March 27, 2019--Methinks The Attorney General Doth Protest Too Much

In less than one page of William Barr's three-page letter (it is three pages of text and one page of addresses and signatures), he mentions three times that neither Trump nor members of the Trump campaign "conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."

In the section of the letter, "Russian Interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election," the Attorney General obsessively drives home this conclusion. 

First mention--

"The Special Counsel's investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. As the report states: “[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

Second mention--

"As noted above, the Special Counsel did not find that any U.S. person or Trump campaign official or associate conspired or knowingly coordinated with the IRA in its efforts, although the Special Counsel brought criminal charges against a number of Russian nationals and entities in connection with these activities."

Third mention--

"But as noted above, the Special Counsel did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts, despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign."

And then in the "Obstruction of Justice" section, the AG and his deputy, Ron Rosenstein, again in less than one page, repeat their questionable determination that Trump did not obstruct justice.

In both cases once was clearly not enough. Why might that be?

As with Hamlet's protesting mother the truth lies elsewhere than claimed.

January 18, 2018--Ab-Normalizing

A number of friends have been accusing me of "normalizing" Donald Trump and thereby enhancing his legitimacy both as a person and president. By doing this, they say, I am tacitly accepting his election.

Though I am not quite sure I understand all that they mean, I do know they are angry with me because they feel I am treating him as if he were a normal person, rather than the embodiment of evil. That by doing so I am elevating his status as a human being and thereby contributing to enhancing his power. They would rather me consider him abnormal, an aberration not worthy of serious regard much less acknowledging his humanity.

I am sure there is some truth in these friends' disappointment in me.

But I also know there is significant danger in not acknowledging  Donald Trump's connection to the human race. To not have to deal with who he in all his maddening complexity. Dehumanizing him makes it easier to reject his very being. To be able to simply write him off. And thus delegitimatize him as president and as a human being in ways similar to how he attempted to denigrate Barak Obama.

I think we know enough about human nature to agree that few of us live in a pure state. We are all a mix of contradictions that coexist within us. Most of us, under the right conditions, are capable of acts of self-sacrifice as well as unspeakable violence. There is a struggle within us, Lincoln noted, between "the better angels of our nature" and the dark forces that pull us in the opposite direction

Aeschylus and Shakespeare would be eager to chime in. 

To bring us to a better place, to move beyond dealing in caricatures, we would do well to resist inappropriate normalizing while equally avoiding the impulse to ab-normalize. To impute evil motives to those with whom we disagree and against whom we struggle. To do the opposite of normalization.  

In the current political climate, this will require setting aside some of our anger and fear so we can better understand, with all their own human contradictions, why those who support of Donald Trump are so fervent. 

By now many of my friends feel they understand enough. Even too much. But to them it's simple--he and his supporters are racists and misogynists. Ask no more. Say no more.

I get that but think there is more to consider, including perhaps things about which we can find ways to talk. This is urgent as our fate as a democracy may depend on being able to do that.

Lincoln's First Inauguration 

September 7, 2016--The Fly (Part One)

I was all excited as my classmate English majors and I stumbled out of Professor Jim Zito's class on Shakespeare's Late Plays.

He had just finished his Lear lectures, this most desperate of tragedies, citing Gloucester in Act 4's most desperate of utterances--

As fles to wanton boys are we to th' gods. 

They kill us for their sport.

This gave me a reason to approach him. Something I had never done, intimidated by his brilliance.

Somehow finding my voice, I called to him, "Mr. Zito. Mr. Zito."

At Columbia, with Oxbridge-like unpretension, even the most esteemed professors were always addressed as Mister.

"What is it Zwerling?" he said, though born in the Bronx, with his academic version of a modified British accent.

We were all known by our last names, if known at all. I was struck that he recognized mine. I had never  felt secure enough to speak in class or even pose a question. Those student colleagues who did were already ready for graduate school--they were geniuses--or even professorships. I was still struggling to find something at which I could excel.

And so how did he know who I was? I supposed it was yet another example of his brilliance.

"Sir, I was wondering about the Gloucester quote.  Act 4, Scene 1."

"The one about the gods and wanton boys?"

"How did you know that . . . ?"

"Among the most vivid."

"I was wondering about William Blake. About the Song of Experience, his poem, 'The Fly,' and how . . ."

Looking up, over all of our clustered heads, he recited--

Little Fly

Thy summer's play, 

My thoughtless hand

Has brush'd away.

Am not I

A fly like thee?

Or art not thou

A man like me?

For I dance

And drink & sing

Til some blind hand

Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life

And strength & breath;

And the want 

Of thought is death;

Then am I

A happy fly,

If I live

Or if I die.

"How did you . . . ?"

"Not Blake's most nuanced. But, yes, I can see that it might refer to Gloucester."

"For Romantic Lit I'm writing a paper about . . ."

By then Mr. Zito had turned away surrounded by the chattering of his groupie geniuses.

This close encounter helped me realize that I too might have academic potential. If Mr. Zito hadn't seen the connection between Gloucester and Blake, then perhaps, maybe . . .

Though I was far from ready for graduate school, like Morris Dickstein or Sam Cherniak, both a year behind me, I began to imagine myself ten years hence on the faculty of an out-of-the-way state college or two-year community college.

These memories flooded back this past weekend when an actual fly flew into my life.

To be continued . . .

November 25, 2015--Word of the Year

Each year the Oxford English Dictionary--the ultimate repository and conservator of all the words in the English language--adds hundreds of new words to its existing list of 1,025,109 words.

All languages evolve. In the case of English rapidly.

