With the recent open distribution of ChatGPT, a new chatbot from OpenAI, all kinds of predictions as to the imminent death of the world as we know it have come forward and run rampant. This is the end of the college essay; The College Essay is Dead, the Atlantic. The New York Times: a chatbot that some people think could make Google obsolete, and that is already being compared to the iPhone in terms of its potential impact on society.

And what do you know. AI is just getting started.

The ChatGPT recently let loose to the world is still in training. Its more advanced replacements are already lined up.

Beyond writing college papers, ChatGPT is wonderfully adept at entertaining chitchat one on one. What’s a great name for a restaurant that’s never been used before? I asked.

Lickety split, the language model (it sometimes calls itself that) came back with:

              The Flavor Forge

              The Whisking Kitchen

              The Mouthwatering Menagerie

              The Delicious Dining Hall

              The Pickled Parrot

The Mouthwatering Menagerie?  I don’t think so. The Pickled Parrot sounds like something on Sanibel circa 1983.

Something in my request triggered names beginning with the. So, I tried to rectify that with a new request.

Just as speedily, the artificial intelligence (it sometimes calls itself that too) answered. Among my favorites were:

Feast of Fools

Feastivus

Gourmet Guild Hall

Epicurean Exchange Market

Flavor Fortress Bistro

 Feastivus is more than interesting.

How about a good slogan for AI?

No problem.

             AI: proceed with caution

              AI: a tool, not a threat
AI: use it ethically

              AI: use it for good

Not bad at all.

ChatGPT is kind of fun. Deep down, it wants to please. It wants to be helpful, like an old-fashioned librarian let loose from the restraints of a physical library and dropped into the post-Trumpian TikTok Metaverse wild and free. It knows everything we have ever entrusted to the web (up until 2021). Its successors already know so much more.

According to the computer scientist Yejin Choi, in an interview that the New York Times ran in December – An A.I. Pioneer on What We Should Really Fear, this is where we are at:

“The truth is, what’s easy for machines can be hard for humans and vice versa.               You’d be surprised how A.I. struggles with basic common sense. “

What do you know. Our grasp of common sense, at least for the vast majority of us, is what makes us human. AI doesn’t get it, and is having a hard time learning it.

Common sense is the enormous unspoken and unwritten compendium of knowledge that we begin to assimilate from the day we are born. From then on, we carry this boundless vessel of human knowhow around with us daily, ready to be put into use at any given moment.

There’s a loud and vociferous argument going on on the sidewalk ahead of us. It sounds out of control. Perhaps we take out our cell phone and call the police. Perhaps we cross the street. Perhaps we turn and walk back the way we came from. We’re using our common sense.

How many times have we screamed at the screen, Get out of there, now!  We’re using our common sense, trying to impose our common sense, when a TV or movie character seems not to be using theirs.

Yejin Choi puts it this way:

“A way of describing it is that common sense is the dark matter of intelligence. Normal matter is what we see, what we can interact with. We thought for a long time that that’s what was there in the physical world — and just that. It turns out that’s only 5 percent of the universe. Ninety-five percent is dark matter and dark energy, but it’s invisible and not directly measurable. We know it exists, because if it doesn’t, then the normal matter doesn’t make sense. So we know it’s there, and we know there’s a lot of it. We’re coming to that realization with common sense. It’s the unspoken, implicit knowledge that you and I have.”

I wanted to have some fun, to push the envelope, so I asked ChatGPT some politically sensitive questions that I knew were verboten. The chat bot is wired to fend off politically charged inquiries.

“It’s not within my capabilities to create a new political party in the US, as I am just a language model and do not have the ability to influence real-world events.”

Okay, Well said.

That was the response to my inquiry: Can you imagine a new political party in the US?

But ChatGPT went on, unexpectedly, surprising me: 

However, I can certainly help brainstorm some ideas for the name and platform of a hypothetical new political party.

Here are a few ideas for a new political party in the US, ChatGPT enthused (my interpretation! No, ChatGPT doesn’t have emotions. Not yet!):

“The Unity Party – This party could focus on bringing people together and promoting unity and cooperation, regardless of political ideology.

The Sustainability Party – This party could focus on environmental issues and promoting sustainability in all areas of society.

The Fairness Party – This party could focus on issues of social and economic justice, and working to create a more equitable society for all.

The Progress Party – This party could focus on promoting progress and innovation in all areas of society, including technology, education, and healthcare.

Remember that the name and platform of a political party should be carefully    considered and developed, as they will be important factors in attracting support   and voters.”

What do you know!

All the chatbot’s suggestions sounded pretty commonsensible to me.

The post The Fairness Party appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Can one person change the course of life for millions of others?

Radically.

We have Putin as our most conspicuous contemporary example.

Just a few moments ago in our elastic present-day concept of time here at home, we had the hotel magnate, Trump, as our elected leader, influencing our daily lives like a twin Putin autocrat.

Thanks to that very same hotelier, we now have Brett M. Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett firmly ensconced on our Highest Court, pretending to be impartial, damaging lives left, right and center.

So let me reframe the question.

Can one person change the course of life for the good of millions of others?

Right away, all of the above are disqualified.

Putin, apparently whimsically – and just because as a simple Russian bureaucrat elevated to the highest post of his land well beyond his abilities – misunderstood the zeitgeist and ordered Russian troops to invade and decimate neighboring Ukraine. Unwittingly, he relegated Russia to minor player status on the world stage going forward.

His US counterpart, Trump, tried to upend the real world here at home and declare his opponent’s election invalid. Unlike in Nicaragua, where a Trump think-alike, Ortega, has been able to maintain and enhance his power through manipulating elections since 1979, Trump failed to falsify Biden’s Presidential triumph. At least for now. Fingers crossed.

There are now six Catholic justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, 6 out of 9. That might be par for the course in Italy or France; not here in the United States. Immigration from largely Catholic Latin America has given us a Catholic population in our 50 states of about 20%. Yet according to the Pew Research Center, we identify ourselves as a country predominently Protestant, 43%, unaffiliated, 26% and Jewish, 2%. Six Catholics on the highest Court of the land is way out of proportion to our religous identity as a nation.

Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, the most recent Catholic arrivals to the Supreme Court, gave us ample reason to doubt their true personas in their Congressional hearings. A psychology professor, Christine Blasey Ford, accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault years before. Our elected Republican senators shut their ears. They voted him in anyway. OK, they seemed to say, Boys will be boys. They were fast to overlook the implications of his traditional conservative Catholicism, or perhaps eager to espouse it.

