Whitcomb: Moving the Mural; Taking on the Duopoly; Nothing Is Settled With Iran; The Miracle of Mail
Robert Whitcomb, Columnist
Whitcomb: Moving the Mural; Taking on the Duopoly; Nothing Is Settled With Iran; The Miracle of Mail
“The fire will dwindle into glowing ashes
For flames and love live such a little while
I won't forget but I won't be lonely
I'll remember April and I'll smile.’’
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From “I’ll Remember April,’’ a 1941 song with music by Gene de Paul
and lyrics by Patricia Johnston and Don Raye. April seems to be a big month for songwriters – another reason it’s not “the cruelest month.’’
“Barely tolerated, living on the margin
In our technological society, we were always having to be rescued
On the brink of destruction, like heroines in Orlando Furioso
Before it was time to start all over again.’’
-- “From Soonest Mended,’’ by John Ashbery (1927-2017), American poet
“Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.”
- – Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), American writer
“As bad a dresser as I am, anything beats being judged by my character.’’
– David Sedaris (born 1956), American humorist and essayist
“Machines seem to sense that I am afraid of them. It makes them hostile.’’
-- Sharyn McCrumb (born 1948), American writer
Beauty and the Beasts
Nature sure is tough! It was in the twenties early last Tuesday, but the blossoming trees continued to step up their color promotion that morning amidst a chorus of songbirds on the make.
Among the more evocative smells and sounds of the season is that of newly green wet grass being cut with a gasoline-powered lawnmower. (They make electric ones now, too.) What an evocative, if a little toxic, fragrance coming off a golf course in the breeze, especially for those folks of many seasons.
Forsythia is blooming, which reminds me of its yellow burst by the chain-link fence on three sides of my elementary school playground, with its jungle gym, a nausea-producing spinning contraption and a slide. There were more than a few aggressive, sadistic young boys, some with Trumpian characteristics. But among the bullies and wimps there were some calm, strong ones with peacekeeping tendencies, impressive for second graders.
Fist fights and bloody noses were not uncommon. Early lessons of “nature, red in tooth and claw,’’ as Tennyson described creatures’ battle for survival. The little girls stood together at the side to watch. Sometimes one would even go inside to tell a teacher.
Classrooms could be exciting, too. I still remember being slapped hard by my first-grade teacher for bumping into and accidentally spilling the contents of a goldfish bowl, as the lithographs of Lincoln and Washington glared down in a room smelling of floor wax, pencil shavings, chalk dust, cleaning fluids, crayons, and, best, sweet mimeograph-machine fluid.
(I don’t remember if the fish was rescued.) I didn’t tell my parents, who might well have backed the teacher.
Art Attack
I don’t care that this public artwork was apparently partly funded by a national far-right project connected with the brilliant sociopath Elon Musk. I’m sorry that pressure from Providence Mayor Brett Smiley and others led to the removal of a mural of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska by artist Ian Gaudreau outside a downtown gay nightspot called The Dark Lady.
Ms. Zarutska was stabbed to death last year in Charlotte, N.C., allegedly by Decarlos Brown Jr., who has a criminal record and has been diagnosed as insane, and the case has been used by MAGA types to cite crime in cities run by Democrats. (But Republican-run states generally have higher murder rates than Democratic-run states. See:
As of last week, Mr. Gaudreau was painting the mural on the outside wall of Opa, a restaurant on Federal Hill. I wish that he hadn’t been forced to move it from its bigger and more visible space. It’s a strong portrait, and Providence, famed as an art center, should celebrate freedom of expression!
Outsiders
Independent or third-party candidacies rarely succeed, though New England is a bit of an exception.
Consider that Angus King, of Maine (where he also served as governor), and Bernie Sanders, of Vermont (who previously served as an independent congressman), are the Senate’s only independents, though they both caucus with the Democrats. King, along with former Republicans Lowell Weicker, of Connecticut, and Lincoln Chafee, of Rhode Island, are three of the five independent and third-party governors elected in this country since 1990.
Why the regional liking of candidates outside the two major parties? A generally higher level of education?
