The Year of Our Discontent

 

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

A great deal of water has passed under the bridge since Dickens published his novel A Tale of Two Cities in 1859 wherein he described a time leading up to the French Revolution and its Reign of Terror.  Even he could see a ray of hope amid the darkness. I think I can safely say that very little that has occurred over the past 12 months can ameliorate the long litany of death, disasters, police violence, racial unrest, unemployment, contempt for civilized behavior, and to top it all off, an all out assault on the Constitution and American democracy led by the very individuals we elected to uphold and protect them.  Just one year ago I had no idea that 2020 was going to turn into an annus horriblis, a dystopian world of almost epic and catastrophic proportions.  It was the worst of times . . . period.

As I sit here writing this, the weather has turned quite dreary as a large and intense winter storm is headed eastward from the Great Plains; a particularly drab ending to an exceedingly grotty year.  New Year’s Eve is normally a happy time.  At the end of a festive holiday season we are glad to welcome a new year of promise while bidding a wistful farewell to the year gone by.  Not this time.  All I can say is good riddance!

It is time to look to the future although I must confess that 2021 will not be getting off to an auspicious start.  Over 300,000 have died from the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic in this country and the number of deaths continue to rise at an alarming rate.  Just this past week a new, more virulent strain of the virus first recorded in the United Kingdom, has now reached our shores and we know neither how it arrived or how it might spread.  There are major problems rolling out new vaccines whose impact on combating the original virus is yet to be quantified and our government continues to be as flummoxed and dismissive as it has been since the pandemic began.  The new year will continue to find this country locked down and isolated from the rest of the world.

We look forward to the inauguration of a new, caring, and qualified president after the four year nightmare of the T*** interregnum during which it turned a blind eye to the needs of the country and its people.  It dismantled programs to provide proper health care, especially as the pandemic ravaged the country, as well as efforts to address climate change and environmental degradation.  It abandoned our allies while getting cozy with brutal dictators.  It allowed the president and his family to stuff their pockets and purses with ill-gotten riches at the expense of the American people.  And even after being cast out by a substantial majority of the electorate it continues to attack the Constitution seeking ways to overturn the outcome, claiming the election was stolen while failing to provide any evidence to support its claims.  As a result, this country has divided into two widely divergent camps.  America is not what it used to be and we can honestly wonder whether it will ever be the same again.

Pardon me if I don’t toot my horn, throw confetti, set off fireworks, or pop open that bottle of champagne.  I don’t want to be a party pooper, but 2021 is already beginning to dim before that magical hour of anticipated renewal.  However, I remain hopeful for the little blessings we continue to enjoy and cherish even though I know it is going to be an uphill slog over the coming months.  That is why we should all try just a little harder . . . give it that extra measure of positivity as we welcome 2021.

So let me wish you and yours a happier and healthier New Year.  Let’s hope for the best.  It’s all we can really do.

Merry Christmas!

Wishing all of my Christian friends a very Merry Christmas and a Peaceful New Year. I hope that your holiday is a festive one and that you and your families remain safe and healthy. May your days ahead be blessed with much happiness and fulfillment. Let us reflect wisely and grow spiritual to become better individuals and caring communities.
 

Prawns and Penquins at Sunset

My “Eating Vicariously” series to date has been primarily a romp through some interesting local eating establishments in the Washington, DC area . . . places where I would like to be eating right now if that were possible during the COVID-19 pandemic.  In my last posting I recalled some memorable adventures with German Wurst.  This time around I am thinking fondly of two meals I enjoyed in the environs of Cape Town, South Africa. 

I don’t think I will ever forget two meals my wife and I enjoyed during our stay in Cape Town, South Africa in 2017.  Long before we ever arrived in the West Cape after visiting the region and Johannesburg and a photo safari in the northeastern corner of the country, I promised myself that we would enjoy a quiet dinner on the water, eating local seafood as we watched the sun set over the South Atlantic.We savored several fine meals in and around Cape Town, but probably none so much as that promised sunset meal at La Perla.  An old-school

Mediterranean restaurant and a mainstay in the Sea Point neighborhood for over five decades, La Perlais located just over a mile down Beach Road from our waterfront flat at Green Point, a route we would become well familiar with during our stay.  It could not have matched my expectations any better had I designed the place myself.

It was a very pleasant southern hemisphere autumn evening and it was warm enough that we were able to sit on the terrace with a fine view of the ocean.  My wife ordered an attractively plated shrimp pasta dish while I went for all the gusto, ordering the seafood platter, the house specialty featuring an ethereal assortment of flavors – crayfish, langoustine, kingklip

(somewhat similar to cusk or ling in this country), calamari, mussels, and the piece de la resistance, both giant and Mozambican prawns.  A bottle of Stellenzicht Golden Triangle Pinotage from the Stellenbosch region east of Cape Town which we had visited earlier in the day rounded out this delicious meal.  A gentle breeze blew in off the Atlantic as we watched ships silhouetted by the setting sun as Cape Town’s Golden Mile cam alive with evening revelers.

Prawns were also on the menu a couple days later when we visited the African penguin colony at the Boulder Beach World Heritage Site on the southern edge of Simon’s Town.  After

strolling the beach with our new web-footed friends, also known as Jack Ass Penguins due to their distinctive mating call which resembles a mule braying, and  watching them waddling across the sand and swimming in the boulder-strewn azure water, we retired a very short distance to the Boulder Beach Inn and

Restaurant, a simple beach café serving a wide selection of reasonably priced dishes ranging from burgers and curries, salads, and fish and chips.  The menu leaned heavily toward seafood and why not? Once again I opted for the  Mozambican

prawns with butter and lemon which went fine with a couple bottles of the ubiquitous Castle Lager from  one of the oldest commercial breweries in South Africa in Johannesburg, First brewed in 1895, it is called "the beer that stood the test of time".  I had no complaints.  It was a pleasant early evening meal on the covered deck overlooking False Bay with stunning views toward Gordons Bay and the setting sun illuminating the sharp relief of the Hottentots-Holland Mountains beyond. 

It all seems so long ago and far away now but sitting here typing this it has all come back to me.  What I would not give for a platter of fresh seafood right now.  Better yet a pile of grilled prawns.   Throw in one of those beautiful sunsets and it would be enough to forget this pandemic.   Even for a short time.   So once again I close my eyes and daydream.   Everything is darkest before the prawns.

