Dimensions

Posted on March 25, 2020 by John Swinburn

I tell myself I am not superstitious. I say I dismiss the concept that coincidences have “meaning.” There is absolutely no reason to believe that, when I think about a person with enough focus, enough intensity, that person will reciprocate by thinking of me. It’s all magical hogwash, yes? Of course. But, still, some irrational thoughts occasionally emerge to the surface of my consciousness. Those thoughts invade what I consider an otherwise rational brain. Perhaps they are planted there by hopes and wishes and desires. Or fears. Maybe those thoughts arise simply to test the strength of my certainty about such ill-conceived frivolities.

When considering these instances of twisted magical thinking, I sometimes question just how certain I am that this reality, the one we see before us every day, is the only one. Frankly, it bothers me that I ever entertain the possibility that we may be experiencing just one of several dimensions. The idea is absolutely absurd! But it is not absurd. It is simply an untested, and perhaps untestable, theory.

The way I sometimes seem to conceive of it, those multiple dimensions blend with one another. For example, the idea of purposeful thinking as causation. Wishful thinking. Magical thinking. There must be multiple terms for it. Insanity? Maybe.

Sometimes, when confronted with my own complex—impossible-to-fully-understand—ideas, I write short pieces of fiction that incorporate those difficult ideas. That’s my way of trying to work them out in my mind. My attempts rarely succeed, at least not to my satisfaction. But at least they enable me to express them more fully in a fictional setting. I think I would be labeled dangerous and subject to commitment if I tried to express them in a real-world setting.

As I sit here, contemplating my use of writing fiction to think through such strangeness, I realize that I have many, many thoughts and ideas that I dare not share with anyone for fear of irrevocably changing others’ perceptions about me. I suppose it’s a matter of trust; or, I should say, lack of trust. This is nothing news. I think about it with some degree of frequency. And, I suppose, it’s one of the reasons I keep trying to get at the answer to the question of who I am, underneath all the layers. Another unanwerable question. I’m afraid I am incredibly complex, but not necessarily in a good way.

I do not believe finding and picking up a penny on the ground will bring me good luck. But I pick up the penny, “just in case.” The statements in fortune cookies are simply random comments on pieces of paper produced by the millions. But I read them. Do I put any stock in what they say? No, I really don’t. But… There are others too embarrassing to divulge, even to myself.

I wonder, am I sliding in and out of another dimension in which magical thinking is normal and natural? In this other dimension, is superstition an effective means of self-preservation or accomplishment? Is it possible to know the answers to absurd questions?

Four-year-olds believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and monsters under the bed. Adults should have long since grown out of the ability to entertain the possibility that an unseen dimension, parallel with our own, could exist. Yet we’ve always been taught to refrain from judging ideas unless they have been fully explored. How does one explore ideas that appear closely resemble symptoms of dementia?

Dementia. It could be. Dementia that has been progressing at a snail’s pace for sixty-plus years. Dementia that is routinely beat back by hard, cold logic and a life-long insistence on relying on measurable data. Dimension and dementia don’t have the same roots, do they? No, they do not. But I learned some interesting information about Alzheimer’s disease while exploring the etymology of dementia.

Alois Alzheimer, a German psychiatrist, in 1906 noted the hallmark plaques and tangles of the disease in the brains of people who died of the disease. At around the same time, Oskar Fischer, another German psychiatrist, saw those microscopic plaques and tangles. The prominent psychiatrist, Emil Kraepelin, in 1910 named the affliction Alzheimer’s disease. Fischer’s contributions to understanding the disease have been largely forgotten.

As this little exercise in looking for answers demonstrates, even troubling questions about one’s own intellectual sturdiness can lead to learning. Not necessarily answers, but learning.

 

 

Posted in Ideas, Intellect, Philosophy | Leave a comment

Conjecture

Posted on March 24, 2020 by John Swinburn

My mind wandered deep into my past this morning, suddenly and for no apparent reason. In my mind’s eye, I saw images of items I probably last saw when I was a very young child.

I remembered tiny replicas of bulls, made of plaster of paris (I think) and covered in a velvet-like material intended to look like cow hide. And I viewed brilliantly-colored paintings of bullfights, rendered on black velvet and accented with glitter or other sparkling materials. Perhaps the setting for those items was a public market. Maybe some of them were in markets and some were in my house. The figurines of bulls, especially, seemed to belong to me. And I recalled how they appeared when they were broken; that’s where the idea they were made of plaster of paris comes from; when broken, I saw the hard, white interior beneath the velvet. I recall, but only vaguely, the powdery residue from the break.

Those items, I think, were imported from Mexico, which was just up the street from our house, as the crow flies. The bridge to Matamoros probably was more distant.  Those memories were dredged up from deep in my childhood; I must have been no more than four or five years old, still living in Brownsville, Texas. I tried to find samples of the tiny bulls, to no avail, by searching the internet. I suspect molded plastic replicas have replaced the plaster of paris figurines I remember from my childhood.

It’s only a guess, but I think, perhaps, large-scale dislocations in the social order, of the type and scope we are now experiencing, thanks to the coronavirus, tend to dredge up odd recollections of a lifetime ago. Those recollections trigger strange longings for things we may never have enjoyed in years gone by, but which today evoke a sense of safety and comfort. Again, it’s just conjecture. Why else would one remember such trivial stuff? Actually, I have a theory that our brains record almost every experience in our lives, but memories of most experiences erode over time, leaving for many of them only a tarnished skeleton, stripped of most of the meat of the event. When, for whatever reason, we retrieve the memory from deep in the recesses of our minds, we unknowingly pad the skeleton with facsimiles of the details that one might reasonably expect to have covered it. So our memories are based on both fact and fiction. Just like our present-day lives. More conjecture.

 

Posted in Covid-19, Memories, Mexico | Leave a comment

Struggles (AR) in the Times of Pestilence

Posted on March 23, 2020 by John Swinburn

The fictional town of Stuggles, Arkansas morphed from a small town coping with abandonment by its principal employer, a manufacturing plant, into a community on life support, thanks to a virus for which no immunity nor any treatment exists.  The center of the dying town’s social life, The Fourth Estate Tavern, was ordered closed to help limit the spread of the virus. The tavern’s owner, Calypso Kneeblood, well on his way to recovering from lung cancer surgery, finds himself confronted with yet another calamity. His sole source of income dried up instantly with the tavern’s closure, just months from making the last few payments on the mortgages on the building that houses his business and the house in which he lives. Kneeblood’s health insurance payments, too, are in arrears, leaving him vulnerable to further financial ruin; and to illness from which, if he is infected, he may never recover.

Almost every business in the vanishing community is shuttered, even the gas station. The shelves of the sole grocery store are almost barren within hours after being restocked by the grocery supply company. The grocery’s hours have been cut back to four hours a day, three days a week.

The hospital in Grandview Springs, Arkansas, twenty miles away, is full. Patients arriving at the emergency room are shuttled into hallways, where exhausted doctors and nurses try to make them comfortable while they either slowly recover their health or die. Struggles’ only doctor, Melissa Daniels, no longer answers her telephone. No one knows what has become of her.

In the midst of this already cataclysmic scene, a fire engulfs the shuttered plant, killing three fire fighters and eliminating the possibility of attracting other businesses to fill the void left by Sternberg Refrigeration; Sternberg was the refrigerator manufacturer that abandoned its plant in Struggles.

With this gruesome situation as a backdrop, we notice a thirty-something woman come on the scene. Her face concealed by a surgical mask, she knocks on the window of The Fourth Estate Tavern. Kneeblood, keeping busy by sweeping the floor of the tavern, hears the knock and looks up.

“We’re closed. Everything in town is closed!” His voice is loud enough for the woman to hear him. He’s sure of it.

Still the woman knocks again, this time harder, the insistent rapping against the glass causing the window to rattle against its frame. “I know, but I need to talk to you! Come closer, please, so we can talk, okay?”

Kneeblood shuffles to the window, keeping his distance from the young woman even though there’s glass between them.

“You’re Calypso Kneeblood, right? I have a proposition, Mr. Kneeblood, that could save your tavern and this town. If you will put yourself at my disposal for twenty-one days, I think we can beat these gut punches!”

During the course of the conversation that followed, Kneeblood’s initial skepticism turned to curiosity and then to interest and then to enthusiasm. His enthusiasm would become passion before the young woman walked away.

Her plan would be hard to implement and would require him to sell the ideas, hard, to the remaining influential residents of Struggles, the thought, but it just might work.

***

The idea for this obviously as-yet-unfinished story has been rattling around in my head for a very long time. The idea of introducing the virus is new, but the rest is almost old enough to grow mold. I lose patience with myself when I’m writing fiction; my mind gets so far ahead of my fingers that I just can’t keep up. When I find the words on the screen so far behind what I see in my mind’s eye, I get frustrated and step away. The idea is that I’ll return when the frustration subsides. But I rarely return. This story, I think, has legs. But it will require discipline and the ability to corral my frustration, no easy task. Perhaps I should follow one of my recent ideas: write short stories that, collectively, can become elements of a full-blown novel. I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. 

The outline above was not written as a component of a story; it’s simply an outline of ideas. The way they are presented would be very different. The summary above would be revealed by showing actions and thoughts over the course of several months and several chapters. Patience. 

Posted in Fiction, Writing | 3 Comments

What I am Learning, Even Today, from Steinbeck

Posted on March 22, 2020 by John Swinburn

The Grapes of Wrath. I remember (though indistinctly, as if through a heavy fog) reading Steinbeck’s classic novel depicting the struggles of Depression-era Dust Bowl migrations. What I remember clearly about the story, though, is the intensity of Jim Casy’s and Tom Joad’s efforts to overcome the overwhelming avarice of the haves versus the have-nots. The theme of the struggle for “the greater good” permeates the story.

Now that I’m thinking of the book, I’ll have to find it and read it again; surely I must have a copy here at home, right? I would not have discarded it or sold it, would I? I hope not.

But back to this morning’s contemplation. Steinbeck’s novel is on my mind this morning because the struggles of the Joad family, and their compatriots, fighting for justice and survival, suggest another struggle, a struggle we may soon face. The particulars of the struggles are different, but the underlying theme of Steinbeck’s novel foreshadows an emerging theme today.