So can nationally known software entrepreneur/engineer and data-analysis expert Ken Block win the governorship this year as an independent? It would be him or one of the two Democratic candidates running to win the primary on Sept. 8 – Helena Foulkes and incumbent Dan McKee. Both have baggage from their backgrounds, Foulkes mostly from her corporate career, McKee from his governorship. Of course, we all have baggage…
Republican gubernatorial candidates would not seem to have a chance in the Ocean State this year because of their voluntary or involuntary association with the nastiest and most corrupt presidential administration in American history (so far).
Though Block is far from charismatic, I think that he could win by harvesting divisions within the Democratic Party and by appealing to such signs of state incompetence as the Washington Bridge fiasco and state government’s computer-based systems failures. His companies are well known for their expertise in finding waste and fraud.
That he is widely considered very honest and forthright is a big plus.
Consider that Block (basically something of an old-fashioned New England Republican?) wrote a book titled Disproven: My Unbiased Search for Voter Fraud for the Trump Campaign, the Data that Shows Why He Lost, and How We Can Improve Our Elections. The Trump campaign had hired him to do so!
It goes on
“Is the world a better place today than yesterday? Undoubtedly, than 40 days ago? More than doubtful.”
--- Lars Lokke Rasmussen, Danish foreign minister, last Wednesday after Trump, for the time being, dropped his threats to destroy Iranian civilization.
First off, Trump and his minions, including off-the-charts-strident fellow sociopath or psychopath Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and impressively amoral Secretary of State Marco Rubio, lie about most things they tell the public. So whatever they say about what’s in the purported “two-week ceasefire” deal with Iran must, barring credible outside evidence, be taken with mountains of salt.
And we must always remember that everything Trump says and does relates to how he senses it will help or hurt his self-interest, not America’s, and he’ll betray just about anyone.
In any case, it seems very unlikely that anything fundamental has changed in the standoff with Iran. It’s hard to believe the Iranian regime (which is basically the same old vicious regime, albeit with some new people to replace those Trump killed) will give up its enriched uranium and their remaining drones and missiles, especially after the brutal U.S.-Israeli attacks.
And the war, now maybe only on a short recess, has left Iran in near-total control of the Strait of Hormuz – a chokehold on the world economy. Pay those tolls, or else!
Whatever the rhetoric, we should bear in mind that the Iranian regime’s conditions for an end to the U.S.-Israeli war, besides control of the strait, remain accepting its uranium-enrichment programs, lifting all sanctions, reparations for war damage, and removing U.S. combat forces from the region!
Richard Fontaine, the CEO of the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank, to David Sanger of The New York Times:
“Iran remains in the control of the strait, which was not the case before the war. I find it hard to believe that the United States and the world could accept a situation in which Iran remains in control of a key energy checkpoint indefinitely. That would be a materially worse outcome than existed before the war.”
Captains of ships seeking to transit the strait need Iranian permission to do so. In any case, don’t expect any big increase in fossil fuel coming out of the Gulf anytime soon. And Iran’s tolls in the strait will also help keep world oil and natural-gas prices higher than before the war.
Also helping to keep them lofty is the heavy damage done to Iran and the Gulf States’ fossil-fuel infrastructures in the war. I suspect that most Americans didn’t think about that when Trump proudly bombed Kharg Island, whence most of Iran’s oil is exported.
Trump’s war has been a bonanza for insider trading, as those around him make killings trading on government information before it’s known to the general public. Last week must have been a particular gold mine for those in the Trump Organization.
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What if the popularly elected government of Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh had not been overthrown with the aid of the U.S and Britain in 1953 to restore Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to power and thus reverse nationalization of Iran’s oil industry? (The Shah renationalized the sector in 1973.)
The Shah’s tyrannical (if “Westernizing” in some ways) rule fueled opposition among the general public, and his secularizing policies boosted support, especially in rural areas, for the Islamic extremists led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who returned from exile to Iran in 1979 as the Shah was being overthrown. U.S. support for the Shah was a source of much anti-Americanism, though most Iranians didn’t foresee that Khomeini and his theocratic successors would become nastier dictators than the Shah.
Anyway, my guess is that we’d be better off now if we hadn’t helped to overthrow Mosaddegh, sabotaging Iran’s budding democracy, for which many Iranians still blame us. But determining cause and effect in the murk and gyrations of history is always a challenge, to say the least. And it’s always good to remember L.P. Hartley’s opening of his novel The Go-Between: “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.’’
