The Strange New Year's Eve

As I write, the last third of one of my favorite movies is playing, "The Bishop's Wife".  It likely couldn't be made today, a time when mankind has no need of angels, let alone God. 

I am, like so many, home for the evening. Even though I am not much of a party person on such holidays, I usually do at least get out for dinner with a friend or two. But this year, unless one is rebelling against the restrictions which much of the country thinks is justified and the other half thinks is pure diabolic manipulation, one is staying put. 

As I watch the movie, I am moved, by its thematic grace, but also by the fact that the moral center which it represents is long past in favor of a false utopian sensibility. 

It is not a totally lost, this evening, in terms of the milk of human kindness. I ordered take out from Greenblatt's. I had a craving for a French Dip sandwich. The man who delivered it was a breath of fresh air, friendly, and happy, and wishing me a good New Year.  I wished him the same. For a brief moment, I even felt it was possible that our New Year would improve and the gloom would dissipate. But that would have to be a miracle. Human beings think they can provide their own miracles these days. So, the moment did not last. 

The movie has helped a little. Hark the Herald Angels Sing is the backdrop of a scene in the movie. The words we remember talk about a New Born King, who will transform the world an our souls.

I wish this night I could feel the hope for more than a passing moment. But I suppose that in the circumstances a passing moment is good enough. 

I must seize the moment because God is in it. And then, maybe, the moment will become a lifetime, and then an eternity. I wish you the same as 2021 descends upon us.

McIntyre House: A Small Life Raft in the Ocean of Drug and Alcohol Residential Rehabilitation

I am guessing that you have the same experience I do when it comes to charities--receiving a veritable flood of solicitations for all sorts of good works being provide for an overwhelming number of needs in every arena of human existence.  I have my favorites, and they tend to be the larger charities because they have the ability to get my attention, places like St. Jude (taking care of children with cancer for free, founded by Danny Thomas (who just happens to have been a sometime parishioner at my Church back in the 70s and 80s), and Best Friends (a growing sanctuary for animals of every kind in Utah). The only way I have become familiar with smaller local charities is by virtue of providence. I have come to accept the truism that there are no accidents--with God. One such "accident" in my life was becoming acquainted with a small residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation program called McIntyre House located in Los Angeles. The total number of beds in the house is for 16 men. That's small in quantity, but not in the quality of the rescue from the depths of despair. I suppose Providence makes it possible, even obligatory, for me to introduce this little essential charity to you and hope that maybe you will see your way to incorporating it into your monetary gifting. Because there are so many worthy charities, places like McIntyre House can get lost in the fundraising shuffle. Despite that reality, it has survived over 20 years, but always operating on a lean budget relative to its larger brothers and sisters in the world of saving lives. 

First, here's the website address, and a picture of the House. McIntyreHouse.org.

A lot of hard work goes on behind those doors. Men come to those steps on their last physical and psychological legs, sometimes having tried everywhere and everything else literally to stay alive. And, even if they cannot pay the approximately $2,500.00 a month for food and board and program, they are not turned away on that account. The Program is based on the precepts of Alcohol Anonymous, and the goal is retrieving the lost self and bringing him back into the community. It happens in this home like community. It isn't fancy, and it is in an ordinary neighborhood, without a million dollar view. But when a man transitions to a sober life, it is a million dollar emotional event. 

McIntyre House is non-sectarian, everybody in need is welcome to seek help.  But it was started by a Catholic priest, and his friend who was, and remains, in the arena of prison ministry. That's how I happened upon it. The late Jeremiah Murphy was my pastor, and his approach to catholic (universal) social justice was to throw a net around some of his parishioners and say, "I'm doing this and I wonder if you would like to help." And through him, and its Executive Dirctor, Brian Hardin, I found myself involved and somehow on the Board. And I have been now, for over 7 years. And I have come to see what a difference this small residence makes in lives. I even got to go to one of the "transitions"--a kind of graduation ceremony with family and friends of the resident to sober living, and I can tell you how profound it is to see someone who was literally in danger of death come back to the world.  

The big places do this too. They save lives. But not everyone can go to them, and so, a place like McIntyre House is a small life raft that needs, in my view, to continue to exist. It has, in some ways, against the odds, because it costs so much to keep going, to keep the lights on so that men can be brought inside those doors.

As I write, the holiday season is upon us, and it won't look like any other in the history of the United States, or the world, due to the Covid crisis. That's been especially hard on people who are trying to recover from (or not fall into) the scourge of drug and alcohol addiction. But the guys of the House are still trying to create a festive atmosphere in which to continue their life affirming work. And to create a way to raise funds in a time when no one can get together live and in person. Normally, we have a party this time of year, and other live gatherings to bring the House to the attention of our friends and the larger community. But this year, the House is going to do something special, "The Twelve Days of McIntyre House". Beginning on December 12, through to the 23rd, with the help of alumni and other friends of the House, there will be an online fundraising event. When you go to the website, there will be a banner for you to click on and to learn about the good work of the House not from talking heads but from the people who have been and are being helped by the fact that the House exists. And, of course, there will be a donor button for you to contribute, if your would, even though you have so many other demands on your funds. And maybe you would consider becoming a sustaining friend of McIntyre House, by clicking on the donor button every month, with whatever you can spare. The need will continue after the holiday season. 

What is that saying? "He who saves one life saves the world entire." 

Your small act of charity will be a life raft for a man who comes to the doors of McIntyre House this coming year and in the years ahead.  

Apocalypse in the Sunshine

I had an appointment just before noon. I had to have a Covid-19 test. No, I have had no symptoms, nor am I aware of having been exposed. But I am having a colonoscopy on Monday, which I had to put off because of a medical procedure last year I have written about here, and given, again, that inevitable family history and the fact I have had a polyp in the past, I just didn't feel able to put it off again, nothwithstanding my reluctance to have my nose probed. 

I had heard how the Covid-19 test is done, and the idea was stomach turning. At least with the colonoscopy I'll be asleep. But no such luck with the short, but invasive nose test. I tried to put it out of my mind until I was driving into the Thalian Building Garage. I could still run, but, well, I didn't. 

On the way, I revelle in the beauty of the day. It was relatively warm. A perfect November California Day. Normally, things would be bustling, but with the newest lockdown here in Los Angeles, and state wide, it was basically a ghost town. I noticed that the Coffee Bean Tea and Leaf on Robertson and Beverly has not survived the second ravage of the economy, which though articulated as not significant compared to the dangers of Covid, we are seeing is killing not only businesses but livelihoods and lives. Not sure, but I think Fig and Olive on La Cienega might be gone. Every store and restaurant along the route was empty and barred, except for take out or delivery service which curfew ends at 10 p.m. A beautiful day, and no place to go, except maybe to your local grocery, pot store, and I did notice that at least one nail salon was open. Inside Church Services have never been restored. And there is no sign of it happening, despite the fact that the Supreme Court told New York that such unequal treatment is problematic. Oh, by the way, I have written twice to my Archdiocese, and have received bupkus as my answer. Whether it is in regard to the state or to the institutional part of the Church, the human part, it is a bit alarming to realize that you are one of the "little people", since they are the ones who are always the first expended in public crises. One need not imagine too hard what it will be when apocalypse is upon us. I don't expect anyone to agree. I am merely, as others do, expressing my "feelings" in what to me is a maddening, insane time. 

There was not a long line of cars at the Thalian Building. I assume the others had appointments like I did. I donned my mask. The rule was that you kept your windows up until you presented your identification through the window, something one is required to do pretty much everywhere, except in voting, I note with parenthetical irony. Upon that initial identification I was moved to the next section, where the action would occur. I did think it a little paradoxical that this method of determining whether you are positive or not was occurring in a parking lot. I am not sure how it had previously been sanitized. But there you are. Mine not to question why. I had further identification questions to answer. My date of birth. My full name. When my procedure was going to be. The latter part allowed the opening of the window. Of course, the test itself required it.

The technician was very nice. Presently, everyone is very nice when they tell you what you have to do. She pulled that long q-tip out and told me that she would be putting it up my nose and then there was this slight ten second movement once it was up there (well, given the picture below, it is up, then down) and I should breathe. I could lower my mask to expose my nose, but kept the mask on my mouth. The first effort was not successful, apparently because I had my head tilted back. The sensation had been let's say, unpleasant, and that it would be repeated caused me consternation.  I had every inclination to sneeze. I wondered why, given medical technology, the method of testing is so, primitive. And it seems to me that in a garage a lot could go wrong with accuracy and this odd method. I mean, the stick goes, well, you can see!) And around. I found myself tearing up as if I were about to bawl. Truthfully, there is a lot about this time period in our history that makes me want to bawl, so this reflexive response seemed apropos. My eye makeup running and my nose feeling, well, odd, I drove off and back here to lock up. 