I think the safety and contentment and comfortable predictability of our lives already has begun to unravel. Whether that untangling is simply a short-lived inconvenience or a long-lasting and massively catastrophic upheaval remains to be seen. If the latter, I think the clear divide between today’s haves and have-nots has the potential of evolving into an undeclared war that could dwarf the class struggle depicted in The Grapes of Wrath.  The degree to which minor incidents of social unrest might blossom into unrelenting demands for the wealthiest of the wealthy to return their stolen largess to the commoners will depend on how much pain is inflicted on the common citizens and their tolerance and endurance.

If The Pestilence, AKA COVID-19, disrupts food supplies and/or leads to massive unemployment or under-employment, the pain inflicted will eventually become unbearable. People who today are conservative and self-interested may transform under the weight of those conditions to furiously demanding soldiers in the war for social justice. Or maybe not.

Perhaps, even if The Pestilence were to lead to apocalyptic societal disintegration, the common citizenry will have been so thoroughly trained to respond to orders that they will silently and obediently become willing slaves to the plutocracy.

I do not know why my attitude these past few days has vacillated so wildly between hopefulness and despondency. Yesterday, I felt certain we had the wherewithal to combine our efforts and defeat the scourge that’s confronting us. Today, I’m not sure we even recognize we have permitted economic disparity to rob us of our ability to think for ourselves and clearly understand what is happening and may happen.

Is it wishful thinking to envision a struggle like the one that took fictional root in The Grapes of Wrath might actually take hold today? If I remember correctly, the book ended in grief, but with a ray of hope even in despair. What am I doing, comparing a fictional response in a fictional environment to an unpredictable outcome in the real world? In spite of the obvious disparities between 80-year-old fiction and current reality, there may be lessons to be learned from re-reading an old book. Or perhaps I am engaging in lunacy, comparing apples to alligators.

It just occurred to me that I know very little about John Steinbeck, other than the fact he is among my favorite authors. There must be a well-researched and well-written biography of Steinbeck. I’ll have to try to find it and read it.

I remember, again very vaguely, reading Tortilla Flat when I was just a sixth-grader. I distinctly remember sharing a quote from the book with a school-mate during class one day, saying, “Sicilian bastards! Scum from the prison island!” My teacher—I think her name was Mrs. Peterson—got very upset with me and took my copy of the book away. She told me I was not to read such books because they contained foul language. I told my mother that afternoon about the incident, though I may not have mentioned the passage I read aloud. She instantly called my teacher and very firmly told her that she was to return my book to me and that she should never discourage me from reading any book because my mother encouraged me to read anything I wanted. I don’t recall anything else about the interaction or its aftermath. But I remember that incident as well as I remember anything from my childhood.

At some point today, I will do what is necessary to completely clear my mind. I’ll then see what thoughts and ideas return to fill that tiny little space.

Posted in Philosophy | 2 Comments

Solutions Already Exist

Posted on March 21, 2020 by John Swinburn

Solutions to the problems we are facing exist, already, in our heads. We just need to find ways to mine for them and process raw ideas into finished, implementable processes that yield results.

Creativity blossoms when monstrous challenges  confront us. Impossible threats spark otherwise dormant ingenuity and inventiveness. We ignore futility in search of solutions to problems too enormous to solve yet too deadly to permit surrender.

In this time of The Pestilence, I believe the only solution to the problems facing us is boundless creativity. I am not referring to finding a vaccine or a cure. Those solutions, too, will require infinite resourcefulness; but answers to those needs already are in the process of being explored, now, by people who have the requisite technical and medical and epidemiological knowledge. The problems to which I am referring are those interconnected ramifications brought about by The Pestilence: economic collapse, required personal distancing, unemployment, supply chain disruptions, panic buying and hoarding, and dozens of other complications of the pandemic.

Creativity requires neither superior intellect nor extensive experience with the problems at hand. Practicality and “common sense” often overcome intellectual and experiential deficits. An entrepreneurial mindset, whether that mindset has heretofore been applied in entrepreneurial endeavors or not, can go a long way toward crafting innovative solutions to problems that seem too big to solve.

If this country had a true leader, he or she already would have clearly articulated the problems confronting us (both nationally and globally) and would have stated clearly what the government is doing to address them. Beyond that, the leader would have challenged members of society to consider creative ways of confronting and overcoming the obstacles in our way. That same leader would have orchestrated a mechanism of collecting and assessing the viability of the creative ideas that arise from that challenge. That process, in itself, is enormously complex. But I think it is essential to ensure that all of us clearly understand the problems we face and understand that we, collectively, must work and think creatively to solve them.

There is a word for collective problem-solving: brainstorming. That’s what we can and should do. But I see some obstacles and questions:

  1. How can the process get moving (i.e., who has enough influence and reach to get it started)?
  2. How can we get people engaged in the process?
  3. How can we overcome self-limiting doubt? (i.e., “I’m just a nobody; I have nothing to contribute.)
  4. How can we convince people that the “someone else” who will solve the problem may well be the same person they see in the mirror?
  5. Once ideas with potential emerge, what processes will ensure that they are communicated to people who can act on them?
  6. What processes can be used to quickly assess ideas, without the danger of dismissing ideas too quickly?
  7. What pressures can be brought to bear to demand swift action to implement solutions?

The brainless, mind-numbingly self-centered dimwit in the White House would not recognize the value of the process of brainstorming if it bit him in the ass. We need leadership to facilitate finding solutions. That’s the biggest obstacle. Maybe the first order of creative business is to find a way to quickly and completely remove the biggest obstacle.

 

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Speculation and Organization

Posted on March 20, 2020 by John Swinburn

The threats posed by the coronavirus have changed my life, thus far, in only limited ways. The seismic shifts taking place throughout the rest of the world have begun here, but I spend most of my time at home, anyway, so I haven’t been terribly inconvenienced yet. Barren grocery shelves, closed retail establishments and restaurants, and social distancing while “out and about” have been noticeable, but not pestilential in scope. Yet. Life goes on, almost as normal but with a few tectonic upheavals. But I feel the ominous breath of change against the back of my neck. What was, heretofore, normal is fading into the background, leaving an empty space where contentment once lived. I already feel a sense of loss of normalcy; like heartbreak.

“Normal.” The dictionary definition is changing with every breath and each new death caused by the coronavirus. No deaths yet in Arkansas, but it’s just a matter of time. And as those traumas and tragedies mount, and as routines are more deeply interrupted and upended, normal will take on a new, increasingly sinister meaning. Normal will become synonymous with toxicity. Reality will crush the temporary idea of “the new normal” under the heels of a savage enemy. “The new normal” will disappear into the mist and emerge simply as “normal,” the caustic reality that requires us to constrict our movements and limit human contact.

I remember how I felt, as a young man, enthusiastic but inexperienced, when I was spurned by girls I thought would be my “one and only.” Like that heartbreak, this pain will morph into anger and, then, bitterness. But, instead of the flames of anger dying into embers and then cooling into ashes, the anger that accompanies this normalcy could erupt into volcanic rage. But against who? Against what? The only logical place for it is to turn it inward; I hope that will not happen often, but I’m afraid it will. The longer we experience social isolation and the deeper the financial upheavals dig into people’s lives, the more likely we will see explosive rage in public places and the more likely we will see dramatic spikes in suicide rates.

I do hope my dystopian vision is utterly wrong. I hope our society, instead, comes together (albeit at a safe distance) to willingly suffer sacrifice and engage in supportive, helpful, constructive behaviors.  It’s really far too early to tell what will happen. It’s probably too early even to predict possibilities. But my underlying pessimism seems to be bubbling to the surface. I would so much rather be hopeful and optimistic. I could really use a hug right now, but that would be dangerous and reckless. So goes reality in mid-March, 2020.

***

I spent a significant portion of the day yesterday creating an inventory of our pantry. Actually, pantries. We have one small pantry in the house and an enclosed plastic shelving unit, meant for tools but which we use as a pantry, in the garage. I created a list, shelf by shelf, of everything. I segmented each item according to a system I devised but probably will change (e.g., beans, condiments, fish, flavorings, etc.). Then, I further categorized the items (e.g., black beans, canned; olives; kipper snacks, canned; liquid smoke; etc.). I recorded how many of each are on each shelf and which shelves they are on. In preparing the inventory, I discovered that we have multiples of some items stored in different places; we don’t have a particularly voluminous pantry, but we have so many individual items of “stuff” that makes it difficult to keep track of what we have. Consequently, we sometimes buy more of an item we already have. If we can keep up with this inventory, we can avoid such wasteful behaviors.

Don’t think you’re the only one who thinks yesterday’s endeavor was indicative of some aberrant psychological patterns. It’s odd that I can focus on such a menial, repetitive, mind-numbing task for a while, yet usually I can’t keep focused on anything for more than a short while. Like ADHD with anal retentive tendencies. Hmm?

Now, will I maintain and update the inventory religiously? I seriously doubt it. Yet when I discover that it has not been updated and is no longer reliable, I will become agitated and angry at myself for my lack of reliability and dependability. Ah, well. It will give me an innocuous mental flaw about which to occupy my mind.

***

In just a while, I will attempt to conduct an online audio and video committee meeting with four or five members of my church. The intent of the meeting is to get some feedbak on a section of the church website dedicated to our efforts to collectively treat the planet with greater respect. In addition, I’m going to try to get the other members of the group to commit to write a blog post for the Green Team (that’s us) blog I created. Maybe these activities can take our minds off the impending end of civilization as we know it.  If the video and audio segments of the meeting go well, I might try to set up video chats with friends in the near future. I’m looking at you, you know!

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

A Lone

Posted on March 19, 2020 by John Swinburn

I sometimes reflect on my life thus far as if it were a single event playing out across a spectrum of time. That viewpoint allows me to contemplate the experience from an unusual perspective; as if I were watching it take place on a graph, with the X axis showing time and the Y axis emotion. If I were better-equipped to present the examination in the form of a graph, I would draw it; a graph might better illustrate my thoughts than my words will do.

When I view the graph in my head, close-up, I see a  line marked by a series of sharp, jagged upward bursts followed by precipitous declines into deeply negative territory. Seen in expanded form, as if viewed from a distance, the line is relatively smooth; a gently rolling pattern on an oscilloscope. Close up, though, the line is more like the EKG of a patient suffering from an extreme incidence of left ventricular hypertrophy. These views are similes of me. More serene, calmer, and more pleasing to the eye from a distance; frantic, frenetic, and unsettling in close proximity.

