Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

Of course, arguments on Facebook become tedious at times. Most people only read far enough to formulate an answer, and are not at all reading to absorb new information. I’m guilty of this myself, sometimes. I do hate to lose an argument. Some are not even reading deeply enough to form a relevant answer, and satisfy themselves with something they think is clever, like a bad pun on somebody’s name, or some total diversion. Some, especially if they are politicians, will be waiting to give the answer which will most greatly benefit them in the short term, and the hell with the rest of the human race. But most of us, and I’m seriously guilty of this one, are hardened in our positions and will argue with anything that opposes them.
There are no winners, and that is the problem.
I was watching an episode of Star Trek (the original series) in which Teri Garr guest stars as a secretary in an office in 1968, when Kirk and Spock and some weird guy all beam back to try and protect the time line, except Kirk and Spock assume he’s a bad guy right till the very end. She says, at one point “That’s why kids in my generation are kind of crazy and rebellious sometimes. We don’t know if we’re going to be alive when we’re 30.”
The issues haven’t really changed since then. We still have poverty, war, environmental degradation, hostilities between nations, age groups, races, religions, genders, and a whole lot of just plain nastiness.
What we need, in my opinion, is a better way to converse, a better way to debate. Something that will not just be a tit-for-tat, barb for barb, shit flinging contest. Something that is actually designed to get at the truth of the thing, to isolate the best solutions and publicize them to the world.
Scientists do that. If the general public could, I believe we could have a utopian society very soon.

Most of my time on Facebook is spent arguing about politics and it is largely a fruitless and bitter endeavor, people are shit and the story never changes, but as I scroll through today avoiding any articles about Matt Gaetz, and trying hard not to think too much about the Derek Chauvin trial, I still see posts of natural, and sometimes man-made, beauty from around the world.
From the blooming jacaranda trees in Mexico City’s Chapultepec Park to some flowering cherry trees in South Korea (any day now in Prague, any day now), from a beach at sunset in Angola to the ancient Roman city of Ronda in the south of Spain, with it’s bizarrely high bridges, from a botanical park in the Netherlands, neatly planned beds of glorious tulips and other flowers along the banks of a canal, and I think to myself, in the immortal words of Louis Armstrong, what a wonderful world.

Perhaps it’s because of the quarantine, which means I’m spending even more time on-line, and that’s even more than the whole hell of a lot which is what it was before, and perhaps it’s because of our on-line culture itself which grows ever more dominant, but a lot of the poems I have written lately, I’d say 90%, are direct responses to something I’ve read on-line.
Here’s a quick example from yesterday:

Descartes plays a part

in philosophy’s history

in my opinion

a very large part

if we’re looking into

the meaning of meaning

to know we exist is

a good place to start

which was part of a larger philosophical discussion which got into a debate between Spinozians and DesCartesans that was a bit over my head, but I am pleased with the poem.
The strength of this kind of writing is that I’ve been cranking out a lot of poems recently. The weakness is that a lot of them lose their meaning when read by themselves, out of context. Not this one, this will go into my next book, for sure, but probably over half of them.
Quality v. Quantity. It’s an age old debate, in literature and all other pursuits and, as in so many of the great debates, there’s something to be said for both sides.

The trial of Derek Chauvin, the racist police officer who murdered George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for 9 minutes, slowly and painfully asphyxiating him to death, in front of multiple witnesses and live on camera, has begun. So far it isn’t looking good for Chauvin, as witness after witness talks tearfully of that horrible day.
Still, less than 1% of police officers who kill somebody ever go to jail for it. And the murderers of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and hundreds and hundreds of others are still not on trial, and many of them are still actually working as cops. So, even if Derek Chauvin is sentence to life without parole, as he most certainly should be, it will only be a beginning.
Only a beginning, and a long overdue beginning, but still, a beginning. I have heard rumors that some police officers will testify against him, and I certainly hope that is true. If there is one change that needs to happen, one necessary reform, it is an end to this ridiculous idea that police officers will back up other police officers no matter what. Sure, it is a good and noble thing to support and help your colleagues, and that happens in any line of work. People will cover other people’s shifts, clock each other in if somebody’s late, not report small errors or misdeeds to the boss, because that’s just the friendly thing to do. But if a mail carrier murders someone on their route, if a teacher kneels on a students neck, if a doctor deliberately kills a patient because they talked back to them, their colleagues will not support them, as a general rule, because most mail carriers, teachers, and doctors are decent human beings.
At the moment, you can’t say that about the police. I did read a report today that pointed out that the vast majority of police officers go their whole careers without ever firing their gun, many without ever even drawing it. Those cops should not be supporting the likes of Derek Chauvin.
If this trial leads to that, it will be a good beginning, indeed.

There are several different programs on Netflix that I’m alternating between at the moment. With Star Trek, I’m currently going through the original series again. I know this is not the popular opinion among Trekkies, but I consider it the least among all the iterations (with the exception of Discovery, which is totally unwatchable and I don’t count it as a legit part of the franchise at all). It’s interesting, though, to see how far we have come in our attitudes since the 1960s. The sexism, truly, is stunning.
Then there is Bolivar, which I suspect is better entertainment than history, and we’re using it as a Spanish lesson as well. Enjoying it, though. Lots of appealing characters, and plenty of great battle scenes.
Marco Polo is even shadier on the history, but it’s far enough back and the actual history enough in doubt that it doesn’t matter. Then, we’re watching another thing called Love in Times of War, which is basically a telenovela, set during a war between Spain and Morocco, and the heroines are a bunch of rich Spanish ladies who volunteer to be nurses and, of course, in between all of their medical heroics, they all find time to conduct spirited love affairs. It’s really much more for women but, I must confess, I’m the one who started watching it.
But the one I want to comment on is Sky Rojo (yes, I’m watching a whole bunch of stuff in Spanish – it’s a beautiful language and I wish I spoke it better) It is really and truly garbage but I’ve started it and it’s a limited series, so I’ll finish it. The story is 3 hookers kill (or nearly kill, at any rate) their pimp and run off. So the pimp and his henchmen are chasing them, and there are lots of fights and car chases. But the thing is, and this is one of my pet peeves, a show should decide what it is, and this one hasn’t. Is it a farce or a drama is one question, but a more important question is its message. At moments, it seems to take a hard stand against human trafficking, but…every episode is about 50 percent flashbacks of them working in the brothel, which is pretty much the same stuff you see on pornhub, and, despite having been on the run for 5 episodes now, they haven’t changed out of their hooker clothes. Shops, bars, a resort hotel, they go into all of them in full slut uniform, including glitter. You’d think if they were truly trying to escape their past, the first thing they’d do would be to find some respectable clothes to change into, but no….that would be totally contrary to the character of the show.