In an attempt to explain why nothing is going well and everything is going wrong with his Iran War, including negotiations with Iran that aren’t actually happening, Trump wrote on Truth Social that the Iranian negotiators are “very different and ‘strange’”.
Even for an absurdist yet deadly powerful comic like Trump, this is a statement worth analyzing.
“Different” than whom?
“Strange” in what way?
Different than other Iranians he knows? Different than other negotiators, real or pretend, he has dealt with?
Stranger than what or whom? It is safe to say that nothing and no one around Trump is anything but strange.
Of course, it is possible that in Trump’s mind, which is already challenged and now more challenged by a war he started but can’t control, everything is different and strange. Which might be acceptable and survivable, except if it is the mind of someone capable of setting the world on fire. That would be different and strange.
Juan Peron became the strongman dictator of Argentina. The driving force that got him there was Eva Peron, a political and cultural figure unlike any in modern history. This inspired one of the great contemporary musicals.
Melania seems to lack many of the characteristics that made Evita so compelling and successful. But what if we have gotten this all wrong? What if Melania is the power behind the throne?
Something to think about as we await the next Melania movie. A New America? Maybe a musical?
Here is a sample of lyrics from A New Argentina, the showstopping number from Evita:
PERÓN It’s annoying that we have to fight elections for our cause The inconvenience, having to get a majority If normal methods of persuasion fail to win us applause There are other ways of establishing authority…
Then again, I could be foolish not to quit while I’m ahead I can see me many miles away, inactive Sipping cocktails on a terrace Taking breakfast in bed Sleeping easy Doing crosswords It’s attractive
EVA Don’t think I don’t think like you I often get those nightmares too They always take some swallowing Sometimes it’s very difficult to keep momentum If it’s you that you are following Don’t close doors Keep an escape clause Because we might lose the Big Apple But would I have done what I did If I hadn’t thought If I hadn’t known, we would take the country
The Baal Shem Tov is the eighteenth-century founder of the Hasidic movement in Judaism. Jews and non-Jews who know the modern versions of the movement often don’t know much about its beginnings. Some of those contemporary manifestations may seem distant from the original spirit.
We have no writings by the Baal Shem Tov, so we rely on the records of his disciples, and on legends and stories that have come down the years—and that still have a remarkable power to inspire. Their authenticity is not in their being a verbatim record of what was said and what happened. Instead, they are an unmistakable reflection of a unique spiritual figure from any age or faith.
The Baal Shem Tov believed in and lived the direct experience of God everywhere in everything. Study and conventional piety took second place, which made him unpopular with the establishment, and would still today. He thought we should be outdoors in the trees, not indoors at the desks. Living in a divine state of optimism, joy and wonder was the ideal. People who live that way, of course, are remarkably hard to control.
The Mad Dancers
Already the voices of opponents were raised against the Baal Shem’s teaching, for many
rabbis could not understand his ways. Some said of him that he dishonored the Sabbath with singing and freedom, some said that his ways and the ways of those who followed him and called themselves Chassidim were truly the ways of madmen.
One of the scholars asked of the Baal Shem, “What of the learned rabbis who call this teaching false?”
The Baal Shem Tov replied, “Once, in a house, there was a wedding festival. The musicians sat in a corner and played upon their instruments, the guests danced to the music, and were merry, and the house was filled with joy. But a deaf man passed outside the house; he looked in through the window and saw the people whirling about the room, leaping, and throwing about their arms. ‘See how they fling themselves about! ‘ he cried, ‘it is a house filled with madmen! ‘ For he could not hear the music to which they danced.”
I’ve been looking through boxes of old photos. Not just from our lifetime, but back to the days when our grandparents were younger, and their parents and families too.
I shared a photo with a friend I’ve known a long time. He appreciated it and wished me luck with the photo “rabbit hole”.
He’s right. It is easy to get lost in these images from the past.
One view of the philosophy of time comes from various Buddhist perspectives. From the eighth century Zen text, Xin Xin Ming/Trust in Mind:
Words! The Way is beyond language for in it there is no yesterday no tomorrow no today
There is no yesterday, tomorrow, today. There is apparently yesterday, tomorrow, today. Are we attached to any of them? Are we liberated from any of them?
The TV series Mad Men is about a charming and successful man, advertising executive Don Draper, who is lost in time. He has adopted the identity of a dead man, buries his true past, is in the business of fooling people, including himself.
The final episode of the first season is called “The Wheel”. The client is Kodak, who has asked the firm to advertise their new slide projector, then called the Wheel, but ultimately becomes known, in the story and in the real world, as the Carousel.
The episode is considered one the greatest in TV history. The following scene is the penultimate moment.
Don comes up with a client pitch that involves slides from his own early family life, and a story that is clearly made up about his first boss in advertising. Do the photos represent the actual past, or just some elements of a more whole and complex past? Which is an illusion? Is there yesterday? Is there tomorrow?
This morning, like some other mornings, the bird songs are so plentiful and overwhelming that I try to identify the birds singing. Above is this morning’s roster.
What I learned was this: The birds remind us when we upset the grace of living. They do this by being in their own ways with their own songs the grace of living. As we are and can be.
Even Jesus would never Forgive what you do –Bob Dylan, Masters of War
Masters of War is a track from The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963). As a recording, it couldn’t be farther from current slick production values. It is a young brilliant artist strumming a guitar, singing in a pretty idiosyncratic way.
It is a song about war, but it isn’t an anti-war song; listening to it reveals that, and Dylan later confirmed it. It is about the people behind the curtain, the people on the battlefield, the people caught in the crossfire. War is a serious business that we don’t take seriously enough. Let all us put our motives, prejudices and and agendas brutally on the table, setting aside high-minded and sometimes dishonest pretexts, explanations and excuses.