As I said, it is a beautiful day. So I did my laundry, here in the apartment on my super duper good for a dorm plastic machine, and edited my podcast (Ordinary Old Catholic Me on Podbean.com; also found on Tune In, Pandora). I will make one more quick trip today, to my Church garden where they are still able to do half hour outdoor confessions, for now. I have been very close to blasphemy in these last weeks given all the events in the world at large that are impinging on all of us.  I keep hearing we are "all in this together". Alas, what I feel we are in together doesn't have quite the utopian ending that has been promised.

But at least when the apocalypse comes I will be in the sunshine. Unless of course on that day, it finally rains. 

House Arrest for the Once Free

Not that it matters as I am an insignificant cog in the world of shakers and movers and of course "the science", but today I am really in a state of existential despair. I have struggled with the "What if" version of Obsessive Compulsive Order throughout my life, and probably an underlying dysthmia (a less dramatic form of depression). I have always needed to find the absolute of a thing or a situation, and as I am sure I have written elsewhere on these pages, I was raised by a very authoritarian mother who brooked no opposition over what she thought was true, and thus was true for me, and a then very strict Catholicism in school where authority and truth were one. Most of us worry about doing the "Right thing" (Well we used to anyway), but I had contorted my worry into a case of debate over pretty much anything. They call some forms of OCD the "doubting disease" because one can never settle on what is the "correct" thing to do. There are two aspects (well there have been for me) of this cyclical analysis. The first is that when you settle on a decision, you feel all right for about thirty seconds, and then the "what if I am wrong" shadow falls, and the whole back and forth starts again. Once forced into a decision of one sort or another, the net phase is wondering over and over whether you did the "wrong" thing, and if you did, whether it can be undone. No doubt it is a case of being stuck at some early developmental phase that gets taken with you in to the adult world. From the age of relative cognizance until I retired some years ago, the torture of that way of being was, in Catholic terms, my "Cross".  Some few friends have seen me in the throes of it. Others, who think of me as relatively decisive, would have no clue that my particular form of the search for truth (and there are I know many fellow travellers on this psychological road) has been pure torture. 

If I could not be certain about a path and its potentialities, I avoided it where I could. It probably partialoy explains my never marrying or having children. I had to work since I would be supporting myself, and, when I look back, probably it was idiotic that I became an attorney, where debate is a feature of the job--like I needed some more of that. I happened to find a niche in that arena--legal ethics--where my need for settling on THE TRUTH--was moderately protected and nutured. But even there the storm in my head over every trial decision raged until I was able to find a sub-niche, which included teaching that made it somewhat bearable. 

Once I retired, the occasions for worrying about decisions I made, diminished on a day to day basis, since I remain unattached and don't have a daily job in the usual sense, though they still pop up from time to time where I cannot avoid a significant task. But the last several years, culminating in global and national gaslighting, have reignited the torture.  And it has been topped off with Covid. What is plain to me and to like half the nation is not plain to the other half. And one half, not mine, has the media, official and social, and all educational facilities to tell me that I am wrong about pretty much anything I think I think. You know that phrase, "Don't piss on me and tell me it's raining"? When you have the doubting disease it doesn't help to have outside forces entering your head to trigger debates you don't want to have. 

So, yesterday, I read another one of many articles on how there should be no live Thanksgiving activities. We are told that the positive cases are increasing. Well, that makes sense in that there is a lot more testing. I am having a colonoscopy at the end of the month and am compelled to have a test myself. But carefully omitted in the terrifying news of increasing positives/cases so that a new lockdown can be imposed is a breakdown of the positives. Many have no symptoms. Some have mild symptoms. Some get very sick. Some die, as they do of heart disease, cancer, car accidents, bathroom falls, bacterial infections, suicide, murder and the like, every day. In California, the death rate since the beginning of the pandemic affair is just under one half of one percent of the population of the State. And yet we have never actually opened and are about to be fully shut down again. 

And IF we do go to ANY such gatherings, it should be very very small, and it really should be outside, and everyone wearing masks, and only one person handling food, and everything disinfected. In fact, you should even use paper plates. I have a small bubble (well under ten) with whom I usually share Thanksgiving, and I was perfectly satisfied that with reasonable care I could and should go until I read this article, these articles. And then there was a curfew. Nobody out from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. 

In my heart of hearts, I wanted to say, with extra emphasis, particularly since the leaders imposing these rules have manifestly not been following them (which in one's debate in the head seems to mean that THEY don't believe what they are selling), "Don't piss on me and tell me it's raining!"  But instead I realize the gaslight had worked, playing on my wish to be good and true and charitable, I don't want to hurt anybody. I don't care much about my getting it, and even dying from it (in fact if this world we are in is what the "new normal" is, dying might be preferable where you believe in eternity), but after all this propaganda, even if I know that what I have been told is crazy, well, I don't really KNOW, do I?

And I can hear not just in my head any longer, but some of you perhaps reading this post of lament, saying, "Yes, you would be responsible!" Unlike me, they are very very very sure of "the science", even though that's not "the science" of a lot of other, well, scientists. And no one will tell me how it is that post Covid, if there is a post-Covid (as we know even with a vaccine, we are told that we must maintain masks and other forms of PPE for a time unspecified) we will become less dangerous to one another outside of our hermitages. 

So, I wrote an e-mail to my potential host to say that, essentially, the deep concern of the state for our respective healths and my wish not to kill anyone was getting to me, and though I didn't believe a word anymore that is being said to me by anyone in authority (which is quite something since authority was as I said that upon which I was weaned even more than the average developing child), maybe Thanksgiving this year (and probably henceforth in my dismal view of things) wasn't a good idea. My friend was understanding and empathetic. He pointed out that some of his more socially minded, progressive friends had not cancelled their small gatherings. And he reminded me that several of us have been together throughout "L'Affaire de Covid" in the prior 8 months, that bubble I was talking about since none of us have much family left. None of us had contracted even the sniffles.  I was on the other end of the debate in my head. 

Which brings me to the title of this blog entry. I still haven't made a final decision about Thanksgiving. I am trending toward going. But of course, that will probably change as I engage in the "What if's" some more. But the oppression of this time we all share and my particularly psychological baggage really got to me.  Except for the Rosary Across America which I have been doing every day with Relevant Radio, praying in desperation for some change in our national and world circumstances--and that I did in the supine position in my bed--I did nothing at all today until I began writing this entry. There were things I could do, that I do other days, when I am not going to my doctors for yearly examinations, or shopping at the 99 Cents Store for some provisions like toilet paper which is about to be in short supply again (I really was running low even for normal times), or going to my still closed parish outside for Mass. I could read. I could speak to someone on the phone. I could read again. I could write. I could read again. I could pray, which as I said, I sort of did. I could take a walk. No, not that here in California 'cause one is supposed to be wearing a mask when outside. I admit to avoiding that when I am walking short distances, but it would be hard to achieve in a city, and I the mask for me (and I am sure for others who simply fear to admit it) is unbearable for long periods. 

I did go out on my newly fixed terrace, and lie in my free standing hammock, watching the palm trees and the little fountain I got to enhance the locale. I thought, well, at least I have this. Then I thought about "house arrest." How was what I, all of us, been doing, particularly in California and New York and the other enlightened states, different from "house arrest"? As we know, though better than regular prison, house arrest is usually that which someone who has committed a crime is subject. 

I went to that source of all modern day knowledge, "Wikipedia".  Here is some of what it says, "In justice and law, house arrest is a measure by which a person is confined to their residence.  Travel is usually restricted, if allowed at all.  House arrest is an alternative to being in prison while awaiting trial or after sentencing. . . 

. . .most programs allow employed offenders to continue to work, and confine them to their residence only during non-working hours.  Offenders are commonly allowed to leave their home for specific purposes; examples can inclue visits to the probation officer or police station, religious services, education, attorney visits, court appearances, and medical appointments. Many programs also allow the convict to leave their residence during regular, pre-approved times in order to carry out general household errandes, such as food shopping and launry.  Offenders may have to respond to communications from a higher authority to verify that they are at home when required to be. Exceptions are often made to allow visitors to visit the offender. . ." 

