You will grow up to be marvelous

A couple of predators, not always

our favorite character, especial-

ly given how they stack the odds,

and prey without any literal nec-

essity. Still, what comes down to

breeding and obedience in the one

is more a function of cunning and

exploitation in the other, and in

time there is little to call mar-

velous in him. In the other, how-

ever, a readiness to be judged is

entirely off the charts in trust.

What an extravagance, we observe;

an enviable, dangerous mentality.

Melting sovereignty

To many of us, the gathering data

of unwonted volatility and degrad-

ation in the planet's climate re-

main no more than symbolically co-

incidental with the rise of the

New American Government. To some,

there are elements of correlation

to admire, because this Rome had

not been built in a day. To a man

stepping out with his dog for a

pre-sunrise walk in the North Am-

erican Mid-Atlantic, an unseason-

able tropicality of the humid rain

from the Gulf of Mexico set a jar-

ring counterpoint to the falling

of acorns in their path. How odd,

one does have to admit, that in a

pentecostal surge of nativism in

world politics, our diverse ter-

roirs are intermingling with a

radicalism that many will find,

ironic, but which some have long

been charting as coherent effects.

Origins of Wednesday lxxxii: What is one to do with this?

I'm not very happy with how well
the New American Government out-
fought all resistance in the el-
evation of its obvious perjurer-
partisan to the post-sacrosanct
Supreme Court. It is especially
dispiriting to find resistance
not merely strategically incap-
acitated, but more stunningly
self-absorbed than the narcis-
list it's resisting. We contem-
plate our powers of revulsion
and indignation more ostenta-
tiously, but less pointedly
than the other side regards
theirs, as if we could win a
contest of taste, to gain our
illusions back. We could more
plausibly do that by knocking
back a melon full of hooch on
the beach, if we wish to dream.

On the day in 1940, when Brit-
ain had substantially cleared
a beach in France of her Army,
Winston Churchill went down to
the House of Commons to promise
never to surrender. That night,
he wrote a short note to his
predecessor-but-one, Baldwin,
to be even more blunt. We are
going through very hard times,
but I feel quite sure better
days will come; though whether
we shall live to see them is 
more doubtful. To read our 
generation of commentators,
our diapers are wet, and we
deserve to be changed right
now. Our nemesis has thought
in terms of decades, and de-
spite the most monstrous de-
formity ever to take its lead,
has routed us all by constancy.

It is immaterial in the contest
to be more deserving. It is im-
material to inherit a grievance.
It is immaterial to linger in
elegant dissonance. Prettiness
is for débutantes, correctness
is for schoolmarms. If anyone
wills a battle, he must accept
not living to see its triumph.
It is the only way to know it.

Younger's not so bad

So the demagogues give us

more to do, because they

truly can do nothing else.

Which would you have: bore-

dom like that, or diverse

projects?

Giovanni Dopico

What happened to you?

Oh, nothing, thank you for asking.

I'd say, let's not talk about it. 

Who hasn't noticed, exhibiting ban-

dages, what a disturbance they are

to the well-intended, not to say a-

rousing, in all the wrong ways? We

notice especially the curiosity of

the children, whose natural reac-

tion of fear is seldom allayed by

a kindly wave or a smile. But with

all the evidence pointing to a prob-

ability that we're a monster, with

divine disfavor so obvious, revul-

sion is a risk among all the immat-

ure. To the guilty, it's no longer

a pleasure: less stimulating than

annoying. And that's our beginning. 

Gerard Sabé