Spreading Fear for Our Good

I have found it curious that the new variant of the Covid virus, known as Omicron, which has mostly symptoms of the common cold, has been shouted from the treetops of our leadership as almost worse than the original version from nearly two years ago and its progeny, the Delta. The fear frenzy has returned. Curious. But rather expected. Things were calming down. Christmas was coming, when people want to and need to be close to one another. It is also when Christians celebrate a major religious holiday. And then, Voila! 

Pandemic redux! Test! Stay away! Watch out! Danger! 

Testing sites have sprung up again. All over the news, and within days, we have heard more and more people being found "positive" which could mean anything from someone on a ventilator to a sniffle. The numbers are ambiguous. A distinction is never, or rarely, made. Well, that's not new, they were ambiguous before. We could be told anything and we have no way to verify the truth of it. Well, was it the New Zealand Prime Minister who said it, along the lines of "Don't believe anything except what the Government tells you." 

I have been vaccinated up the wazoo. I see arguably vulnerable people in elder homes. I'm over 65. And I have had other vaccinations without a sense of concern. So, I have made the personal, medical decision to be vaccinated.

But as to this nearly two year circus I also believe that we have been the victims of a biological attack from a foreign country which we are not allowed to name; that vaccination is not the cure all; that the existence of this virus suits our current leadership in Washington some if not many of whose members may well have been complicit in the creation and spread of that virus attack; you take something "real" but "orchestrated" where people can and do die and you terrify the rest of the population who falls, mostly, into lockstep for the goal of a safety that can never be achieved. You take control and the citizenry has no choice but to take the trip over the cliff. Why? Because we have become so afraid, not necessarily for ourselves, but for others, just in case there might be something to the lie. We have been successfully gaslighted. Propagandized. Your care for others becomes the way to your very demise and that of your society.

I have my personal example. I go out fairly rarely, as I have said in other entries. In the week before Christmas, I did two things outside of my usual realm that brought me in contact, wait for it, "with people" purely for social pleasure. One of those people told me that he/she had tested positive for Covid. 

I hadn't been ANYWHERE since Sunday the 19th, and that was only to Mass where I serve away from the pews, in the sanctuary. On Wednesday the 22nd, I was informed that I was exposed to someone who was positive.  My first thought was not to panic and not immediately get tested. I felt fine. It was unlikely that I had a problem.

Then. I thought about the others. "What if I feel fine but I am more the walking germ stick than usual any human being is?" "What if someone gets sick that I happened to pass by on Sunday?" By nature, I suffer from a version of OCD, where I ruminate and create all sorts of catastrophic scenarios. Now my society has been generous enough to prove that worrying about virtually everything is the proper way to go. So, immediately I went out and got tested.

I was negative. Yea! Seventy five dollars well spent, right?  Folks said to me that well, by the 7th day you should be all right to go out because you are vaccinated and just need to be sure to wear the mask inside (which you must do anyway). I technically was at the seventh day on Friday, Christmas Eve, the 24th. But when you read the various suggestions for the unvaccinated and vaccinated and the time for quarantine, to me, it gets inconsistent and without certainty.  It's safe after seven days? But what about the MANY breakthrough cases? I'll get a test a few days hence. But still, there is no certainty of the safety mantra whatever I do. The other I have always been concerned about still is out there, and though I heartily believe we have all been had, my psyche cannot take the chance. I am too afraid. I am not among the many other braver Americans (in my view) who have decided to ignore the fear and fly and drive all over the country despite the confounding pronouncements from what my dad used to call the "Dome" in Washington. 

But for fearful me, Christmas became moot, in secular and religious terms. I had another word to offer other than "moot" but I felt it improper to say it in light of whom we celebrate at Christmas. You know what else it means to me, until this is over, and I realize that it may never be until full global domination is achieved for our good? I am not going to be with any people. I can't live with showing my papers and wearing a mask, which makes me feel like a straightjacketed inmate in a mental institution, aside from the fact I just cannot breathe with one (I know, it's an inconvenience I am told over and over despite my lying eyes and senses). And at the same time I cannot take even the infinitesimal chance that if something happens I would be considered the cause or worse, be the cause. So I have to choose my kind of imprisonment. My apartment. My terrace.  My own lack of bravery. It isn't a perfect isolation because there are a few things I have to do. But I will not do anything I DO NOT have to except out of pure human charity or obligation. 