I am, we are, under house arrest. Now, a lot of you think that there is this big difference. We aren't offenders--well we are as we are germ factories and any potential contact with another is lethal. It always was. It always will be. But right now, it is particularly a focus in the days of Covid, which has been given a distinct place in the hierarchy of dangers by approved scientists. So, public health requires house arrest.  Someone, many someones, writes on Facebook "Just wear the mask".  I do, because there is no choice as far as I can see and I am still the perfect subject/object for mandates from authority (though I have learned that authority is often wrong; but you know what they say, "Give me a child till he is five and I'll show you the man."  Or woman. I was a malleable child.) But I cannot help but ask the question, mostly quietly, as dissent is no longer patriotic as it was when it was progressives dissenting, "Will there ever come a time when we can stop wearing a mask?" And since, as I said, I know that we won't stop being germ factories, and no doubt there is some other contagion, natural or man made, ready to be released upon us, my terror, and it is a terror, for me, though apparently not for most of you given the nods of approval for extended use, it will be forever. And to me, if that is our future, we might as well be bugs. What we will no longer be is human. And my opinion being just as valid as anyone else's until I become a speech offender and house arrest becomes the real prison kind, is that we are heading toward tyranny of the kind you read about in history books until they get revised by utopians. My prayer tonight is "God spare us from Utopians". 

My religious friends are calling all this a "chastisement". It sure feels that way. 

Since by tomorrow the fullest of restrictions will likely be reinstated here in California if not everywhere in the United States (and the world), I doubt I will be in a better mood. 

And as I said, I am just a cog. I will have to try to reframe and see it as another part of "the Cross" and hope that I will accept the cup of suffering which surely is going to get worse. God will have to unload a heap of Grace on me for that to happen. And even then I am not sure I can handle it. 

Staying the Course

If Joe Biden is formally and officially denominated to have been the winner of the 2020 Presidential election, life will go on for Americans, including the 70 million who did not vote for him. Anyone who lives say, in California, or New York, will find that nothing much has changed since they are one party Democrat states where money is taken from the populace for repeatedly failing programs and restrictions which ignore freedom of expression and movement are becoming the norm. The rest of the nation will soon experience the thrill of Progressivism. Those who voted for this outcome are clearly elated. Their voices and car horns resonated all day in my neighborhood the day the media crowned Mr. Biden as President Elect nothwithstanding the still extant (for now) Constitutional framework that makes state electors the ones to confirm the outcome. 

So it goes. Freedom is fragile. Nations come. They go. Then there is the Catholic Church. Although I know that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it, at least intellectually, it is the Church leaders, the shepherds, the Bishops, who have created spiritual, emotional and psychological doubt so intense that many of the faithful wonder if they can maintain the intellectual hope. The Church, which is the Body of Christ on earth since his Ascension, will indeed survive, but too many will be convinced by the Scatterer, Diablo, that it cannot survive and loyalty to Him is amusingly foolish. He is being helped in this by so many Bishops, and priests who have the secular imprimatur of the media. I am aware that many Catholics will not agree with this assessment. But many do. And all I can say is that is what I see as plainly as the history which is being repeated and from which human beings never learn. Why I might see it and others, far more intelligent and learned than I am do not, I cannot say. And I can tell you, I am just as susceptible to the nudge of the Devil to separate me from my faith because of the overwhelming (to me) betrayal of Church leaders.

It has been hard enough during the pandemic lockdown to trust the motives of the shepherds. Yes, there has been a Corona Virus. Yes, if one is in a risk category, getting it can be terrible, as getting any disease which threatens life, can be terrible. But to tell Churches that they cannot function, and say one can watch on TV or one's tablet, was extreme, particularly in the case of the Catholic Church where many of the seven Sacraments occur inside a Church, and where some, like Last Rites and the concomitant funeral rites require more than 10 people. Still, in the beginning, I was among the faithful that understood and given that it would only be as long as it took, estimated at a few weeks, to "flatten the curve", I was not alarmed, though I was disappointed at the alacrity of the Church's compliance. I wonder if the Church at the time of Henry the VIII was quite as speedy in acceding to King Henry VIII need to separate from Rome so that he could replace the wife who could not provide a male heir with one who, hopefully, could. As we know ultimately that did not work out. 

It has, however, come to a point of feeling utter distrust in the motives of the institutional part of the Church, the human part, the always inclining toward evil human part. We are moving into the 8th months of lockdown, with threats of another full one, and Mr. Biden promising the press of full federal authority against the states (good luck though) and the Church leaders are silent, as far as I can hear, as the cooler and potentially rainy weather moves in. This past weekend, at my parish, though it was fortunately sunny, there were huge winds in the area where we have Mass, everyone with covered faces that remind me of every science fiction narrative I ever read in which humanity is humiliated and captured. The little overhang under which the makeshift altar sat and in which the altar servers also functioned was rattling. The chalice covers had to be held down by the package of intentions for the deceased. Of course, it is not yet quite so dire, but it made me think of photographs I have seen of battlefield Masses. The people of God make do. But in this case, does it any longer make sense?

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/us-catholic-bishops-congratulate-biden-as-president-elect-44702

I have written to the e mail provided for the Archdiocese, which is a media relations address. I expect the sort of response one gets from a politician.  All form. No substance. And with the clear intimation that the contact is an amusing annoyance from a plebian. 

Every so often the idea, which I do believe is one of those proddings from the same guy who got Eve to do his bidding, comes that I can't stay a Catholic anymore. But happily, with prayer, the idea dissipates and I remember that the Church is not a building but Jesus Christ of whom we are a part as the People of God. 

And then. As Dorothy Parker once observed, "What Fresh Hell is This?"

All through the election cycle, when I read the instructions for the Formation of Conscience for the Catholic Voter, all I could think of was, "It must be nice to be able to promote ambiguity about the Truth when it is convenient." Abortion, for example, and the fact that the Democrat ticket gives material cooperation, advocates and promotes the evil of abortion (and folks we are not talking only about the small percent of arguable exceptions like rape or incest, and the rare real danger to the physical life of the mother) was superseded by other issues considered, but not truly, proportionate. 

The Pope, the USCCB, both claiming that they were not endorsing a candidate (which is forbidden) in fact were clearly endorsing the Democrat ticket using careful, but clear, wording about things nuanced, which apparently the Dogma as articulated in the Catechism lacks. 

And today, the coup de grace. The USCCB, under the leadership of the Los Angeles Archbishop, congratulates the Catholic Vice President Biden on his as yet unofficial status as the President Elect. 

The leadership is contemptuous of the Traditional Catholics. I have always had reservations about them, myself. I have always favored the Novus Ordo. I like that the Holy Spirit (in my view) guided Vatican II to bring the people more into the liturgy. I have resisted the Extraordinary Form because it does not appeal to me as much as the person in the pew. But the FSSP is starting to look pretty good to me. People who have converted to Catholicism have said that among the reasons for the decision is that there is a Magesterium. What is true is not up to the ideas of different pastors and churchgoers. There is a unity of theology and an of the people in following that theology. Not these days. In fact, it appears that those who want to try to adhere to what is still supposedly the unchanging Truth, are becoming the outliers. It is a parallel to what is happening to the Conservative in the political realm. 

It does not matter much that I am not happy with the Church leaders. They aren't interested in what I have to say as it does not accede to the nuance which they would force on us, a nuance that really makes Catholicism just another religion, made in man's image not in God's. The Church must change to accommodate man, not man to accommodate God in this scenario. It would be less or a struggle for me if I could just accede to this and let my conscience off the hook. 

What am I going to do? It is a day to day thing.  Each day I pray just to remember Christ in the Eucharist. And the strength that He will, I beg, give me. It really is a battlefield. 

 

Whose face? THAT face.

I guess I can honestly say that I am not, as the West Hollywood government commands, being a "maskhole". I have dutifully worn my mask to the extent that I go out at all any more. 

The hook upon which wearing masks is being successfully enforced is that most decent people don't want to take any chance that by doing or failing to do something they will hurt another human being.  The mantra is that science supports the absolute necessity to comply. But of course, SCIENCE does no such thing. The SCIENT-ISTS currently in vogue say so. Those that say otherwise, also quite a large group of people who only have credibility if they speak "right truth", are suppressed, "fact" checked, excised, fired and otherwise mocked and ridden out of town on a figurative rail, complete with psychological tar and feathers. 

The fact that those holding us in face prison or home lockdown once held precisely the same opinion as those of us who think mask wearing is not about public health. But that opinion did not serve the needs of politics, or manipulation or control. 

I have read and heard of people who seem to have tested positive for Covid, or had symptoms, who swear that they have held to the letter of the rules and regulations. I believe them. To me, that is further evidence that wearing masks and locking down and wreaking physical and psychological havoc on the society and its people is not merely futile, but persecutory. I know of at least one child, about age 8, who is now a full obsessive compulsive about germs. She wasn't before the mandates for our health.