We cause our own loneliness, sometimes. Loneliness is symptomatic of a lack of emotional and perhaps even physical intimacy. And a lack of intimacy is symptomatic of a lack of…something. I don’t quite know. But I can see when I look at the X and Y axes of that chart that something periodically goes missing. I think that missing element may be a willingness to reveal both weaknesses and needs or desires; that unwillingness to open up is a response to a fear of unfavorable evaluation or mockery or some other form of judgmental assessment. Fear. That’s the root of loneliness, isn’t it? Fear of outright rejection or, from another angle, fear of being dismissed or rebuffed.

The raw ingredients of fear are worry, anticipation, and lack of control. So where does that leave us in the Times of Pestilence? I can almost laugh at the thought process that led to the creation of this post. But not quite. We are expected to voluntarily create empty spaces around us, spaces that discourage intimacy and encourage lone experiences. Lone. Solitary. Sole. Alone. Deserted. Secluded. Isolated. All those sharp, downward spikes on the Y axis. From the distance created by time, they may be just rolling patterns of the oscilloscope. Close-up, though, they suggest severe myocardial infarction.

Is that my life I’m looking at? Or is that the collective lives of all of humanity? They’re one in the same, aren’t they? They are, indeed, for all of us. We’re all lonely creatures, practicing loneliness in different ways.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Life in the Times of Pestilence

Posted on March 18, 2020 by John Swinburn

We have no weapons to fight this war. Our only realistic hope is to hide from the enemy; play dead and hope the beast does not call our bluff. If we confront him, face to face, the best we can do is survive; the worst we can do is declare victory and gleefully thump our chests in self-congratulatory celebration, all the while sharing hugs and becoming accomplices to murder and mayhem.

This is an odd experience, one in which love is shown by avoidance and distance. Some people will react with anger to such expressions of concern, viewing exclusion as rejection, as opposed to its new definition: affection. Others will be joyous; finally, the world will acknowledge the value of their seclusion and aloofness will become a mark of superiority.

In this new world, in which a caress is akin to an assault, we will be forced to rethink our vocabularies and our cultural inclinations. Isolation will morph into a term of endearment. Abandonment will become the ultimate act of love. A gentle squeeze becomes as abhorrent as swinging an axe or thrusting a knife or firing a bullet. Turning one’s back to another person may be interpreted as a decisive act of respect. Kissing a baby could be punishable by imprisonment or worse.

Before this surreal new world comes to pass, though, the young will take their revenge against their elders. The young will make them pay, the ones who frittered away the environment and eviscerated the planet upon which the young will be forced to regrow. The elders will watch in horror as the young ignore pleas for social distance, opting instead to engage intensely in physical contact with one another and then laugh in the faces of the elderly, spraying them with virus-infused aerosols.

I remember what it was like being young and coping with a compassion-deficit-disorder. When I grew up I made up for it, but discovered the corrective was somewhat skewed; overly compassionate with some people and mercilessly cruel to others. That’s a little like our new-found virus, isn’t it? Almost fond of some people and malevolent in the extreme to others.

Coping with life in the times of pestilence will be an exercise in dancing on the pointed ends of needles, I think. One false move and the sharpness will transform the dancer into a howling kebab.

***

And now, a completely different communique:

News reports offer little in the way of real hope. Some of the reports make half-hearted attempts to look on the bright side, but it seems to me those positive slants were dictated by editors rather than arising naturally from the minds of the writers. But this morning I wonder whether some of the negativity in comparing country infection figures fails to account for differences in population between countries? (Is this just me, looking for silver linings behind bitterly grey clouds sprinkled with loathing and rage?)

Whatever the reason for my curiosity, I’ve been updating a chart that compares the experience of Italy—which is undergoing a catastrophic failure of its healthcare system in response to COVID-19—to the USA. I originally encountered the chart three or four days ago. The chart suggested the USA’s experience was tracking with Italy’s, based on “days-out” from original first infection, almost exactly. The implication (and, I believe, the explicit assertion) of the person who created the chart was the the USA should expect its healthcare system to experience the same catastrophic failure as Italy’s unless draconian steps are taken immediately.

I agreed with the writer, as I looked at the chart. Given the other grave predictions I’ve been reading, it just seemed to make perfectly good sense.

Until this morning, when I decided to compare Italy’s population (60.4 million) to that of the USA (327.2 million). Hmmm.

The dates of comparison would equate the USA status as of March 17 (6135 confirmed cases) with the Italian status as of March 6 (4636 confirmed cases). The incidence per population figures translate into 0.007665 percent for Italy and 0.001875 for the USA.
So, Italy’s number of confirmed cases as a percentage of population was 4.08 times the number for the USA as of the same number of days since reported first case. (assuming my numbers are correct).

What does that mean? I’m not sure. But I assume it should be a reassuring figure. Maybe.

A number of other factors could come into play. Population density. Cultural differences in the amount of personal space accepted and expected between people. I suspect the list of potentially intervening factors could go on and on.

This is Life in the Times of Pestilence, it is.

Posted in Covid-19, Health | 1 Comment

I’m Not Going to Work Today

Posted on March 17, 2020 by John Swinburn

On Labor Day several years ago, my wife and I listened to the Glenn Mitchell Show as we drove around Dallas. I was enthralled by Mitchell’s talk show, especially his “Anything You Ever Wanted to Know” segment; the tag line for that segment was: “All Questions Answered. All Knowledge Revealed.” The audience called in with both questions and answers on an enormously wide array of topics. It was a huge hit that involved the listening audience in a big way. Whether that was the segment we listened to that day, I do not know. But I remember distinctly listening to a song he played that Labor Day (maybe it was in 2005, before his death in November) in celebration of the holiday: I’m Not Going to Work Today. What was distinctive about the song, as I remember it, was the way the word “work” was pronounced. The person singing the lyrics pronounced it “woik.” Immediately after hearing the show and for years afterward, I would periodically search for information about the tune, but never had any luck. It seemed to me that Mitchell had played an old audio that was no longer available.

My search for evidence of—and information about—that tune ended an hour or so ago. A quick search on Google revealed sources that yielded a treasure trove of information. The song was written by Kevin B. Martin and recorded by Boot Hog Pefferly and the Loafers (more about them at the bottom of this post). I found a 45 RPM vinyl disc of the tune, with Jump & Shout on the reverse side, for $25 plus $4 shipping. Another one is available for $34.99 plus $3.99 shipping. I do not plan to buy either one because I also discovered a version by Clyde McPhatter on Spotify. While the McPhatter version is good, the “woik” is not quite as distinct as it was what I heard on the radio. And I don’t know for certain that the version I heard was the one performed by Boot Hog Pefferly and the Loafers; I could not find an audio version of their performance. It really doesn’t matter, though. I’ve satisfied a years-long quest. “Quest” seems a bit too intense for my search. Even “search” seems a little over-the-top. It’s not like I’ve dedicated my every waking hour to finding the tune. But I have looked for it on occasion. And this morning I found it all over the internet. And it has spilled into Spotify.

So I am a happy (relative term in this era of the novel coronavirus) man today. My search yielded results. Hallelujah!

According to Lyrics.com, following are the song’s lyrics: to work today

mm, yeah
I’m not going to work today
I’m not going to work today
I know I won’t get no pay but I’m not going to work today
Cause I was up all night with the baby
She was cryin’ like crazy
But I thought that maybe I could stop her
If I would change her wet diaper
But it seems she wanted her her mother
Who was playin’ asleep under the covers
So I walked the baby ’til it fell asleep and now I got achin’ feet
You know my feet hurt yeah
Lord my feet hurt yeah

(Background chorus)
He’s not going to work today
He’s not going to work today

I won’t get no money but yeah

(Background chorus)
He knows he won’t get no pay but he’s not going to work today

Well I’ve got a big son and a daughter
Who have no pity on their father
Well I come home from work yesterday about four and they wanted me to do the limbo
Now I’m a good sorta pappy
Who likes to make his children happy
So I went out and did the limbo
And now my back is sore
Now my back hurts yeah

(Background chorus)
He’s not going to work today
He’s not going to work today

I won’t get no money but yeah

(Background chorus)
He knows he won’t get no pay but he’s not going to work today

Blow your little horns boys

Well now please don’t you get me wrong folks
I love my children and that’s no joke
But this here modern generation whoa
They gonna be my whole ruination
Doing the limbo and walking steeples
I’m gonna leave it to the young peoples
Stick to what I know doing that’s, that’s being the family bread winner

(Background chorus)
He’s not going to work today
He’s not going to work today

I just wanna tell you that I

(Background chorus)
He knows he won’t get no pay but he’s not going to work today

Alright now one more time

(Background chorus)
He’s not going to work today
He’s not going to work today

Here’s what Lyrics.com says about Boot Hog Pefferly and the Loafers:

The band included members of The Carnations, Tren-Dells, Monarchs and other Louisville groups from the early 60s. Vocals: Johnny Hourigan (lead), Mike Gibson, Jimmy Settle, Bill Mathley, Paul Penny and Judy Woods. Musicians: Eddie Humphries (sax), Tom Jolly (trumpet), Leon Middleton (sax), George Fawbush (guitar), Dusty Miller (bass), and John Campbell (drums). It was produced by Hardy Martin and Ray Allen (Floyd Lewellyn) of the famous Allen-Martin Studios in Louisville, KY.

Posted in Covid-19, Memories, Music | 2 Comments

Fear and Dark Humor and Complete Disorientation

Posted on March 16, 2020 by John Swinburn

Fear drives both rational and irrational behaviors. In times of chaos, we find differentiation between them increasingly difficult. For example, are consumers rational when they stock up on toilet paper and non-perishable foodstuffs? It depends on perspective. If information available to consumers suggests the supply chain will be disrupted for a very long time, perhaps stockpiling toilet paper and canned goods and dry foods like rice and beans and beef jerky is a rational response. But if that rational response is apt to result in supply shortages for some and oversupply for others, perhaps the response is actually irrational; selfish and detrimental to the greater good. Information availability is important, but so is the reliability of available information.

If one can reliably trust information made available, the decisions arising out of fear are more likely to be made in a rational way.

“The government says I need to stay at home for two weeks, but they say the supplies of toilet paper and food will not be curtailed during that time if consumers behave rationally and do not hoard, so I will buy only enough to last two weeks.”

But if available information is judged unreliable or, worse, purposefully inaccurate, decisions arising out of fear are more likely to anticipate the “real” situation one is apt to encounter and produce what may be an irrational response.