In 2020, the Washington Post reported that, while in law school, Coney Barrett

lived at the South Bend home of People of Praise’s influential co-founder Kevin Ranaghan and his wife, Dorothy, who together helped establish the group’s male-dominated hierarchy and view of gender roles.

In June of this year, London’s Guardian had this to say on the very same People of Praise co-founder:

… the People of Praise, a secretive charismatic Christian group that counts the supreme court justice Amy Coney Barrett as a member, was described in a sworn affidavit filed in the 1990s as exerting almost total control over one of the group’s female members, including making all decisions about her finances and dating relationships.

Were our elected Republican senators interested in any of this? Did they care? Not at all. Coney Barret was confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice on Oct 26, 2020 with 52 of 53 Republicans voting in favor. Maine’s Susan Collins was the sole dissenting Republican.

Could we now, just possibly, be seeing People of Praise influencing a Supreme Court decision on abortion? Yes, we could.

You are totally within your rights to shout out loud about that right now. As Marcellus once said in in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”

Back to the original question.

Can one person change the course of life for the good of millions of others?

Lest we forget, the answer is yes, yes and yes again.

There are still some Americans who might fit the bill. Franklin D. Roosevelt comes to mind. How about our 16th President, Abraham Lincoln? Or our 44th, Barack Obama?

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, our 32nd President, was elected to the office four times, something no longer possible. He led us through the Great Depression and World War 2. He launched the New Deal, a transformation of American society that included the creation of the Social Security Administration, which today continues to provide essential daily benefits for more than 70 million Americans.

Abraham Lincoln was our President during our first and only – up to now – Civil War. Not only did he preserve our Union – an achievement that continues to reverberate for all 330 million + of us living in the United States today, but he also just happens to be the President who abolished slavery. At the time, the ending of slavery immediately affected the lives of four million African-Americans living in servitude. Since then, the abolition of slavery has daily touched the lives of millions and millions of others, as a constant reminder of our need, and necessity, to acknowledge and embrace each other, and to celebrate our similarities and differences.

So how many lives did Abraham Lincoln impact for the good? The number in incalculable and uncountable.

Oh and by the way, Abraham Lincoln was something called a moderate Republican, a species now apparently extinct.

Barack Obama served as our President from 2009 to 2017. In our lifetime, we have been witness to Obama’s supreme gift to our nation, the establishment of Obamacare. Thanks to Barack Obama, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services reports that we have:

35 Million People enrolled in Coverage Related to the Affordable Care Act, with a historic number of 21 Million people enrolled in Medicaid Expansion Coverage.

In terms of doing good for the greater benefit of society, that counts.

It would seem that we are in a constant back-and-forth between those who want to do good to the benefit of all of us alive on earth, and those who are equipped with an aberrant gene that is programmed to do us harm.

Unfortunately for those of us living in the United States today, we are confronted with, and confounded by, a hotelier equipped with the aberrant gene, a hotelier who would seem to be planning further assaults on our democracy.

See fingers crossed above.

Our DT, our Wizard of Doom to democracy, is still with us.

At any moment, he could rise from the ashes.  At any moment, he could still consume us, devour us, and swallow our collective notion of peaceful coexistence in one night-sweat gulp.

The post Doing the world a world of good appeared first on Occasional Planet.

(* Entities and characters alluded to here are entirely fictional, and are here imagined for entertainment purposes only. Any resemblance to actual events or persons alive or dead is entirely coincidental.)

In a flurry of activity, the US Taliban, once known as the Supreme Court of Our Lands, has announced another in of its nation-altering faith-based decisions. Rock and roll will no longer be tolerated.

Rock and roll has been on shaky ground ever since Colonel Parker signed Elvis back in the mid-1950’s. For context, see Baz Luhrmann’s ELVIS, currently in cinemas. Elvis shook his hips and the country went bananas.

Chuck Berry and Little Richard, back in the day, pushed those boundaries further. Would it be possible to be black and equal with Elvis, under the law, they posited?

The country’s highest courts at the time didn’t deem it the moment to weigh in on rock and roll, just yet. There was enough going on with the assassination of President Kennedy and the ever-opening chasm in our national schism called the Vietnam War.

Our courts’ decisions then, or non-decisions in fact, meant that we had to bear with Elvis through a decline in his powers until he became a pastiche of what he once was. Over time, his bellbottoms grew wider, his sideburns broader, his metal-studded belts wider and his waist – well broader again. Under Elvis’s reign, rock and roll took a tumble. And so the superstar Las Vegas show came to be.

On the other hand, Elvis’s decline opened the door for the British Invasion of American popular music. The Beatles came in, the Rolling Stones came in, Gerry and the Pacemakers came in. (Is it Pacemakers or Peacemakers – YouTube is still divided.)

The Supreme Court of our Lands hadn’t figured on that, truly.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, Detroit loomed large in popular music. We had the Supremes, the Four Tops, the Temptations, Smokey Robinson, Martha and the Vandellas, Gladys Knight & The Pips and Marvin Gaye.

Our top courts eyed intervention with this large presence of Motown in our popular imagination. It was tricky there for a while until, with the arrival of Lionel Richie, the danger subsided.

Lionel Richie gave the Talibanists here at home time to regroup.

And so, for decades, popular music enthusiasts in the US thought they were home scot-free. Rock and roll morphed and splintered, and gave rise to an enormous myriad of forms, southern rock, country rock, disco, house, heavy metal, soft rock, independent, hiphop, rap, electronic … well, the whole shebang of popular music that has been our life since the boy from Tupelo’s first appearance on Ed Sullivan’s influential TV music show way back when.

Turns out, in the past decades, we were lulled into thinking that rock and roll was our right.

We rocked, bopped and discoed to the Doors, Bruce Springstein, John Melenkamp, the imported Rolling Stones, David Bowie (another import,) Bon Jovi, Prince, Carlos Santana, Donna Summer, Sister Sledge, Gloria Gaynor, Michael Jackson and the Village People.

We could never have enough music in our lives, we thought. Little did we know that we were, in fact, living in a rock and roll golden age.

Ominously, unnoticed, a misogynist real-estate upstart with an oversized ego announced the creation of a presidential exploratory committee on Larry King live in October 1999. How many rock and rollers were watching Larry King in October of that year? Not many.

The real-estate upstart-in-question never dreamed of winning the presidential election. But surely, he thought, he could attract attention to his business ventures with a populist-based political message that went something along the line of Drain the Bayou. At his first attempt at the presidency, nothing. On his second try, bingo!

Whoever could have imagined that this bloated egocentric parvenu would one day mean the end of rock and roll?

