Journal of the Plague Year 13

 So now appears the Delta Variant of the corona virus. The CDC recommends that vaccinated and unvaccinated citizens begin again wearing masks indoors. It seems today that the pandemic will never end. The New York Times on July 30 reported that new cases in the United States are up 151% and new deaths up 15%. Apparently, the new cases occur in those who have for some reason remain unvaccinated. I expect the numbers all to rise in the coming weeks and months. 

I don’t know what to do anymore. I have not ever stopped wearing a mask when I ventured into a store, but recently I have been more liberal in restaurants and bars. I mean, I haven’t ventured very often into either establishment, but I think it might be nice to have an option not to cook at home tonight, not to order in (not how I like to dine) or to be able to meet with vaccinated friends outside our respective homes. Recently on a visit to New York I dined outdoors with my brother at a lovely pizza restaurant and for some dessert enjoyed a gelato unmasked indoors. I was unmasked but not the gelato. The next evening I dined with friends in a temporary structure that actually moved into the street at 70^th Street off Amsterdam Avenue. These structures were an exception made to some city code so that restaurants could remain open during the pandemic. Thus, waitstaff could continue to have employment. In the winter these structures used heaters to continue service in comfortable environments. On this July evening my friends and I were able to sit unmasked and could engage in conversation that was fluid and thrilling. It has been so long. On New York streets these structures continue to serve customers who would prefer not to sit indoors in closed spaces. In the hotel masks were worn. I haven’t noticed that these structures have been added to the St. Paul Minneapolis landscape because I haven’t ventured out very far. And now I do not intend to do so.

And now the Delta variant threatens to halt every advance we have made in stopping the spread of the corona virus. And the bastards continue to refuse vaccination and continue to deny the necessity for wearing masks—they swagger tand  bray “this is America, and we are free to do what we ever will, dammit.” I wonder how many anti-vaxxers, so protective of the autonomy of their bodies are hypocritically against abortion. How many of them refuse to wear seat belts! And these thick-headed, senseless idiots continue to contract and spread the disease. As were the aliens in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, these obstinate resisters (and too many Republicans, damn them all) look normal, but they are dangerous..  They continue to make the society unsafe; I am not comfortable again going anywhere out in public. In A Journal of the Plague Year, HF says of such individuals, “When I speak of those People who really were thus dangerous, I suppose them to be utterly ignorant of their own Condition; for if they were, they must have been a kind of willful Murtherers, if they would have gone Abroad among healthy people . . . the infected people were utterly careless as to giving the Infection to others, and rather forward to do it than not . . . .” And such murtherers are being coached and supported by their Republican congress sycophants cum fascists who would do anything to gain and keep power and the right wing social media that spews out lies and accusations and insults to protect the violence and anger of the audiences they would support and expand. They are all, all despicable people.

And then, on top of all that and as if that wasn’t enough, this week the smoke from the wildfires in Canada and the Northwest have drifted into the air in Minnesota and has led to unsafe conditions out of doors. I went out anyway for my two daily walks, but amid the haze and the smell of smoke, I wore my mask. 

 

 

 

 

Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

 

I was on my afternoon walk: another 3856 steps according to my iPhone health app. It also informs me that I’m walking less this month than I did last month but walking more this week than last week. Okay. I was listening to Folk Alley Classic Folk Stream: a playlist of folk songs recorded before the year 2000. And as I turned the corner from St. Paul Avenue onto Howell, the station played “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” performed by the Kingston Trio. How many versions of that song have I listened to over the years! And it is even possible that this version by the Kingston Trio was one of the first I had ever heard. The Trio also had sung “Tom Dooley” and “The MTA Song” as well, songs I had listened to and had taken into my social consciousness even then. As I listened, I experienced somatically a feeling that in the past I had associated with nostalgia. It began in my stomach as a spreading tension and an unpainful tightening that spread upwards into my chest and head. It was an emotional tension. Nostalgia was a certain longing for an idealized moment in some vague past to which I would wish return though fully aware such return was impossible. My father used to announce, “If I knew then what I know now,” without any awareness that if he knew then what he knew now his whole life would be different and I, to whom he was speaking, probably would not exist. I have long rejected the legitimacy of nostalgia because it tastes too much of regret, a dissatisfaction with the present and an impossible return to an absent past. Nostalgia looks back through filters for what one imagines had but probably did not exist. Nostalgia is stuffed replete with what should have been. But I became aware that the feeling I experienced at that moment listening to “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” by the Kingston Trio wasn’t at all a longing for an irretrievable past moment but a present happiness that spoke of the pleasure and enjoyment that in my early years I had known from that song and the culture out of which it came and to which I was joining. I experienced happiness listening to the song and not regret, glad in the present hearing that the song existed then and belonged still in my life. My life had continuity.