We are now more than half a year past the time we were told, with great authority and reliance on the "right" scientists, these restrictions would become unnecessary as we "flattened the curve". I know, you say, "But the curve is not flattened!"  That was entirely predictable as we were told even back when this all started, in contravention to the promise of loosened restrictions, that in the fall, there would be a "second wave".  It's the fall. And the curve is winding up again. Lots of "positive" cases. What positive cases means is a malleable term. The fact that 99 percent of those who get the virus survive, and even 95 percent of those who are in risk categories, is irrelevant. It's flu season now too, so, it's looking like "flattening the curve" may be devoutly wished for but is an impossible dream. That is, unless certain social conditions are met in the opinion of those who are holding the political strings. 

What's gotten me on this yet again? Well, it was this West Hollywood campaign. How did I find out about it? Well, I was taking one of my furloughs into the outside world in my car, on my way to the doctor, I think, as provided by the usual terms of house arrest, and I saw a colorful banner, a person wearing a mask. It said, "Cover THAT Face!" Not something personal, like "Cover YOUR face!" or "Let's all cover OUR faces!" But THAT. One face is the same as another, and it is not animate or human, it is THAT. Nothing to distinguish us. One human being is the same as another. 

I know. Many of you don't agree. You are still of the opinion that this is all for our good. You think this is just temporary. You must think it is only temporary, or you would be in a state of panic for the reality, which is that when they say, "This is the new normal", they mean it, and what some totalitarian countries couldn't do by arms, has been done by our own countrymen, to cover us up, to shut us up (literally since you can't hear anyone in a mask), and to make sure that OUR faces are not seen one by another and that our interactions are kept quite, quite separate. 

Don't get me on the fact the Churches are still closed on the inside. . . .another levelling of humanity by fellow humans with the will to power, successfully engaging in the deconstruction of our society. 

I note in looking at the link below, that it says "Cover-your-face". Somewhere in the marketing, someone got the idea to make it THAT face. Yes. Be anonymous. Be compliant. 

People like me are having a particularly hard time. We have always bowed to authority. But authority no longer has the underpinning of anything resembling the objective good. It is now a matter of whatever the persons or groups who have power FEEL or WANT to accomplish. You believe it's about  health? In a way, it is. It's about THEIR health and well being. And if you get in their way, THAT anonymous face and the person it once signified will be sacrificed for the newly defined good. 

My dad, dead now nearly 13 years, predicted that our society was on its way to a catastrophe, though he couldn't possibly have conceived this particular scenario. He knew who would author the catastrophe. He used to say, "I won't be here for what happens, but I feel sorry for you, who will be." 

I didn't think it was possible to happen this fast. But here we are. So, you, "Cover THAT face!" And await further instructions.  

 https://wehotimes.com/dont-be-a-maskhole-weho-launches-cover-your-face-and-keep-your-space-outdoor-campaign/

Perceptions from A Photograph

The only remaining member of my mother and father's immediate family is my mother's youngest sister, Terri, who is on her way to being age 94. We speak fairly frequently though she lives on the East Coast. She is fortunate that her nieces on her late husband's side are so very attentive to her. She still, officially, lives in Manhattan but in the last year, those nieces and their extended family have managed to get her to spend more time with them at their homes. She just came back from Florida with them and insisted on being returned for at least a few days to her high rise building smack in the middle of New York. She is slowly going through her things and deciding what she needs to keep and what can be discarded. 

When we talked recently, she was reminding me that my late mother, who died long ago at the age of 48, had been her matron of honor at her wedding in the late 1940s. She mentioned a photograph she had on her dresser of my mother, and father, from the wedding day. I have been in that room, but frankly, I had forgotten about the fact I probably had seen it on one of my visits in the past. 

My aunt has no familiarity, at all, of things technological. She barely manages an answering machine. But she asked her grand nephew, who, when she does insist on being in her apartment, stays with her during the week, if he could send me the photograph. 

It is actually one of the few of my mother and father together. I may have one or two in my memorabilia. I suppose that is largely because my father was the one who usually took pictures, and he even was a bit of a creative in that regard. Many he took of my mother when they were engaged and just shortly after they married circa 1946. They were lovely, even innocently sensual shots of a young woman who dreamed of being a model but never quite had the, let's call it. . ."oomph" to persist. 

I want to veer a little here. I used to be into psychology. I actually was both a client and an official student of the practice. I worked as a trainee therapist for about two years before I gave up the idea of switching to the profession from the law. There is this not very scientific test used, well it was, who knows if it is any longer, called the Thematic Apperception Test. A series of pictures is given to a patient/client. The patient is asked to describe, to tell a story about the pictures. It gives a therapist or test examiner an idea of how the person responds, or thinks about life, or about the people around him or her. It tells you something about personalities and dispositions when two people see the same picture and one describes a happy scene or can interpret the scene with positive nuance (maybe this, or maybe that) and the other describes a depressive one, or even a tragic one. Or a third sees nothing in particular at all.

Well, I guess my photo brought to mind the thematic apperception test. Now, of course, if this were a real test for me, the picture would not be of anyone or any scene with which I would be familiar. There wouldn't be a context in which to judge the circumstances and the state of mind of the people so as to be a kind of tabula rasa for the state of mind of the person doing the interpretation in this case, me. So, the analogy is not quite solid. I knew these two individuals, one better than the other, clearly, as I was 20 when my mother died and 54 when my father did. My mother was an enigma. My father was as well, but there was more time to unravel his pattern, and he left behind a lot of writing that complements my own experience and the stories of others. So, admittedly, my interpretation of this photograph is inevitably colored by my own observations of these two unique individuals to whom I owe my existence and my relatively successful navigation of life thus far, with its commensurate (to all of us) bumps and detours. One thing the picture reminded me of--I miss them, both. Each is half of me. 

Something has occurred to me as I have charted the course of this entry.

Let's do a little TAT with those of you who take a look, if you are of a mind. If you like, in whatever fora you choose, tell me what you see. A few of you know me a long time, and will know how I might or might not interpret the scene and the people. But try to stick to the photo itself and tell me the story of these people as you see it. And then, in a couple of days, I will offer further thoughts. 

Here is a teaser about my father, that is a fact. He is wearing a ring. I never, in life, saw him wear a ring. When he died, he had no rings. There is a story about that ring. I have to do a close up and see what kind of ring it might be. It might be a college ring because he had just graduated on the GI bill. The people we think we know are fascinating. Even the people we don't know. 

Maybe one day this photograph will be in some antique shop and someone will stop by it and make up a story of the people in it long gone. That is a kind of nice earthly immortality. 

The Illusion of Our Importance

As most of you know, I am a person who believes in God, and I believe, also that God has a mission for each of us within the world. I would dare say that we are, individually, and as the communal fruit of His creation, important--to Him and for His purposes and to cultivate our good for His glory. 

But how do we view our importance? We view it in very earthly terms, with little regard, it seems to me, for the eschatological, and even less for the God who is the arbiter of that destiny. 

Just in case it seems that I think myself outside of the illusion of my earthly importance, please note for the record that I have as many illusions as the next self-deceiver. 

What put me in mind of this, today? I had a doctor's appointment, a follow-up to my recent tests. It had been scheduled significantly in advance. I complained perhaps on these very pages how I become angry at the fact that when I need to speak to my medical providers, I have to go through a maze of technology and guardians of that technology, the nurses, the physician's assistants, the office staff, usually with what to my mind seems to my mind a level of dismissal. But when it is time for THE appointment, I receive a call or a text or both, reminding me not only of the appointment but the requirements that append thereto--to confirm, or to timely cancel, with a very firm reminder that the failure to appear will end in a fee, and a further reminder to make my appearance at least fifteen minutes before my appointment, for reasons that have never been clear to me, since I always wait those fifteen minutes. And, in the days of covid, upon arrival, I am not merely to wear a mask, but to be screened for fever and to fill out a form regarding where I have been and how I have been feeling prior to my arrival. Although many of the waiting room chairs are marked with prohibitions for seating, so that patients aren't  sitting right on top of one another, I do notice that the room is pretty full. In the narrow hallways lined with doctor offices and exam rooms, it seems to me that we pass shoulder to shoulder. 

We are all terrified of passing the little blue line before the reception desk if there is someone already at the reception desk. 

A woman takes her place at one of the two windows to announce her presence for her appointment. She is very urgent, even demanding. "I am late, but please tell doctor so and so that I am here. Otherwise he will be mad at me." The receptionist nods but offers no particular response. She, like I, knows that doctor so and so, is not looking for an announcement, and that he is not urgent about whether or not she has appeared, late or otherwise.  The woman repeats her command. It seems to make her feel better even if the reception desk does nothing about it. She sits. And immediately, she makes a call, to the downstairs pharmacy. Of course, patients are asked not to make phone calls in the reception area. However, this lady clearly feels she has dispensation. I am amazed at the ability of some people to draw all attention to themselves as if some revelation will be forthcoming. She has her conversation, all the while seeming to check her person for. . . .injury, rash? I couldn't quite tell, except that her health was it seems a matter of global significance. 

