Light vs. Dark

When Joe Biden officially accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination for president this week in a forceful and, frankly, awe inspiring speech, he opened his remarks with a quote from the late African American civil rights activist Ella Baker:

Give people light… and they will find the way.

I’m not much of a light vs. darkness guy because I tend to see the world in infinite shades of over analytical grays.  This accounts for my lifelong disinterest in comic books and all things superhero and sword and sorcer-ish from the time I was a pre-pubescent up through the present day.

Sometimes I wonder if I ever would have made it out of young adolescence with all my limbs intact if I had grown up in the age of Harry Potter.  (Note: I’m the kid in the corner with his arms folded wondering why we can’t instead talk about Sutton Foster in Thoroughly Modern Millie).

Also me in the corner

Though I imagine I might have figured out a way to find value in Harry’s lessons.  I’ve pretty much had to do this as a writing mentor for any number of students inspired not only by the worlds of Potter, but by the actions in Marvel, DC, Spielberg and Lucas.

I try to temper my enthusiasm

Of course, the lesson in this is to not be so quick to dismiss out of hand something that is not your thing.  If you do it that fast it is likely the universe will actually put you in a place where you will absolutely be forced to keep dealing with Dumbledore or the inevitable Avengers 5, 6, or 7 until you can stop dismissing it from way up on the very high perch from which you sit and choose to judge.

Such was my experience listening to Mr. Biden – oh heck, let’s just call him Joe cause that’s what he likes anyway and that’s what fits these days when you’re speaking with or writing about him.

And Joe it is

As Joe talked of being the harbinger of light in these dark Trumpian times I had a knee jerk, split second intellectual reaction of imperious resistance.

He can’t possibly be putting it this simply in these horribly awful and complicated times, could he?  I mean, this isn’t Star Wars or a Marvel movie or even one of my students’ basic notions for an as-of-yet unwritten studio blockbuster.  This is real life.  And real life these days is….

EXACTLY about darkness and light.

Much to my surprise.

It helps that it’s color coded

This is because in that instant I finally got why many young people of all ages crave superheroes and sorcery.  When things go so bad all around you it helps to have a powerful figure of stature on a stage that big drawing the curtain back, looking you in the eye and assuring you that the power of the light inside you is enough to fight the darkness attacking you IF you deign to believe in it.

In fact, in this case it is especially powerful because, unlike most superheroes, you don’t have to fight the fight alone.  You have a whole force of ordinary people very much like you and if you simply pool your forces together you can together shine bright enough to…

*cough* *cough*

Well, I was gonna say light up the lights of Broadway, which explains so much of why I never gravitated towards superheroes to begin with.  But instead, let’s go with vanquish the darkest of enemies, and call it a day.

Because by now you know what both I (and Joe) mean by the metaphor.

There are some moments in time where simplicity rules no matter how complicated you think it all is and I want to get.

Well, this too

We’re living through incredible darkness at the moment, as Joe’s 25-minute speech pointed out.

  • There are 176,000+ Americans dead from COVID-19
  • There are 5.68 million Americans infected with the virus
  • The U.S. leads the world in confirmed cases and deaths
  • More than 50 million Americans have filed for unemployment this year
  • More than 10 million Americans will lose their health insurance this year

And yet this just in from the President’s counselor and all-around right hand gal Kellyanne Conway when asked about plans for this week’s Republican convention:

You are going to see and hear from many Americans whose lives have been monumentally impacted by this administration’s policies.  We definitely want to improve on the dour and sour mood of the D.N.C.

Ah yes, behold all the doom and gloom.

But, um, how will that strategy improve on the dour and sour mood of the D.N.C.?  I mean, if we actually have real Americans speak? 

Well, there might be a casting call going on right now since its just been announced that two producers from Trump’s The Apprentice have been signed to help guide the festivities and wrangle talent.But here’s what we do know at the moment.  The Missouri couple that a few months ago toted assault weapons at Black Lives Matter demonstrators, Mark and Patricia McCloskey, are scheduled to appear.  As is Nicholas Sandmann, that smirky Kentucky teenager who got up in the face of Native American elder Nathan Phillips at the Lincoln Memorial last year and tried to stare him down with a Cheshire cat smile that only the Church Lady could love.

Talk about darkness vs. the light.  Or shall we say, the Light vs. the Dark.

Ugh, fine, I get it.

Well luckily, I don’t have to because Joe did it for us in his way.  All  we have to do now is follow his lead and make the right – I mean left – choice.

Though admittedly I have a ways go with that.  On Monday, the night before the convention began and three days before Joe spoke, an elderly masked woman and I were riding up the elevator alone to the same floor in a medical building on our way to different doctor appointments (Note:  Don’t worry, I was only getting an allergy shot).

In any event, during the ride she suddenly turned to me and  said:

Excuse me sir, I’ve taken it upon myself to be the town crier, in this upcoming election you must vote for Trump.

To say the least…

To which I proceeded to say things to her I have never heard myself  say out loud to anyone and couldn’t print or put on TV.  This was after excoriating her on her feelings about Black and Brown people and telling her to turn off Fox News and educate herself.

Though before she accused Joe of being senile and having Alzheimer’s.  To which I shouted back at her down the hall (Note: We were no longer in the elevator):

Well, you should know about that!  And good luck with your message in Los Angeles….HONEY!!!

Yep

This is all another way of saying the light has probably come for me and us just in the knick of time.

Sutton Foster – “Gimme Gimme” (from Thoroughly Modern Millie)

Notes from the Mueller Report

I spent the entire weekend reading The Mueller Report.  That means Friday night, all during the day and part of the evening on Saturday and half of the day and part of the evening on Sunday.