My Wurst Days Are Often My Best Days

My “Eating Vicariously” series to date has been a romp through some interesting local eating establishments in the Washington, DC area . . . places where I would like to be eating right now if that were possible during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Today I am making a  detour . . . not to just a place to eat, but instead I am focusing on a particular food in particular places I miss.

I have been thinking a great deal about authentic German sausages of late; how I would like to savor their aromas and flavors.  At the moment they are, for the most part, out of reach.   Sure, there are hot dogs, what I frequently called “tube steaks” when I was a kid, and what most Americans accept as bratwurst found in your local grocery stores, but these are a dim comparison to what I am referring to.  Granted, having grown up in the upper Midwest, I had an introduction to authentic German sausage long before I ever set foot in Germany.  There were German restaurants and delicatessens in my native Chicago, and in Milwaukee, where my family resided during my university days and which were familiar haunts on my home visits.  If you are lucky enough to reside in a large metropolitan area like Washington, DC, there are a few German restaurants and delis where one might purchase bona fide German sausages, but these are not as easy to access during the current pandemic with many restaurants closed and us locked down in our homes.   So what is a person to do?   For me it’s easy enough. I daydream.

It’s time to live and eat vicariously again, to look beyond the daily disquieting news reports, to look back to a happier time, at least for me personally.  In the early 1970s I was attending university in Freiburg im Breisgau, in Baden-Württemberg in the far southwestern corner of Germany where the Rhine River valley and the western edge of the Schwarzwald - the Black Forest - meet.   Not only did I submerge myself in German culture and language, I also explored the fascinating nuances of German regional cuisine, and none more so than the regional variants of the ubiquitous sausage - der Wurst.  I am not talking about what most American think of as sausage; hot dogs or those sausages found on pizzas and in various Italian dishes, or those links or patties served up with eggs and home fries for breakfast.

Still, I had no concept of the rich variety of regional sausage offerings in Germany.  Each region, indeed even some towns and cities, have their own unique  sausage recipes, and depending to whom you talk, there is a debate just how many there are.  I have been told that there are at least 1,500 varieties, each with their special  ingredients and blends of spices, and a method in which they are prepared and served:  Kochwurst (pre-cooked before processing and then cooked again - such as Leberwurst and Blutwurst); Brühwurst (scalded), including Fleischwurst, Bierwurst, Ziegeunerwurst and what we know as frankfurters or hot dogs in this country; and Rohwurst (raw) which is made from raw meats mixed with spices and then smoked for preservation, including Landjaeger which is somewhat similar to the Slim Jims one can purchase in almost any convenience store in America.  Brühwurst is certainly the most common with around 800 types available throughout Germany which can be served in variety of ways cold or hot.  Germans also face the age old conundrum as to what is the proper way to eat a traditional German Wurst in its myriad manifestations.  Yet there is one commonality to all of them.  Alles hat ein Ende aber nur die Wurst hat zwei. [Everything has an ending, but only the sausage has two].

When most Americans think of German sausage it is the Bratwurst which is normally made from roasted pork and grilled.  They can usually be found in the prepared meat sections of most supermarkets across the country and are often served at American sporting events along with onions and condiments.  The Bratwurst, of which there are also dozens of varieties, is probably the original Imbissbuden, or German street food, served from Schnellimbiss, or grill stand.

Probably the best known in Germany is the Nürnberger Rostbratwurst; a finger-sized course ground pork sausage seasoned with marjoram, ginger, and cardamom, and grilled over an open beech wood fire since the early 14th century.  They are frequently served up to a dozen at a time.  The Rostbratwurst is unique to Nürnberg and traditionally served with sauerkraut, potato salad, horseradish, mustard, fresh bread, and usually washed down with a local Franconian beer.

I had my first opportunity to sample this local variant in October 2015 when I was invited by the City of Nuremberg to speak at the 70th anniversary commemoration of the International Military Tribunal [The Nuremberg Trials], held there in 1945-1946.  After my presentation in the historic courtroom in the Palace of Justice, my hosts treated me to a wonderful dinner of Rostbratwurst at the Goldenes Posthorn, one of

Germany’s oldest restaurants established in 1498 and facing the old city hall and the St. Sebaldus Church (circa 1212) dedicated to the city’s patron saint.  Well-known to kings, artists, and intellectuals of their age, Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), a Nürnberg native, ate here frequently as did Hans Sachs (1494-1576), another native son and one of the city’s great Master Singers.  Richard Wagner (1813-1883) wrote the first part of his Die Meistersanger von Nürnberg here and the opera was first presented in Munich in 1868.  It is still

the repository of Dürer’s drinking cup and Sachs’ playing cards, dating from circa 1560.  I enjoyed my first platter of Nürnberg Rostbratwurst prepared by local butchers and served on tin plates along with drafts of the local Tucher beer.

On a following night I enjoyed another platter of Rostbratwurst at the Bratwursthäusle just a few steps from my hotel and also with a view of St. Sebaldus and the city’s main market square and the Frauenkirche [Church of Our Lady].  The eponymous

Rostbratwurst are made by the resident butchers insuring that only the freshest ingredients are used.  The sausages are

grilled on aged beechwood whose redolence strikes you as soon as you step inside.  Tired of sausages (how is this even possible)?  Both establishments also serve a variety of traditional Franconian dishes and regional wines. 

During my time in Nürnberg I made every effort to enjoy the local Rostbratwurst as much as possible as I was unlikely to find them elsewhere.  If you do not have the time or inclination to dine in a restaurant, they are also available “drei im Weggla” 

– three sausages smeared with mustard and served on a roll from any of the Schnellimbissen around town.   This is how I became familiar with German sausages in the first place.    It is a quick and delicious meal to go.

Living and studying in Germany it was easy enough to share an allegiance to the particular types of sausages native to the region I was then calling home.  I am referring to the various styles of Grillwürste – Bratwurst, Knackwurst, Weisswurst and Bockwurst – prepared and sold at Schnellimbissen found on the

market square surrounding the Freiburger Münster [cathedral circa 1200].  The stands closest to the entrance of the Münster were those most favored by tourists.  To keep business fair and equitable, the stands would rotate positions each month.  Common to all of these grill stands, however, was the popular lange Rote / rote Lange aka Münsterplatzwurst, certainly the

signature sausage in Freiburg im Breisgau.  It is the favorite style of Bratwurst in the Swabian region of Württemberg; similar to the Bockwurst, it is made from finely ground pork and bacon and a mix of spices and herbs.  