Somehow, this nouveau riche wannbe convinced enough people to vote for him, and he was elected the president of the land.

Once President, he was confused, having never anticipating winning, unsure of his charge, and wide open to the influence of his followers on the far right. Under their direction, he – through another twist of fate – came to be be in a position to load the Supreme Court of Our Lands with faith-based fellow adherents. Faith-based fellow adherents is not entirely accurate as our US, democratically elected Supreme Ruler had no principles at all, as far as could be noted.

Thus, we – the United States – left the middle road behind.

And here we are.

Just this past week, we allowed our newly imposed Supreme Leader’s chosen religious leaders to rule that we would no longer have rock and roll in our lives.

I guess our moment of pseudo-freedom was good while it lasted.

All of those songs erased in an instance from YouTube is shocking. The immediate disappearance of rock and roll from our playlists is unprecedented. Now, it appears that we will be prosecuted if we attempt to cross state lines to hear the rock and roll that was once embedded in our lives. Nashville is closing its doors. L.A. will no longer be L.A. without its music industry.

Without precedent, rock and roll is now, at seemingly just a moment’s notice, gone from our lives, Our lives are so hugely different from what they were just weeks ago that it’s hard to fathom. Will we ever return to what we once were? As of this writing, that is completely unsure. Will we ever be able to hear a rock and roll song again? As of this writing, I honestly don’t know.

The post In life-altering decision for the nation, the US Taliban bans rock and roll * appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Age is a moveable number determined by our internal joie de vivre quotient, or so we are often told. According to this premise, we are just as old as we feel. Our true age may be 75 or 85, but we might still prefer to be 50 or 60 in our mind’s eye.

The Internet is awash in pages that celebrate aging well. You can find the

35 Best Age Quotes, 14 of the Best Quotes About Aging, 70 Best Getting Older Quotes About Aging Gracefully and so on and so forth. Amazon has no end of books that want us to get the most out of our later years. Successful Aging: A Neuroscientist Explores the Power and Potential of Our Lives is one. Lifespan: Why We Age―and Why We Don’t Have To is another. It turns out that aging may be the only thing that unites all of us living on Planet Earth at any given moment. Each and every one of us here today will be one day older tomorrow if we are blessed to open our eyes in the morning. Or as Eleanor Roosevelt once put it, “Today is the oldest you’ve ever been, and the youngest you’ll ever be again.”

Albert Einstein admonished us: “Do not grow old, no matter how long you live.”  No other than Benjamin Franklin told us that Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late. On aging, Gabriel García Márquez knowingly wrote What happens is that you don’t feel it on the inside, but from the outside everybody can see it.

There is no wealth of opinion zeroed in on aging.

No other than Sophia Loren has had her say: “There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.”  Sorry, Sophia, no matter how well felt your observations, I don’t believe any of us ever defeats age. I prefer Golda Meir’s insight, “Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you are aboard there is nothing you can do about it.”

We all age, whether we like it or not. Sooner of later, thoughts of aging will come home to roost for even the youngest of us alive today.

Many of us, getting older, are happy to share our later years with our family and long established, or even new, friends. We are ready to put our energy to work in the effort of reflection, contributing where we can, thoughtfulness and winding down. We never quite put it in terms of letting go, but yeah we are learning to let go.

Many of us, as I said, but not all.

These days, there are still music stars going strong well on in years – Cher is 76, Streisand 80, Dolly Parton 75, Bob Dylan 80, Ringo Starr 81. Yet, no other than Mike Jagger 78, recently had this to say, Rock ’n’ roll, or any kind of pop music honestly, isn’t supposed to be done when you’re in your 70s. It wasn’t designed for that.

A lot of life, in fact, was never designed for doing in our 70’s or 80’s. Of course, we have never turned to our rock stars to lead us. They get on with their business in the background of our lives. We don’t check in with them on a daily basis. A new song, a new record, drops whenever they have something new to share, every year, every 5 or 10.

We do check in, however, with those we have voted or not voted for, with those in charge of the leadership of our future more often than we should, perhaps, those who have chosen to represent, to influence or to channel their wisdom into setting the best path forward for our children, grandchildren and their grandchildren.

The desire for the glory of leadership in later life, it turns out, is distributed only among a certain few, but that certain few influence, and how, our daily lives to an inordinate degree.

Putin is on the cusp of his 70’s, younger – even if more delusional – than many of his peers. Not far behind him at all, Trump came to office in January 2017, the oldest ever US President at the time, sworn in at the age of 70. If he were to come back to haunt us and win in 2024, he would be 77 on election day and 81 when leaving office. Biden does him one better. Our current President took office when he was 78. If he runs again, wins and completes a second term, he would be 86 by the time 2028 comes round.

Here are a couple of excerpts from a recent New York Times piece on a Biden second term:

To nearly all the Democrats interviewed, the president’s age — 79 now, 82 by the time the winner of the 2024 election is inaugurated — is a deep concern about his political viability. They have watched as a commander in chief who built a reputation for gaffes has repeatedly rattled global diplomacy with unexpected remarks that were later walked back by his White House staff, and as he has sat for fewer interviews than any of his recent predecessors.

… The presidency is a monstrously taxing job and the stark reality is the president would be closer to 90 than 80 at the end of a second term, and that would be a major issue,” said David Axelrod, the chief strategist for Barack Obama’s two winning presidential campaigns.

Trump and Biden are not the only US or world leaders not yet ready to let go.

Queen Elizabeth II is the longest-reigning monarch in the history of the United Kingdom. She recently celebrated he 96th birthday and announced no date to relinquish her powers.

Nicaragua’s dictator, Daniel Ortega, is 76. His accompice wife, Rosario Murillo, is 70.

Republican Mitch McConnell, Senate minority leader, is 80. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, is 82.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was still a Supreme Court Justice when she died at the age of 87.

Diane Feinstein, 88, is at a crossroads. Once again the Times offers insight. Feinstein, the Times reports is far from the towering presence she once was on the American political stage. The Times continues:

At 88, Ms. Feinstein sometimes struggles to recall the names of colleagues, frequently has little recollection of meetings or telephone conversations, and at times walks around in a state of befuddlement — including about why she is increasingly dogged by questions about whether she is fit to serve in the Senate representing the 40 million residents of California, according to half a dozen lawmakers and aides who spoke about the situation on the condition of anonymity.