“The government says I need to stay at home for two weeks. They say the supplies of toilet paper and food will not be curtailed during that time if consumers behave rationally and do not hoard. But initially they said this situation was totally under control and not to worry. Now it’s obvious it was a big deal and there was plenty to worry about. I doubt I can trust them, either that this will require only two weeks or that there won’t be any supply chain disruptions. I better stockpile as much as I can possibly get my hands on. And I may need to buy a gun to protect myself from people trying to break in to steal my food when things get really bad.”

It is against the backdrop of being unable to rely on the validity of information that irrational fear erupts into full-blown panic. When dissonance exists between reassurance and evidence that reassurance is artificial, as in the current pandemic situation, irrational fear explodes into panic. For example, the Trump administration has been assuring the public for weeks that this “thing” will magically disappear and all will be right with the world. The president (lower case “p” used intentionally) has either lied intentionally (his modus operandi) or has been utterly clueless about the seriousness of the pandemic (also his modus operandi) or both. Evidence of the seriousness of the situation is all around us. Reports from Italy, Spain, China, etc., etc., indeed worldwide and within our own country, is at odds with all of his reassurances. The Peace Corps has taken the unprecedented action of suspending all its operational globally.

I wish I knew what the weeks and months ahead will bring. I don’t. I wish I knew when to believe information from the Federal government and when to dismiss it as either intentional lies or bumbling, accidental misinformation. In most cases, I don’t. In that context, I expect to be making what decisions I can based as much on gut instinct as on reliable fact. Knowing that irrational fear can lead to awful miscalculations, I will try to hold my fear in check.

I’ll try to use dark humor to get through this difficult time. I do not use dark humor, though, with my wife, as she does not find it amusing. So this is my outlet. I’ll reproduce below a slightly modified version of a Facebook post I stumbled upon this morning. The author apparently is Iam Myers, someone I do not know.

“If you’ve found yourself with a lack of childcare due to school closings, might I suggest letting the kids roam the streets unattended? Youth gangs are a crucial part of any proper dystopia, and with a head start your children will be well on their way to leading their own packs, getting the best scraps and the largest share of the pickpocketing. They’ll learn the important skills needed to thrive in the impending totalitarian hellscape.”

And with that, I’m off to enjoy the day.

Posted in Covid-19, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Facts, Bias, and Slant

Posted on March 15, 2020 by John Swinburn

Media bias is real. Yes, there are fake news sites. But the “main stream media,” a term right-wing near-nazis (note I did not call them neo-nazis) does not, by and large, conform to my definition of the propagators of fake news. Those low-life scum are not simply biased; they are biased and they manufacture stories they present as factual. They lie. They cannot be trusted. Their operators belong in prison cells, where they would eat only if their friends or family brought them food; just my opinion, of course.

Fortunately, there are sources of information about media that reveal the degree to which an outlet is biased. My favorite is Media Bias/Fact Check whose website is, surprise, https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/.

The reason this topic is on my mind this afternoon is that a person associated with a program operated by my church (though she is not a member of the church) offered a link to a website to support an opinion she had earlier given (in an email). I found her opinion to be stupid, short-sighted, and tied inextricably to an ill-informed conservative mindset. A website she cited was one I whose quality and reliability I judge to be only moderately better than The National Inquirer. The paper to which she linked is The Sun; the U.K. version of TNI (well, not quite that bad).

At any rate, after reading her comments, I decided to check the bias-rating of her source. It is rated as being “MIXED” in terms of factual reporting. It is rated with a right bias (which I knew, but wanted to verify). In describing rags of rating, Media Bias/Fact Check says:

These media sources are moderately to strongly biased toward conservative causes through story selection and/or political affiliation. They may utilize strong loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes), publish misleading reports and omit reporting of information that may damage conservative causes. Some sources in this category may be untrustworthy.

That having verified my opinion, I decided to check out some other media outlets. One to which I pay quite a lot of attention, but which I have lately thought is not entirely unbiased, is National Public Radio. Just as I assessed, NPR is said to have a left-center bias, though Media Bias/Fact Check rates it VERY HIGH on factual reporting. Its description of media outlets that fall in the same rating category as NPR:

These media sources have a slight to moderate liberal bias. They often publish factual information that utilizes loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes) to favor liberal causes. These sources are generally trustworthy for information, but may require further investigation.

What about CNN? I suspect it would not surprise anyone to learn that CNN is MIXED with respect to factual reporting. And it is judged to have a left bias. I used to believe what I saw/read on CNN television and its website. I’m not longer ready to accept it without question. The description of media assessed in this way by Media Bias/Fact Check:

These media sources are moderately to strongly biased toward liberal causes through story selection and/or political affiliation. They may utilize strong loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes), publish misleading reports and omit reporting of information that may damage liberal causes. Some sources in this category may be untrustworthy.

FOX News is CNN’s fraternal twin, on the other half of the spectrum, with MIXED factual reporting and a right bias, described as:

These media sources are moderately to strongly biased toward conservative causes through story selection and/or political affiliation. They may utilize strong loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes), publish misleading reports and omit reporting of information that may damage conservative causes. Some sources in this category may be untrustworthy.

All right. Who is both reliable from the perspective of giving us facts and relatively unbiased? Not surprising, the Associated Press is among the highest rated media resources, judged VERY HIGH on factual reporting, though “borderline Left-Center Biased due to left leaning editorializing, but Least Biased on a whole due to balanced story selection.” The description of such high-rated organizations:

These sources have minimal bias and use very few loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes). The reporting is factual and usually sourced. These are the most credible media sources.

Interestingly, though Public Broadcasting (PBS) is judged by Media Bias/Fact Check as left-leaning, NextAvenue, a digital platform created by PBS, is considered by the site as least biased and HIGH on factual reporting. NextAvenue, though, is not strictly a pure news site, so it’s not necessarily a place to rely on for news of the day.

So, where do I go when I want unbiased news? I have a link to the Associated Press news website on my desktop. I will have a link to NextAvenue, before long. I’ll keep my links to NPR, PBS, etc., etc. (and FOX) just to keep abreast of who’s saying what, but when I want facts, I really want facts. Not spin. Facts. So AP is the place to go for the highest degree of confidence that what I’m reading is factual and reliably free of bias.

Some days, though, I want to see and hear and read something that makes me feel good; something that suggests I’m right in my thinking. That’s when I go to CNN or MSNBC or Slate or Salon or the Atlantic or…many others…to get both information and the right, affirming slant.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Restlessly Waiting

Posted on March 15, 2020 by John Swinburn

Avocado toast and bacon improved my state of mind yesterday morning. Lunch yesterday helped, too. We had leftover (from the night before) cioppino. My wife found a recipe that married the Italian-American dish to Korean flavors (the latter courtesy of gochujang). The seafood components of the magnificent dish included cod, shrimp, and bay scallops. Absent were the mussels and squid I crave in “old-style” cioppino, but I didn’t really miss them because the flavor was so good. Oh, and she included firm tofu in the stew. Instead of serving it with bread, she served it over rice. Oh, the joy!

In spite of my gustatory satisfaction, though, the reality of COVID-19 continued to grow closer yesterday. With every passing day, it seems, we learn of another positive test, nearer and nearer and nearer. Yesterday, Little Rock media reported that all previously “presumed positive” tests had been confirmed. Simultaneously, the local newspaper reported that a member of the Village United Methodist Church is being tested; in response, the church is cancelling all services and activities for the immediate future (which our church already did, a day earlier, but not in response to a threat posed by a suspected case of the virus on our “home turf.). I read this morning that a couple from Camden, in the southern part of the state, are in isolation after their return from a vacation in Italy. I am relatively sure hundreds, maybe thousands, of people throughout the state have been exposed to COVID-19 in one way or another and in one place or another; whether they develop symptoms remains to be seen. And so we wait and we watch and we wonder.

I went out and about yesterday, despite suggestions to the contrary from the CDC, et al. I went to a different grocery store from the one I visited a day earlier, the latter at which I found more rice and dry kidney beans (but, alas, no dry pintos) and some canned pintos; I bought a little of all three. And I went to a liquor store. As I sat in my car, about to leave with my cheap gin, I got a text from a church/writer friend, inquiring as to my whereabouts. Long story short, we met at a coffee shop and sat and chatted until the place closed at 3:00 p.m. I hope I did not expose myself to the virus with my wanton recklessness yesterday. Today, I plan to go buy gas for one of the cars and I may attempt to buy potatoes if I find them. Because what does one do in the midst of a pandemic if one runs out of potatoes? (No, I just checked; we have potatoes. If I bought more, I would have to store them in the trunk of the car.) After complete my explorations, I may stay in for the duration, though probably not; if nothing else, I’ll address the certainty of getting cabin fever by taking brief drives to see the world around me.

I’m so fortunate to have the luxury of preference; a lot of people have no choice but to go to work and risk exposure to a world that’s growing more dangerous by the minute. And others suddenly have no work and no paychecks because the rest of us are locking ourselves in our houses. Ah, the sustenance of guilt is assured no matter which courses of action we take.

As I look at the week ahead, I see that another World of Wine event is scheduled for Thursday. I strongly suspect it will be cancelled; even if not, I doubt we will attend. We’ve already paid (handsomely) for it, though.  I had scheduled Subaru service for next Monday, but I cancelled that already. The following week my wife has two back-to-back days of doctor appointments in Little Rock. Whether the doctors will cancel is as yet unknown; and if the doctors don’t, I suspect my wife won’t, either. If she goes, I will go as well.

I am restlessly waiting for the pandemic to reach its crescendo and then subside. I hope that actually happens. And I hope it happens without the massive numbers of sicknesses and deaths that have occurred and are occuring in Italy and Spain and Iran and…on and on. Humor helps us wade through the morass. But this morning the little bit of it I could muster has temporarily left the building. It will return. I just hope it doesn’t bring the virus with it. (That was a failed attempt at humor.)

Posted in Covid-19, Health | Leave a comment

Confronting Two Enemies

Posted on March 14, 2020 by John Swinburn

In the wake of a growing concern about a mysterious disease, when will a gnawing worry evolve into fear? What incident will cause fear to mushroom into terror, breeding deep suspicion of anyone outside our immediate circle? At what point will we begin to shun our friends and neighbors and, finally, ourselves?

Perhaps that grotesque evolution will not occur. Conceivably, we will come to realize the the environment giving birth to panic must transform into an atmosphere of levelheaded, rational behavior. Yet I’ve already seen evidence of dangerous herd mentality targeting individuals who do not subscribe to group-think. The evidence has been online, where people tend to be more likely to openly attack others than they would in a face-to-face setting. But online bullying of those whose opinions differ from one’s own can morph into physical behavior. Will it?