Freiburg’s market square was like a magnet.  After a day of classes it was a place to meet friends for a couple beers or to share a bottle of wine.  On days when I only had afternoon or evening classes, I would go there in the mornings to shop for fresh produce and whatever else struck my fancy, and I would always queue up at one of the grill stands for a quick lunch – a lange Rote nestled between two halves of a freshly baked

Brötchen or Weckle [small bread roll] referred to locally as a Fleischhandschuh [meat mitt] before returning to my flat to study and write.  Most of the grill stands were open from early morning until mid-afternoon when the market shut down for the day.  Call me a purist if you want, but to this day this is the way I always prefer to eat a German Wurst.

A lange Rote is like no other sausage, measuring a full 14 inches in length with a series of diagonal cuts to prevent it from splitting wide open during grilling.  I quickly learned the proper way to eat it so as not to give myself away as an outsider; those who request that their sausage be bent or cut in half so that it might better fit into its roll.  No self respecting Freiburger, or Bobbele (a topic for another time), would demean her-/himself to make such a request.  The only real question at hand was whether to order one’s lange Rote “mit oder ohne Zwiebel und Senf “ . . . with or without a topping of carmelized onions grown locally, or a dollop of spicy mustard. 

Strong are my memories of my introduction to the lange Rote

during my student days in Freiburg in the early 1970s.  I sampled a variety from various grill stands on the market square, but like most locals, one plights one’s troth to one or another and remains loyal even when the length of the queue might be longer than at the other stands.  In my case it was and still is the grill stand operated by four generations of the Meier family since it first appeared in 1949 at the same time some of the farmers at the market were offering boiled Wurst from pots along with their other wares.  Grilled Wurst first appeared in 1951 and the rest is history.

Back in the early 1970s, the Meier grill stand was basically a covered trailer with a small propane gas grill and just enough room for two people to work close together.  A rote Lange cost DM 1,50 [ca. US 50¢ , or $3.50 in 2020 dollars].  The equipment and price had not changed much on my subsequent visits through the 1990s, but I noticed major improvements on my most recent visit, in 2015.  Meier’s had taken up a

permanent location on the north side of the Münster.   The stand was much larger and modern with several grills and servers.  The menu now included a kurze Rote [short red] and a dicke Rote [fat red] which I am sure the tourists enjoyed as they both fit more snugly into the roll.  These were also available at most of the other stands.  Finally, Meier’s offerings included the unique scharfe Rote, a spicy version of the original lange Rote.  Amazing is the fact that the prices have remained stable at €2,50, or US$3.25.  Despite it all, I always ordered a lange Rote mit Zwiebel und Senf.

These days I am confined to eating the tube steaks and sausage links and patties familiar to Americans, but I can never stop thinking of those visits to the Freiburger  Marktplatz, or those more recent memorable meals at the Goldenes Posthorn and the Bratwursthäusle, in Nürnberg.  I can still hear the sizzling of the grill.  Sausages may have two ends, but there is no end to the joy afforded by German Wurst over the years.  Einfach lecker! [simple delicious]   Now pardon me as I return to my daydreaming.

Note Bene: if your mouth is watering right now as mine is, perhaps you will want to read my September 4, 2019 posting on the popular German Currywurst:
http/lookingtowardportugal.blogspot.com/2019/09/enjoying-currywurst-another-german.html

A Feast for Friends

Today I am sharing a Thanksgiving photograph from 49 years ago.

I was obviously taking great delight in carving the holiday turkey to celebrate Thanksgiving 1971 in Freiburg im Bresigau, West Germany where I was attending university.  The turkey was compliments of a kind soul I knew at the American post exchange at Patch Barracks, in Stuttgart.  It was a proper feast with a long table covered with the bird and all of the traditional trimmings and dishes along with a few local German offerings to round it out.  A little reminder of families and friends back home in America shared with new German friends.

Thanksgiving is not just about turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, or pumpkin pie.  It is for remembering families and friends, both old and new, and being grateful for it all.  It was a fine meal, but it was the friends who made the feast.

I hope yours was a safe and memorable holiday.

Happy Thanksgiving -- Stay Safe and Healthy!

 

Wishing everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving.  We are living in very troubled and dangerous times and we are missing our families and friends.  Keep them in your hearts if not in your presence.  It's best to stay safe and healthy so that we can all gather again next year.  Eat up if you can.  But always mask up. 

Still Standing on the Lip of America

 

Twelve years ago today I was sitting in my office away from home in Gainesville, Florida and kicking around the idea of starting my own blog.  For quite some time I had been reading those of others and I thought it might be time “to chime in.”   I did not know what to expect when I first started out; I figured I would take my inspiration from wherever it came and go from there.  Twelve years, 529 posts, and 310,000 hits later I am still at it with no plans to stop anytime soon. 

My first actual posting – “Down on the Creek: Notes from Florida” – appeared on December 1, 2008, the day before we left Gainesville to return home to Maryland.  We spent part of it roaming the back roads east of town, through the hammock country over by Cross Creek, Micanopy, Island Grove, and Hawthorne.  The narrow country roads pass under canopies of live oak festooned with long gray beards of Spanish moss. There was water in Cross Creek and in the River Styx (not always the case), and we observed white herons and egrets wading the sedgy marsh shallows looking for their next meal.  We wandered around the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings farm where she wrote The Yearling (1929) and many of her other works and we were are lucky to have the entire place to ourselves.  I was reminded why I like to come back to this special part of Florida.  Perhaps Miss Rawlings said it best. “It is necessary to leave the impersonal highway, to step inside the rusty gate and close it behind.  One is now inside the orange grove, out of one world and in the mysterious heart of another. And after long years of spiritual homelessness, of nostalgia, here is that mystic loveliness of childhood again. Here is home.”  I know what she meant.

My new ‘blog" was barely a week old and already I was receiving inquiries regarding the significance of its title.  Why was I "Looking Toward Portugal"?  This is a legitimate question and there was no big secret or mystery.  For the past three  decades I have been gravitating to the coast of Maine.  At first, it was only during our annual summer vacation, but later I returned more frequently . . . every chance I could, to be quite honest.  For the past decade, since my retirement, we have spent the entire summer in Maine.  Each time I returned I found myself standing on that rocky shoreline, looking out to sea and pondering this and that.  If you gaze in a general easterly direction from the Maine coast, you will see nothing but the rolling swells of the Atlantic. Nova Scotia is out there somewhere, but if you continue across the Atlantic you will eventually arrive on the northern shores of Portugal somewhere near Oporto.