I didn't feel sick before my friend sent me her news. I felt sick after testing negative.  A full on existential sickness. And it's affecting me physically and psychologically. And I bet I am not alone. And it's all been deliberate. We are being taken over by a full on totalitarian someone. I don't know who per se. But I know that the one thing they don't care about is your health or safety and in particular, your freedom. 

Here's some news. As of December 29, the CDC has announced that the quarantine period can be cut to five days for the UNVACCINATED as well as the VACCINATED as follows:

.... CDC is updating the recommended quarantine period for anyone in the general public who is exposed to COVID-19. For people who are unvaccinated or are more than six months out from their second mRNA dose (or more than 2 months after the J&J vaccine) and not yet boosted, CDC now recommends quarantine for 5 days followed by strict mask use for an additional 5 days. Alternatively, if a 5-day quarantine is not feasible, it is imperative that an exposed person wear a well-fitting mask at all times when around others for 10 days after exposure. Individuals who have received their booster shot do not need to quarantine following an exposure, but should wear a mask for 10 days after the exposure.  For all those exposed, best practice would also include a test for SARS-CoV-2 at day 5 after exposure. If symptoms occur, individuals should immediately quarantine until a negative test confirms symptoms are not attributable to COVID-19.

The "science" tells them so, they lie. But it is really the fact that people are calling in sick for their jobs and not coming back for 10 plus days, and that is wreaking havoc with employers (like that wasn't predictable two years ago). The language I have heard to justify the change is that it is also about what "Americans can tolerate." But note that as a vaccinated person I have as much or as little freedom as an unvaccinated person. 

And now, Dr. You Know Who is test flying the possibility of a FOURTH vaccination. 

Tell me again how all this is for our good. Or even marginally makes sense. 

DjinnfromtheBronxChapterThree: Bumnick's Fork by Constantine Gochis

DjinnfromtheBronxChapterThree: Bumnick's Fork by Constantine Gochis: Bumnick's Fork by Constantine Gochis I watch in fascination as the gentleman at the next table examines the ivory handle of his fork.  I...

Bumnick's Fork by Constantine Gochis

Bumnick's Fork by Constantine Gochis

I watch in fascination as the gentleman at the next table examines the ivory handle of his fork.  It is not a casual act. It is more as if he is looking for some mark, some imperfection. Can it be possible? Has he found himself in that position of unbearable ignominy, of universal opprobrium sparked by being found in the random possession of Bumnick's fork?

Impossible.  It is not in the realms of time and space as we know them, that the item could be in the man's hands. Bumnick's fork is a thing of my childhood years. It cannot be, unless there are truly other dimensions--parallel universes perhaps--or coincidence, nothing more.  I scoff--mentally that is.  One does not scoff carelessly in posh restaurants with headwaiters in white tie and tails elegance.

Then again.  Is there not in fact an element of overweening pride in the casual way the man drops the fork as if he has weighed its quality and found it wanting.  Is this not a kind of "hubris", some common trait in our species that proliferation makes so common we fail to notice its existence?

But why do I try to make something philosophic out of what was nothing more than childhood fantasy, of early play, sometimes a maliciousness, that should alert parents to the inherent deviousness of the children they are nurturing.

And why do I insist on cloaking a simple tale in words that weigh heavily but have no meaning? Well, perhaps that's not true.  Finding oneself in possession of Bumnick's fork was, to any of us children, myself, with six siblings, as close to secular mortal sin as is possible How often did I hear the chorus of my six junior siblings shouting, "He's got Bumnick's fork!"  Of course, when the evil lot fell to some other of the septet, how joyful was my clarion voice of condemnation for the victim.

Well, dear reader, you have been patient and tolerant, and have the right to ask:  What is this strange ritual at which you hint and do not explain?"