Less than three weeks ago, I wrote that preparing for the potential pandemic (involving the COVID-19 virus that the Centers for Disease Control suggested was on its way) was probably in our best interests. Several days later, I saw some evidence that people were taking heed. But there was no frenzy.

Yesterday, I witnessed frenzy. When I went to the grocery store to buy a few items on our regular and “just-in-case” grocery lists, I saw evidence of panic hoarding. The parking lots of two nearby grocery stores were full to overflowing. Inside the store I visited, the aisles were jammed with shoppers, their carts piled high. As I wheeled my cart toward the canned good aisles, an employee thrust a 6-roll package of toilet paper in my direction, saying “You want the last roll of toilet paper in the store? This is it. We’re out!” Toilet paper wasn’t on my list, so I declined; a man right behind me said to her, “I’ll take it!”

Entire sections of shelves were empty. There was almost no dry rice left. Dry beans were gone. Long sections of shelving dedicated to canned tomatoes were empty; fortunately, canned tomatoes were not on my list. I had planned on buying a 5-pound bag of rice to replenish our dwindling supply; I bought one of the only remaining 2-pound boxes. I had planned on buying dry pinto beans; there were none to be bought, nor were there any canned beans left on the shelves. The queue for the pharmacy spilled out into the main aisle; apparently, people were trying to make sure their prescription medications would last for…awhile.

Yesterday and again this morning, I saw evidence online that some of the “medical experts” residing in the Village were in attack mode. Posts on Nextdoor, many laced with misinformation and, in some cases outright lies, dripped with acerbic comments directed both at people who “hoard” and those who do not take the pandemic seriously enough to prepare. Everyone, it seems, is at fault for disagreeing with someone’s opinion, regardless of whether the opinion is based on facts or dim-witted fictions fed by an orange-haired idiot. I wonder whether the posts I read this morning will spill into the physical world in the form of flying fists and spraying bullets? I hope not. But I’m not confident that peace will prevail.

Yet not all of the responses to the pandemic are “shoot from the hip” reactions fueled by rage and blind fear. Some reactions have been measured, though bold. The board for my church, for example, decided yesterday morning to close the doors for services and other meetings until further notice. Some schools are closing in nearby communities. Events are being cancelled. In short, the advice of the CDC is being heeded. (Though, I have to wonder whether the CDC is the best source of advice, given some of its recent failings. But I don’t know a better alternative.) Will these very adult reactions to an emergency unlike any we have faced before lead us safely back to stability?

We’re very early into this unprecedented experience, I think. We may have to alter our behaviors for many weeks, perhaps several months (or longer), before the threats of the pandemic have subsided enough to return to “normal.” If, indeed, “normal” is possible after what we’re about to go through. We may discover that the discords and divisions sown by and in response to the current administration are so deep that we can never come together as a nation again. We may come to realize, sooner rather than later, that even the most powerful country on Earth cannot survive going to war with itself over a deadly disease for which it was woefully unprepared. Perhaps we are witnessing an event that will bring about the end of an empire.

How long can the people at the bottom of the economic ladder survive? What does a person who works in a stadium concession stand do when the venue is closed to customers? When patrons stop going to the restaurant where she works, where will the server find enough money to pay her rent? And what will her employer do to pay the restaurant’s rent? When people stop riding buses, will the bus driver be laid off and left to fend for himself? The answer, I think, is yes. Will the rest of us watch as our retirement nest eggs are eaten by traders scrambling to hold on to a scrap of their once-vast fortunes?

There was a time when the opposing political parties would have come together in a national emergency and would have jointly crafted a rational plan to deal with the crisis. I doubt we’ll see that this time. Instead, they will bicker and throw knives at one another, hoping their opponents’ loss of blood will sufficiently weaken them to take them out of the game. The game. That’s what it is to them, I think. Every citizen is simply a pawn in their game.

I’m not feeling particularly hopeful this morning, am I? No, but that could change. I may see glimmers of hope as I witness local and regional and state responses to a growing and very troubling situation. We shall see. In the meantime, while we watch our “leaders” engage in political responses to a medical and its consequential financial emergency, what will we do? In the wake of our growing concern about a mysterious disease, will our gnawing worry evolve into fear? Will our fear mushroom into terror, creating deep suspicions about anyone outside our immediate circles? Will we shun our friends and neighbors and, finally, ourselves?

I am at once deeply pessimistic and cautiously hopeful, spinning from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other with such speed that it’s dizzying. I try not to worry, because worry does not good, but it’s hard. And I try not to be a Pollyanna about the situation, thinking without justification that “everything will turn out all right…because it always does.” I’m stuck somewhere in the middle. I feel like I’m confronting two enemies: a potentially deadly disease and an ill-prepared population hell-bent on survival at the expense of the opponents’ demise. Last night’s post, wherein I wrote one side of an imaginary (and more than a little bizarre) conversation about a boundless, all-encompassing love, was an attempt to get unstuck. It didn’t work. Maybe a breakfast of avocado toast and bacon will do what fiction could not.

Posted in Covid-19, Depression, Health, Hope, Philosophy | Leave a comment

Love is the Richest Emotion

Posted on March 13, 2020 by John Swinburn

I love you. You know who you are. I could listen to your voice for hours if you’d let me. And I suppose you would. But what reason could I give for wanting to hear it? What excuse could I offer for loving you, as if an excuse were necessary to explain the breadth and depth of love beyond borders and relationships? Love is non-exclusive. Love reaches across time, distance, gender, family ties, and friendship. It transcends everything. And it encompasses everything from friendly conversations to intimacy to appreciation to acceptance and embrace. We are lovers, though not in the traditional sense; not at the moment. Time and experience may turn tradition into a cauldron of molten rock, never to be touched without the pain of burned flesh. And that is perfectly all right. Our family ties or gender expressions or other commitments may erase any possibility of another chance at traditional intimacy; that is all right, too. We do not even know one another. We’ve never really and truly met. Though we have, haven’t we? We’re long-lost lovers whose transgressions no longer matter. But they do. Memories never die, they just fade into dreams, the legitimacy of which we’re never sure. But those faded memories emphasize the love that made them. They attest to the history that created those vague recollections that seem more like grey mist and blurred fog than precise, vivid color photographs. Your female form is both alluring and inconsequential. My maleness matters no more than a cup of water matters to the Pacific Ocean. Yet we’re a pair whose existence enables the Earth to spin on its axis. We control the planets and the sun and the moon’s trips across the sky. But we’re miles apart and shackled in comfortable chains. Those chains restrain us and tie us to a lifetime of joint exclusion. Who are we? Do we know how much we matter to one another? Do either of us have even an inkling? I am Apollo and you are Daphne. But we may not really exist. We may be expressions of time and opportunity. We’ll never know, will we? Unless you reveal yourself to me as the reason I dance across the heavens, wearing a crown of laurel leaves.

Love is the richest emotion. It can create magic and spin gold into rivers. Love is salvation in this lifetime; there is no salvation in another one, for there is no other lifetime than this. Love makes all the pain of living worth the agony. Love endures years and years of distance and neglect. There’s more, but you know the rest. Or you can, at least, imagine it.

Posted in Love, Writing | Leave a comment

Circles of Light

Posted on March 12, 2020 by John Swinburn

One of the definitions of corona, courtesy of the Cambridge Dictionary, begins with “a circle of light…” There’s more to it, of course, but I prefer to leave it there for the sake of clarity; clarity that even language is laced with lies.

The coronavirus bears no resemblance to light. It is an ominously dark mystery that even the most highly-educated virologists have trouble explaining to us common-folk. Despite its mysterious origin and its beguiling simplicity, the coronavirus  possesses intricately complex dark magic qualities that have the capacity to upend civilizations. I witnessed a little of that capacity unfold as I read tales of its impact on some people I know.

I have several friends, many of whom I’ve never met face-to-face, who live in and around Seattle, Washington. One of those people described the impact of the virus on her day yesterday in this way:

“Today the layoffs fell swiftly and without fanfare: we closed the cafe until further notice, laid off the Operations Manager, Marketing Administrator, evening warehouse staff, the office assistant. When the dust…had settled, just three of us remained, and I’m lucky to be one of the remaining, reduced-to-half-time, employees.”

As she approaches retirement, the circle of light suddenly blinded her to what lies ahead. As she interacted with real friends, people who live near her and interact with her through human contact, rather than through social media convulsions, she continued her ruminations about the situation:

“We have no perspective from which to draw. That part, for me, is the most bewildering.”

There again, the circle of light does not illuminate the path ahead. Rather, it conceals the way as if casting a shadow of absolute darkness, where physical and financial ruin may wait.

Another friend, whose wife is a teacher and part-time music minister, explored his conflicting feelings about going out, even to church, where most of his social interaction takes place. He’s one who spends most of his time working at home, yet even he is taking steps to isolate himself further; a wise move, especially in light of the immediacy of the threat in and around Seattle. Yet, as he correctly points out, too many of us look at Seattle as if its residents are the unfortunate ones to have to deal with the circle of light. We don’t realize the circle is expanding at the speed of…well, light; and its dark beam has the rest of us in its cross-hairs.

Last night, our country’s chief paid idiot announced a thirty-day ban on flights to the U.S. from Europe. But it’s not really all flights, it’s just the Europeans on flights. Except citizens of England are not included in the ban, presumably because they speak a form of English even the dimwit-in-chief can understand. Instead of marshaling the resources of the U.S. government to provide test kits all across the country, the moron is taking steps to cripple and very possibly kill the airline industry. His actions are putting enormous numbers of pilots, flight attendants, airline food-service workers, airport janitorial staff, airport customs enforcement personnel, taxi drivers, hotel staff, etc., etc., etc. out of work for at least a month and, most likely, much, much longer, because a recovery will not be remotely as rapid as the shutdown. The world’s most visible man-baby is doing the bidding of the circle of light, as if it were flinging accolades and flattery in his direction.

Ugh! Must get the disgusting ooze off my mind.

The NBA has suspended its season. Schools all over the country are closing. Universities are suspending in-person classes in favor of remote, computer-driven learning. The stock market and consequently the retirement funds for millions of Americans are taking enormous, unprecedented hits. Jobs are being lost or put at risk around the country and, indeed, around the world.