I have come to believe that my life today, and what I hope to accomplish in the years remaining to me, are in no small way tied to the pleasant days I have spent on the Maine coast.  I am constantly reminded of Jack Kerouac’s observations when he stared out across the Atlantic from the shores of Long Island – "this last lip of American land."   "Here I was at the end of America . . . no more land,” Kerouac wrote in On The Road (1957).  “And now there was nowhere to go but back."  He reminds us of our limitations, but he also offers a hint of what might be if we only choose to look beyond those far horizons.

It was the American artist Bo Bartlett (born 1955) who gave a name to what I have been doing all these years.  Bartlett divides his time between his hometown of Columbus, Georgia and Matinicus Island lying almost 25 miles off the coast of Maine.  "Still Point," his summer home and studio, are situated on Wheaton Island which forms the small village harbor on Matinicus.  He refers to the seaward side of his island where he goes to mediate as "the Portugal side," and so I attribute "Looking Toward Portugal" to him.  These posting have become own meditations. 

In that first posting I made reference to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' tenet that everyone needs "some small place of enchantment to turn to."  Although I have enjoyed my more and more infrequent sojourns in that swamp and hammock country of north central Florida, it is the coast of Maine that has become my true querencia, the place where I feel most grounded and to which I long to return.  It has become my place of solitude, solace, and inspiration.  Looking out to sea from "the Portugal side" of my own life, and pondering what lies beyond that meeting of water and sky, I know that my grand search will never be over. Certainly not in my lifetime. I will always return to that "last lip of American land" and ponder what I have done and contemplate what lies ahead.

There Are No Words for this Insanity

Over 144,000 dead in a growing pandemic.  A crumbling economy and millions unemployed.  A White House administration full of fascists and incompetents echoing racist slurs.  Immigrants and their children detained in concentration camps.  Federal storm troopers seizing peaceful protestors and holding them without due process.  Our global reputation in shambles and our citizens banned from traveling to other countries.  And a "president" who shills for a Hispanic-owned food company while he labels our Latino and Latina citizens and neighbors drug dealers, murderers, and rapist and is building a wall to keep them out.  Is this what a great America should look like?     

We Are But One

Today would have been Madiba's 102nd birthday. Although he is no longer with us, his spirit urges all of us to work together for racial harmony and good will. Or as he would say in his native Xhosa. Ngaphantsi kolusu lwethu sibomntu omnye. Beneath out skin we are but one humanity.

The Fourth of July - Hardly a Reason for Fireworks This Year - Part 2

My response to this year’s July 4^th holiday was not originally intended to be a two-part posting, but then again this holiday has been unlike any we have experienced in this country’s 244 year history. Yesterday I addressed the event at Mount Rushmore on July 3rd, and today I am focusing on the July 4^th "festivities" here in Washington yesterday. I was shocked, not awed.

As I mentioned yesterday, for many years my wife and I have celebrated this holiday in Maine or elsewhere and we were just as happy to be away from the hubbub of the Nation’s Capital. Not a fan of large crowds, I have only seen the huge fireworks on National Mall twice in the 44 years we have lived in the Washington, DC area. And I don’t feel the need to fight the crowds and the normally hot and humid weather to try again. Been there. Done that. Finding myself at home this year, I was happy enough to spend a quiet day; just me and the dog, a writing project, and a good book. And besides . . . I had been sheltering in place for 121 days, the temperature was ranging into the 90s, the humidity was thick enough to swim through, and there was not a breath of breeze stirring. No thanks.

As the day began few had any idea how it would all play out. The traditional parade along Independence Avenue had been cancelled by Mayor Muriel Bowser and the city hoped residents and visitors alike would heed the earnest request to stay at home, or if they did decide to come into the city, to respect the strict social distancing measures and crowd size limits in effect, and to wear protective face masks. The traditional fireworks display on the National Mall was still scheduled for the evening as it is administered by the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service which are not required to adhere to city restrictions. As at Mount Rushmore, the National Park Service announced that the wearing of protective face masks and the maintenance of proper social distancing would not be enforced. Insanity continued to prevail.

The National Park Service predicted upwards of 300,000 would attend the festivities and during the morning people began to show up to stake out prime viewing sites to enjoy the festivities, including a military flyover and the massive fireworks display billed by Trump as a "Salute to America." After his speech at Mount Rushmore the day before, I wondered whose America was he referring to? Groups of protesters also converged on the Mall and local streets were closed to traffic and the areas around the White House and the Lincoln Memorial were sealed off. There were a few motley demonstrations as well as sit-ins which had begun already the night before in front of the Supreme Court and at the recently renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza just north of the White House and Lafayette Park. This was the scene of last month’s clash between peaceful demonstrators and police and National Guard ordered there by Trump so that he might walk across the park to St John’s Church to hold up a Bible for a bizarre photo-op. I was sickened by a report that Washington Police were flanking a group of several dozen Trump supporters who marched past the National Museum of African American History and Culture on the Mall, some of them using hand gestures known to symbolize white supremacy. Not surprisingly, few were wearing masks.

By early afternoon local WTOP radio reported that the crowds on and around the Mall were remarkably "sparse," reminiscent of the "crowds" that attended Trump’s January 2017 inauguration). About half the small crowd appeared to be wearing face masks according to WTOP. Trump must have been furious and I wonder whom he will blame for this? Serves him right, but think of all the wasted taxpayer money squandered to stroke his tender ego.

Firecrackers began to pop in my suburban neighborhood during the late afternoon. Otherwise it had been a normal, quiet Saturday afternoon here in Historic Mount Rainier, Maryland. The peace and quiet was suddenly shattered shortly after 7pm when the US Air Force Thunderbirds and the US Navy Blue Angels precision flight demonstration squadrons, part of the planned military flyover, passed very low directly over my house follow by a B-2 stealth bomber with a fighter escort, as well as a variety of other military vintage and modern aircraft. The windows rattled and the dogs began to howl. In all the years I have lived here I don’t ever recall seeing military aircraft fly over at such a low altitude other than the morning of September 11, 2001.

Local private firework displays (official fireworks shows in several regional towns and counties had been cancelled due to the pandemic) crackle, joining the growing cacophony shortly after sunset at 8:30pm, and just after 9pm I began to hear the steady crumping of the firework explosions over the National Mall. We live only three miles away as the crow flies, and less than a mile from here is a ridge line, one of the highest elevations in the District of Columbia, where one is offered a broad panoramic view of the city with its monuments, the Potomac River, and Virginia beyond. On an exceptionally clear day one can see the faint outline of the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains to the west. It is a favorite spot to watch the fireworks. I remained at home as planned.

