Holds

In case you're interested, Donald Trump is staring at his own death. He actually seems a bit surprised. He's turning 79 next month, so he shouldn't be surprised. Maybe he thought he was going to live forever. I just turned 78. Donnie should grow up and face the music.

Meanwhile, little Mikey Johnson is also staring at Trumpie's death, and he seems quite happy, not to say smug. He knows in his heart that JD Vance - the Tool of Thiel -  won't last long. And then he - Master Mikey - will ascend to the throne - oops, the White House. It will not be a techno-fascist state. It will be a theocratic fascist state. 

Or maybe they will once again come up just a bit short. A falling out among thieves can go in a bunch of different directions. 

See also Sacrilege, Elon Musk Is a Martian, The Tool of Thiel in Thule, Unleashing the Oligarchs.

Evening on the Boardwalk

Finding Peace, With or Without a Crowd

Asbury Park's boardwalk becomes a different place at the end of the day. Usually there are fewer people, and the light is softer. The world is suggesting to us, by reducing the intensity of our environment, that it might be time to reduce our internal intensity. 

There are also special gifts, like the eastern sky in the picture above. This display is known as the Belt of Venus. It doesn't happen every night, but it's worth keeping an eye out for it. 

Sunsets in Asbury Park can be quite intense, and I love those too. But the quiet pastels of the Belt of Venus have a special place in my heart. 

At what time does the evening begin? I find that's a tricky question. Back when I was working, my evening began at 5 o'clock. Not that my work necessarily stopped at 5, but the gears inside my head definitely shifted. 

Astronomers seem to prefer the term twilight, which itself has a number of different definitions - civil, nautical, astronomical. Evening, on the other hand, seems entirely up for grabs.

I've decided it's a conversation between my external world and my internal life.

The position of the sun is important, of course, but again there is flexibility. The photo above was taken about 6 pm last October. The photo below (taken from a rooftop restaurant, by the way) is from last July, at 7 pm. For me, both of these are evening.

Again, I think it's the softness of the light that makes it evening. 

Eventually, of course, the sun goes down, and a little later we get to something called last light. Then the sky finally gives up being blue and becomes black velvet. But I would argue that, even then, evening can continue.

This can be assisted, as the natural light fades, by the deft addition of artificial light. The key here is to mix and balance the various light sources to provide a gentle, pleasing illumination. Below is, I think, a good example of doing it right. 

So when is evening? It's when your world and your mind agree that you are in the evening. 

See also Lighting Rittenhouse, City of Lights, Umbrellaville, Night Lights at Coney Island, Painting with Light.

Medicine in 1726

Gulliver Explains to the Houyhnhnms

Jonathan Swift, aka Lemuel Gulliver.

In her May 4 letter,  Heather Cox Richardson explains that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and a member Donald Trump's cabinet, appears not to believe in "the foundational principle of modern medicine: germ theory." Instead, he seems to be attracted by the older "miasma theory" and also "terrain theory."

I found this news sufficiently depressing that I went in search of an antidote. Fortunately, one was ready to hand. I had recently reread Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, which was first published in 1726. In the last part of the book, Gulliver finds himself in the land of the Houyhnhnms, explaining medicine to his Houyhnhnm host, who is a horse (all the Houyhnhnms are horses).

He told his host that "there was a Sort of People bred up among us, in the Profession or Pretence of curing the Sick. ... Their fundamental is that all Diseases arise from Repletion [a state of being filled or overfilled]; from whence they conclude that a great Evacuation of the Body is necessary, either through the natural Passage, or upwards at the Mouth. Their next Business is from Herbs, Minerals, Gums, Oyls, Shells, Salts, Juices, Sea-weed, Excrements, Barks of Trees, Serpents, Toads, Frogs, Spiders, dead Men's Flesh and Bones, Beasts and Fishes, to form a Composition for Smell and Taste the most abominable, nauseous and detestable, that they can possibly contrive, which the Stomach immediately rejects with Loathing: And this they call a Vomit. Or else from the same Store-house, with some other poynsonous Additions, they command us to take in at the Orifice above or below (just as the Physician then happens to be disposed), a Medicine equally annoying and disgustful to the Bowels; which relaxing the Belly, drives down all before it: And this they call a Purge, or a Clyster." 

(Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels, ed. Daniel Cook, 2023, pp. 255-256; if you're looking at a different edition, search in part 4, chapter 6.) 