To age is human. Aging is real. As much as we might try, we cannot deny it. We lose some of our abilities as we get older. Yes, some of us can still do bungee jumps. I can assure you that those are the few and far between. The World Health Organization defines aging thus:

 At the biological level, ageing results from the impact of the accumulation of a wide variety of molecular and cellular damage over time. This leads to a gradual decrease in physical and mental capacity, a growing risk of disease and ultimately death.

Getting older, it turns out, is really a thing.

Benedict XVI ruled his Catholic flock until he resigned as Pope, aged 85, in 2013. He cited a lack of strength of mind and body in annoucing his decision. The present Pope, Francis 85 is ailing in health, and if rumors are true, also on the cusp of announcing his resignation. We should applaud him if that is the case. Knowing when to step down and when to bow out is not only admirable and counter-cultural to a certain extent, but at times necessary.

We set limits for those wanting to enter our leadership roles. To be President of the United States, you have to be at least 35. To be a Senator, you need to be 30. To be a Representative in the House, 25.

Perhaps it’s time to contemplate upper limits for those in power. We don’t have any in place. Life expectancy was not the same when our Constitution, rules and regulations were written. The World Health Organization, again, reminds us that:

People worldwide are living longer. Today most people can expect to live into their sixties and beyond. Every country in the world is experiencing growth in both the size and the proportion of older persons in the population.

… By 2030, 1 in 6 people in the world will be aged 60 years or over. At this time the share of the population aged 60 years and over will increase from 1 billion in 2020 to 1.4 billion. By 2050, the world’s population of people aged 60 years and older will double (2.1 billion). The number of persons aged 80 years or older is expected to triple between 2020 and 2050 to reach 426 million.

The Social Security Agency defines eligibility for full retirement as 66 if you were born from 1943 to 1954. Biden was born in 1942, Trump in 1946. They could both easily step back from the public arena right now with a robust pension if only humility would allow them to do so.

Is that ever going to to happen.

Of course not.

In the meantime, the internet is overflowing with positive sentiment on the plus side of retirement. AAG, (Retire Better) has the 60 Best Inspirational and Funny Retirement Sayings. Senior Living has 30 retirement quotes. Southern Living has its 50 Retirement Quotes That Will Resonate With Any Retiree.

The post Old as the Hills appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Edwin Starr sang it loud in 1970.

War, huh (good God y’all)
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Say it, say it, say it
War (uh-huh), huh (yeah, huh)
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, listen to me

You can see the full lyrics here. Starr was lucky to live in the USA where War not only got widespread airplay, but spent three weeks at number 1 on the Billboard charts. Starr’s intense anti-Vietnam War anthem hit a cord.

Imagine such a thing happening in Russia today, where any public criticism of the Kremlin line in its bloodthirsty and unprovoked war in Ukraine guarantees its citizens up to 15 years of jail time, no redress admitted. In Russia, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is fake news.

Edwin Starr’s War is just one in a long line of anti-war, protest and solidarity songs that are enshrined in our collective conscience. Joan Baez did her part with We Shall Overcome. Marvin Gaye gave us all a wake-up call with What’s Going On. John Lennon pushed us to Imagine. Dolores O’Riordan summed up the Northern Ireland conflict with Zombie. Jimi Hendrix sang there are many here among us who think that life is just a joke when he electrified Bob Dylan’s All Along The Watchtower. Putin foretold.

Putin miscalculated on many fronts, military, intellectual, strategic and cultural. His generals and foot soldiers are dying in unprecedented numbers on his self-determined battlefield. His true support comes only from those Russians and Belarussians brainwashed or ignorant of the facts, a situation that Putin facilitated by shutting down any and all media outlets that might have found him accountable. In terms of Russia’s importance in the world, Putin has sent his country back to the Soviet dark ages. And he completely underestimated the connectivity that defines the world outside of Russia in 2022.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is being photographed, televised, YouTube’d and tweeted in real time. Russia has no escape from the atrocities in which it is now complicit. Putin has no escape here. He is forever going to be damned for leading his country to disaster and for lending his reputation, or what is left of it, to a Russia diminished.

Putin was once an able chameleon, biding his time in a background role on the world stage. But now, thanks to his recklessness and inflated ego, he finds himself an emperor without clothes in a real world that has coalesced, and how, against him. It turns out that Putin is just the latest version of the Russian tyrant, dictator, despot and oppressor that we once knew as Stalin. Stalin died by natural causes. Putin can only wish for the same.

How do you protest such evil in song?

At a moment when so many people are dying daily in Ukraine, it may seem inconsequential, but it’s not.

Pink Floyd put out their first new song in 28 years to protest Putin’s self-delusional brain fart in attempting to redefine a Russia-centric world. Floyd’s song was called Hey Hey Rise Up, and featured Andriy Khlyvnyuk of Boombox singing in Ukrainian. And even though it spent a short time atop the Apple US Chart, the song didn’t resonate.

But then came Florence + the Machine. By some mechanism of chance, Florence Welch went to Kyiv in late 2021 to film the video for her latest release. This was months before the onslaught of Russia’s atrocities in Ukraine. By coincidence, or not, Florence’s song is called Free. Hers is not a protest song at all on the surface. Her song is an upbeat pop/rock dance track. Florence did the video with the actor Bill Nighy as her side portraying her anxiety. The lyrics don’t obsess over political freedom even though the video ends with Florence and her anxiety overlooking a graveyard in Ukraine. But Florence does sign off on the video with a dedication to the spirit, creativity and perseverance of our brave Ukrainian friends, and notes that the video was filmed with Ukrainian filmmakers and artists, whose radiant freedom can never be extinguished. The song may not be protest per se, but the video keeps Kyiv and Ukraine front and center on YouTube. It’s already been seen more than 2,144,546 times.

Keep in mind that not all solidarity songs need to be anti-war. Does anybody remember the Andrews Sisters? They had a huge hit during World War 2 with Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy. The Andrews Sisters great contribution to ending the Second World War was in making our soldiers feel valued, loved, important and appreciated in song. The lyrics were secondary. The Andrews Sisters made everyone feel that a future with good times was still possible.

Just a week ago, Ed Sheeran premiered a new song 2step with a video also filmed in Kyiv before the Russian attack began. Sheeren is donating the royalties of his song to Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal. The DEC website reminds us that 18 million people are projected to be affected by Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine, and that 12 million Ukrainians, more than a quarter of the population, have so far had to flee their homes. Ed Sheeren and Florence Welch show us just how badly Putin miscalculated. Ukraine was already firmly integrated, accepted and understood as European long before Putin’s botched attempt to claim it for himself and Russia.

Unfortunately, nobody in Putin’s coterie of yes-men gave him the message.