Only after the smoke from the 45-minute display slowly drifted away did I begin to read reports of Trump’s earlier address to a by-invitation-only audience on the South Lawn of the White House. I was quite certain it would essentially be a repetition of his ludicrous indictment of the many domestic enemies who do not share his astigmatic and fascist vision of an America in which people are divided rather than united in a common cause. This vision. Trump announced, would be achieved by "defeating the radical left, the Marxists, the anarchists, the agitators, the looters, and people who in many instances have absolutely no clue what they are doing." The last reference seems to better describe Trump and his fanatical base. He promised to "safeguard our values," but are these really our values? "We will defend, protect and preserve the American way of life which began in 1492 when Columbus discovered America." May I remind the president that Columbus did not discover America. His three voyages to the New World brought him to the Antilles and the coasts of Central and South America; he never stepped foot on the North American continent presently occupied by the United States of America. The first European to do so was Leif Erikson centuries before Columbus was born. The America Trump was referring to did not exist until July 1776 when it declared its independence from Great Britain. He is the president. He should know that. After all, this is what we were celebrating yesterday! He seems to hold tight to the myth so many of us were taught in elementary school. What Columbus brought to this hemisphere was a cruel and at times genocidal colonial occupation, torture, and disease epidemics. I am not really surprised that Trump has a particular affinity for the likes of Columbus.

We don’t want to erase our history, but on the same token, we need not honor nor commemorate the darkest and most regrettable chapters of that history or traitors who for whatever reason took up arms against this country. These monuments in question need not be destroyed, but they should be removed from public lands and placed into museums where they can be presented in a proper context to better educate our citizenry. I am a historian by both inclination and profession and I have no desire to erase our history. It was the 20^th century thinker George Santayana (1863-1952) who reminded us that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Trump is a perfect example of this caveat. We are not trying to indoctrinate our young, as Trump alleges; we only want to present them with evidence and arguments and encourage debate. What is wrong with that? Do we want informed citizens or lemmings headed for the abyss?

There is a different America out there than the one Trump envisions. There are no simple solutions and we must all be up to the challenge. The Great American Experiment remains a work in progress. We must continue to work together to create an America that works for all of us regardless of who we are, where we come from, what gods we worship, or what languages we speak.

The holiday is thankfully behind us. Now it is time to look to the future and the elections just four months away. We must speak truth to power . . . and ignorance . . . and work hard to sweep this national aberration into the dustbin of history and refocus our priorities and return to the values that made us united, strong and determined in the first place. We will have many challenges to confront. The job will be difficult, but the results will be worth the sweat and tears.

The Fourth of July - Hardly a Reason for Fireworks This Year - Part 1

A MSN poll posted this morning indicates that 57% of Americans have no plans to celebrate this July 4^th holiday. 50% stated they would not be displaying the American flag and only 11% of those celebrating today plan to attend a fireworks display this evening. And 93% have said they have no plans to travel anywhere today, more than likely due to the surging COVID-19 pandemic across the country which reported in excess of 50,000 new cases daily for the past three days. Clearly there is little room to celebrate July 4, 2020, an annus horriblis if there ever was one. And it’s only half over. 

Yesterday Trump paid a visit to the Mount Rushmore monument in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Billed as an official White House holiday celebration, the event under the watchful gaze of presidents who were far more important and effective than Trump, was nothing more than one of his partisan political rallies designed to fire us his base supporters as he faces an uphill reelection campaign. It was reported that less than 7,000 attended the event. This one was held on federal land at the expense of all American taxpayers. It had nothing to do with the celebration of the 244^th anniversary of our country’s independence. Instead Trump used the event to present what The Times of London described as his "sermon by the mount," his alternative view of reality in his America, a country he says is under attack by a "new far-left fascism."

In his January 2019 inaugural address, he described an "American carnage" perpetrated by enemies from beyond our borders. Now the enemy is American, people of color and those of us who do not buy into his vision; who wish to live in a democratic America and not the fascist state he is transforming it into. He clearly does not realize that fascism is, by its very nature, a reactionary far right concept. Perhaps he should do a little more reading before he opens his mouth? He blames this so-called "mob" for destroying this country’s values and moving it toward totalitarianism. This sounds like the pot calling the kettle black. He shows no interest is seeking out what brings Americans together; only that which, in his perverse mind, advances a miasma of fear and division. "If you do not speak the language, perform its rituals, recite its mantras and follow its commandments, then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted, and punished." Trump added "This is not going to happen to us." This is rhetoric straight out of the Third Reich.

Trump’s plans for a two day "celebration" of the July 4^th holiday sparked controversy from the outset, much like his military parade in Washington, DC last year. The planners of the event at Mount Rushmore announced that social distancing and the wearing of protective face masks would not be mandatory even though the event was being held in a state that has experiences over 7000 cases of COVID-19 resulting in almost 100 deaths to date. South Dakota Governor Christ Noem, an ardent Trump ally, insisted that masks and social distancing were not required although her jurisdiction does not extend to a national monument administered by the federal government.

Furthermore, the event was perceived by many as an intentional slap in the face of this country’s Native America peoples who have also been hit particularly hard by the coronavirus. The Lakota Nation considers the Black Hills sacred land promised to them by the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie. It was later stolen from them when gold was discovered in the Black Hills and they were forced off their land by army units under the command of General George Custer who got his comeuppance a dew years later at the Little Big Horn. Some of the land was later earmarked to honor white leaders who had, in the its opinion of the Lakota, oppressed their people. This year they also opposed the planned fireworks which Trump promised would be a display "never seen before in America" (yet another example of his best ever bombast). Such displays have long been banned at the monument for fear of sparking nearby brush fires and spreading potential pollution into local streams and rivers. Prior to the event Native American protestors, almost all of them wearing face masks, blocked roads leading to the monument until they were dispersed by National Guard troops armed with pepper spray. This is yet one more instance of the Trump administration perpetuating violence against a peaceful demonstration.

Agence France

Perhaps I should mention here, too, that Trump could not have picked a better spot couched in racism to deliver his message to his America. Mount Rushmore was designed and executed by Gutzon Borglum (1867-1941) who was, in addition to being an artist and sculptor, a Knight of the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacist who held strong racist and anti-immigrant views at the time he began work on the Mount Rushmore project in 1927. 