There's more, but I'll spare you.

People have been sending copies of George Orwell's 1984 to their senators and members of Congress. I think maybe I'll start going to used bookstores and picking up dog-eared copies of Gulliver's Travels and sending them to Washington, D.C. 

Quack.

The portrait of Jonathan Swift above was painted by Charles Jervas in 1710. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons. 

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

Sacrilege

We live in a secular age, and I think it may be hard for many people to understand the gravity of what Donald Trump has done by pretending to dress himself in the pope's clothes.

Sacrilege is a word you don't hear much anymore. One definition is "gross irreverence toward a hallowed person, place, or thing" (Merriam-Webster). Synonyms include blasphemy, defilement, profanation.

Recently I was working on an article about eighteenth-century France, and I came across a story about a young man who did much less that Donald Trump has just done:

Back in everyday France, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes meant that the government would persecute people who did not toe the Catholic line. Professor Darnton provides a vivid picture of what this oppression could look like on an individual level. This example is actually from the reign of Louis XV: "Francois-Jean, Chevalier de la Barre, was convicted of blasphemy and sacrilege in 1765. He had failed to take off his hat when a religious procession with the Eucharist passed by in a street in Abbeville, and according to a rumor, he and other feckless young men had desecrated a cross. ... He was condemned to have his tongue cut out, to be beheaded, and to have his body burned on a bonfire... ." In the end, the excision of the tongue was removed from the menu of butchery, but the rest of the sentence was carried out. 

_________

To see the whole blog post, click here.

Elon Musk Is a Martian

By Way of Russia

Pretending to be human in Wisconsin.

Poor little Elon. All he really wants to do is go home. Recently leaked documents from Russia's most secret archives allow us to tell this story in detail, and perhaps create some sympathy for someone who currently is not receiving the adulation he once basked in.

We need dial back only a few decades to start at the beginning. Despite recent despicable slanders, Elon is not 500 years old, and he is not a vampire. He and his twin sister Nola were born on Mars to their loving parents, OgOg and BipBip, in what earthlings would call the 1940s. It was an age of exploration for the earthlings, but the Martians had been traveling around the galaxy for a very long time, not finding all that much of interest, but they did come across a lovely vacation spot called the dark side of the moon. Martians in general loved to go there because it was dark. Apparently it's very sunny on Mars, and Martians were very pleased to find a place where they could sit outside in the dark and not have to wear their sunglasses.

One day an interesting group of people arrived from earth. The Martians initially had trouble communicating with them, but the Martians had long been accustomed to using the translation devices on their cell phones to communicate with the odd people they ran across in their travels. It turned out that the new arrivals were from a place on earth called Russia, and they were very interested in setting up a mining operation on the moon, digging up various things that would be useful in their conflict with the evil Americans, who were apparently very unkind to the Russians. 

The Martians knew a lot about mining, but they weren't terribly interested in helping the Russians. However, in their conversations, something else came up. The Russians said they were having problems with their "sleeper agents." It turned out that the Russians would take small Russian children from their families and train them to be Americans. After they reached a certain age, they would secretly insert them into American society, where they were supposed to blend in and, with deft handling, quietly move into positions of influence, where they could help their masters at home in the struggle agains the evil Americans.

The problem was that the sleeper agents, once they arrived in America, had an alarming tendency to tell their Russian handlers to fuck off - they were in America, they were Americans, and if their Russian handlers gave them any problems, they would rat out the whole system to the entire alphabet soup of American government agencies that had no idea what was going on. 

The Russians didn't know what to do, so they killed all their sleeper agents. But they still liked the idea. They just needed a source of better agents.

The Martians perked up at that. A few thousand years previously, the Martian government had decided that it needed to control the size of the Martian population. Martians tended to live a long time, and also to be reasonably fertile, and of course the soil on Mars was not terribly fertile (although very handsomely red) and so could only grow so much food.

It was decreed that, when a Martian couple reached the age of 500, it would have to decide whether to commit suicide or kill its two children (any children in excess of two had already been sent on their way). This naturally caused much unhappiness to Martian families, who normally wound up killing the children (although occasionally their children, if they were old enough to know what was going on, would beat their parents to the punch).