Family historians date it accurately.  It was the day of the big dinner to honor the arrival to this country of a paterfamilias of our family line--on my other's side--Uncle Dominick by name but refereed to slyly, by the relatives, in contemptuous terms, as a "cafone", a farmer in the souther Italian dialect. In terms of status or accomplishment, he ranked somewhat lower than street laborer or indigent. 

Truly, he personified the description if you add the terminology of coarse, portly and verbose in the patois of his village, which was in Calabria, a region additionally known as the country of the testa dura, or hard heads.  I record this here for future generations--this being a a life history exercise I write.  A remark about his dialect was made in my hearing by another relative, sotto voce, to wit, "Che diavolo di lingua parla quest'imbecile."

My brother Tony, who was gifted in the ability to characterize a person in one all encompassing word, dubbed him "Bumnick", a name never expressed in the presence of elders, since disrespect was a province allowed exclusively to grown ups.

Bumnick, and his eating habits of that day, became legend, but this only to us children. He also became a dinner time game, a time of perpetual hazard for all of us, anxiety, world class ignominy for a victim--always for one of seven. Parents were excluded.

The hazard was finding you had eaten with Bumnick's fork.  Well, you might ask, "How was this ivory handled utensil different from its fellows?" All were a pristine white except for the one Bumnick ussed in that historic dinner.  A slight purple-blue stain infected the fork at the joint where the metal began.  It was usually invisible until the spot caught the light when the fork was manipulated.

It made its appearance many times over our growing years.  From a statistical point of view it favored no one of us with immoderate frequency.  I watch the gentleman at the next table who seems about to order. He does not.  Instead, he holds up the fork he had discarded, says a few words to the waitress and hands it to her in a manner that suggests immediate disposal.  Clearly his position in this story is simply a stimulus to my precious memory, nothing more. Nevertheless.

I could almost swear that I caught a glint of bluish light as the fork changed hands in his seeminglly disagreeable interaction with the waitress.  

Stealing Beauty: Random Thoughts on a Bernardo Bertolucci Movie by Constantine Gochis

 
This is one of my insomnia nights.  I keep thinking of the latest Bertolucci opus, "Stealing Beauty" which I walked out on. My feelings are ambivalent.  I am sure there is no real story.  Essentially, the theme is about a beautiful nineteen year old needing very much to lose her virginity.  It is a pictorial glorification of this primordial ritual.

The players are a familia Cinecitta melange of poets, artists, ageing courtesans and satyrs.

The maiden arrives at the altar and the camera greets her and walks with her over a country estate of sprawling proportions.  They pass, together, life sized sculptures, many in the supine positions of pleasure. The statues seem Roman in construct. So close does the camera pan that sometimes only a portion of the subject can be seen at one time.

For a while only the architecture and the maiden are pictured.  Ultimately she encounters an elderly, seasoned blonde, a decadent, ill character played by Jeremy Irons, a voluptuous, lounging woman and a grungy looking, unshaven man who says he wants to look at her for a while before he begins a portrait of her.  Of course, I cannot fault him for this.  She is very worthwhile visually, sometimes in a low-cut, mid-thigh shift which augments rather than conceals the perfection of her body. The flimsiness of its weave makes it conspiratorial with the breeze that is trying to remove it.

A very old Jean Marais--he of the original Cocteau "Beauty and the Beast--greets her warmly and familiarly. I can think of no reason for his presence in the film except perhaps that he exudes a kind of elegant decadence--white haired and frail, another sculpture of depravity though a living one--perhaps the reason Bertolucci hired him for the part.  Who else would have seen him as an asset to a cast already chock full of characters unto a Bacchanal. The camera moves on.

Couples cavort in a pool nude as the progenitors of us all.  Our heroine romps in a staged scene, innocent play in her revealing shift that the breeze still tries to remove. A young girl-child whirls unrestrainedly with the maiden and the camera records the gratuitous ballet.  Later, it follows the heroin through flashes of chiaroscuro, as she goes form atrium to stone interiors.  She is treated to sounds and partial views of a couple in a frenzied stage of the eternal embrace. She hides in the shadows to tarry rather than escape. She emotes with star quality the full range of artfully phrased erotic expressions of empathy.  The camera is stealing beauty.