Today Trump brings his Nuremberg-style rallies back to Washington, DC where for a second straight year he will host what is billed as a "Salute to America" (but whose?) yet his evening address from the South Lawn of the White House will surely be a carbon copy of his indictment of the "culture war" for which he himself is largely responsible. Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser has urged residents to stay home. Visitors who do attend the event are urged to wear protective face masks and practice social distancing. Strict social distancing measures and crowd size limits remain in effect for the city. The National Independence Day Parade along Constitution Avenue has been canceled, along with fireworks shows in several regional towns and counties. The traditional fireworks display on the National Mall is still scheduled as it is administered by the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service which are not required to adhere to city restrictions. Once again, as at Mount Rushmore, the wearing of protective face masks and the maintenance of proper social distancing will not be enforced.

Mayor Bowser contacted the Department of the Interior stating that the event runs contrary to the city’s wishes, as well as the advice of health officials at the Center for Disease Control, but to no avail. I consulted the National Park Service’s website this afternoon. It cautioned spectators visiting the National Mall to wear appropriate eye and ear protection and to protect themselves against heat related illnesses (the forecast called for temperatures in the mid-80s and high humidity at the time of the display beginning at 9:07pm. There is not one word concerning the wearing of protective face masks or the maintenance of safe social distancing. This strikes me as bordering on the criminal given the dangerous circumstances in which we find ourselves. According to many reports the Park Service expects hundreds of thousands of spectators on the Mall this evening and they were already beginning to gather early this morning to claim a prime viewing spot. Groups of protesters were also converging on the Mall and local streets were closed to traffic and the areas around the White House and the Lincoln Memorial sealed off

On Memorial Day, just 35 days ago, the number of victims of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States numbered 100,000. Today the CDC reports this number has climbed to 128,648. Despite claims by Trump and Pence that the US is flattening the curve and the virus is beginning to disappear, all evidence is to the contrary as the pandemic has surged in 30 states. Trumps seems to believe that by reducing the number of tests one can reduce the number of cases. This is like saying, if we just close our eyes Trump will go away. It does not work like that. Any sensible person understands this. The virus that causes COVID-19 also increased from last week and it appears that a second wave of infections and hospitalizations is on the rise. This one is wholly on the shoulders of the White House which seems little interested in stemming the tide of this horrible pandemic.

I read this morning that the US-Canadian border may remain closed for another year at least, and Americans are still banned from travel to and throughout the European Union countries which have begun reopening their borders to other travelers, including those from China where the virus began. We have become prisoners in our own country and I can’t help but wonder if this is not a perverse goal of the Trump White House.

I am trying very hard to feel patriotic today, but it is difficult when I look at what has happened to our country over the past three and half years. This year especially the holiday seems to be all about Trump and his perverted vision of America while the rest of us recognize the dangers, perhaps even existential dangers, it faces. Where is the celebration of the Declaration of Independence and our Founding Fathers? Trump claims that these so-called "mobs" are trying to destroy our heroes and our values yet his actions speak volumes that he himself has no interest in preserving them.

Over the past decade, as fellow citizens would gather at the History Barn in New Gloucester, Maine, where my wife and I spend our summers, I have participated in the annual reading of the Declaration of Independence on the morning of July 4^th. I have long felt that every citizen should read and reread this founding document as a reminder of how the United States came into being and why. I looked forward to this event as a prelude to the tradition American celebration of the holiday with barbeques, flags and fireworks. But not this year. As a result of the pandemic and travel restrictions both at home in Maryland and in Maine, we are foregoing our annual hiatus at the lake cottage (more on this soon) and remaining at home. New Gloucester has cancelled the annual reading, and has joined towns and cities across the nation in scaling back, if not outright cancelling, other holiday festivities. It makes sense. It’s the prudent and cautious thing to do given the dangers we face. But Trump does not see it that way.

I hope all of you have a safe and healthy holiday. Here’s hoping our country will right its course in November and return to the values instilled in us by out Founding Founders.

It's Time for a New National Holiday

Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day or Jubilee Day, is a holiday in parts of the United States. It commemorates June 19, 1865, the date on which Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 - "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious Confederate states "are, and henceforward shall be free" - was finally enforced in the State of Texas.

Slavery was not formally abolished in the United States until the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction." It passed the Senate on April 8, 1864, and the House on January 31, 1865. On February 1, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln approved the Joint Resolution of Congress submitting the proposed amendment to the state legislatures for ratification. This occurred on December 6, 1865. 

Juneteenth has come to recognize the end of slavery in the United States and to celebrate the culture and achievements of African Americans. It became a state holiday in Texas in 1980, joined by other states since then. This year Virginia and New York followed suit and today 47 of the 50 states and the District of Columbia have recognized Juneteenth as either a state holiday or an informal ceremonial day of observance. The three states that do not recognize Juneteenth are Hawaii, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

For quite some time now activists and organizations such as the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation have been pressuring the US Congress to recognize Juneteenth as a national holiday. I think the time has come to make it official, now more so than ever. Write to your Congressional representatives and show your support.

Remembering My Mentor - Max Dufner on the Centennial of His Birth

Max Dufner was born June 17, 1920, in Davos, Switzerland where his father, near death in a French POW camp, had been sent as part of a prisoner exchange.  His wife joined him there and before he had fully recuperated she became pregnant and so they chose to remain in Switzerland.  After Max was born they returned to the family home in the tiny village of Schönenbach near Furtwangen in the Black Forest of southern Germany.

He immigrated to the United States with his family as a young boy, settling in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  He received his BA in German from the University of Missouri in 1942, and he served as an interpreter in the US Army during the war.  He eventually received his MA and PhD in German from the University of Illinois, in 1947 and 1951 respectively.  He taught at the University of Illinois and the University of Kentucky before ending up at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor where he taught for several years.  He moved his young family to Tucson in 1969 where he was appointed chair of the German Department at the University of Arizona, a position he held until 1978.  He retired from teaching in 1987.

I knew absolutely no one when I first arrived in Tucson in January 1974 to begin my  graduate studies.  I had never been to the city or the campus before, having arranged my acceptance entirely by letter and telephone.  I also had my first face-to-face meeting with the chairperson of the Department of German, the individual who had accepted me into the graduate program and who would ultimately hold my destiny in his hands.  I knew him only by name and bona fides when I first walked into his small, book-lined  office on the third floor of the Modern Language Building . . . my home for the next two and a half years. 

