Aah, the first day of Spring! It must be Spring, for esteemed hubbie reports that on Tuesday, the crazy robin knocked himself unconscious against the window. It must be Spring, for the dog that lives on the other side of the pond is outside all day, barking nonstop. It must be Spring, since the calendar says it is.
Monday at the doctor's office, I couldn't help noticing the landscape outside the huge window in the examining room. The sky was a light bluish gray, very flat and matte. The trees were leafless stalks of gray, black, and taupe, with a slight mauvish tinge up near the skyline, where the newest growth occurs. The ground was yellowish gray, with small "ponds" of snow. A small rill of black water curled through the scene, and among the trunks of the trees, several black turkeys skulked about. (The nurse said they were turkeys. Looked like buzzards to me, but I'll take her word for it.) The view would make a great monochromatic painting, but it would NOT be a cheerful scene. I could paint it and title it "Jack Kevorkian Runs for Congress," but most people wouldn't share my macabre and idiosyncratic way of seeing the world.
I've tried to stay away from too much politics in this blog, mainly because it seems so omnipresent in every medium, and partly because I don't know how I feel most of the time. But Spring is also exhuding desperation this year, with all the turmoil. Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of Bush's ill-advised attack on Iraq, for instance, and along with the turkeys and the robins, the protestors (both for and against) were out in flocks, mainly along roadways in major cities. I remember so clearly the day the Iraqui invasion occurred since I had flown to NYC for 4C's, a major conference in my field. My cab driver was Middle Eastern and had his radio station on some Arabic language channel. I gave him two twenties, and he demanded more, saying I had given him a twenty and a one. (The fare was something like $23.) Since I knew exactly how much money I had, and in what denominations, I knew what I'd given him. But I also saw that he was angry, and since he was this huge young man who spoke little English, I didn't feel that I could arbitrate in any way. So I had to give him more money.
Then in the elevators of the hotel, there were little tv screens set on CNN, with ongoing coverage of the invasion. Many conference attendees found ways to participate in protests, so our sessions were poorly attended, and even when people were there, they were deeply involved in the politics of the moment, not in such topics as we were presenting.
On the flight back, as I waited in the airport, my attention was drawn to a colorfully dressed Greek Orthodox priest. My former college roommate was the daughter of a Greek Orthodox priest, so I knew the robes and raiment pretty well. Unfortunately, an older woman nearby was clearly nervous about this odd-looking man. She moved next to me and whispered that the man looked suspicious and she thought he might be a terrorist. (I doubt many terrorists would wear scarlet satin floor-length robes--that's not exactly a "fitting in with the crowd" look.) I tried to reassure her as best I could, but her fear seemed to be fitting for the time and day. My fear, unlike hers, was not that the colorful priest was a terrorist, but that people like her, with her irrational suspicions, would somehow delay my flight, and I had had plenty of NYC. I haven't gone back since, and I don't plan to. NYC will always be associated in my mind with the invasion of Iraq that has proven to be THE most disastrous move made by the Bush administration. And there have been so many!
Last night on the news, they were covering some of the many amputees who are one of the tragic results of this war. It breaks my heart to see these beautiful young people struggling to learn to maneuver prosthetic legs. These people should be young fathers and mothers, teaching their babies to walk--not soldiers re-learning to walk themselves.
So many lies. And so many gullible people willing to believe them. I don't know why. If I were to have a hand in writing the history for this period, I'd want to call this era The Age of Unreason. Sometimes there seems to be a feeling that reason is trying to break through, but about the time I think that's happening, then someone reestablishes the Iron Curtain of Stupidity. McCain says that Iran is supplying weapons and aid to Al Quaeda. They aren't. But of course, his first goal (were he to be elected President) would be to find some shaky rationale for invading Iran. We aren't stretched thinly enough in Iraq and Afghanistan. One tenth of our soldiers are women. We've nearly exhausted our National Guards. All we need is another warfront.
I came of age in the sixties. War protest songs are part of my repertoire. Anti-war posters decorated my dorm room. What if they gave a war, and nobody came? Is it any wonder that last night's dreams were full of violence, that I dreamed of sleeping next to a baby that someone had murdered in the night, so when I awoke, my nightgown was drenched in blood?
The analogy between the current administration and the crazy robin fighting his own reflection: That's how I feel about politics today. Dr. S.
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