Nobody Said it Was Going to be Easy

Dostoevsky in Notes from the Underground might have had a point when he suggested that for the living, suffering was the point.

Then again, Tolstoy might also have had a point when he suggested in The Death of Ivan Ilych that we are all Ivan Ilych.

What, one wonders, did Nathaniel Hawthorne mean when he wrote in his classic, The House of the Seven Gables, "In this republican country, amid the fluctuating waves of our social life, somebody is always at the drowning point."?

Who would venture to say that using his Yankee ingenuity he was subtly hinting that it might not be a bad idea to manufacture more life-rafts to keep the sharks at bay?

If You See Something, Say Something

In his magnum opus, World of Our Fathers, Irving Howe wrote:

"The inevitable law of sectarianism--that in the absence of mass participation and social power it is ideology that becomes the substance of politics."

While that might be true, the word 'substance' seems to have relatively little meaning today, because, sadly, both the issues that politicians choose to discuss, and tragically, the politicians themselves, are found spectacularly lacking in the stuff.

Monkey Sees, Monkey Tells

In his splendidly original and lyrical novel of Magical Realism, "Red Earth and Pouring Rain", Vikram Chandra leads the willing reader on a journey to places usually discovered only in dreams. Good dreams.

When asked the following important questions, Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god, answers wisely:

Q: Why are there hypocrites in the world?
A: Because it is hard to bear the happiness of others.

Q: When are we happy?
A: When we desire nothing and realize that possession is only momentary...

Q: What is regret?
A: To realize that one has spent one's life worrying about the future.

Q: What is sorrow?
A: To long for the past.

Q: What is the highest pleasure?
A: To hear a good story.

In Chandra's sweeping novel one hears many a good story.

In Your Eye America: GOP has Great Expectorations for YOU

Writing through his character, Pip, in Great Expectations, Charles Dickens, who knew a thing or three about what can go wrong for the lowfolk in a democracy, wrote the following:

Mrs. Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but she had an exquisite art of making her cleanliness more uncomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and some people do the same by their religion.


I cannot keep that pristine passage in my mind without conjuring up the image of our U.S. Congressfolks awkwardly trying to sweep all of our fiscal problems (that they have created) under the proverbial rug while the voter's are off-stage singing in a drowsy chorus:

Mrs. Joe, the poor old shrew,
she just got her just due.
Hangin' chads by fall begone,
and lo you 'warmints' all will too.

________________________

Later, upon further delving into Dickens' masterpiece, I came across the following palaver between Pip and his would be paramour, Estella, concerning the merits of a certain Speaker of the House and his ancestry:

"Well," said she.
"You know he is as ungainly within, as without. A deficient, ill-tempered, lowering, stupid fellow."
"Well," said she.
"You know he has nothing to recommend him but money, and a ridiculous roll of addle-headed predecessors; now don't you?"
"Well," said she again; and each time she said it, she opened her lovely eyes the wider.

Is That All There Is?

Then Let's Keep . . .

Personal Foul: 15 yrs and Loss of Down

Moving the Chains--At Last--Somebody threw a Flag...


These campus sex crimes are not generally abhorred--that is, until some slippery eel is finally netted and served up like a gutted fish with the scales of justice shining brightly upon the prize catch and the reluctant game wardens. A remedial course in Ethics ought to be a prerequisite for all new hires.

The Eurogenius Zone: It's Not Greek To US

When the Eurozone was formed it didn't give itself the necessary tools to deal with the current crisis. The very foundation of its financial and political structure is therefore unsound. This fact is recognized by all of the suffering parties involved. It will be impossible to quickfix the problem without divine intervention, which has been in even shorter supply in Europe than known Greek taxpayers. The U.S. has a lot more options for regulating its fiscal policy, and with more than 50 state and territorial governments to answer to, it would probably welcome even more options. The Eurozone members must borrow from Peter to pay Paul, while the Americans who have raised Capitalism into an art form, merely borrow from themselves to maybe or maybe not pay themselves back when and if they ever get around to it. The 1st rule of Capitalism is: Thou shalt give thyself the edge.


It's not for nothing that Benjamin Franklin was a printer and has his picture on the C-note.