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I’m sure that many Americans felt sick as they watched Vice President J.D. Vance, and his boss the Orange Oligarch, endorse Hungary’s far-right quasi-dictator, kleptocrat and Putin disciple/agent Viktor Orban for today’s election, infuriating Europe’s liberal democracies. Vance, who back in 2016 denounced Trump as a budding Hitler, now rides the MAGA fascist horse and slavishly praises Trump as he seeks to be his successor. But then Vance has been running for president for at least a decade.
But, assuming that we still have free elections in 2028, will Vance be that strong a candidate, what with all his glaring hypocrisies, and that he is not only often evil, but looks evil?
Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal editorial board reports that six European nations now spend a higher percentage of their economies on defense than America does, as they seek to address Russian aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe.
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Trump threatens to lead the U.S. out of NATO? So we don’t need any allies? Or maybe just Russia and North Korea?
Facing Reality
How can Americans best survive the rise in fuel prices caused by Trump’s war?
Those lucky enough to have public transit nearby should consider using it – for some people, that means for the first time, and for others, using it much more frequently. Taking public transportation is ALWAYS cheaper than driving, even when gasoline prices are much lower than they are now. A few agencies are even offering free or reduced fare rides during our new energy crisis.
And local leaders are wisely encouraging more remote work and car-sharing.
What would also help a lot is dropping the speed limits by say 6 miles an hour. The International Energy Agency estimates that could cut drivers’ gasoline use by 5 to 10 percent. But American drivers tend to be very egotistical, or call them libertarian, drivers, and so most generally exceed speed limits.
Anyway, such a cut would save lives as well as fuel, at a time when high-speed tailgating, and the accidents it causes, is rife on our roads.
Meanwhile, as we struggle to get off our geopolitically and environmentally perilous dependence on fossil fuels, new signs of alternatives give glimmers of hope, such as:
Japan has launched Asia’s first osmotic power plant, which generates electricity by mixing fresh water with salt water.
And a Canadian company, Eavor Technologies, has completed a geothermal project in Geretsried, Germany, that provides heating to 120,000 homes and electricity to 8,000 homes.
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As Americans struggle through their tax returns, trapped in the world’s most complicated and confusing tax system, they might reflect on the fact that the Trump administration, at the order of tax-prep companies, especially Intuit, has effectively killed an IRS program that came online in 2024 called Direct File. This program would have let millions file their taxes for free who otherwise would have felt forced to pay accountants or the likes of Intuit’s TurboTax to put together and file their taxes.
Was all this settled by Trump and Intuit lobbyists at one of Washington’s many fine restaurants, with the promise of campaign donations?
In most developed countries, filing your taxes is easy and free.
(Our own tax returns are so complicated as to put us in an alligator-infested swamp from February to late March every year.)
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Year-rounders in hyper-expensive summer places such as Nantucket are getting sick of arrogant hyper-rich summer people, and yet many live off them.
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The half-shaven look continues to spread among men. But are they also waxing their chests?
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Mailman: My Wild Ride Delivering the Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home, by Stephen Starring Grant, shows us how the U.S. Postal Service does its very complicated job. Its hard-working and sometimes heroic employees labor in one of the few remaining organizations that help hold our fragmenting country together. They must deal with a plethora of unpredictable and, once in a while, dangerous situations (such as lunatics with guns, vicious dogs and ice storms).
This often emotional memoir is centered on what one middle-aged man, laid off from his executive-level job, and facing cancer and other challenges, too, got out of his year as a rural mailman – something like redemption.
The book recalls the most famous quote from Dante’s Divine Comedy:
“In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost. Ah, how hard a thing it is to tell what a wild, and rough, and stubborn wood this was, which in my thought renews the fear!”
At least if you believe what he writes in the book, he finds his way out of the dark wood.
He wrote:
“The Postal Service has never seen the American people as consumers, but as citizens.”
“I fell back in love with America during that year. I feared for her and prayed for her […] [H]ere in my hometown, where I grew up, in midlife I found myself working a different kind of job, and I became a different kind of person.”
Thank your mail carrier!