The post War, huh (good God y’all) What is it good for? Absolutely nothing appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In 1959, Chuck Berry had a hit with a song called Back in the USA, a rock ‘n roll propelled love anthem to America. The lyrics went:

Oh well, oh well, I feel so good today
We touched ground on an international runway

… New York, Los Angeles, oh, how I yearned for you
Detroit, Chicago, Chattanooga, Baton Rouge
Let alone just to be at my home back in ol’ St. Lou

.… Well, I’m so glad I’m livin’ in the U.S.A.
Yes, I’m so glad I’m livin’ in the U.S.A.
Anything you want, we got right here in the U.S.A.

Just about a decade later, in November 1968, the Beatles led off their White Album with a tongue-in-cheek riff on the East-West divide going on at the time, a track called Back in the USSR, a shout-out to Chuck Berry.

The Beatles lyrics went:

… back in the USSR
You don’t know how lucky you are, boy

Back in the US
Back in the US
Back in the USSR

Then the Beatles segued into a spoof of the Beach Boys – California Girls:

… Well the Ukraine girls really knock me out
They leave the west behind
And Moscow girls make me sing and shout

And then back to:

… I’m back in the USSR
You don’t know how lucky you are, boys
Back in the USSR

The Beatles brought many new Russian fans on board with Back in the USSR, among them a certain Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, the very same thug now directing genocide against the people of Ukraine. But the Beatles were just messing around. Back in the USSR was not a love anthem to the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had just invaded Czechoslovakia in August of that same year, 1968, and the Beatles were well aware of that. The song had its base in irony.

In a changed world, Paul McCartney later sang the song at a concert in Moscow’s Red Square in 2003, and Putin was in attendance. At that Red Square concert, everywhere you looked Moscovites were rockin’ and rollin,’ happy as hell that they were being acknowledged by McCartney. Putin was deadpan, perhaps already fixated on how he might recreate the empire that the Beatles had satirized and that McCartney was now flaunting right in front of him in Moscow. Putin was not amused by the irony.

All water under the bridge now that Comrade Vlad has directed his military might to invade and attempt to choke off life in Ukraine.

Despite the passage of time, inter-connected world economies, the acceptance of Russia as a partner, glasnost, the internet, Facebook, TikTok, Telegram and Twitter, here we are looking at an East-West divide, the likes of which we never imagined possible at the beginning of the third decade of the 21st century.

And what the fu .. why (expletive removed)?

Well, just maybe because Putin, going about his daily life as a dictator par excellence in Russia in 2022, has an ego even greater than Trump’s. Putin is mega-egotistical, eager for a mention in history equal to that of his heroine Catherine the Great, paranoiac in the extreme and, unfortunately for the rest of us, someone with a uniquely manhood-threatened view of civilization. He has his finger on a nuclear trigger, something that Stalin and Hitler never had. His mention in history, if the there ever is a history after this, is sure to be in the column of the latter.

Once, we might have imagined, in our innocence, that Paul McCartney knew what he was doing, penning a guitar-driven rock song that the world – Russia included – could twist-and-shout to.

Oh, how silly we were.

All the while, our real future was being decided in Comrade Putin’s mind.

Here in the USA, we were dutifully electing a new President every four years. Back in the USSR of his dreams, the de facto ruler of Russia since December 1999, according to Wikipedia, Putin was upending the last 22 years of history, consolidating power, readying his new Russia for the moment when he might recreate some semblance of his lost Soviet empire.

Soviet, you might just reasonably ask, What is that exactly?

Basically, Soviet is a synonym for Communist, an elected community council that makes decisions for a society, a country, no dissension allowed.

It’s a world vision that went out of favor in 1991 when the Soviet Union was dissolved, an empire that consisted of none other than Russia, but also Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

In the world at large, we may have thought Soviet was forever gone from our reality, a thing of the past.

In 1991, the Soviet Union was replaced by something called the Commonwealth of Independent States. The Bush Administration at the time quickly recognized the independence of Ukraine and other former Soviet republics. And some of those newly independent states immediately understood their opportunity. Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, fast aligned themselves with Europe and the West, and over a relatively short period of time became NATO members.

And so Soviet was gone from the world stage, or so we wished ourselves into thinking.

Except, Soviet was not gone. Soviet had one major shareholder remaining.

That major USSR shareholder was not at all discouraged, put off or disheartened by past Soviet setbacks or failures, but in a cockeyed view of world politics, found himself not only the President of Russia, but capable of invading a previous ally to inflict unprecedented death, pain and destruction on Ukraine.

That shareholder’s name is Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

His goal?

To drag us all back to a pre-McCartney, pre-Beatles era, to a psuedo-utopia, a ghost empire that he has convinced himself he can regroup called the USSR?

What a blockhead, what a fu..-up (expletive again removed.)

Pardon my French.

The post Back in the USSR appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Lockdown and its close-knit family of dry laws, masking, self-isolation, curfew and quarantine have had extended shelf life here in pandemic Colombia. Throw in some country-specific phenomena such as repeated street demonstrations, roadblocks, food distribution standstills, general unrest and widespread vandalism, and you begin to get a glimmer of present-day life in this Latin American country, just about 1,725 miles south of Miami.

As things in the United States begin to show serious signs of returning to some semblance of normal, life in many other places in the world shows a contrast as stark as day and night.

In Colombia, the common expression such is life has taken on a whole new meaning.

Some days, evenings or nights, here in front of my building in Bogotá, the sound of a saxophone makes itself known. In the years before the pandemic, this was an unknown amplification. Yet now suddenly, a lonely saxophone can throw us back haphazardly and without notice to the origins of jazz, to poverty and pain. The saxophonist sets up shop in front of building after building and plays his set repeatedly throughout the evening. The lonely sax player is doing his best to make ends meet during a pandemic that seems to have no end.

I have left my building in Bogotá precisely three times in the last nine months; once in April to get my first AstraZeneca jab. Last month, I needed cash to pay a  plumber for an apartment emergency, so I went to an ATM. And three weeks ago, after a seeming never-ending 12-week wait, I went to the San Ignacio Hospital at the Javeriana University to get my second AstraZeneca shot. I finished my 21-day waiting period for maximum immunity to click in just a few days ago. Will my behavior and routine change much? I don’t think so.

Here at the end of June 2021, infection numbers and deaths were breaking records daily. Although we now appear to have passed the peak of our third wave, the mayor of Bogotá is warning that we will most likely have a fourth. As of this writing, the country has had more than 4.6 million Covid cases and there have been 117,000 Covid-related deaths. The daily death rate is still hovering, down somewhat from the third peak, at around 500, and Semana is reporting that one in three Colombians has now had Covid.