I had been in a bad mood, as mostly I always am, when it comes to doctor's offices and their regulations as against their sometimes cavalier attitudes toward patient questions and concerns, and as a patient myself, I was amused at the fact that like this lady I was watching, clearly I thought that my health must be of global imporance, to be in such a mood. 

As usual, a staff person called me, mangling my name.

Something in me turned. What was the point of my acting the role of sourpuss? I have been praying to the Lord to abandon myself to whatever is His Will for my life, to let go of my need to control, particularly as the world, small and large around me is completely out of control. I was going to do something that doesn't come naturally to me, not try to make myself seen, to give in to my illusion of importance, and just, as someone I know says, "Go with the flow." 

As usual a nurse came in and took blood pressure  and asked about my medications. And then she left. The doctor came in and asked about my medications and took my blood pressure. He was pleased about the working of my stent. I am pleased about the working of my stent. For further precaution against covid, my blood would be taken in that room instead of in their lab. I didn't mention the fact that people seem to be all over the place in relatively small spaces. I asked for a couple of referrals which were given to me at warp speed after my blood tests. "See you in February," said the doctor.

There were no appointments available in February, as the doctor is booked up continuously. But I did get the second week of March. 

I have had some people coming and going to do a repair of my terrace. They started last Tuesday, removed the entire flooring of the terrace except for the wood foundation, and have done nothing since. Today, they showed up when I was leaving for my appointment. They can work with me gone. When I came back, nothing had been done. I have no idea as I write whether they will be  back tomorrow. 

I was still of a "letting go" state of mind. Good. My blood pressure didn't rise and once again I did not give in to the illusion of my importance. The earthly realm couldn't care less about my illusions. 

Death Comes to the Hummingbird

I never watch National Geographic type shows where it is likely that there will be one of nature's predators taking out some adorable unsuspecting creature. I know that's what happens, but it is just something that I would rather not have stuck in my mind.

I live in the heart of Los Angeles. There is a little bit of nature around here, the occasional possum, squirrels in the tree outside of my bedroom window, even the odd Raccoon rambling through the area late at night. There are lots of birds of course, and my favorite terrace companions, are the hummingbirds, that go from my terrace to each of my neighbors', either sipping nectar from feeders, or flowers, or just lighting on some thin branch defending territory. 

I can tell you this for certain, I never expected to have one of those ugly National Geographic moments happen as it did just a little while ago, just before dark. And it has jarred me, even as I know that daily, all around me, all forms of creatures, animal and human have some version of "here today, gone tomorrow". Actually, in this case, it was more like "here on second; gone the next". 

I was sitting in the cooling afternoon edge of the gloam writing. The feeder is maybe three feet from me, and just a few minutes before, one of the hummingbirds had been sitting on a branch of my Fica considering a fill up before evening. They are territorial, these humminbirds and there is a kind of ritual. They encounter each other like Air Force bombers from World War II, buzzing each other, and then going to various other of the terraces to wait. 

I have plants on the edge between me and my next door neighbor's terrace. Suddenly from one of his plants on which the birds alight, maybe twenty five feet away from me, I heard a level of hummingbird vocalization that didn't seem right. It sounded as if there was some kind of fight, but on the floor of his terrace. I jumped up. I couldn't see anything, but the bird, and now I realized it was only one, was shrieking. I was about to try to take my plants off and try to climb to the terrace (the building is from the fifties and it was possible) when I saw my neighbor was home and I yelled "Jeff!" He came out after my second call, and saw the bird entangled in some dead branches on the floor. I thought, "Well, that's all he need to do, carefully, as they are so fragile" untangle it. But then he noticed that there was a spider literally on the head of the bird, and though he tried to extricate it, within, what, maybe 30 seconds, the bird was dead. It just went limp. 

And then there was the plastic bag for the bird, and the spider. 

Spiders, I read a little while ago, can be predators of hummingbirds. Today, there was a big enough spider on my neighbor's terrace that "took out" one little marvel of nature. 

https://www.hummingbird-guide.com/hummingbird-predators.html

You know, even as I am writing this, and yes, I know it was just a bird, I am getting upset. 

I was today taking notes for a podcast that I am planning for this Saturday, on "Peace", you know, the grandiose kind, "Peace in the World" and the more personal kind, "Peace of soul", or something along those lines. One of the things that I wrote in my notes was that I can't necessarily define peace for myself (plenty of definitions from dictionaries and theologies exist of course) but I can talk of moments of peace. The first one I wrote down was watching the hummingbirds on my terrace.

In a flash, that experience of what usually is a peaceful moment, was incinerated. 

I noticed that on the terrace way across, a small leaf like creature, another hummingbird, was sitting on my neighbor's ficus. It wasn't quite dark yet, so it could potentially have come before the night would require it to hibernate. But it just sat there on the leaf or branch, as if it knew what had happened.

Death Came to the Hummingbird. I hate it. 

And of course, such a moment raises the bigger picture of our transient lives. I really didn't want to think about that today. Oh, well. 

The What If PET Scan

 

It has been slightly less than a year since I had a stent put into my LAD (Left Anterior Descending) heart artery to open a 99 percent blockage. Naturally, my internist, who is also my cardiologist, wanted me to to take the necessary tests to be sure that the stent is operating and I am in no current danger of death (as far as anyone could ever tell). 

This time, the first test was to be the last one I had last year. The PET Stress Test. They inject stuff into your veins among which, in the last part of the half hour test, is a medication that stresses the heart as if you were doing strenuous exercise. As the days came closer to my second experience with this test, I found my anxiety percolating. My last experience had not been traumatic, but when my heart was stressed I felt something, and it wasn't a good something, and when I came out of the machine donut, I was given an intravenous shot of something, perhaps nitroglycerin, to calm the discomfort. It was after that the angiogram was done in October, and the stent was placed. 

In the last few days, I have been reading about and watching documentaries about death, last night it was, "Aside From That". I can hear some of my friends laughing as they know I have, at least intellectually, considered death since I was a teenager reading "Thanatopsis", during my lapsed religious phase. I wonder why death preoccupies me, given that, since my return to faith, I profess belief in the afterlife. I was thinking about that, among my other considerations. I rationalize myself as a reasonably good person, and the thing that is most prominent in the musing about death is God saying, "Not so much", about my being good, particularly on aspects of my life I thought weren't a matter of debate. So if I was wrong about what I thought went without dispute, how much more problematic the other aspects of my life as laid out before me in Divine Retrospection. It isn't a particularly mature view of the Private Judgment, but there you are. The other thing, no matter how a young person thinks about death, it isn't the same as when you hit a fifth, sixth or seventh decade. In the former case it is statistically remote. In the latter, statistically more or less, imminent. 

And at this stage of the game, symptomology or not, imagined or not, there are quite a few other things that can go wrong. I put off my colonoscopy last year because of the heart thing. I had a polyp in the past, in an earlier test, but not after that. If everything is ok with the heart, and I can stop the blood thinner (that may not be a medical concern but it is mine), I will have to have it. I need to visit the dermatologist. And have a mammogram. And all that happens when I think of these things is what if this one shows something is wrong? I will have to deal with it, of course. And the earthshaking changes it would bring. But the anticipatory anxiety tends to have a paralyzing effect. "What if?" becomes panicky breathing. I bet some of you know about that. Thoughts and feelings swirl like Dorothy's house on its way to Oz. 

As some of you know, also, I am a bit petulant when it comes to doctors and medical procedure these days. When you need to talk to them, it is like trying to get through Cerberus at the Gates of Hell. When they want to have a million tests, you are a pawn on the chess board moving from room to room, instead of square to square and being asked to sign in case insurance doesn't cover whatever is being done to you.

So, though I looked at the instructions about what I was and was not to do before this test, and though I received a call yesterday with the same instructions, somehow, between my anxiety and my petulance I missed the part where I was not to indulge in any caffeine, including chocolate or soda, for 24 hours before the test. And last night I indulged in all of them while watching the documentary on death. 

This morning, congratulating myself that I had not had my morning coffee (thinking that it was only for four hours I was to abstain) I picked up the paperwork and saw that I had not complied with the instructions. To the extent that my failure was the result of my petulance, I remembered that I usually get chastened for that disposition. And so it was again. I really can't get away with anything. 

Off I went to face the music, to confess my misbehavior. I was like the high school student who thought she might have missed one too many answers on the test. And I didn't want to have to reschedule this particular examination. 