At night, sleep eludes her. The camera gazes lovingly at her body, pauses on her perspiring face, where droplets of moisture form on the upper lip of her parted mouth.

I may return to give the movie a second chance.

Bravo Bernardo, voi sapete godere la vita.  Bernardo, you know how to live.

Post scriptum:

Today I went back to the theatre to check on the name of the female lead. Liv Tyler.  As I wrote the name down on a scrap of paper, literally my losing Lotto receipt, a voice addressed me.

"You seen the movie?" she asked.

"Yes," I replied.

"Is good?"

"If you like Bertolucci."

There was no animation in her face.  No comprehension.

"It's kind of avant-garde . . ." I stopped.  The face was stony, impenetrable.

"It's about a nineteen year old trying to lose her virginity."

"Vy not---vy not." The woman's face broke into a broad smile.

"Vy not? What's so bad?"

Caprice by Constantine Gochis

 When Dad got calls of solicitation, political or not, he generally turned the tables and engaged the caller. A few of the telemarketers did not hang up for even though Dad was playing with them, he did so with an abundance of charm. Today, is the tale of "Caprice".

The voice had a childlike quality. I could not place her age.

"Is this the Gochis residence?"

High school or early college, I thought, or a newly installed telemarketer, but I wasn't sure. I decided to use my least offensive method for cutting off unwanted calls.

"Mr. Gochis is on tour of the Cayman Islands," I answered. "I'm the butler.:  I find this method useful in discouraging the telemarketers.

She laughed.  She was not put off by the tactic and the tinkling sound in her voice tempered my impatience. I decided, instead, to listen to the sales pitch.

"What's your name?" she countered. There was a generous good humor in her tone.

"My name is Constantine." I replied, fully expecting the usual incomprehension, the hesitant garblin responses to my given name. 

"Contantine!" she exclaimed. That's a nice name.  She laughed.  It had a genuinely pleasant sound.

"What are you selling?" I said, in capitulation.

"I'm not selling.  I 'm offering hope; hope for the children of our schools."

Ah, the children again. Another chant from the dome in Washington.  My enthusiasm was slightly dampened.

"Are you running for something?"

"No," she said, "just helping in the fight."

"Are you in college or an aspiring politician who has been promised a fat IOU?"

"I'm a sophomore."  How prophetic. This is a Greek word signifying wisdom and absence of knowledge, both.

"What's in this thing for you--a job--a novitiate aspiring to a more ambitious internship-pardon the expression?" I felt a little guilt at the questions.

"No, all I want to do is to help Caprice in her battle."

"Who is Caprice?" I asked.

"Caprice is our hope for better schools, for the children," she said. "She is running for leadership in the coming School Board primaries on April 13th.

"Rather an unfortunate name for a politician," I suggested.  "Haven't we seen enough capriciousness in politics the last several years?"

She had no response.  She seemed now rather to be reading. 

". . .Caprice Young is endorsed by the L.A. Times. . ."

Mentally, I made this a count against her. The L.A. Times is not a plus in my book.

". . .And Mayor Riordan. . ." the voice continued.

Again, not a recommendation.

". . .she will provide the kind of thoughtful common sense and leadership, and accountability, that our school system desperately needs. . ."

I had had enough of the lyrics.

"Do you believe all this?"

"Yes, I do," she said, with the enthusiasm only possible in the very young and unspoiled. "Will you come out for her on the 13th?"

I thought it would be sinful to deby her a small victory. Such innocence deserves tolerance, at least.

"Yes, I will", I encouraged.  "It would be capricious of me not to."

She laughed.

Last night I channel surfed the news programs for the election results. If there were any, I missed them.

I learned that some unfriendly bees were swarming in the vicinity.  On a happy note, the last of a trio of criminal beavers was captured. California trees are now safe from these marauding dam builders.