And so one day OgOg and BipBip and Elon and Nola got in their spaceship and cruised over to the dark side of the moon, where they spent time lying out in the dark and chatting with the Russian visitors. Eventually a deal was reached. OgOg and BipBip were paid uranium and caviar, all brought up carefully from earth. Uranium was in short supply on Mars, and neither of them had ever seen caviar before, although they had heard about it from friends (who never got around to sharing).

OgOg and BipBip told Elon and Nola that they would be going to a summer camp on earth, of all places, and introduced them to their counselors, Ivan and Svetlana. And then they got into their spaceship with their loot, and hightailed it back to Mars.

Elon and Nola spent several months on the far side of the moon, where Ivan and Svetlana taught them Russian and English and other useful subjects. Then it was time for the trip down to earth.

Russian rockets in those days were very prone to blowing up at inconvenient moments. Ivan and Svetlana told the children that, just as a precaution, they would be traveling to earth on two separate rockets. (They did not tell the children that Russians who actually made it to the moon always chose never to make the return journey.)

Elon thought his trip from the moon to earth was the most fantastic experience of his life - the flames and roar of the rocket were so much more exciting than the quiet humming of Martian spaceships. He was absolutely entranced when Nola's rocket blew up. He thought he now understood what the American phrase "a ringside seat" meant. (The two rockets had been spaced a good distance apart, to make sure that an explosion in one would not affect the other.)

After a few years of preparation in Mother Russia, Elon was inserted into an Ivy League university in the United States, with a fake past that he had carefully memorized. And the rest is history - except for this: Recently, Elon has developed a strong desire to return home to Mars. He wants to see his parents and tell them of his exploits. And then, because he must, he will kill them.

On, Wisconsin!

 See also The 800-Pound Gorilla in the Oval Office, Slingshot, Little Karl, Is Elon Musk a Vampire?

The Dead Do Speak

We Need to Listen More

Portuguese cemetery, children's section,
New Bedford, Mass.

I had a dream the other night. I originally thought I was on an archeological dig, somewhere in southern Europe or possibly the Middle East. I was standing in a room that was well-lit - it lacked a roof - and staring at the jumble of dirt and detritus that covered the floor.

There was a linear lump on the floor, about three feet long and covered by dirt and dust. I brushed away some of the covering material and started to reveal a piece of stone, possibly granite, maybe eight inches in width. There was writing on the stone. I brushed further and cleared enough to see that the letters, incised in the stone and possibly four inches tall, said PhillyCarShare.

I then realized that I was standing in the ruins of Philadelphia, some centuries or perhaps millennia in the future. It was very hot and dry. I had thought that the global warming prognosis for Philadelphia was hot and rainy and, of course, underwater. But my sleeping imagination had other ideas.

This dream was obviously prompted by a few paragraphs in Bernard Knox's introduction to Robert Fagles' translation of the Aeneid, which in turn echo Shelley's "Ozymandias." (To see the Knox anecdote, click here.) 

PhillyCarShare was the first car-share organization in Philadelphia. It was organized by members of the community. The big corporate money was not, at that time, interested in car share. After PhillyCarShare proved the concept, they moved in and, in the process, engulfed and devoured PhillyCarShare.

One of the founders of PhillyCarShare was Tanya Seaman, a well-known community activist in Philadelphia. She left us a few years ago. I remember her fondly and, as this dream indicates, I'm probably thinking about her even when I'm not aware that I'm thinking about her. 

Waverly at 19th. Still in service. Still useful, for both
the present and a sense of the past.

See also For Athena, What I've Learned.

The Tool of Thiel in Thule

One Way to Escape the Atlantic Signal Debacle

The tool of course is the man who currently goes by the name of JD Vance. There he is above, wearing a coat that appears slightly too large for him. He visited Thule for three hours on March 28.

The Thiel in question is Peter Thiel, just another billionaire tech bro oligarch. He may not be the only person in his cohort who plans to live forever, but perhaps we should be grateful that he doesn't seem to have any interest in going to Mars.  

Thule is a place in Greenland that has a new name: Pituffik. It was a very important base for the U.S. Strategic Air Command back during the Cold War; now it seems to be basically a placeholder awaiting a new mission. 

The word Thule is an import from the ancient Mediterranean world. Strabo, in his Geography I, 4, 2, tells us that Pytheas of Massalia (the modern Marseille in France) reported that Thule lay "six days' sail north from Britain, and near the Frozen Sea." Pytheas was a geographer and explorer who seems to have circumnavigated the British Isles around 325 B.C. He wrote a book about his travels, which was well known in antiquity, but has not come down to us. 