The woman at the desk was civil but not particularly sympathetic. "I called you yesterday!". "Yes," I said with humility that was required because of my stupid mistake, "You did."

She put me into one of the enclosed spaces built especially for the time of Covid, and asked me to wait. She came back about five or ten minutes later with the decision, "You can have the test."

I waited a bit more, encapsulated in the protective walls, until she called me for the preparation in an examining room, quite a multiple of electrodes attached to my chest, and an IV inserted into my arm. And then I was left alone in the white walled room again, for another ten or so minutes. It sounded like someone else was leaving from his turn. I knew that would mean extra time for clean up. 

I did pray. But it was in between these thoughts about how this room could be the last place I ever spent any time in, alive and well, if something went wrong in the other room. I mean, I was being a bit overdramatic, I know. These tests can but don't usually lead to an in extremis moment. But I am after all a person with heart disease, whether I feel like it or not (I don't you know, even having the stent came after rather nominal events, for which I am very lucky or blessed or both, but it tends to color one's sense of frailty). A few weeks ago I was having palpatations, and a rather high level of blood pressure, and through the on line text process, when I got in touch with my doctor, he suggested it was anxiety. But what if it wasn't? Life chugs along apace, and then, in a room like this, it can just stop, and people are cleaning out your apartment, and trying to unload tchotchkes that nobody wants. 

Allow me further dramatics (from your point of view, not mine I imagine). As I sat in that room thinking that I don't want to do this, I don't want to go into that room, I don't want to have that test, I don't want to hear that something is potentially wrong (were it to be so), I want to run away, I did think of Jesus at Gethsamane, and how His experience was ten thousand fold mine in this room, but that there was some small similarity. Well, enough for me. 

And then David, the technician, the same Physician Assistant who was in charge of my test the last time, was sitting with me. I remembered he was kind, and took the time to talk before we left for the room next door. Asked me a couple of questions. Said that most people found the second time having the test less difficult during the "exercise" phase.

And off I went. The first twenty minutes is the slight clank of the machine and complete reminders to myself "I must not move". I am an antsy soul and sitting still for three minutes let alone thirty is a challenge. 

There is a mantra I have adopted (I have adopted others, nothing yet has quite stuck, but maybe this one will) and in between dishevelled thoughts and trying to remember to breathe, I said to myself, "Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner". That one seems to be a keeper. We shall see. The technician (not David, but also nice) came in every ten minutes to see how I was doing. I was appreciative that he allowed me to take off the mask just after I was stuck in the donut, since as he said, "You are mostly alone in the room." It made a difference. My face staring up at the concave of the machine with a slight glimpse of the ceiling outside, with a mask, might have been problematic. I was going to face it as I am coming to realize that whatever I feel about masks is irrelevant. That was the other thing that came to me during all this. I am already at that stage in the Bible (maybe we are all our lives since there are always people with authority telling us what to do and where to be) where I will be taken where I do not want to go. Maybe it will be a matter of less anxiety if I just let things go where they go. If at some time there is a hill on which I must stand with the great "No!" to someone in authority, well, this wasn't it. And I was not, as is usually the case, not in charge. 

It came to the third part of the test, the one which, the last time, confirmed at least one blockage in my heart. I had decided that when my heart rushed that I would pretend I was back in the Townsend Avenue Courtyard of my childhood, where we kids would run fast up and down the small stone stairs out into the sidewalk. That was a favorite time, I loved the feeling of being sweaty and out of breath for some reason. I felt liberated at those moments, then. That would be a good way to experience it, this time. Also, I prepared myself for a rush of strange warmth after the injenction of the medication from the top of my head to the tips of my toes and quite frankly every where in between. 

But it didn't happen. And though I felt a slight intensity in what was going on in my chest, it was nothing like what had happened before, and I was both surprised, and relieved. Now, I don't know what the results will actually be. My non-medical opinion, at the moment, is that the stent is doing its job. And there was no need for anything to relieve a distress I happily did not have on this occasion.

I felt the odd tear of gratefulness. 

They had a cup of coffee outside the room for me (as caffeine helps with any ill effects, the same caffeine I shouldn't have had the night before). But it was the worst cup of coffee I ever had. I left, stopped at home, and walked to the Pace Joint, which has a lovely outside courtyard and had one of the items from "Breakfast All Day". 

Today's "What If?" is done. I am sure there will be others. But perhaps one day I will learn to be dependent on whatever God's Will is in the matter of my health, and anything else if it comes to that. And will finally live my life day to day with fewer "What ifs?". 

P.S. I got the report on the text link from my doctor: "Marked improvement in blood flow t o the heart." I am glad we concur.

Gordon Lightfoot: Time Creeping 'Round Up That Stair

The only two things I knew about Gordon Lightfoot, one of those performers who forms a lattice around my young to old life, was that he is Canadian and that I have liked his music from 1970 or so well, to date, though he has apparently not composed anything new for the last 16 years. That latter piece of information I could have intuited as I have heard nothing new, but I only came to know certainly of it, when I watched the documentary, "Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind" on my tablet the other night. 

I had been wondering for some time whatever happened to him. And then one day, before I saw the movie, which made me more eager to see it, I caught a recent photograph of him. I stared at it for a long time, because this drawn, skinny, receding foreheaded long haired old man, couldn't be Gordon Lightfoot. My last image of him is curly haired handsome, with a scruff of the era, youngish if not young, a balladier of stories of romance, adventure, loss, and the odd pinch of optimism. 

No, this can't be him. Can't be. He is a contemporary (somewhat older but close enough). His physicality scared me, a not so welcome advertisement for the ravages of time that I can't escape any more than he could. And if anyone should, certainly a Gordon Lightfoot should, no?

Lots of things it turns out, happened to him:  a couple of marriages, a couple of relationships, several children from the various personal interactions, and clearly a level of adulation from his fellow Canadians as one of its most famous performers, a musician, a lyricist, a poet. And, though he has striven to overcome the effects, addiction to alcohol and drugs and several health scares, including an aortic aneurysm in 2002 that left him in a coma for a while and mini-strokes that occurred on stage in 2006. 

As I am writing this entry, I am listening to a mix of his stuff on Sirius radio. And tears are coming to my eyes. The face attached to the voice I am hearing is the young healthy seeming man. The reality is now life having moved on fifty years. I share the time that has passed with him. Makes me look in the mirror because though I see the enormity of the time passing in him, I do not see it quite that way in myself. Of course, I didn't do drugs and such, my relationships in the area of romance have been sparse so thus wrinkle producing sturm und drang there and my health issues have so far been relatively limited and under reasonable conrol. But something is nonetheless personally jarring about the visual of Gordon Lightfoot then, and the one now. It's probably the "no one is spared" feeling. It's just a matter of . . . .time, till time gets to you, if you are lucky to have had it in the first place. 

I am happy to say he still sings. There were ill effects to his hand after the 2002 incident, but he's gotten his picking fingers back for the most part. And the voice is mostly still there, a little less sonorous, the vibrato less controlled, but definitely it is Gordon Lightfoot. And his being here still is comforting.

He released a new studio album this year called Solo. I will be asking Alexa to locate it for me. 

Keep singing Gordo. We need you. 

 

Unmasked Thoughts

Picture by Djinna Gochis. 

There are a few things that I am thinking about today related to the now nearly six month restrictions nationally, and especially here in California. They are in no particular order. But they reflect, to my mind, a society gone amok, and one that is making its own citizens go mad in the name of public health and safety. 

I was in Home Depot today picking up some household cleaners and Spackle for a hole I made in my bedroom wall while removing a framed painting. A man in the elevator was wearing a black "mask" that looked more like it hung on a curtain rod, as it left this large gap between his mouth and his chin and regions where droplets could readily fall. Wouldn't have mattered to me at all, except that when I wore the far more full covering of a plastic shield that went below my chin, I was told that it was unacceptable. Also, lots of people are wearing paper disposable masks. But when I was rejected for wearing my plastic shield, I was told only fabric masks were acceptable. More and more people are wearing those disposable masks. My plastic shield is still considered insufficient. After an exhaustive experimentation with pretty much every kind of mask, I have finally resigned to the disposable mask, which despite its failure to be fabric, is accepted. I have also resigned myself to the daily face outbreaks caused by the masks of whatever variety. And the fact that breathing still is a chore while wearing any of them. 

Oh, and Home Depot was very crowded, and I doubt there was much social distancing, no matter how many signs exhorted the patrons. 

And the street is also crowded--with tents of the homeless that have exploded in the last six months. The once lauded Dream Factory that was Hollywood is now the center of waste management. All that we restricted masked passersby can do is to quickly pass the disease ridden detritus, perhaps to give (contactless,of course) a dollar or two to the man conducting an imaginary orchestra as he lay in his fraying belongings. But such is the residual freedom of America, to be mentally ill, sick, destitute, and drug addicted on the streets. 