Last but not least, Arkansas Judge Susan Webber Wright discovered that President Clinton lied.  Now, that's news.

What's in a Word by Constantine Gochis

 It is "Christmas Week" as I make this entry of one of my dad's short short stories. I have not one thing planned until Christmas Eve, five days from now, as going out into the world has been made so unpleasant in the name of "good health". And though I have resisted becoming afraid, my nature is fearful, and the constant pounding of the dangers that abound in living are finally getting to me. I can think, as I have said, of no time when it will ever be good for our health to go out again without some kind of protective suit, mask, injection that itself will never be enough. By the way, I hear that Moderna is working on a "new" booster to address the Omicron variant. One day, you and I could belong to the "Booster of the Month Club" because for every booster there will be a variant virus. All right. I am about as "down" emotionally as ever I have been in my generally "glass half empty" view of life. It is a good thing I have my faith, because without it, I am certain I would be in utter despair. And my faith is sometimes a tenuous plank not because of my faith, but because of my human frailty. 

I was rummaging through Dad's many stories in the mood in which I find myself--one which I am told I ought to overcome even as I watch all of us sliding into the abyss--and found one of my Dad's politically tinged observations. One thing, among many I see, that demonstrates the clear genetic relationship between my father and me, is how upset the years' long gaslighting by our America hating representatives makes me. And more, how distressing it is that so many of my fellow Americans actually support the deconstruction of the least imperfect of imperfect governments. 

My dad's plethora of stories was the result of a class he took in West Hollywood over many years. His teacher and his classmates liked him despite his political views which none of them shared. They were a rare group. And my father was a rare man. It was a fortuitous interaction. But also, by the time he joined the class he had lost whatever fear he had in expressing himself. He prooffered the concept of the blessed Saul Alinsky, the patriot of the Left, in the immortal words, "Do Me Something". He chalked his bravery up to being old. Nobody cares what the old have to say. 

Anyway, when I run across some of his lamentations, I marvel how  prescient they are related to where we are today, some 20 years or more after he wrote them. 

So todays offering is called "What's in a Word?"

Our teacher and mentor today suggested that we inscribe a word in the center of a blank page, then project subconscious emanations that derive therefrom it.

I wrote the word, "chicanery" in the fulcrum area and the next word which came to my mind was "Democratic", as in the capitalized meaning, or the Party.

"Corrupt", was another word. I need not berate the reader with such memorable comments as "There is no controlling legal authority", or "I never lied--not once--to the American people."

Of course, I agree that "to err is human" except when confession is nothing more than another political maneuver.  Throughout the Democrat realm there is the pounding of chests and the rending of clothes and sufficient "mea culpas" to reach the portals of heaven.  Naturally the unified Democrat mantra of CNNs Bill Press and his less literate clones proclaim the redemption, "Yea, verily we have sinned. . .but we have grown."

"Let us get on with the business of government," says the chorus under the baton of the Master in the Rose Garden.  It is truly only the "passing of wind" but the acolytes smell roses.

"Go ye forth and vote!" I did, on Super Tuesday in the Democrat infested 42nd.  I have been voting there for 8 years, religiously, as a registered Republican. I have never expressed any sign of conversion, and they have always handed me a Republican ballot.

So, I had no reason this time to inspect the card. I voted on the ballot handed to me, and was dubbed a good citizen by the young man who took my selections. Without reference to my preference, he pinned me with the sticker which dubbed me "Republican".

On returning home, I noted that the stub was marked "Democratic".

I returned to the polling place and confronted the elderly woman who had given me my ballot".

"You asked for it!", she said, without hesitation. When I persisted, she said, "Talk to that man in black." He listened to my coplaint.

"All the ballots are Democratic," he said, the kind of response one would expect when a hand is discovered in the till.

"Does my vote count toward the selection of delegates?"

"Of course," he said. "There's only one ballot."

I persisted.  

"Pull the ballot and destroy it," he ordered.  Clearly he had some authority in this charade.

"Do I get another vote?" I asked. He was silent.