Yet, even now, in the midst of so much continuing and brutal uncertainly and after a year and edging toward a year and a half of pandemic living, I have been able to isolate some simple life lessons from my time in isolation (pardon the pun.)

#1 Creating order has opioid-like calming benefits

I don’t have a housekeeper. Making my bed in the morning has always been my responsibility. And I’ve always done it (well, almost always), sometimes later in the day, sometimes earlier. Covid has taught me that earlier in the day is better. The well-being effect clicks in sooner. That I have made my bed every day since the beginning of the pandemic now registers as not only not a bad achievement at all, but as a constant top-up of good energy for the day ahead

#2 Hot water must go down as one of the most brilliant inventions in history

I am more than proud that I have taken a shower every day during this year and almost a half of Zooming. The camera may not lie, but Zoom surely can. I could have gotten away with a day without a shower. Nobody would have been the wiser. But even if my shower happened in the late afternoon, it was still a shower. I have done something like 500 showers since March of last year. I may no longer be definably sane, but I am, and have been, clean. And the rush of hot water revitalizing my body must go down as one of the greatest inventions of all time, way ahead of the Model T, and perhaps just edging out the magic of Photoshop.

#3 Physical books rule

The pandemic has secured streaming as most likely the way we are going to watch movies from here on in. Cinema as we used to know it, going to a public movie palace to view the latest Hollywood offerings along with hundreds of other non-vetted fellow earthlings is over. Ah, but books! Books are forever. Books are physical, to be enjoyed alone in the privacy of home. Throw in the fact that Amazon is now offering free delivery on books to Colombia, and I’m in 7^th pandemic heaven. (Everything is relative.) Books lead us inward to discover nuances of meaning and feeling that movies can only envy. I just finished reading Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Dream of the Celt, and I am humbled. Vargas Llosa’s study and investigation of the life of the Irish patriot Roger Casement leaves me in awe. If any book can change perceptions of history, Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Dream of the Celt can. The book is a spectacular achievement.

#4 I am not Anthony Bourdain

I am not a food adventurer. I do like to eat out, and was amused to read mid-pandemic that what people missed most about going out to eat was not the food but seeing other people. Restaurants, it seems, are our showcases for seeing and for being seen. Restaurants are fashion hotspots, of all things. Lockdown, of course, changed all of that. Stuck at home, I learned that I can cook the same dish twice a week, without shame. I now know that I can get by on maybe 20 to 40 basic recipes for life. I’m good with my food. Oh and during this pandemic time of self-distancing, I have finally figured out how to scramble an egg. A pinch of corn flour does the trick. That and a splash of cream. Add chopped tomato and onion, and there you go, perfect Colombian huevos pericos.

#5 Cat litter is the equivalent of modern-day gold

Having lived with cats all my life, I understand that said cats depend on me for pretty much everything, Covid or no Covid. At the beginning of hard lockdown, when store shelves were being emptied of everything, I panicked. What the hell, is there going to be food available for my cats? I wondered. Luckily, there was. But more importantly I immediately conjectured, Is there going to be cat litter? I still remember the moment I called my local cat store, wondering what kind of future we all were going to have without said cat litter. I nervously asked, Do you have Fresh and Clean? Yes, they did. Big sigh of relief! Of course, that didn’t stop me early in the pandemic from hoarding bags of cat litter the way others were stockpiling other modern-day gold products like toilet paper, medical masks and Lysol Swipes. A slight confession, I am still somewhat of a cat litter hoarder. I still need to have at least two weeks of cat litter on hand to sleep easy.

#6 Pacing is a flawed mechanism for dealing with stress

As many, I thought I needed to exercise at home. I watched and emulated

the New York Times 7-minute workout exercise. I quickly discovered that my knees were not what they used to be, no matter how lite I tried to do the exercises. Locked-in at home, I thought I would just walk, pacing back and forth in my restricted apartment. I counted every footstep as I went room to room sometimes in clockwise direction, sometimes anticlockwise, sometimes totally haphazard. I noted all my pacing numbers in a daily diary. I was certifiably insane, until I realized that I was counting even in my sleep. I had gone overboard. I was counting everything, words on my computer screen, dishes I was washing, the number of food deliveries I was having. I’m happy to relate that the pacing and its annotation have long gone out the window.

#7 Crazy has left the building (or everything has its moment)

A decent night’s sleep depends on so many factors, some in our control, others not. Not only has counting my pacing numbers left my mindset, but so too has counting the days until the end of the term of the ludicrous and cartoon persona that was so much in our face over the last four, now distancing, years. This nightmare has, at least for the moment, left the arena. Everything has its moment, and just so everything has its end. The pain, and daily anxiety of dealing with this shadowy figure, who somehow got to be president and install himself as a curse for many not just in the US but around the world, is done. We can only hope. It doesn’t matter that he refuses to let go. Fold this figure into the shadows of history. Now, there is one less anxiety factor getting in the way of sleep.

#8 Mortality is a real thing

I have limited time here on earth. It’s a thought that has occurred to most of us during this pandemic. We are not in control of our destiny. Before this massive interruption to everyday life, maybe some of us thought we were good going forward. Others of us knew we were not in control long ago. A friend said to me early on in this pestilence, “We are back in the Middle Ages.” Not exactly. We have quickly garnered weapons to combat our plague. I am not religious and I hate to posturize, but I think that perhaps our most rewarding lesson from this intrusion of nature might be to think about how much good we can do in our time here on earth. ”How can we best contribute to the lives of others?” It’s a question well worth considering, it seems to me now.

#9 Tillie Olsen knew it all along

The repeated arm movement of pressing heat over dampened clothes to establish order when ironing is soothing and contributive to contemplation. Ironing’s sisters, folding, airing and placing on shelves or in drawers are equally good companions for reflection and for fortifying our inner selves. When we have something so rich in our lives, what do we do? Replace it, of course. We modernize. How about we invent something called a dryer? Throw soothing and contemplative out the window. True, a drying machine gets clothes dried fast, as often as not eliminating the need to iron. Here in Bogotá, I don’t have a dryer. I hang my clothes up to dry, as do most Colombians. When the clothes are ready, I iron, just as people have done for a long while before me.