Did Kamala Harris confirm what Mr. Biden said? I thought she did. That is, we will all be mandated to wear masks for at least three months once she and Mr. Biden are elected? That would be three months from JANUARY 2021. So expect to be wearing facial protection until at least April 2021. 

The Governor has this multi-tiered confusing plan for the reopening (and if warranted, the reclosing) of various businesses in different counties, based on color coding of the alleged ravages of the virus. My pastor said on Sunday that he would keep us all posted of where Churches fit into this panoply of public health protections. 

Said the Governor, he is extending the stay at home orders. And Newsom said the new system is “stringent and slow,” meaning that we are talking as one article I read said, something like we are in it for the "long haul".  

So what has got me so irked today? That the CDC reported only 6 percent of the deaths were Covid only and the balance were those with over 2 co-morbidities. Now, I see already that this is being disputed and re-interpreted, so as usual, there is no real consensus, though we are supposedly "following the science". 

I do not understand what this society is doing. Right now, traffic is back. People are out. Social distancing in the permitted arenas is virtually non-existent, but more people are wearing masks (not necessarily clean or property placed, but visually present). But business is still being devastated. Church going is restricted. 

People are still dying of things like Heart disease (647,457 in 2017), and accidents (169,936 in 2017) and a myriad of every darn thing living makes fragile human beings heir to, and masks are the sine qua non of our daily life in the United States. Add to the things being inflicted on the masked population--a level of pressure that is upping the suicide rate, and likely commitments to mental institutions. 

When the history of the once United States is written, the year 2020 will no doubt show itself to have been the watermark for its final fall. And the people with big brains of the various parallel universes which some scientists insist exist will laugh at the holographs of silly 21st Century barbarians in fashionable masks.

But the good news today, at least for unimportant me. I got a free bottle of hand sanitizer because I spent some target amount at Staples. I wonder if it will help the new zit that is developing on my face? But first, I better check the ingredients on the sanitizer. Might not be . . . .safe. And safety is the highest virtue. 

Pride Goeth Before A Fall

I nearly hesitate in presenting this short short story by my father. It is very cynical and its cynicism is not assisted by the invocation of God. My father was, for years, a non-practicing Greek Orthodox. He had agreed to allow my mother, a non-practicing Catholic, to raise me as a Catholic. I left for a while and came back to the faith, and remain with it to this day. But he always hovered around religion, and participated on the peripheries with me when I attended my parish activities, even occasionally attending a service so that "I can hear you read." I have been a lector for many years. He met my pastor, similar to him in that both had Greek fathers, who ruled the roost. And my pastor said, "Leave him alone" when it came to any consideration of belief or conversion. And so I did, and went about my business religiously speaking. The only difference between my father and me regarding cynicism, which I share with him in abundance, is that I battled mine inside the faith. He battled his, like the protagonist of this story, outside of it. I will have more comments after you read this gloomy short which was written in the 1990s, as the Enron scandal was in full bloom. What was Enron? It was an energy supplier and it became a trader in the market of commodities. The machinations of the company were originally praised as creative, and I am a market idiot, so I cannot really understand what happened but when the dot come market collapsed, whatever the machinations in accounting for profit and loss, making the company look more profitable than it actually was, until the actual losses could no longer be hidden. Lots of people got charged ultimately for insider trading and fraud and some of them ended up in jail. Lots of people thought this was justice because of the damage likely done to investors who didn't have money to spare. But some people felt that there was an unreasonable inequity in punishing this type of crime so assiduously while coddling those who do physical harm to others in comparison. When I was a prosecutor at the State Bar of California, attorneys who got into these kind of "white collar" transgressions would remonstrate with me in what they considered my ivory tower (though I had worked for people much like them in my early career and was very familiar with the rationales) because "everyone did" what they were often caught in doing. They didn't raise the bigger issues with me as does this prisoner of the short story raise with the minister/probation officer in the exchange of letters. My father was a thinker, not as famous as thinkers of the past or the future, but a thinker he always was. He needed, as so many of us do, proof of absolute justice that will never be found on this earth. And not finding it, like many thinkers, he railed. 

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PRIDE GOETH BEFORE A FALL

The following may be a true story.  I discovered the text folded neatly within the page of a volume I bought at a yard sale.  It consisted of a series of letters between a convict and his parole officer and spiritual advisor.  I thought it a particularly interesting exchange in view of the Enron situation--a morality tale for our times.

Dear Reverend John:

Please forgive the familiarity of the salutation.  After all, your name is John.  I will admit that the use of the word, "dear" may be excessive in view of our mandated association.  Please accept it in your most liberal interpretation of salutations.

On the other hand, you do deserve some deference in view of your interest in my REHABILITATION, my continued education and the invaluable assistance you have given me over the past five years.  I entered this hallowed institution a crass, uneducated, materialistic felon. I am now an erudite criminal, with five more years to go--though perhaps a probation will be called for I continue to hope. I can read with a modicum of comprehension, something beter than the daily stock quotations.

I have just completed two of your more recent contributions, Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, by this guy Dostoevsky.  They are both dismal narrations by a man who was half afraid there might be a God, in the way that Hamleet was restrained by the same phobia.  I did not get the message that crime does not pay. What comes through to me is that there are crimes and there are crimes-the phenomenon of equivalence. When I borrowed a few hundred thousand rubles from my clients, I did not tap some unwary person on the noggin or murder a close relative for his holdings.  I performed an accepted business maneuver--a daily occurrence in the investment field, which simply required, for a short period, sufficient capital to cover an imbalance in accounting.

Think about it.  If the stock had gone up the next day instead of down, I would have been a milionaire and a hero, instead of a patsy for an ambitious district attorney.

Padre, you are taking a chance with my sense of morality and ethics with non-relevant musings by a morose Russian.  The bad guy kills himself not because of his sin against humanity and God but because he cannot even trust the anti-God or the secular satainic ministry either.  His comfortable world was shattered.  If you can't trust God or the Devil, where can you look in this dog eat dog world?

In a revealing passage of Dostoevsky's book, Christ, who has reappeared suddenly on earth is dragged before a Grand Inquisitor.  He is castigaged for his inopportune incarnation.  "Get thee hence," he is told, though not in those words, else, "We will crucify you again."

The Grand Inquisitor likes the world the way it is and needs no God to offer interference, however authentic He may be. He is urged not to meddle in a successful consortium of prelates, and the secular acolytes of a compliant government, a consortium which will abase itself to the blandishment of either.

I am convinced I was better off as a partially educated con man.  The doors you have opened for me are not portals to mercy and goodness, the ultimate surcease promised by some God merchants and withheld by others, soem judges and those who interpret the law as it is dictated to them.  It is an illusion.

In what y fellow inmates refer to as "stir", there is an underground culture of right and wrong.  WE are like a species suddenly discovered in soe subterranean depth that does not respond to the xternal forces of life.  In this Plutonic underworld, we are anomalies with our own rules of existence and death--and especially Justice.

This last is not the traditional blindfolded lady with the pendant scales.  More often, she peers beneatha bandaged eye and permits the scale to tip one way or the other.

With Great Reverence,

Federico Speranza

Dear Federico:

I am saddend by your cynicism.  Your trials are half over.  You are no longer the man who entered those stone pillared gates five years ago.  I see in your letters words that tell me His Light has indeed penetrated your heart. Yes, your sentence was severe. Yes, ore grievous transgressions escape the notice of the law, but this can only be a sign of God's Infinite Wisdom at work.  Shall you rail against the Almighty? Remember how He chastised Job for questioning His unknowable purpose? Patience my son. 

Reverend John Burton

Esteemed Reverend:

"What news, O Pastor of the Damned, you ask?"

Samantha, my wife, has relocated.  She has taken the children to an unknown location.  There were tear stains in her letter.  It is out of love for me and for our three daughters, she said. They will no longer be encumbered with the name of a criminal.

Suggest, dear Reverend, a passage from the God book to palliate my pain.  Tell me about the wisdom of the Eternal Father, and the forgiveness that awaits me when I am dead.

Help me to curb my rage, to repress my curses against the secular and the Divine. I will grow a beard and rend my clothes and rail against the immutable tempest of the cursed maelstrom of life, like that idiot King Lear, "What would he do had he the motive and the cue for passion that I have?" His need was only Pride and the ego disaffections of a madman.

Reverend Father, spare me your parables. There is nothing outside these walls that is preferable to my solitary cell.  Like that legendary king, I had a wife who loved me, three daughters and a kingdom within my grasp.  Now, there is only the abyss.

