Continued Confessions

because it is Thursday

I’ve been making notes all week about what I want to cover today, but life gets in the way. First of all, I went into Afib early this morning which sometimes causes me to take it easy (although not always). And now that I am back in rhythm, I started listening to the Supreme Court live hearing on the immunity case. Way too much stuff to distract me from my own writing. Perhaps they’ll take a lunch break in a little while and I’ll come back and finish my original rant.

Oh well, I’m finding it too hard to figure out who is speaking just listening to the radio and what I am hearing is getting me quite flummoxed. I’ll wait until the transcript is available because I have already spent the day on political issues. Earlier I was reading the compelling filler in the Time book of presidential portraits by Hugh Sidey, and I went from there to finding online an interview he did with President Reagan on July 25, 1985. It is amazing to me how calm and measured their talk is even about the attempt on Reagan’s life. I read about the turmoil of the 60’s as well, and how so many people managed behind the scenes to coordinate Nixon’s resignation. I also learned more about Gerald Ford’s subsequent pardon of Nixon, which in the Woodstock era did not sit well with many and probably caused Ford to lose the next election.

So now to the present day. I’m feeling rather fragile as my darling Mum would say, so perhaps that is why the politics seem nastier than ever. I am tempted to just read Garrison Keillor’s book entitled “Cheerfulness” for the rest of the day, but I have to leave you with a quote from my bedtime book which I am still plowing through. The six complete novels by Alistair MacLean are so well written that I could quote the author on almost every subject. But the other night a sentence really jumped out at me, so I will quote it here. I’ve decided that copyright issues don’t apply to book reviewers who may use quotes in their discussion of a book, so consider this my continuing review of Mr. MacLean’s work. In the story “Seawitch” on page 620 of the Avenel Books compilation, I find this extremely apt passage (with my emphasis added) for any voters to whom it may apply. Speaking of a character’s vendetta against the protagonist as “. . . a highly personal and extremely vindictive one and he wanted none other than himself to administer the coup de grace. Retribution exacted through the medium of other hands would not do at all.”

Meanwhile, since I last wrote I have learned a new word. Obloquy, which is a noun meaning strong public criticism or verbal abuse. And I also listened to an audio of the conversations which generated the 1971 book by James Baldwin and Margaret Mead called “A Rap on Race” because I had a memory of it and wanted to pursue its implications in our current impasse. More on that on Sunday, perhaps.