Trees Instead Of Flags

To advocate for democracy is to discuss far-fetched, unachievable notions, though I now have good reason to say, "my country is truly amazing." I for one enjoy what I'm seeing, living in a time when the institutions and the words used to define them are wearing out, visibly eroding, making it clear that I have to change my thinking and somehow acquire some new gills and two new eyes.

Meantime, loneliness is getting a bad rap. It's become a minor crime, like smoking a cigarette or taking an evening jog in a neighborhood in which you do not belong. Loneliness is the untouchable one who wears an orange jump-suit and walks the streets as a perfectly happy free man, without thinking that everyone who sees him sees him with pity. I don't know what I'd do without my loneliness; I'd be totally lost without it, to the degree that if I weren't lonely I could probably be persuaded to join the space program, volunteering to be strapped into one of Elon Musk's rocketship's and sent to the international space station while wearing a bow-tie. The mission? To return safely and bestow peace on earth.

Here on the mother planet there's golf on television again, but without spectators, exposing the sport for the boring spectacle it is. Watching, one is more dependent than ever on the words of the announcers and the players, both of whom have very little to say that is even vaguely interesting, and the viewing experience is somewhat akin to using  ZOOM or FaceTime--a disembodied environment in which a mouth moves but no sound immediately emerges until the mouth of the listener moves to the exact same effect.

I switch the tv to network news, the 24-hour variety. There's the Secretary of State, not someone I'd want to sit next to at a dinner party or meet in a dark alley, calling the International Court in The Hague a "kangeroo court." He speaks from a podium, with four large American flags draped behind him so that he appears to be cloaked in the raiments of the greatest country on earth. Would the Secretary be lying to us so shamelessly, would he be so puffed up with self-importance if, instead of being backed by American flags he was backed by trees? An oak tree, a sycamore, an elm?

Somewhere in Europe someone has stolen a famous painting from a famous museum. Authorities are bamboozled. It's not interesting to me that the famous painting is stolen, and I'm not that interested at in knowing who stole it. What's most interesting to me is who is going to buy it.