Italy has closed its doors; it recorded 168 deaths from the coronavirus in a single day, taking the death toll at that time to 631. The World Health Organization has finally declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Some Middle Eastern countries, including Kuwait and Lebanon and Iran, are responding to COVID-19 fears with their own draconian measures. Iran, which like Italy has been hit extremely hard by the virus, is dealing with the fact that a vice president and two ministers have been diagnosed with the virus. The circle of light is shining on political and economic infrastructures around the globe, exposing cracks in their foundations and causing mounting fear that those institutions will begin to crumble.

In spite of all that’s happening, worldwide, to cause alarm, a surprising number of people claim we’re all making too big of a deal about COVID-19. Geniuses like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity say there’s nothing to fear; they also claim the virus is a sham, just a trick to make their so-called president look bad. Hannity cited a comment from an “MIT guy on Twitter” who said, “coronavirus fear-mongering by the deep state will go down in history as one of the biggest frauds to manipulate economies, suppress dissent and push mandated medicines.”  These are the same people who will, I suspect, get infected and cheerfully, if unknowingly, spread the virus to everyone in their social spheres and beyond.

The paucity of testing has given many people a false sense of security. Quite a few epidemiologists say the virus is far more prevalent and has spread much further than we think. Because people who are asympomatic or whose symptoms are mild are not being tested, and because even the more seriously ill in some places (like Arkansas) are being misdiagnosed in the absence of COVID-19 testing, we do not really know how widespread the disease is. The likelihood, according to some health care professionals quoted in the media, is that the virus has been in Arkansas for quite some time, despite the fact that only yesterday the first “presumptive positive” case was revealed in Pine Bluff. It’s only a matter of a week or so, maybe even just days, before the numbers begin to skyrocket. Until then, though, a lot of people will continue to behave as if they are immune to a disease they do not believe is in even remote proximity to them.

Even though there are plenty of deniers, though, stores have sold out of hand-sanitizers and wipes. Even aloe vera gel, a key component of homemade hand-sanitizer, is unavailable, even online. I just wonder whether people are actually using the stuff or whether they are stocking up “just in case.” If “just in case,” it’s too late, I’m afraid.

In spite of all this, I think panic is misplaced and counterproductive. In my view, it’s prudent to follow the guidance of competent epidemiologists and go about our lives in as ordinary a fashion as possible. Maybe we simply need to stay home to the extent we can, avoid crowds, try to stop touching our faces, wash our hands frequently and thoroughly, sneeze into tissues instead of our sleeves, and otherwise behave as the health care professionals tell us. No matter what we do, though, we’ll have to wade through economic dislocations and, very likely, shortages caused by both demand and transportation-related and worker-unavailability-related delays in supply. And, rather than waiting until the incidence of COVID-19 in our immediate surroundings is high, we should start now to behave as if the circle of light was shining in our eyes.

Will I follow my own (and health care professionals’) advice? I do not know. Time will tell.

Posted in Covid-19, Health | Leave a comment

Stigma

Posted on March 11, 2020 by John Swinburn

Routines that, until recently, guided me through the predawn hours have dissolved into misty memories over the course of the last few months.  I could point to a single change, over which I had no control, that caused the disruption—but such an observation might be misinterpreted to be an accusation. It is not. There is no assignment of blame in my observation, only recognition of causation. But, because of the potential for unintended misconception, I will refrain even from mentioning the single change that disturbed my long-settled routines. I will, instead, focus on its consequences.

No longer do I have the luxury of writing in absolute isolation, as darkness fades into diffuse light. My attention, easily distracted even in utter solitude, ricochets like a bullet fired at an angle toward the floor of an all-metal room. The soft sounds of gentle footsteps become thunderous, echoing like a swarm of staccato bass drums pounding through a deep canyon.  My train of thought jumps its tracks with every click of a light switch. Every time I hear a faucet open or close, my brain floods with unrelated thoughts that wash fresh ideas out of my head, leaving only pools of stagnant notions.

I cannot finish thoughts because. Any semblance of creativity drowns in dark, attention-eating waves of  misplaced or misdirected focus. The freedom to daydream or fantasize or hallucinate is shackled to a cage I share with reality, where fiction is treated as a canard, a crime punishable by psychic lobotomy. Even when words flow like a mountain stream following an epic rainstorm, the alphabet turns to vapor and the words disappear. What’s left is an empty screen strewn haphazardly with just a few letters and evidence of erasure.

Muck. Much. Mach. Mace. Male. Sale. Salt. Halt. Hall. Call. Cell. Bell. Belt. Bolt. Boot. Root. Riot.

This morning, I read an article that claimed our choice of fashion can have a significant  impact on the environment. Some jeans, for example, contribute substantial amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, thanks to the fabrics from which they are made, the detergents used to wash them throughout their lives, and various other issues. The simple solution, in my opinion, is universal nudity. Of course, the number of people who would become destitute due to the disappearance of their jobs would be astronomical. Partial nudity may be the answer, instead. Whether that means everyone going without shirts or certain regions of the world going naked while others wear thongs and sports coats, I do not know. What is the difference, I wonder, between partial nudity and semi-nude? And why do we so rarely read or hear those terms these days?

It’s time for me to shower and shave, brush my teeth, and get either partially or fully dressed. I have meetings to attend today; one at church this morning and another at church later this afternoon. Church. I still do not like that word applied to a building in which I often find myself. I’d rather it be designated a Gathering Place or an Intellectual Healing Compound or something else that does not carry the stigma of “church.” I may be in the minority when I say the word “church” carries a stigma. I’ll ask if that’s true during one or both of my meetings there today.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Patterns

Posted on March 10, 2020 by John Swinburn

It’s a pattern. I daydream about hitting the road for an extended period to explore new places, revisit places from my long ago past, or simply to separate myself from the day-to-day routine by which I sometimes feel confined. It’s not as if my life is especially onerous or troublesome. It’s more a matter of wishing I could break out of the static constellation in which I have placed myself. A pattern within a pattern; an entrenched, routine fantasy about breaking out of an entrenched, routine experience. It is such a well-worn path, so consistently followed, that it has created a deep rut that prevents any significant deviation in any direction. That is not to say that every day is like the one it follows, but every day is so close to the one before that it feels like repetition. I find it impossible to put this sensation into words anyone outside of myself can understand. My words describe the sensation perfectly to me, but they probably would not make sense to anyone else.

The patterns—both the fantasies and the realities—are of my own making. The only things preventing me from transforming realities into fantasy and fantasy into fact are inertia and fear. Yet little risks can become enormous, explosive, irrevocable, irreversible, life-changing metamorphoses. Fear, then, feeds inertia. The little risk of sprinting across a freeway lane can become cataclysmic if one underestimates the speed of oncoming traffic; so, the boredom of sitting on the roadside, waiting for someone to stop and offer a ride, becomes tolerable.

Much of what takes place outside this house seems artificial in some way. Many of my interactions with other people—the pleasantries exchanged with people at the grocery store or at restaurants or in church or in every other place in which I find myself—seem superficial. I am playing the part of average everyday “Joe,” glad to be alive and happy to see the people in his frivolous sphere. Most of the people in that silly sphere probably are just as dull and no more cheerful than I, and they are equally as reticent to open up to strangers. The thing is, we’re all strangers. We hide behind thick canvas curtains that shield us from getting too familiar. Yet familiarity is what we’re after. Or intimacy. Dipping one’s toes into intimacy or even familiarity can be dangerous territory. We can never know until the risk has been taken whether we have misread cues or, indeed, have misinterpreted signals that were not intended as signals at all. A friendly wave, for example, does not necessarily mean a person is interested in engaging in conversation. An invitation to join a game of poker does not necessarily mean the person making the offer wants to strike up a friendship. And so on.

My daydreams about hitting the road may be about developing new relationships without worrying about navigating around existing potholes. It may be easier to repair an axle broken by driving into a new pothole than repairing a relationship damaged by misinterpreting, as cues, messages that were never sent.

It occurs to me (and it has, for years) that I may make more of minutia than it’s worth. Perhaps miscues or misreadings are not the tragedies I make them out to be in my scrambled little mind. So what if I mistake an invitation to play poker as an overture toward friendship? Once the error is understood, it should be easy to change course and be on my way. Yet it’s not always that easy, nor that superficial. Differentiating between shallow potholes and dangerous sinkholes can be a tricky undertaking. And the result of a miscalculation can be enormous. So, it may be easier to simply stay on the sidewalk.

As I re-read what I’ve written, it’s clear to me that what I’ve written is as clear as mud. I could have been clearer, but I chose to write in riddles. That’s the way it will stay. If I had wanted to be more transparent, I wouldn’t have been so opaque. I know what I wrote about, which is what’s important. One day, when I read this post again, I will know instantly what was on my mind. To anyone who has read what I’ve written and wonders what the hell I was writing about, I apologize. Chalk it up to the fact that I’m simply exercising my fingers.

Posted in Ruminations | Leave a comment

The Rest

Posted on March 9, 2020 by John Swinburn

I’m writing this on Sunday night as the clock tells me it’s close to 11:00 p.m. I have a good reason for writing it Sunday, instead of early Monday. I will be up early again on Monday; there’s no question. But I won’t necessarily be in the mood to write. I’ll be in the mood for something else, but again I will be constrained by a thousand harnesses from hitting the road and finding what’s “out there” for me to explore. What might I miss by not hitting the road? A desolate desert landscape, miles from nowhere; row upon row upon row of fertile farmland, waiting for Spring; a thousand miles of barren highway, devoid of cars and cares; an empty night sky, so full of stars my eyes would be unable to see them all; a pathway to the past or the future, complete with signs only I can see; a million options, all calling to me to explore them. Who knows? I don’t. My mood will be different from the one I’m in tonight, no doubt. It always is.

Good night. To the more curious among you (whoever you might be); buy me a beer and I might explain. Or I might not. At the very least, you can share a beer with me. And I will appreciate that for the rest of time.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Early-Onset Nosophobia and Unrelated Mental Tantrums

Posted on March 8, 2020 by John Swinburn

I had occasion recently to read a story I wrote almost five years ago. Among the many character names mentioned in the story—most only in passing—were Shady Fulcrum, Gludge Mokrey, Cleatus Pryor, and Barney Clump. There were several others, most a little less strange and jarring. Although none of the aforementioned characters are central to the story, their odd names play an important (but not an explicit) role in defining the story’s setting. The thought occurred to me this morning, as I awoke at a quarter to six (in yesterday’s terms, thanks to our semi-annual clock adjustments, a quarter to five), that each of those characters has a story of his own. I can envision writing an entire series of stories that revolve around these characters. My recent thought of revisiting my fictional town of Struggles, Arkansas, coupled with this morning’s consideration of character names from another story, may spur me on the write a series that merges the characters from the two into a string of stories. I like the idea. Will I act on it? Time will tell.