Yes, I’m a slow reader.

Still, it’s 448 pages and it’s dense.  Though it is not so dense that you need to be a lawyer to read it.  In fact, it probably helps to NOT be a lawyer. In that way, you don’t get lost in a mire of technicalities and convoluted, stretched-beyond credulity interpretations of federal and/or criminal statutes.

No TV lawyers either! #sorryAnnalise

What we laymen and laywomen (aka the voters) will ultimately see are the basics.  And then we will all have to ask ourselves some questions.  Those would be:

  1. Did Russia interfere in the 2016 election of Donald J. Trump to U.S. President?
  2. Did the Trump campaign work with Russia to get elected?
  3. Did Trump try to hide (aka lie about) his relationship to Russia?
  4. Does Trump have the qualities of someone we want to continue as President?

If you changed the name of Trump to Smith and every person who worked for him to nom de plumes like, say, Mitzie, Fritzie, Trixie and Vi in this exhaustive account, and then afterwards refrained from consulting with ANYONE who had legal expertise or skin in the game, I promise you there would be only ONE WAY to answer all of these questions.

  1. YES
  2. YES
  3. YES

and

     4. NO!!! No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Me, the entire weekend

But don’t take my word for it.  Here are only a few salient facts.

  1. Did you know that Smith’s campaign manager actually gave specific and ongoing polling information to Russia throughout the campaign about the Rust Belt States that eventually gave Pres. Smith his Electoral College victory? We’re talking about data from and about Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Minnesota – the very states that put him over the top.

Oh yeah, he did.  He met up with them and handed the facts not only right before the Republican convention in 2016 but in repeated contacts prior to, right after and right up until the November election.  Truly.  It jumps right out at you in the first half of the report (aka Volume I).

Reading the Mueller report like…

  1. You will also read in that same volume pages and pages on Smith surrogates such as Roger, I mean, Dodger FlintStone, among others. He and they were active participants in promoting fake, Russian-created groups with names like “Stop All Immigrants,” “Being Patriotic,” “Blacktivist” and “United Muslims of America.”   These groups were designed for and succeeded in fanning the flames of partisan anger and resentment on social media among your fellow voters.  Many hundreds of insurgent Russians, helped along by Dodger and the like, then sponsored fake live events where phony Russians (or Americans cooperating with phony Russians) posed as disgruntled or partisan Americans at rallies where shouting matches often ensued.

The anger generated by these events, spread through many other social media repostings from still more Russians and Smith-ers, then spawned other real and more partisan events until soon literally millions and millions of more people became angry, isolated, alienated and convinced that only Smith, who was usually programmed at still other events to coincide with the apex of said bubbling anger, could tout himself as the only one who could save them from such vitriol.

Fanning the flames

  1. You probably already know about that famed “whistle-blowing” organization named Leakie-Lots. But did you also know that the report delineates ways Dodger and the gang communicated between candidate Smith, Leakie and the Russian government tricksters illegally obtained hacked emails as well as other illegally obtained and damning information about the other side?

Oh sure, you’ll read excerpts from any number of Smith tweets and speeches that presage or capitalize on deadly information on his competitor that the Mueller Report connects to relationships between the Smith campaign, the Russians and still other people in the Dodger mold. Ilk.  Whatever.

Chairy, does this get better?

  1. The second half more specifically centers on the personal machinations of President Smith.  For instance, all during that year he spent on the campaign as Candidate Smith, denying he had ANY business dealings with Russia, his lawyer Fritzie, as well as his children Minnie, Ninnie and Nonnie, as well Minnie’s husband, Creamy, all KNEW that this was a big LIE.  In fact, each of them was periodically briefed during that time about ongoing plans to construct an enormous Smith Tower in Moscow.  In fact, this building was being touted as possibly THE potential luxury destination in all of Moscow, and perhaps the world.  And it could be worth countless millions, and in the end perhaps billions, to all of them.

Not as dumb as they seem

  1. But likely the most salacious documentations in the entire report confirm most of the news stories and, yes, gossip, about Smith’s personal behavior during his first two years in the White House. It seems our Electoral College POTUS really did order his closest non-family member advisors and cabinet officials to end the Special Counsel investigation into his relationship with Russia by every means necessary in fear that it would be “the end” of his reign.

His lawyers, appointees, cabinet members and friends (Note: All of whom he saw as Smith employees) tried to ignore his most outrageous requests, such as lying under oath to the SC about specific conservations he had with them and testifying to the exact opposite of what happened.  But it didn’t always work.  So if Smith persisted they would then be forced to prepare resignation letters that he would or wouldn’t accept (Note:  Sometimes he’d even just carry them around in his pocket and then lie about it to promote even more fear), stand their ground and get privately and/or publicly berated by him, or ultimately fired (though in the case of the latter, never by Smith in person).

working for the Smith administration

Various Smith retributions and temper tantrums occurred over other subjects but by far the worst had to do with Smith and Russia.  Despite whatever was observed first-hand, if Smith wanted his people to state it was raining outside, his people were expected to stand before the world in the blazing bright light of a sun-drenched day and convince everyone within ear and eyeshot to come inside in order to get away from the undeniable storm clouds pouring down on them from up above that no one but them and their fellow selected few who were also on the team could clearly see.

Still works #dated #delusional

Okay, perhaps this is all a bit cute….by half.  But it could be the only way to truly understand what the Mueller Report offers about our democracy is to change the names in order to not pre-determine an outcome.  Certainly, reality isn’t doing it.  Thus far about 40-43% of voters are still behind Electoral College POTUS Trump, I mean, Smith.

Think about it.  Then read the report for yourself.  And soon.

Ray Charles – “America The Beautiful”