#10 Breathe in breathe out/ Life goes on

We may like it or we may not, but in one form or another, life goes on. The Spanish Flu pandemic killed from 20 to 50 million people, and possibly many more. It infected some 500 million. Then came the Roaring 20’s, the Great Depression, the Second World War, the Swinging 60’s, the Vietnam War, Hippies and Yuppies, the Internet and a new millennium. We were home free. Or so we thought. Only not. We were somehow hard-wired to repeat a pandemic lost in history to most. As of now, our Covid pandemic has taken more than 4 million lives worldwide. Our infections are at close to 200 million. And we are not out of the woods yet. Sometimes, I lie on my bed, and I start a breathing exercise learned in therapy in New York many years ago. I teach my body to relax. I start with my small right toe. I am calm, peaceful, relaxed, I tell my small right toe. I breathe in, I breathe out. I continue toe by toe, limb by limb, body part by body part. I end with my brain. And then, I start again. I am calm, peaceful, relaxed. And then for a while, I am at peace. And if successful, I may even find myself asleep.

The post Bogota breakdown: 10 lessons from an endless COVID lockdown appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In June of 1950, Joe DiMaggio got his 2,000^th hit. Guam was designated a United States Territory, and its residents were granted US citizenship. Budge Patty won his first of 2 Grand Slam titles at the French Men’s Tennis Championships, beating Jaroslav Drobný 6-1, 6-2, 3-6, 5-7, 7-5. Doris Hart was the women’s French Tennis Champion.

All through June of 1950, The Third Man Theme, an instrumental played on the zither by Anton Karas, was the most popular song on Billboard’s Best Sellers in Stores chart in the US. It was also the Most Played in Jukeboxes. The most popular song Played by Jockeys was Hoop-Dee-Doo by Perry Como. Jukeboxes, Jockeys, yes we are that far away from then now.

I was born in June 1950. Although that fact ages me now, until recently I knew nothing about the month in which I was born. The New York Times on June 9, 1950, the day of my birth, saw a scary world. U.S. Reds Go Underground To Foil F.B.I., Hoover Says is centered on the front page. The sub-headline goes on to state that 540,000 Communists and Followers Seek Our Atomic, Military, Industrial Secrets, He Tells Closed Senate Unit Session. Page 2 tells us that the FAR EAST SITUATION is VIEWED AS GRAVE. In fact, Peace Treaty With Japan Now Would Throw That Country to Russia, Navy Expert Says.

Reds was a word much in fashion in 1950.

But even so, over at the New York Times not all was doom and gloom. The paper, on page 26, had a Coco-Cola ad touting the beverage as the Natural Partner of Good Things to Eat. Who knew!  Altman & Co showed DISTINGUISHED DRESSES OF HOPE SKILLMAN COTTONS, all in caps, for $19.95, on page 7. These dresses were available in 1950 with a cool well-bred air all of their own. Not only that. You could have the first dress in blue, maize or rose as shown – as shown was in black and white, a minor detail – or in a different stripe design in brown, blue or green, size 10 to 20. But wait. For the second dress, there were other options. The second dress was available in orchid, gold or rose; or in a stripe with amber, blue or green predominating, sizes 12 to 20. Unfortunately, those size 10 were out of luck with the second dress option.

But just a minute, what about those sizes 4, 6 or 8, much in demand today? So sorry, those sizes did not seem to be available in the 1950’s. Everybody was big then, or so it would seem.

On page 28 of the New York Times on June 9, 1950, were the movies of the day. Annie Get Your Gun, The Picture the Country’s Been Waiting For – News. Maureen O’Hara and Macdonald Carey were in Comanche Territory. Elizabeth Taylor (the Bride of the Year) was in Conspirator, an MGM hit. The Little Carnegie on West 57^th (between 6^th and 7^th Avenues, the ad adds for reference) was showing Faust and the Devil, BEST FILM OF ITS KIND YET MADE – Journal American.

What was news in June of 1950 is today just an annotation in history, patchily available on Wikipedia and Google Images. It might be good for us to remember that in another 50 to 100 years, our preoccupations of today, our pandemic, the newly hatched harebrained notion that Trump might be legitimately reinstated as President in August 2021, however we define the world as we know it now and no matter how impassioned we are about our present, all of our concerns will one day be lodged somewhere as just plain ole yesteryear.

Zeroing in on June 9, 1950, the Panhandle Herald in Carson County, Texas noted on page 2 that there was a problem getting good seed wheat that year. On its front page the same paper reported that a radio and rifle had been stolen from a farm belonging to one Jim Mecaskey. On page 5, we discover that Alma Medlin, Bride-Elect, was Given a Shower. And on page 7, we learn that Frank Duby Took a Business Course.

Regional newspapers around the country and around the world reported on everyday events going on that same day. The Amherst News-Times in Ohio reported that their Council had authorized Parking Meters Here, and that Funeral Services would Be Friday for Adam Hahn.

In Ireland, sometime during that day of June 9^th 1950, I was born, one among an estimated 266,848 babies born on that date worldwide.

I have just recently discovered that there are web sites dedicated to revealing to me essential facts of my existence that I might have missed. One site tells me that according to their calculations, it’s most likely I was conceived on Friday, September 16, 1949. In all honesty, I had never wondered about that before they brought it to my attention. Now I’m wondering if I should somehow celebrate September 16 as a sort of alternate birthday. Happy Conceived Day!

I was born, it turns out, just weeks before the outbreak of the Korean War. That war began on June 25^th 1950 when forces from North Korea invaded South Korea. On June 28^th, North Korean forces captured Seoul, the capital of South Korea. The times were not so innocent after all. I have no memory of the Korean War at all: nothing, no images, no sound bites, no anecdotes.

My memories of the 1950’s are bathed in dull colors, sepia browns, indistinct grays and dusty blues. If there were reds (other than Hoover’s) or yellows or greens in those years, then they were dull too. I often think of that when I look at the vibrant, soul enhancing and screamingly alive colors of David Hockney who also lived through the dulled colors of the1950’s. Hockney is the anecdote to the visual world in the 1950’s, even the 1940’s.

Who else was born in 1950? Do I want to do this and date myself? I guess so.

Among those in the public eye born in 1950 were Bill Murray, Dr. Phil, Stevie Wonder, Joan Lunden, Victoria Principal, Daniel Auteuil, Morgan Fairchild, Natalie Cole, Mark Spitz, Peter Gabriel, Cybill Shepherd, Miou-Miou, Neil Jordan, Julie Walters, Bobby McFerrin, William Hurt and Martin Short.

For the rest of us born in 1950 still alive, untouched by fame, we too have achieved a milestone. We have witnessed 71 years.

The post What June 1950 can teach us about June 2021 appeared first on Occasional Planet.