More generally, it seems the ancients thought of Thule as the northernmost land in the world.

And perhaps Thule, or Pituffik, which apparently means "the place where the dogs are tied" in the local language, is a useful metaphor for the current American regime: cold and empty. Or, to put it more simply, the end of the world. 

___________________________

Starting during World War II, the American military established and maintained a bunch of installations on Greenland. My favorite is Project Iceworm, which was supposed to establish a large network of launch stations for nuclear missiles, all buried under the ice. After a while, the military figured out that the Greenland ice sheet was moving faster than anticipated, and that building launch pads on ice was more like building on cold jello than building on concrete. In due course, the military decided that it could not put lipstick on this pig, and shut the program down.

I had the thought that Project Iceworm, with some information declassified in 1996, might have influenced the plot of a movie called Smilla's Sense of Snow, which was released in 1997. In the movie, which is a mystery, it turns out that a meteorite has fallen to earth in Greenland, and eventually we learn that the meteorite contains poisonous worms. But the movie is based on a book, Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow, that was published in 1992. 

In 1968, a B-52 bomber crashed near Thule with four nuclear bombs aboard, causing a significant release of radioactive material but no nuclear or thermonuclear detonation. The general outlines of this story were public knowledge from the beginning; other interesting details have emerged over the years. I think it would be a stretch to suggest that the crash might have inspired the Smilla novel and movie. But it is one more example of non-Greenlanders using Greenland as their playpen.

_______________________________

And yes, JD Vance dropped a college football trophy on April 14. You can google it for yourself. Awkward, clumsy, maladroit.

See also A Campaign Poster, Is Elon Musk a Vampire? 

April Open Streets

Philly Redefines the Street

Adults bring a little magic; children bring their sense of wonder; and before you know it Open Streets: West Walnut has another successful outing.

I think the skinny white barriers are new.

This is the third edition of these open streets, following the inaugural last September and the Let's Do It Again! in December. Sponsored by Philadelphia's Center City District, these open streets started with a strong plan and have been improving on that start in subtle ways, with each new outing. (And, yes, I'm a cheerleader. That's because I think they're doing a good - and important - job.)

The basic layout - closing several blocks of Walnut and 18th streets near Rittenhouse Square - remains unchanged. And the hours are still 10 am to 5 pm.

This banner may be new.

And you've got to activate the empty space you have just opened. Very few people will go to empty spaces where there are no attractions.You need the lady on stilts. And chalk. And a really big chess set. And bean-bag. And ping-pong. And double-dutch jump-roping. 

The barriers also work on sidewalks.

And musicians. And a guy blowing bubbles. (I personally think they could use a juggler.)

The photos here are all from Sunday, April 6. This edition of open streets will run every Sunday in April. It seems the Easter Bunny may show up on April 20, which happens to be Easter Sunday.

In the afternoon on April 6, there were a few drops of rain. This slowed the festivities a bit, but it definitely did not stop them. Here are the swing dancers. They are Rittenhouse regulars, usually down by the goat, at the southwest corner of the park. And they are dancing in the rain. Gene Kelly would be very happy.

I'm wondering when the Center City District will decide to do open streets every Sunday, at least in the warm weather. 

See also Open Streets: West Walnut and Can Open Streets Go Year-Round?

Message for the Mad King

The People Are Angry. All of Them.

At the Hands Off rally in Philadelphia on Saturday, April 5, the people had a simple message: Dump Trump.

I understand that radicalization is a progressive process. I think the people have completed the process. They are not interested in the next presidential election in nearly four years, or in the congressional elections in nearly two years. They are interested in dumping Trump right now.

The people are serious, and they are angry. They see clearly that the roof is falling in, and they want Trump out now.

What will Trump do? He won't quit, and I don't think he's going to back off on the tariffs. I think he is mad.

I have a feeling that JD Vance may try to steal the moment by invoking the 25th amendment. I think the tech bros know that the market crash will destroy them if they don't turn it around.

What will the religious fascists do? I don't know.

What will Chuck Schumer do? Sit on his hands. I hope the rest of the Dems have a better response in this moment.

See also Is the Ship Sinking? Yes.