***

Another thought crossed my mind this morning, while watching a video that popped up on my Facebook feed. The video consisted of several short clips showing people bending and shaping small trees—saplings, really—in the art of bonsai. The artists were intent as they clipped away little branches and wrapped the tiny trunks and limbs in rope and/or wire and then bent the wood into the shapes the artists wanted. Though some of the bends seemed too severe, to me, the wood did not snap. I assume, but I am not sure, that the wire and rope will be removed at some point and the little trees will retain their forced shapes. I may explore more about bonsai; I might even give it a try. After watching the video, I searched my blog to see whether I might have written about bonsai in the past; I had, but not about trees. There’s one mention on my blog about Bonsai, about six years ago. I wrote about the sad announcement some friends had made, on Facebook, about the decision to euthanize their cat, Bonsai, to put him out of his misery. My friends shared the pain of the decision and their loss. Even though it was hard for them, the outpouring of support they received was no doubt helpful in dealing with the trauma. Perhaps practicing the art of bonsai is a way of dealing with pain and trauma. Maybe I will see whether it is a healing art.

***

Speaking of healing. I don’t think I’ve considered, until this morning, categorizing hypodermic with respect to its part of speech. I know, that’s a ghastly admission. As I thought about it, I assumed it was a noun, as simply a component of hypodermic needle. The dictionary verified that hypodermic needle is, indeed a noun, a two-part word. But the dictionary also confirmed my underlying suspicion that hypdermic is an adjective; the “ic” offers a clue that the word is a modifier, an adjective. My thoughts then scrambled toward another word, hypothermia. I checked to see whether hypothermic also was a legitimate word. It is. So why is hypodermia not a legitimate word? Or it is? A person can die from hypothermia. Can that same person die from hypodermia? (Of course not; the person already died from hypothermia and we all know a person cannot die twice…except for the age-old saying, “You die twice, once when life leaves your body and again when your name is spoken for the last time.”) I think I’m wandering off track again, in my normal modus operandi. Back to the issue: can a person die from hypodermia? I imagine others have already explored this odd query and have developed ironclad answers; it matters not to me. My imagination is unrestrained by history and actual fact. That, and the fact I’m too lazy this morning (and most mornings) to ferret out the answer to the question; if the answer mattered deeply, I might get off my duff and look for it, but it doesn’t matter enough to warrant the expenditure of energy, time, and analytical engagement. In other words, “the game is not worth the candle.”  Le jeu n’en vaut pas la chandelle.

***

The little rural community in which I live is full of people from all over the country. Many of those people travel internationally on a regular basis, mostly for vacations. Given the extent of travel in which members of our community engage, I wonder whether the COVID-19 virus might already have crept into this backwoods setting already. And, given that the age-range of residents here is heavily weighted toward the upper 60s and beyond, I wonder how dangerous such a virus might be in this community. We might all do well to stock up on toilet paper and food, seal ourselves in our homes, paint our bodies with alcohol, wear face masks, and avoid all contact with other humans. But I’m not going to do that. Not just yet. So, it’s off to church this morning, where I’m sure I’ll elbow-bump a few people.

Posted in Covid-19, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Self-Limiting Thoughts

Posted on March 7, 2020 by John Swinburn

Perhaps this, the third item I’ve written since I got up around 5 this morning, will satisfy my desire to create something I am willing to share. The first two provided me with outlets for thoughts about intellectual and emotional searches but were not suitable for the public realm.

How is it, I wonder, that we decide what is suitable for sharing? Or, on the other hand, how do we determine what we do not want to share? The answer might initially seem straightforward, but when I focus my attention on the question, the answer begins to cloud until, finally, it becomes nearly opaque. As I unleashed my thoughts earlier, I found myself documenting a state of mind that might be subject to misinterpretation. A simple bit of minor melancholy could be mistaken for overwhelming sadness. A shred of humor could be misread as evidence of delirious happiness. An expression of a desire for isolation might be interpreted as a wish to abandon everything heretofore dear to me. And qualifying words, meant to convince the reader that all really is well, could be viewed as artificial reassurance.

Because certain subjects tend to raise red flags, we tend to avoid them, even when dialogue about those subjects might be healing and healthy or, instead, simply chit-chat. On the other hand, raising some subjects, including those that might be considered innocuous, can indeed be evidence of cause for alarm. So, if the topics or subjects on one’s mind have the potential of triggering false alarms, we avoid those red flags.

I saw a Facebook post the other day, posted by the daughter of a friend, that turned the “undue alarm” idea on its ear. The post said, essentially, “If you need to talk about something, just talk about it. Don’t hint around about it on Facebook to try to generate concern. Either spit it out or shut up.” That sort of insensitive attitude is also a reason one might avoid tentatively raising sensitive subjects. In my opinion, many people feel the way my friend’s daughter does but have the decency to hide it rather than share it with the world. But, then, perhaps honesty is the best policy?  No, I think most people would rather not say out loud, “Honestly, I am an insensitive prick.” They prefer to feign compassion.

This bit of writing is not accomplishing what I’d hoped, either. Today must not be my day for shareable thoughts. But I’ll share it anyway. And I might one day return to the other two pieces I wrote this morning and I might share them, too. I have 343 other unshared pieces (also called drafts), waiting in line. They are not secrets. They are protected pockets of mistaken ideas. They are not the self-limiting thoughts that make their way to this site. At least not yet.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Late Lethargy

Posted on March 6, 2020 by John Swinburn

It’s 7:00 a.m. and I’ve only been up for about fifteen minutes. I’ve wasted a significant portion of the day, sleeping in! Around 5:00 a.m., I awoke and decided to get up “in a minute,” but that didn’t happen. Nor, did I jump up when I looked at the clock and realized I’d slept another hour and five minutes. Ach! It’s a rarity that I sleep so late. I do not like it. I could have accomplished so much between 5:00 and 7:00 this morning; instead, I lay in bed, unproductive in both thought and action. What a waste!

And here I am, continuing that wasteful unproductive behavior by simply exercising my fingers, not my mind. The coffee hasn’t kicked in yet. That’s it.

My computer claims the outside temperature this morning is 46 degrees. My eyesight informs my brain, as I gaze out the window, that the sky is absolutely, brilliantly, spectacularly blue! This day holds enormous, productive promise! But I suspect that promise will be redirected toward leisurely enjoyment. My wife, if she feels up to it, will want to drive into Little Rock for lunch; at least that’s what she suggested yesterday. We’ll see, we will.

All the creativity that resided in my brain until 7:00 a.m. this morning has escaped into the atmosphere. I am mentally lethargic, lacking even a shred of creativity. For that reason, among thousands of others, I shall stop writing for now.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Forgiveness and Food

Posted on March 5, 2020 by John Swinburn

I spilled red wine on a grey and white carpet last night. I did my best to clean it; my best was inadequate, as ample evidence of the spill remains. My faux pas bothered me, but it didn’t send me into the atmosphere. I hope we can get the stain out; if not, I will not commit suicide. At least not for that reason. Accidents happen. Such is life. My mistake was clumsy, stupid, and avoidable. I forgave myself for being human. In this instance. In considering my bumbling mistake, it occurred to me that my willingness to forgive myself for making it is a rarity. I don’t forgive myself for much.

I may have made a mistake, pointed out to me by a woman with whom I’ve been friends on Facebook for several years, when I used the word “ethnic” to describe food. I wonder whether, if indeed I made a mistake, I am eligible for forgiveness? Here is part of the exchange between us (responding to a post in which I said was I buying ethnic food):

Elle (my friend): Isn’t the word “ethnic” to describe food politically incorrect? (this is a serious question).

Me: I have read some pieces that suggest “ethnic” applied to food is derogatory. I think whether it is derogatory depends on the ear and the audience. From my perspective, Mexican food, Indian food, Arabic food, French food, Moroccan food, etc. are ethnic foods. From the perspective of a Moroccan or a Mexican, American food or Canadian food or Caribbean food might be called ethnic food. And in each case, country-specific or region-specific foods might be called ethnic. If language is changing AND if the majority of people from regions where food I call ethnic consider the term offensive, I would gladly adjust. I remember a time when “Oriental food” was a perfectly acceptable term, but it came to be considered offensive…so the term is now (perhaps temporarily) “Asian food.” Sometimes, I think political correctness is dictated by fear of offending where offense would not be taken, except for the fear articulated by the fearful. If I have simply missed the cultural shift and should change my behavior, I will. But I would want to feel sure the issue is real. Long, long answer to a short question. 😉 What are your thoughts?

Elle: The word “ethnic” feels odd to me, and I found it offensive. To me, the use of “ethnic” denotes a lack of sensibility as if the foods are considered all the same and somehow of lower quality. Doesn’t each food deserve an attribute of its own, like French food, Japanese food, Iranian food OR European food, Southeast Asian food, Middle Eastern (which at least narrows it down to a limited geographical area)? “Ethnic” sounds colonialistic to me.

Me: Your response to the word is new to me and very different from mine. Rather than a label of inferior quality or “sameness,” my sense of the word elevates the subjects to which they are applied. Each food does deserve its own attribute, as you say, but collectively they require a label that, in my mind, says they are “different from my native culture,” (and therefore exotic in some way). Again, I use the word in appreciation, not in disparagement. But your response makes me want to explore further whether my definition and usage is mistakenly negative. I do not want to be mistaken for a colonialist!

I then added: Elle, I have posted the following on my FB page: “Serious questions: In your view, is use of the word “ethnic” to describe food derogatory? That is, does it suggest the foods are of lower quality or that the cultures from which they come are somehow inferior? What terms would you use, instead, to be more sensitive?” I would really like to know how others in my sphere perceive the word. Perhaps you might ask the same question of those among your FB followers?

My immediate gut reaction was to think the very idea that use of the word “ethnic” to describe food might be politically incorrect was absurd. But I tried to put aside my reaction and think rationally about it. My intent in using the word is not the issue. The issue is how the word is perceived by people who might be offended because the word applies to their native foods. Attempting to put myself in a position in which I might be offended by a term used to describe “American” food, I try to examine my emotions if I heard someone describe the foods of my culture and some others as “bland.” The person using the description might not intend it to be derogatory; she might intend only to suggest the foods do not use much spice. But I might view the term in another way; I might think “bland” means uninteresting, dull, boring, tedious, etc. The only way the person using the term in an innocuous (to them) way is to let them know how their usage is perceived. That may be precisely what Elle was telling me. But I’m not yet convinced. I’m awaiting the responses from FB friends, both mine and hers.  Thus far, though, the one response I’ve received suggests I may need to rethink my choice of terms to describe foods from other cultures.