I pondered the thought that there was easy accessibility to the box containing the ballots--more significant--that there was a local authority that could access or remove what is essentially a citizen's vote, at this local level.

I left.  Perhaps it was an error.

If it was, then there were many. The multiple calls of complaining voters on the Larry Elder Show on KABC, convinced me that there is smoke, at the very least, in the area. 

Something maybe rotten, and it "ain't Denmark."

Let the Lockdowns Continue Ad Infinitum

So, though it has caused literally few deaths (one I understand in England a few days ago; as of December 4 WHO had reported none), the Omicron variant has now become the excuse for the latest in shutting down and locking down. I imagine that between December 4 and today, lots of people have died from a variety of causes. Chicago over the weekends. Car accidents. The Flu.  Let's just face it. We need to stop going out at all. Safety is all. Death must be avoided at all costs. Except this is becoming a living death, at least to my mind, my opinion being nothing, I realize.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/12/14/omicron-us-spread/

I had lifted my personal embargo on social activities requiring me to wear masks or show my vax card to do something this very night, to see an interactive version of the play "A Christmas Carol" at the Ahmanson tonight. I lifted it once before, so far. And I still feel guilty. 

I had noted that as of yesterday, I was hearing all sorts of plays and entertainment facilities cancelling because of the SPREAD of the variant, that which has the symptoms of the common cold thus far. My friend who arranged our evening out, with another couple of friends, wondered whether our event would also be cancelled. And so it has been. I am still keeping my embargo lifted for the evening, as my friends all want to try to do something anyway, it being the Christmas season and all that and wanting to get together, something we have rarely been doing this last nearly two years. I feel Grinchy to be sure, but I don't think it right to act on it tonight. On the other hand, maybe if we all stopped going out and patronizing the businesses, the chain could be interrupted. Who knows anymore?

If there is reason to do this with the Omicron variant, there is now reason to keep us all locked down till the end of time. The common cold itself would be reason. 

I am convinced that we are a living (unto death) experiment by people known and unknown to us. We are being tortured. And the worst is yet to come if we don't finally say "Stop!" 

My way has been to lament on this blog which hardly anyone reads, and frankly I don't much promote. And rather counterproductively as it costs me my freedom of movement, I try not to go where I have to show a card or wear a mask. I simply stay home most of the time. Or I go places, like helping out a charity, when no one else is in the room and I don't need to wear a mask. This, of course, is rare.  In this way, I am not accused of being "unmutual" and failing to abide by the Procrustean bed imposed by my sick society, but "they" still get their way. I am effectively locked down. It may be a pyrrhic victory that I stay home and relatively rarely do anything requiring me to show papers or wear a mask, but at least I am not putting myself in a position to have mask or papers demanded of me. Today I did not have to show my papers or wear the mask. Good. And it sort of quells my emotional foment at the irony and the illogic of making me and my fellow citizens show papers and wear masks while people pour across our borders without any such requirement not only with the potentiality of Covid, but of TB, and Measles and who knows what.  Or my being told that while this is absolute necessity to show who I am and what I am doing in this instance, it is not for the privilege to vote. 

I am a bit ashamed that I am still going out tonight and will concede to the insanity this time. How do I escape the science fiction dystopia that is literally killing all of us? I feel trapped. 

I am no longer on Facebook so I don't know if people are finally waking up or not. I doubt that they are. We are about to become true prisoners, if we have not already. 

I am finding it hard to see the point in anything. I cannot listen to the voices of our leaders without seeing a repetition of some of the worst criminal outrages of the centuries about to repeat themselves. I am still on Instagram, and I do almost no commenting "politically" there. But I did see a meme from someone who sees what not enough of us are seeing, that if you wonder why things like the holocaust were "allowed" to happen by good people, you no longer need to do so. 

We are doing it again. The thing is good people are afraid because to challenge is to risk. And while I think of myself as good, I am also one of the afraid. Fear itself is death, alas. Death is all around us as we are told that we are safe if we just lockdown one more time.

It has been suggested to me that I should not let all this stuff get to me. Is there a time when it should? 

My God, My God, why have we forsaken thee?