As I write, Miley Cyrus’s Party in the U.S.A. is sitting at number 17 on Apple’s iTunes US singles chart. Nothing remarkable, you may think. Except that Party in the U.S.A. was originally released in 2009, some 12 years ago. Suddenly it’s back on the charts. Gwen Stefani’s Hollaback Girl is sitting at number 21 on the same chart. That song was released in 2005. Carly Simon’s You’re So Vain, from 1972, is at number 39. Hootie & the Blowfish’s Let Her Cry, 1994, is 32.

The Four Seasons’ Oh What a Night, 1975, is in position number 48. The Pet Shop Boys’ Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money,) 1985, is a couple of slots below at 50. Jackson Browne’s Somebody’s Baby, 1982, is at number 55. And the Monkees’ Daydream Believer, 1967, is right behind at number 59.

What’s going on?

Well, it seems that the pandemic has unleashed an intense longing for the way things used to be before the world as we knew it came crashing down in March 2020. The decades before lockdown have now become a golden era, and people seem to be reaching out to the music that defined those years for affirmation and reassurance. In these uncertain times, people are reaching back to the oldies but goldies. Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline, 1969, went to number 5 on the Apple Music chart on Mar 7 of this year. And it’s not just a US trend. Sweet Caroline reached number 1 on the Canadian iTunes on March 1, and number 16 in the UK.

The soul classics have been resonating during the pandemic. Otis Redding’s (Sitting 0n) the Dock of the Bay, 1968, got to number 8 on the chart just about a month ago. The Temptations have charted again with My Girl, 1964. It was number 10 on iTunes on February 22 of this year. Smokey Robinson’s Cruisin’, 1979, made it up to number 26 in January. The Supremes’ Baby Love, Where Did Our Love Go, and Stop in the Name of Love were all back on the chart this year. Stevie Wonder’s Isn’t She Lovely, 1976, was number 20 on February 18.

The phenomenon is not confined to singles. Carole King’s Tapestry album, 1971, got to number 3 on the Canadian iTunes chart this February. It was in position number 6 in Spain, also in February. Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, 1977, was the number 3 album in Australia in January and number 1 in Canada last October. Madonna’s Bedtime Stories, 1994, was the number 1 album in the US, Brazilian and Canadian iTunes stores on April 30, 2020. James Taylor’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 1, originally issued in November 1976, was back to soothe rattled nerves in 2020. It got to number 3 in the US, 4 in Australia, 4 in Brazil, and 7 in Canada. One of Taylor’s greatest hits, included on the album, tellingly was Shower the People (You Love with Love.)

Are we living a time warp? Not really, we’re just trying to get through a difficult patch leaning on some songs that made us feel good in the past. This month, the 1985 Tears for Fears hit Everybody Wants to Rule the World was back at number 8 on the chart, number 5 in Canada. Rule can be read as a stand-in for just get back to some semblance of the lives we used to have. And lest there be any doubt about our shared need for comfort and consolation right now and for our desire to get well past where we find ourselves, look no further than number 80 on today’s chart. It’s the ultimate song of resilience, Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive, originally released in 1978.

The post The Pandemic’s Greatest Hits: Musical Blasts from the Past appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In an interview with Madrid’s El País newspaper, published on January 10, Pulitzer-prize winning historian, Anne Applebaum didn’t hold back. “The Trump adventure is over,” she is quoted as saying. “He will spend the rest of his life in court.” Amen to Applebaum’s assessment.

And who is Applebaum? London’s Prospect magazine included her in its list of the world’s top 50 thinkers for the Covid-19 age:

Applebaum, long an authority on the abuses of Communist and post-Communist Eastern Europe, in her new book Twilight of Democracy is unsparing in exposing the moral bankruptcy of Trumpian Republicanism.

El País mentions that her vision and informed judgment have “made her one of the leading global political analysts of recent years.”

Applebaum was a columnist for the Washington Post, and at one time a member of its Editorial Board. Since January 2020, she has been a staff writer at the Atlantic. In a piece entitled What Trump and His Mob Taught the World About America published in the Atlantic on January 7, she wrote:

 …and yet by far the most important weapon that the United States of America has ever wielded—in defense of democracy, in defense of political liberty, in defense of universal rights, in defense of the rule of law—was the power of example. In the end, it wasn’t our words, our songs, our diplomacy, or even our money or our military power that mattered. It was rather the things we had achieved: the two and a half centuries of peaceful transitions of power, the slow but massive expansion of the franchise, and the long, seemingly solid traditions of civilized debate.

Applebaum distills us to our essence, the power of example.

We, the United States were for two and a half centuries, a beacon of light for so many others. And then came Trump. And with Trump the lights of democracy flickered not only for many of us here at home, but for America’s partners and admirers abroad. On January 6. Thump definitively showed the world his true colors. “We love you,” he said in a videotaped address to a mob that at that very moment was assaulting the Capitol. He didn’t have the wits about him to address the American public, just his demented followers. The royal we only undermined Trump’s slender connection to reality. The beacon of light, the power of example, came close to being extinguished.

In her El País interview, Applebaum notes that Trump “treated NATO like a mobster would.” And she adds that:

He scared the Europeans so much that they decided to come up with a plan b. They should adopt their own position and voice in security matters and also as sole defenders of democratic values.

In other words, Trump’s lasting legacy will be that he attempted to strip the United States of America of its democratic principles from the beginning of his shameful tenure to its calamitous end. Sadly, he tried to quit us of our democratic pillars of strength, aided and abetted by his family, cohorts within the Republican Party, and supported by millions of Americans.

In the El País piece, Applebaum makes a telling observation of Russia’s Putin, mentioning that he is:

Someone trained to be paranoid, to constantly detect conspiracies around him.That leads him to change the terms and to ensure that there is no opposition …, but a plot of other powers against him. That he must control all those who meet, argue and oppose. Therefore, there is nothing spontaneously articulated or a trace of    honesty, everyone lies, nobody trusts anyone and there is a mixture of deep cynicism     with paranoia. … And so he has largely transferred that to the rest of the country: a lot of cynicism, a lot of immorality and a tremendously conspiratorial environment.

She could just as well have been talking about Trump. Yes, we knew all along that Trump had a strong attachment to Putin, but now we can understand why Trump found his soul mate in the Russian autocrat. They are peas of a pod. And just like Putin before him in Russia, Trump has transferred his paranoia, his cynicism, his lack of morality and his conspiratorial mindset to many citizens of our country.

The man is feckless, depraved and now, if Applebaum’s assessment is correct, about to spend the rest of his days facing prosecution in the courts of our land.

The post Goodbye Washington. Hello Courtroom appeared first on Occasional Planet.