Posted in Food, Language | Leave a comment

My Schizophrenic Electoral Attitude

Posted on March 5, 2020 by John Swinburn

It occurred to me that I posted something a couple of days ago that suggested I voted for Biden. I didn’t. I voted for Warren. But I had concluded by the time I wrote the post that a centrist like Biden was the most likely candidate to beat Trump. And, earlier, I had decided to vote for Biden, though I kept changing my mind: Biden, Warren, Buttigieg, Sanders, Warren, Biden, Buttigieg, Warren…it was almost schizophrenic. But on the way to cast our ballots, my wife and I discussed who we were voting for. Neither of us were certain, even then, as we drove to vote. That was the first time I have ever been unsure of who would receive my vote by the time I headed to the polls. I supported Hillary Clinton in 2008 until Obama got the nod, but I didn’t decide on her until relatively close to decision time. But I knew she would get my support by the time I had to declare. This time, though, I was all over the map.

Initially, I was strongly supportive of Bernie Sanders. That support eroded as I considered how certain he seemed that he would implement plans that were absolutely pie-in-the-sky impossibilities in today’s political climate. But I liked Elizabeth Warren; her philosophies are close to Sanders’ but her plans seem more achievable. And I think we need a woman in the White House. I still think she would be the best candidate, though I am not sure whether she would fare well against Trump, considering how many “Bernie or bust” people might sit out the election. Ultimately, in the Arkansas primaries, I felt certain my vote would not count. I could have voted for Pete or Gabbard or Bloomberg or a cocker spaniel; it would not have mattered.

So I voted for Warren. But Biden won the Arkansas primary, as I felt sure he would. Now that he’s favored to get the nomination, I will support him. And I do think he might be the only one with a good chance to beat Trump, though the Bernie or bust people may abandon him, too. I don’t know. Ach!

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Yesterday’s Journal: A Dull Tale of a Semi-Typical Day (and a rebirth of my interest in writing)

Posted on March 4, 2020 by John Swinburn

Yesterday morning, before we left for Little Rock for my wife’s blood draw, frustration was afoot because the medical folks had not confirmed that she had an appointment at 11:15. Because we did not want to miss that appointment, assuming it had been made, we left in time to make it.  During the drive, my wife received a call from the nurse who had arranged the appointment; “I faxed the order over and I got a confirmation that the fax was received.” So on we drove. My wife called the scheduler for the blood draw lab, but could not reach her; she left a message. And on we drove.  When we got there, the blood draw scheduler said no fax had been received. We could go to the nurse who had sent the fax, pick up a hard copy of the order, and return…but there was no guarantee my wife could be fit in. We drove over, picked up the order (and the fax confirmation sheet), and returned. Fortunately, the blood draw lab fit my wife in pretty quickly. But, really? If the issue had been a medical emergency, would these nitwits have been equally as inept? It’s fortunate that I did not intercede with my comments; I would have been ejected from the building by security and, quite possibly, arrested for disorderly conduct.

***

Despite the medical madness, we went on to have a nice day. Next stop was Ali Baba Mediterranean Restaurant and Market, where we had wonderful falafel sandwiches (I have to try something else from the menu one day, but I like the falafel so much I can’t force myself to change; maybe if I had lunch there five days in a row…). My wife bought a bottle of pomegranate molasses (I think to replenish the used-up supply at home), then we headed out.

Next stop was Sam’s Oriental Store, just up the street from Ali Baba. There, I bought a small container of Ajinomoto Soup Stock Hondashi granules to use in my miso soup, among other things. I also got a tube of harissa paste. I could not read most of the text on the box that contained the tube (it was written in Arabic), but the sticker attached to the box said the little tube contains 84 servings; must be very pungent stuff!  My wife picked up several envelopes of various pre-packaged Asian flavorings, each dedicated to a particular dish. I could have bought much, much more, but did not.

My wife found a recipe for kimchi-stuff meat balls; because I had already gone through some of the kimchi we bought during our last trip to Little Rock, she wanted more. She decided the containers at Sam’s were too big, though, so she suggested we drive the few block’s to Mr. Chen’s, which we did, where we bought another container for her recipe. From there, we headed to Whole Foods Market.

Fortunately, we packed our cold-food bag (into which we had placed our large blocks of blue ice, fresh out of the freezer) so we could buy foods that required refrigeration. We left the store with salmon patties, tequila-marinated salmon chunks, live (i.e., root still attached) cilantro, and who knows what else; several items for the cold bag.

We drove the few blocks to Colonial Liquors, where we picked up a bottle of Bombay Sapphire East gin. We had decided during the last trip not to buy the larger bottle, even though it was on sale; we had wanted the smaller bottle, also on sale, but it was out. We changed our minds and bought the larger (but not really large) bottle. We now have a collection suitable for the intended use: a gin-tasting that we’ll offer at auction for our church’s auction in April.

On the way home, but before we left Little Rock proper, we stopped at Kroger.  Greek yoghurt and bottled water completed the shopping spree. Thence, homeward bound.

During the drive home, we decided to have dinner at the Home Plate Cafe, which promoted via email to me their Southern Comfort menu, including options such as fried chicken livers, fried catfish, pot roast, and chicken & dumplings. They also offered my favorite, fried green tomatoes, but the price was out of my comfort zone. My wife loves fried chicken livers, so that was her choice. I opted to have half livers and half catfish; I am not as much of a fan of chicken livers as is my wife, I’ve decided. All in all, though, it was a good meal.

And, then, home. I spent the evening watching election returns and my wife went off to play cards with neighborhood women. And then, to bed.

***

I have more ideas for my story set in the fictional town of Struggles, Arkansas. Perhaps I will revise what I’ve written and expand it into a much longer short story or, perhaps, something even longer. My main character (Calypso Kneeblood) owns the Fourth Estate Tavern. In the story I’ve written thus far, we know nothing of his past. I decided yesterday he once owned and was the editor and publisher of the town’s only newspaper, which collapsed after the town’s major employer (possibly a huge lumber mill) abruptly closed, putting several hundred townspeople out of work. He may or may not have also owned the Fourth Estate Tavern at the same time. At any rate, the tavern is the go-to place for the town’s eccentrics and intelligencia. (Struggles, Arkansas is not the stereotypical hillbilly, backwoods town; it is a pocket of intellectual depth and progressive thought in an otherwise ultra-conservative landscape.) At any rate, my mind is percolating about Struggles again. I’m anxious to get my other obligations out of the way so I can devote uninterrrupted time to writing.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Musings on Politics, People, Society, and the Almost Certainly Impossible

Posted on March 3, 2020 by John Swinburn

I do not worry that electing a left-leaning candidate like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren would lead to economic catastrophe. Nor do I worry that electing a centrist like Biden would embed a Republican-light approach to government for the foreseeable future. My worry is that the nomination of one or the other might sufficiently upset his or her non-supporters that they won’t vote in November, thus assuring the election of Trump.

My preference is that the centrism the Democratic party has embraced in the recent past would be overtaken by a left-leaning progressive attitude, tempered by practical realism. But which candidate for the Democratic nomination is apt to be able to engage enough voters to make that happen and, after the nomination, win the presidency? Neither, I’m afraid. So, I reluctantly give my support to a centrist with the wish that he will embrace a slightly more left-leaning running mate and, when elected (I hope), fill his cabinet with a mix of leftist and centrist politicians who can work together. I would even endorse Biden’s comment that he might bring a Republican onto his ticket, though I would rather that not happen. I would rather he bring a Republican or two into his cabinet, with the proviso that any such Republicans must have been vocally opposed to Trump and his reactionary policies.

Republicans and Democrats alike seem, to me, too deeply embroiled in inflexible politics. They are unwilling to bend and flex to build even a modicum of common ground. Sure, if I had my way this country would move with deliberate speed toward a modified version of the social democratic models of governance practices in Scandinavian countries, a la Bernie Sanders. But, unlike how I perceive Sanders’ endorsement of those models, I would not embrace them wholesale; I would adjust and adapt them to fit the American system of government and the American population. But I’m not going to get my way, am I? So, I’ll have to accept what I get; if I want to have a say in the matter, I’ll have to make my voice heard. Ultimately, I’ll have to tolerate what I get. I won’t have to like it, but I’ll have to live with it.

In an ideal world, we would live in an isocracy in which no one has more power than anyone else. A “pure” democracy. Unfortunately, direct democracy becomes more and more impractical as the effects of decisions broaden geographically and demographically. The more land/distance and the more people, the more difficult direct democracy becomes. That simply fact is why, I think, representative democracy evolved. But political power need not rest exclusively with a small cadre of “chosen ones.” At the municipal or local level, representatives could be elected to implement the desires of the people; if the representative strayed from the peoples’ wishes, he or she could be recalled without bureaucratic obstacles. Representatives “up the chain” could similarly be charged with delivering the will of the people; failure to do so could similarly result in immediate replacement.

It’s obviously not quite that simple, but I suspect a system could be devised in which the will of the people, with adequate protections for the minority, could be ensured. I read something recently that suggested social democracy has been in play in our society for a very, very long time. Examples include municipal ownership of electric utilities, gas utilities, etc. The article asserted that municipal ownership was a response to monopolies that delivered inadequate service or quality at unacceptably high prices. I don’t know if that’s true, but it sounds modestly reasonable.

I am in favor of public ownership of any service/product whose absence would be harmful to society. Electric utilities, gas utilities, pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and on and on. An argument could be made that they already are publicly owned through shareholders; I would argue that system of ownership puts too much power in the hands of the wealthy and those whose primary objectives involve the accumulation of wealth, not the provision of service to the public.  I guess I’m a socialist at heart. But not a “pure” socialist. I am a fan of entrepreneurship. But if an entrepreneur’s efforts lead to the growth of a product or service that becomes a necessity, he or she should not object to having the product or service seized for public ownership, but with adequate compensation for his or her efforts in conceiving or developing it.  It all gets sticky, I realize. Without people, it would be a whole lot easier. But I guess we’re stuck with people. Without us, where are we?

Posted in Philosophy, Politics | Leave a comment