He arose from behind his desk, everything on it neatly stacked and in its proper place, to shake my hand and invite me to be seated.  A rather short man with neatly cropped and graying hair, horned-rimmed glasses, and sporting a shirt and tie. He was quite proper and formal as he spoke with gravity about my course work over the coming semesters. Even so, his small, thin-lipped mouth evidenced an almost perpetual hint of a smile. I would come to know him as a man of towering intellect who over those early months left me intimidated more often than I might have admitted at the time. That said, I liked him from the very first moment I met him. I knew he would “ride me hard and put me up wet,” but I welcomed the challenge and the opportunities he offered me.

I took a number of courses under Professor Dufner - a rather grueling seminar in classical German literature during that first semester. This was followed by a two semester seminar during which my fellow graduate students and I attempted to dissect the intricacies of Goethe’s Faust (Parts I and II) line by line, word by word.  This remains one of my most rewarding academic experiences. Professor Dufner made literature come alive for me for the very first time.  When I made my oral defense at the completion of my master’s program, Professor Dufner asked me a number of probing questions about Goethe’s masterpiece, and upon the completion of my response he turned to the others on my examination committee, a wide smile this time, and said “Herr Rogers kann Goethe.” [Mr. Rogers knows Goethe.]  No higher praise in my book!

My Faust studies were perhaps eclipsed only by an independent study seminar on the writings of Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843) I shared with a fellow comrade-in-arms.  We would attend weekly meetings in Professor Dufner’s office where he would grill us on minutiae pertaining to this most enigmatic and challenging German poet.  At the end of this colloquium, we were invited to present the results of our independent research before the Palmenorden: Die Forschungsgemeinschaft des Germanistischen Instituts [The Order of the Palm: The Research Society of the Germanic Institute]. All the while Professor Dufner sat in the front row and gently nodded his head up and down, his tight-lipped smile telling us we had done our job well.  He was always confident that we would both make something of ourselves in the community of German scholarship. And we did.

As my time in Tucson came to an end I prepared to resume my graduate studies at the University of Maryland at College Park. Professor Dufner and I had come a long way together since that first meeting in his office two and half years earlier. I no longer thought of him only as a professor and mentor; we had become “Kollegen” [colleagues]. But more importantly, we had become friends. During our time together he always referred to me as Herr Rogers. That final evening in Tucson, he shook my hand and patted me on the shoulder and said “Good luck to you, Steve. You will do well.”

Max and I exchanged letters during the years after I left Tucson, and I saw him on occasion.  My work took me to Tucson a couple times and I was a dinner guest in his home. His eldest daughter, who was an undergraduate student at the University of Arizona when I was there, became a good friend and we frequently saw her and her husband after they moved east to Richmond, Virginia.  Max and his wife would visit them there and I had opportunities to resume our friendship in person.

The last time I would see Max was in Richmond around Christmas, in 1993.   It was a wonderful visit full of laughter and the recollection of fond memories.   Max passed away in Tucson on May 22, 1999, and after his death, his daughter shared with me several things her father had said and written about me over the years; one being the letter of recommendation he wrote on my behalf when I applied to the University of Maryland. She also gave me a number of prized books from her father’s library which now have an honored place in my own library.

I think of my old mentor and friend often, and always fondly. I would have never accomplished what I did had it not been for him.  I miss him and I will never forget him.

What Has Happened to America??

The pandemic in the Washington DC area continues. Cases and deaths rise daily. We remain under a stay at home lockdown. And now DC is under an 11pm to 6am curfew as police and National Guard troops patrol city streets. Fires are being set - the historic St. John's Church across from the White House was set ablaze. Rocks are being thrown. And our leader cowers in his bunker and sends disparaging and divisive Tweets and threatening more police violence. What has happened to America?

I CAN'T BREATHE

Who of us can breathe in this America?  

This is what happens when the highest echelons of government ignore or circumvent the rule of law. The people follow. This is what happens when the president preaches violence will be met with more violence. He promised to make America great again. He has diminished it beyond recognition. 

It is time to wake up and resist . . . peacefully.   Do not give this president an excuse to ramp up his violence against the American people . . . the people who supposedly elected him to lead them.   He is only leading this country to his vision of an authoritarian oligarchy where the uber-wealthy get richer and the rights of the poor and disenfranchised fade and eventually disappear.  

Stay strong.   Stay united.   Stay peaceful.   Stand up for the America we all love.   Don't let this small man destroy a great country.  

They Shall Not Be Forgotten

Over 100,000 people in the USA who were alive on New Year’s Day are now dead, victims of the COVID-19 / coronavirus pandemic. Who was it said it was a hoax? Who was it said it would be gone by April? Well, it is not a hoax. It is late May and it’s not gone. Far from it.   Please stay safe and healthy!

I Will Listen to Him No More Forever

Yesterday I posted a rather strongly worded Memorial Day message in which I took the President of the United States to task for his dangerous words and actions, especially during this gruesome pandemic. Over the past twelve years of this blog, while occasionally commenting on social or cultural issues, I have attempted to stay clear of overtly political topics. I have long believed that everyone is entitled to their own political opinions, whether I agree with them or not, and I certainly do not want to foist my own on anyone else. There is a time and place for political debate. This platform, I believe, is not one of these. Yet I cannot help but address a matter that some might label as "political" yet I see it as a matter of simple human decency and a manner in which we can try to preserve it in these strange times in which we live. Common decency should not be the purview of any single individual, group, or political party. We share it or we all suffer as a result. So I apologize, if you are in some way offended by what I have to say here. I am not attacking any political party or philosophy, or any person who simply holds political views different from my own. What I am attacking is the lack of common decency exhibited by the current President of the United States, a person we normally look to as a moral compass, a person of strength and sound judgement. Nothing more. Nothing less. It is my opinion that the current inhabitant of the Oval Office exhibits none of these traits. 

Permit me to digress for a moment. It will become apparent why soon enough. While traveling through western Montana during the early spring of 2007 my wife and I came upon the site of a former Native American encampment and battlefield on the Big Hole River. It was there we learned the story of Hinmatóowyalahtq, popularly known today as Chief Joseph (1840-1904), the leader of a band of Wallowa Valley Nez Perce. Joseph had negotiated an agreement with the US government in 1873 to guarantee that his people could remain on their ancestral tribal lands in northeastern Oregon as specified in two land treaties signed in 1855 and 1863. Nevertheless the government forced them off their lands during the so-called Nez Perce War in late 1877. Joseph’s band and other tribal allies fled first into neighboring Idaho, and after clashing with white settlers there, finally into Montana in an attempt to seek asylum in Canada along with the Lakota after their defeat at the Battle of Little Big Horn, in 1876. Federal troops pursued and skirmished with Joseph and his band across Idaho, Wyoming, and again into Montana to the Bear Paw Mountains just shy of the Canadian border. It was there that Joseph and just over 400 surviving Nez Perce surrendered on October 5, 1877. Another 250 or so managed to escape into Canada.