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Nothing can assuage such pain if we are unwilling. Federico, it could be argued, is looking into an abyss of his own making, even if that conduct was arguably not as bad as that of someone who escaped humanity's imperfect justice. He blames all on God, but denies his own free will. Of course, we are never sure what part of our will is free and what part mere chance--or manipulation.

But as to my father. Some years after he wrote this story, at the age of 85, he called me on the telephone late into the evening, after dinner and no doubt a few glasses of wine, and announced he was going to become a Catholic. My own genetically inherited cynicism was alerted when the only clear utterance of the sudden decision was "It will make it easier for you." I would ever have to speculate what would be easier for me. The burial after he died? He could thus be buried in a Catholic Ceremony and interred in a Catholic Cemetery. But if he did it only for that reason, he could easily have eschewed attending Mass after he was received into the Church. Instead he became a regular Sunday attendee, an usher and a Communicant. And while it was not a Pauline conversion--blinding and of auditory dramatics--it brought him inside, where there is, again I can only say, arguably, as many will disagree, the Grace to look into the abyss, and think, even at the very periphery of mind and soul, that God will indeed make sense out of it all. 

After all, it was my non-practicing Greek Orthodox father, and my non-practicing Catholic mother, who put me on the path of Catholicism. That somehow does not seem to have been any accident. There is a phrase that seems to apply here, "Felix Culpa". Happy fault.

Taj Mahal by Constantine Gochis

 Time for another Constantine Story!!!!

Taj Mahal

She stood, barely taller than the wrought iron fence that shields the elderly from the world they have eschewed.  Others lolled around umbrella shaded tables that fronted the Golden Years Retirement Hotel. Some fed the omnipresent fat pigeons, others dozed under a friendly sun.  There remained only the call that would announce the evening meal.

There was nothing passive about her.  She wore an air that denied capitulation.  A coquettish hat crowned an ermine collared jacket of yesteryear.  She held gloves that could not ever fit over her multi-ringed fingers.  I had the feeling that all her accessories had to match.

"Hello there!" she called out, as I was passing.  "What's your name?"

I approached the fence for a closer look at this little lady dressed to go somewhere.

"My name is Anita," she said extending her hand.  I took it gingerly, lest the slightest pressure on the multi-ringed fingers cause her injury.

"I was a dancer once", she announced. "I danced at the Taj Mahal."

"In Agra, where the Sultan built a temple to his beloved?  How seductive", I said.

"Not that Taj Mahal. Not India. New Jersey, where they had all those casinos, and the great boardwalk."

"You mean ballroom?"

"Yes. I danced professionally with my husband. He left me a year and a half ago."

"He abandoned you for another lady?" I asked impishly.

"No, he died."

Departing the realm is not unexpected in these environs, I thought.

"We danced everywhere, but we were a big hit in the Taj Mahal."

She raised her arms and made a respectable pirouette.

She was wearing very high heels but she came to a graceful fianle and smiled, charmingly and professionally.

"You know," she said, "there is dancing on Melrose Avenue."

I know of no cabarets that feature dancing on Melrose Avenue.

"Really?" I asked, my tone suggesting my doubt.

"Really. It's on Melrose Avenue. Not far. I went there once, but it's no Taj Mahal."

She is right. It is not a cabaret.  It is a senior center. 

A local newspaper advertises dancing from 12 noon to 2 p.m. every Saturday afternoon.  Indeed, not a Taj Mahal.

"Let's go dancing," she said suddenly.

I was surprised.  I did not know how to answer tactfully.

"Will you drive? I do not have a car," I said. I knew full well she could not.

She was clearly disappointed.

"Never mind," I said. "We can return in our imaginations and dream of the Taj Mahals of our glorious yesterdays."

She extended her ringed hand.

I brushed it with a kiss.  

Acceptable Violations

There are currently three requirements in some stores, in no particular order. One is that even if you are 105 and look like you are on death's door, you have to show ID to buy alcohol. This is apparently the solution to having to deal with kids under 21 who seek to buy alcohol. Don't enforce against them or people who sell to them. Simply inconvenience everyone by creating rules that make no sense. The second is "no dogs allowed, unless they are service dogs". I suppose the idea is that your pet should not be around food or other perishables, and that there are people who are allergic to dogs who shop in them. Now, I am a big animal person, so I don't care about that one particularly, but I completely am on board with it because it has clear logic and reasonableness.  The third, of course, is the wearing of masks in order to "flatten the curve" of the Corona Virus. Now, if you are in a plane, right next to someone, crushed in like a proverbial sardine, you CAN take off the mask to have a snack. If you are at a restaurant that has outdoor seating, you must wear the mask while standing at your table, or walking through the restaurant, but you can eat, talk and breathe freely at your table, as long as you are sitting. If you are homeless in Los Angeles, whether or not you actually wear a mask, you can live, eat, and poop on the street while I am passing by fully garbed and in danger of fine and ample shaming. 

Joe Biden, apparently thinking he is already President, opined that "we" should be wearing masks for at least three more months. Is that three months starting now? Or is it three months from the time that Kamala is sworn in? Or three months that becomes forever? 

Well, of course, we can't flatten the curve. We can and probably have (unless you believe the screamers on national media) flattened this one, but they are 80 or so days shy from admitting it, depending on who becomes the President. If Kamajoe is the winner, then it will be over and life will return to its progressive bliss. If the Orangeman wins it will remain with us for the NEXT four years. And anyway, no matter who wins, after all, there are plenty of diseases out there affecting the human race that probably require life long mask wearing, per the folk who "follow the science". 

I digress, as I am wont to do. What got me started today? Well, it is a particularly hot day in Los Angeles, and I had to visit the UPS store for a friend, and thus I had to wear a mask. In fact, a young, trendy woman came in without one, and was immediately given the appropriate remonstration. She had a bandanna with her--a fresh new one she was clearly hoping that she would not be required to don--and she complied, with that air of youthful contempt which is so lovely to behold in the millenials and zoomers. I could barely breath, but it was only for a few minutes. My next stop was the local monster drug and sundry store. As I wended my way through the aisles I saw three customers, masked because otherwise they would be tossed out, with their respective dogs. None had anything indicating that they were service dogs. I got to the counter to pay for my goods, which included, two large cans of beer.

I would have said nothing about the inconsistencies on display in the enforcement of the rules du jour. But then she asked for my identification so that I would be permitted to take those two cans of beer. 

I made my complaint. Why are you allowing people in here with their dogs, but requiring me to wear a mask and to be carded? She has surely heard versions of this lament before, and dutifully gave me a number to call with my fruitless objections. 

Right now, it is approved progressive behavior to have your dogs in stores. They don't feel threatened by any public health consequences. Their politicians are in control. And woe betide any poor store keep who tries to point out that it is a rule. It is also progressive ideology that I don't have to present ID to vote, but at nearly 70 I must present some to buy alcohol.  And it is a matter of panic if I don't wear a mask in a store. It doesn't have to be clean or otherwise useful. A bandanna is useless but approved. I have seen people with shirts pulled up over their faces. Approved. A plastic face mask is not acceptable. 

What really makes me mad, I realize? I lack the courage to violate openly, like so many people, some I agree with, some I do not. 

Dennis Prager, who is making waves against progressive tyranny and thus is being royally attacked in an effort to silence him, has asked the logical question that causes hysteria in the left, "When will it be safe for us to go without masks?"  Well, of course, the answer which no one is willing to give because then people might wake up to the fact that they are being primed for the next great restriction, is "NEVER".  It will never be safe. We can't be safe. We are temporary creatures.We get sick. We die. We die from eating. We die from drinking. We die from everything under the sun and so far, there is no stopping it. We were told it was only temporary, this wearing of masks. We are now in the sixth month. 

So it is not about safety. It never was about safety. Otherwise having a dog in the grocery store would not be allowed. But in the course of brainwashing and remaking modern man who used to be free, it is an acceptable violation. Until it's not. 

The most frightening thing, though, is that soon it will not be an acceptable violation to object to all of these inconsistencies and arbitrary rules. It won't be enough to comply. You will have to enjoy it or be punished. Feel free, say I am wearing a tin foil hat. And pretend past history can't become present history. 

POSTSCRIPTUM, AUGUST 18, 2020

Today, I heard the good news from California's public health spokesperson that the number of deaths and hospitalizations is down 37 percent and that five of six goals have been met but people must continue to wear their masks and avoid congregating. They should also stay home while conserving energy in the current heat wave or go to State approved cooling centers. So, the curve has been flattened? No? It must be eradicated? Wanna bet that masks will remain the order of the day? You know, that "new normal" of the aptly misnamed Open Society?