All the verses are critical, but the last verse is bitter, angry and vindictive. Is that justice? What should we do with the masters of war? We have tried in modern times to build reasoned ethical oversight and standards of justice. After World War I, the war to end war, the Geneva Conventions. After World War II, trials –and executions–of perpetrators and international courts of justice. But what happens when the oversight and standards are breached and belittled? Would Jesus forgive? Should we?
Come you masters of war You that build all the guns You that build the death planes You that build the big bombs You that hide behind walls You that hide behind desks I just want you to know I can see through your masks
You that never done nothin’ But build to destroy You play with my world Like it’s your little toy You put a gun in my hand And you hide from my eyes And you turn and run farther When the fast bullets fly
Like Judas of old You lie and deceive A world war can be won You want me to believe But I see through your eyes And I see through your brain Like I see through the water That runs down my drain
You fasten the triggers For the others to fire Then you set back and watch When the death count gets higher You hide in your mansion As young people’s blood Flows out of their bodies And is buried in the mud
You’ve thrown the worst fear That can ever be hurled Fear to bring children Into the world For threatening my baby Unborn and unnamed You ain’t worth the blood That runs in your veins
How much do I know To talk out of turn You might say that I’m young You might say I’m unlearned But there’s one thing I know Though I’m younger than you Even Jesus would never Forgive what you do
Let me ask you one question Is your money that good Will it buy you forgiveness Do you think that it could I think you will find When your death takes its toll All the money you made Will never buy back your soul
And I hope that you die And your death’ll come soon I will follow your casket In the pale afternoon And I’ll watch while you’re lowered Down to your deathbed And I’ll stand o’er your grave ’Til I’m sure that you’re dead
I was very close to my grandparents. Literally, since we lived all together until I was eight. The three-generation living situation is still common in lots of places and circumstances, though not for many the ideal. For me it was so positively formative that I can’t imagine missing it. But that’s just me.
When I knew my Grandpa Harry, it was decades later than this photo, which I guess was taken in the 1930s when he was in his thirties. By that time he was older and a little grizzled, though as loving and lovable as a bear. But this Harry was someone else. Sharp dressed man doesn’t begin to cover it.
I’ve previously posted this illustration about meditation drawn by Zen master Kōshō Uchiyama. Whatever type of meditation you practice or are thinking about practicing, Zen or otherwise, this says it all.
Actually, zazen is not just being somehow glued to line ZZ’. Doing zazen is a continuation of this kind of returning up from sleepiness and down from chasing after thoughts. That is, the posture of waking up and returning to ZZ’ at any time is itself zazen. This is one of the most vital points regarding zazen. When we are doing zazen line ZZ‘, or just doing zazen, represents our reality, so it is essential to maintain that line. Actually, ZZ’ represents the reality of the posture of zazen, but the reality of our life is not just ZZ’. If it were only ZZ’, we would be as unchanging and lifeless as a rock! Although we aim at the line ZZ’, we can never actually adhere to it, because it (ZZ’) does not exist by itself. Nevertheless, we keep aiming at ZZ‘, because it is through clinging to thoughts that we keep veering away from it. The very power to wake up to ZZ’ and return to it is the reality of the life of zazen.
Meditation looks like this sometimes, and that’s fine. My humble annotation to Kōshō Uchiyama is that when you return from a or b or c, like thinking about some person or breakfast or “I’ve got to write this down now!”, you may realize that what you are thinking about is an illusion. Not that the floor and the cushion and all the situations that await you after meditation are illusions, but if they are illusions, maybe you can return from them just as you returned from a or b or c.
Nobody said or wrote that. At least it hasn’t been reported. But it would not be surprising if that was thought or said by some U.S. leaders. Two of the closest American allies, Russia and Israel, have regularly committed war crimes in recent years, yet the U.S. has stood by silent or supportive.
The U.S. has made clear that it doesn’t support the concept or fact of international law. Just as it doesn’t support the concept or fact of American law when it comes to judges who try to stop its illegal or unconstitutional actions.
“Woke” is the overall characterization of anything that seems too tolerant, sensitive or soft, weak initiatives that get in the way of exercising real muscular strength and power. So just because something like international law says that destroying civilian power plants—Trump’s latest in an incoherent series of threats to Iran—is a war crime, that is no reason not to do it. Because those so-called international laws are just too WOKE.
Next up: More pardons for war criminals and genocidal leaders, contemporary and historic. He can do that, he thinks.
Yesterday, March 21, was the first day of spring here in the Northern Hemisphere (the start of fall in the Southern Hemisphere). Officially the vernal equinox.
It seems to me that the first day of spring used to be a bigger deal. Maybe with so much going on, so many other big stories to pay attention to, you missed it this year. Yet here it is, springy as ever.
Following is a poem by E. E. Cummings.
Happy Spring and Happy Fall wherever you are. Let us try to keep our priorities straight.
sweet spring is your time is my time is our time for springtime is lovetime and viva sweet love
(all the merry little birds are flying in the floating in the very spirits singing in are winging in the blossoming)
lovers go and lovers come awandering awondering but any two are perfectly alone there’s nobody else alive
(such a sky and such a sun i never knew and neither did you and everybody never breathed quite so many kinds of yes)
not a tree can count his leaves each herself by opening but shining who by thousands mean only one amazing thing
(secretly adoring shyly tiny winging darting floating merry in the blossoming always joyful selves are singing)
sweet spring is your time is my time is our time for springtime is lovetime and viva sweet love
Bob Schwartz 