Upon surrender Chief Joseph spoke through an interpreter and said that he was tired of fighting. The chiefs and tribal elders were mostly dead. Children had no food or blankets and were freezing to death with the onset of winter. It was time to put a stop to the violence and death. "Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever." What courage it must have taken to end a struggle for the better good.

I have always been struck by those memorable words. Was it really a surrender or simply a wise man refusing to allow the cruelty experienced by his band of Nez Perce to continue? A New York Times editorial published a short time after the surrender condemned the government’s actions. "On our part, the war was in its origin and motive nothing short of a gigantic blunder and a crime." For the past three years I have also been in a struggle to make sense out of what our government and its "leadership" has turned into. Failing in that effort, I began to call out the ignorance, the idiocy, the audacity, the lies, and the sheer criminality of the current White House administration. Even this has provided little self-satisfaction nor a salve for the injustice of it all.

More recently, the US media has continued to confront that man in the White House, taking him to task for his lies and disinformation only to be insulted and forced to listen to yet a new litany of lies fueled by his anger, his paranoia, and his pathological narcissism. I have questioned why the media continues to accede to this incessant bullying and less than adolescent behavior. Would they not be better off gathering and reporting the facts and the science directly from the experts without first filtering them through the bantam mind standing before them and dictating what they are permitted to reveal to the public? Now I have to ask myself. Why am I even listening to this man and trying to make sense out of something bordering on the incomprehensible?

Then I read Tom Nichols’ article, "With Each Briefing, Trump is Making Us Worse People," in the April 11, 2020 issue of The Atlantic. Nichols writes that the president "is draining the last decency from us at a time when we need it most." Nichols characterizes the 45^th inhabitant of the White House as "spiritually impoverished" with an "utterly disordered personality." He is immoral, shameless, unstable, and a "malignant narcissist" incapable of reflection or remorse and unable to recognize in himself the slightest possibility that he might not know the answers to everything, nor the solution for every problem. He is devoid of any degree of contrition nor is he capable of "moments of reflection, even if only to adjust strategies for survival." He is a "spiritual black hole."

Having never run across the term "malignant narcissist" before I learned that the term was coined by Dr. John Gartner, a psychologist and psychotherapist at Johns Hopkins Medical School who specializes in the treatment of borderline personality disorders. In 2017, shortly after Trump took office, Gartner collected the signatures of over 40,000 mental health professionals on a petition stating that the president was not mentally fit to discharge the duties of his office and urged that he be removed pursuant to the 25^th Amendment to the US Constitution. Gartner also contributed to The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump (2017), a collection of essays by similar mental health professionals underscoring the clear and present danger represented by the president’s mental pathologies, including the perpetuation of chaos, personal harm, and suffering. Gartner believes that they "inexorably compel him to hurt and kill large numbers of people — including his own supporters." Gartner also believes that sadism and violence are central to Trump's malignant narcissism and his decision-making throughout the COVID-19 / coronavirus pandemic. Like other sadists, Gartner also believes the president exhibits a deeply dysfunctional relationship with other people, including those he was elected to protect and defend. Gartner concludes that the president is engaged in "democidal behavior," that the victims of the pandemic (almost 100,000 dead in less than three months) are not collateral damage from his policies, or lack thereof, but rather the obvious result of his inability to make educated and timely decisions on matters of life and death.

Nichols, addressing the more recent epic daily White House briefings to address the COVID-19 / coronavirus pandemic, describes how the president is a man who "lumbers to the podium and pulls us into his world: detached from reality . . . . " As we have listened to him prattle on, his "spiritual poverty increases our own, because for the duration of these performances, we are forced to live in the same agitated, immediate state that envelops him" until he concludes in "a fog of muttered slogans and paranoid sentence fragments." He "invites us to join a daily ritual, to hear lines from a scared and mean little boy’s heroic play-acting about how he bravely defeated the enemies and scapegoats who told him to do things that would hurt us. He insists that he has never been wrong and that he isn’t responsible for anything ever."

I am reminded of something Abraham Lincoln said in his second inaugural address in 1864 when this country was still in the midst of an existential crisis. "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." And now Nichols reminds us that in this time of crisis unlike any we have faced in decades, we should be seeking out these same better angels, finding what is best in ourselves. I do not consider the situation in this country hopeless although sometimes it seems we are tipping along the precipice. We will have an opportunity come November to apply the necessary corrective in order that we might once again function as a caring and compassionate nation. I have to believe that.

That said, I also believe there is no longer any practical reason for me to submit to the jabberwocky ramblings of an individual who continues his vulgar attacks on the media, the Democrats, and anyone else who refuses to take his word as gospel. Nichols is quick to point out that by this submission "all of us, angry or pleased, become more vulgar like Trump, because just like the president, we end up thinking about only Trump, instead of our families, our fellow citizens, our health-care workers, or the future of our country. We are all forced to take sides every day, and those two sides are always ‘Trump’ and ‘everyone else.’"

We must learn to step back from this void of irrational thinking and from confrontation with an individual who has no interest in what we have to say and begin to think on our own. We cannot allow the spiritual poverty of this small and insignificant person to force us to listen to the lesser angels surrounding us. " We are all living with him in the moment," Nichols writes, "and neglecting the thing that makes us human beings instead of mindless fish swimming in circles. We must recover this in ourselves, and become more decent, more reflective, and more stoic—before Trump sends us into a hole from which we might never emerge."

So I have decided to distance myself from the abyss. When Chief Joseph was faced with the simple fact that nothing he could do or say could ameliorate the situation in which he and his people found themselves, he took what action he though necessary to protect his desperate people from further harm as best he could. He saw the futility in running and he promised "I will fight no more forever." So allow me to paraphrase this brave leader and protector of his people when I look at our sad excuse for a president. It is futile to try and contend with what Alexandra Petri describes as his "factless, futureless, contextless void," as if goldfish swimming around bowl bumping into the glass. I refuse to share his bowl. I will listen to him no more forever.