“Ken Burns’
Prohibition’ aired on PBS recently. Largely based on Daniel Okrent’s Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition,
it eerily echoes the push in our own time by passionate minorities to impose
their narrow moralities on the rest of us. For those of us with ears to hear,
it warns of the seismic effects of unintended consequences and slippery slopes.
With the 2012 elections “only” 13 months off, the choice du jour is beyond dismal. On the
Democratic side, we have a petulant self-proclaimed messiah who alternates
between prolonged bouts of pouting and televised tantrums, timed so as not to
preempt his rivals’ pre-packaged milquetoast ‘debates’ or delay football games.
Over at the Republican camp, an endless parade of bombastic boobs produces a
barrage of inane sound-bites in the quest to host the Ultimate Tea Party. In
Bizarro World, millionaires whine about “class warfare” while the beleaguered
middle class continues to contract.
Meanwhile, young legatees of pervasive governmental
dysfunction initiate a social-media-fueled ‘Arab Spring’ of their own from
Zuccotti Park near Wall Street, igniting cyber-solidarity movements across the
country.
Op-ed pundits wring their hands and quote Yeats: ‘The
best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.’
They never continue to the poet’s ominous punchline, ‘… what rough beast, its
hour come round at last, / Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?’
What rough beast indeed?”
The above is the text of a letter posted Wednesday
morning to the Wilmington and Southport newspapers. Chances are
fair-to-middling it will get published in one or both, not that it matters:
ranting to readers counts mostly as preaching to the choir. More interesting is
what set me off in the first place.
A catalog arrived in Tuesday’s mail, its cover emblazoned
with the promise of a “Free Gift!”
That’s all it took to light the fuse.
Listen: “free gift” is a redundancy. It ain’t a gift if it ain’t freely given. We’ve
all received token donations from someone or other (Momma, in my case) with
strings and conditions attached into perpetuity. Those aren’t gifts. Those are
loans.
Okaaaaay, you
say, slowly backing away.
No, wait—there’s more. How about the ubiquitous yet
reprehensible adjective “proactive”? What the hell is proaction? Is its opposite negaction?
What’s the matter with plain ol’ action?
Is the “pro” part meant to be an ersatz intensifier? Is a proactive stance more vigorous than a merely active one? Or just more ignorant?
It’s the little things that rile me most. The unthinking
sloppiness of daily life—the pervasive petty rudenesses of people surgically
attached to electronic devices, the sad state of spoken as well as written
English (some academic nutcase recently published a volume of rap lyrics and
called it poetry), the “no bad art” crowd, the disdain of good manners. Al
Franken (someone I’m not in the habit of quoting) once said, “When anything
goes, everything goes.” I heard in those words a tocsin knelling the death of
things I hold dear.
It gets worse, but at least some of us are talking about
it. To join the conversation and meet a few of people calling themselves the 99 percenters, click on http://www.wearethe99percent.tumblr.com and http://www.occupywallstreet.org.
Given, those who accumulate massive student-loan debt started out with bad
directions, especially when all they have to show for it are degrees in Fine
Art, Poli-Sci, English Lit or, like me, a B.A. in Modern European History. (Now there’s a useful major. I meant to
teach, but I don’t play well with authority figures, and they’re the one thing
the education establishment churns out in abundance.)
But I don’t have debt, then or now. Debt aversion is a
mantra for Tim and me. We have a solid idea of what “enough” is, take
responsibility for ourselves and the choices we make, and are not “above”
manual labor. In fact, manual labor is a solace. More people, especially—but not
exclusively—kids, should give it a go.
For a view from the other side of the world, look at Kiwi
blogger Lance Wiggs’ October 4th post.
And do check out the 46th comment.
The land of the free and the home of the brave has
morphed into the land of it’s-all-about-me and the home of the (wage)slave.
“Our rulers live in a different country,” remarked a character on one of my
favorite BBC cozies. How sadly true that is. How sadly true that we allow it.
*****
 |
| Carolina sphinx moth |
Well, therapy for me is as close as the screened porch’s
door. Hornworms invaded the tomatoes, and I let them because I like sphinx
moths and wasn’t getting much fruit anyway. I got out my Joyce Chens and
reduced the plants to compost-friendly six-inch-long stem units. I balanced
that destructive activity by ordering a pound of red clover seed to sow as a
leguminous cover crop from Johnny’s Select Seeds.
Death and life, all very cosmically and psychically satisfying.
 |
| Mammoth red clover, Trifolium pratense |
The weather
out back sparkled, relieved of the onerous heat of high summer. October is
always one of my favorite months no matter where on the planet I find myself
when it rolls around. The windows are open ‘round the clock, fresh air
replacing climate control. October makes all things seem possible, even to
depressive old curmudgeons such as myself.
Thanks for
dropping by. Oh, and have a nice day.
Kathy