Nostalgia, then, is not regret for a lost past but a memory of joy that reaches into the present. Nostalgia was not longing for a lost past but an acknowledgment of a happiness that was now re-experienced under stimulation of the present. Hearing “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” returned that joy to me: I didn’t want to go back there: I had already been there. And now the happiness I had enjoyed then returned to me now. The walk was more than a mere 3856 steps: it was more than 60 years.

So are they all, all honourable men

Whenever I open the newspapers or look at the news media outlets I can’t help but think of Antony’s funeral oration in Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene 2). As might be recalled, Antony refers to Brutus and his fellow conspirators and assassins with Antony’s play on the word honorable. Antony had been cautioned to cast no aspersions on the conspirators and to speak only about Caesar. Antony begins:

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men–
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.

As our democracy dies, I offer this:

 

·      Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif) said on November 6: "President Trump won this election, so everyone who's listening, do not be quiet." We cannot allow this to happen before our very eyes." But McCarthy is an honorable man.” So are they all, all honourable men– 

·      Ted Cruz (R-TX): His many critics were quick to point to his own history of gaslighting, including his vote against the certification of the 2020 Presidential election based on disproven lies and conspiracy theories, and his shifting story after he was caught fleeing on a Mexico vacation as his home state suffered a major humanitarian crisis over the winter. But Ted Cruz is an honorable man. So are they all, all honourable men– 

·      Mitch McConnell (R-KY) "There is no question, none, that President Trump is — practically and morally — responsible for provoking the events of the day.” Mitch McConnell voted to acquit Trump of his incendiary, vituperative and treasonous diatribe. But Mitch McConnell is an honorable man. So are they all, all honourable men–

·      Paul Gosar (R-AZ): “The entire January 6 event was a Hollywood-like script written and played out by Democrats as a distraction away from the political assassination of President Donald J. Trump, the installation of a dictatorial and radical regime and a globalist agenda to force subservience from everyone to the state.” But Paul Gosar is an honorable man. So are they all, all honourable men– 

·      Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) said that the idea that the insurrectionist violence constituted "an insurrection," He added that Trump's rabid mob behaved "in an orderly fashion. . . [I]f you didn't know that TV footage was a video from January the 6th, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit." But Andrew Clyde is an honorable man. So are they all, all honourable men– 

·      Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga): "We can look back in a time in history when people were told to wear a gold star and they were definitely treated like second-class citizens," "They were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany. And this is exactly the type of abuse Nancy Pelosi is talking about." But Marjorie Taylor Greene is an honorable man. So are they all, all honourable men. 

·      Ron Johnson (R-Wisc): Johnson said that he was never concerned for his safety on January 6 because the mob was comprised of “people that loved this country,” as opposed to Black Lives Matter protesters. He remarked, “I knew those were people that...truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law, so I wasn’t concerned. Had the tables been turned, and President Trump won the election and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned.” But Ron Johnson is an honorable man. So are they all, all honourable men. 

·      Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado): “The easiest way to make the Delta variant go away is to turn off CNN. And vote Republican” But Lauren Boebert is an honorable man. So are they all, all honourable men. 

·      Mo Brooks (R-Ala): There's no question at all in my mind that, if we were to only count lawful votes cast by eligible American citizens, Donald Trump won Electoral College. Under those circumstances you should never concede because you didn't lose. It was stolen.” But Mo Brooks is an honorable man. So are they all, all honourable men-- 

·      Former President Donald Trump: “This was the scam of the century and this was the crime of the century. We’re never going to stop fight for the true results of this election ... Remember I’m not the one trying to undermine American democracy. I’m trying to save American democracy.” But Donald Trump is an honorable man. So are they all, all honourable men– 

Antony continues: 

Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up
To such a sudden flood of mutiny.
They that have done this deed are honourable:
What private griefs they have, alas, I know not,
That made them do it: they are wise and honourable,
And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you.

 

But I do not think any answer will be forthcoming. It is, nevertheless, the 4th of July.