This has been going on for a very long time and new words come from many sources. From Shakespeare, for example, who alone contributed at least 1,700 words to our vocabulary--now everyday words such as baseless, castigate, summit, and grovel--to prison slang, some of which over time meets the OED criteria as "acceptable" English. Slang words such as slammer (prison), screw (prison guard), and bats (cigarettes).

Each year the OED adds upwards of 1,000 words. This past year about 800 were added including--

Hangry--a blend of hungry and angry

Melty--partially melted

Butt dial--to accidentally dial a cell phone as by sitting on it

Ginormous--huge or very big

To amazon--the verb to shop or browse on Amazon.com

Manspreading--someone sitting with his legs wide apart, like the man I sat next to yesterday on the subway

Foodfie--a selfie of someone with food

Selfiecide--death of a person while taking a selfie

Then the OED has its Word of the Year, which by the rules doesn't have to be a word that was invented during the year but can reflect major events of the day. For example, last year refugee was shortlisted.

Two years ago selfie itself won. Last year is was vape. At a time when electronic cigarettes were all the rage, it meant the vapor emitted when smoked.

Runners up this year were on fleek, meaning extremely good or stylish and lumbersexual for a young urban man who dresses as if he has a rugged lifestyle.

The winner for 2015 wasn't even a word. The rules also allow that and so for the first time an emoji won. Not the word emoji, which was added in 1997 from the Japanese character for picture, but the emoji itself for tears of joy.

                                                       

February 10, 2015--Latest Homograph

Reading about the Pax Romana early yesterday morning in David Abulafia's The Great Sea, I came across, for me, a new homograph--two words with different meanings and pronunciations but spelled the same way.

Refuse as in to turn something down and refuse as trash, something to throw away.

Etymologically, they come from similar Old French sources--

Refuser, in the case of the verb refuse meaning to reject, literally to avoid; and with the homograph noun pair refuse or trash, etymologically from refus, meaning waste product.

As I have wondered here in the past, how puzzling, how strange, how truly unnecessary that with English so rich with more than 1,025,109 words, and new ones being created every day, that we have any homographs at all. Why not have refuse just mean to turn something down and another word entirely to be a synonym for trash. Say a portmanteau word such as refrash?

But there could be a problem with that since when googling refrash this came up--

Mooning with refrash shout out to Refrash of Nebula

Whatever this means. I think perhaps something having to do with an electronic game. But you get my point.

I do, though, have a speculation as to why we still have homographs.

The Old French etymological roots of refuse/refuse go back to the 14th century when our language was a lot less nuanced and so, at that time, for the sake of efficiency, and since people were busy just trying to survive, there were many homonyms, homophones, and homographs. Over time, as living conditions improved, English filled out exponentially (thanks in substantial part to Shakespeare who was both a wordsmith and multi-thousand word-creator), it would have been easy to clean this up. But English speakers decided not to do so.

Perhaps to leave traces of where we have been as a people, how much we "advanced," and how much ambiguity and mystery we wanted to retain in our language. Linguistic footprints in our amazing English, which, when you think about it, is a magical collective creation. As are all the world's other 7,000 extant languages.

There is no organization, business, or government entity whose job it is to generate new words in response to changing circumstances. Even in language-obsessed France!

We all pitch in from IT entrepreneurs to hip-hop artists to kids on the street.

May 22, 2014--Commencement Season

During dinner, a friend who is a recent college graduate, was interested in talking about the future, her future, not the food.

"I mean, I went to all this effort and my parents spent all this money so I could go to college and now I still don't know what to do. And with the job market the way it is, even if I did, I'm not sure I'd be able to find work." She sighed, picking at her grilled fish.

"Let's begin," I suggested, "with your current goal, what you want to achieve." A typical career-advsiing kind of question.

"Above all I want to be self-supporting. I know that isn't what a liberal arts major should be saying, but since I'm not sure about anything else, this is at the top of my list. I don't want my parents to . . ." She trailed off, but we knew what she meant.

"I need a job so I can make money."

"Nothing wrong with that," Rona said. "In fact, it's impressive. So many young people seem reasonably all right living at home after college and being supported by their parents."

"That's the last thing I want to do. I mean, I love them and everything, but . . ." Again she left her thought uncompleted.

"Let me put this another way," I said, "You say you want to be able to support yourself but about what you'd really want to do you're confused." I glanced over toward her but she didn't look up, instead she continued to stare at her plate and play with her food.

"But I do . . ." She was mumbling and I couldn't make out the rest of what she was saying. Rona, with better hearing, was smiling.

"But you do what?" I asked.

She looked up. "I do know what I want to do."

"That's what I was hoping you said. What is it?"

Almost whispering, she confessed, "I want to be a writer."

I smiled as well. "That changes everything. I mean, what I want to suggest. You're not really looking for a job to launch a career, like, say, in advertising or publishing." She shook her head. "You need a job to make money, which is very different, so you can support yourself while writing. Yes?"

Now all three of us were smiling. "Yes. That's what I want. What I need. A way to make money. I only hope my family will be comfortable with that. You know, they're a little more traditional and therefore think about jobs and careers differently than . . . . They want me to be comfortable, but . . ."

"But?"

"I don't want to be comfortable. In fact I want to be uncomfortable."

"From that," I said, "I now know you in fact benefited from a fine liberal education. That's one of the things that's supposed to happen."

Glancing at me, she turned back to her halibut and began to enjoy dinner.

Since then we were able to help her find work that enabled her to support herself, and I have been thinking about the importance in some circumstances of discomfort. That it is a source of inspiration for many artists and writers, including our friend.

But then, during this college commencement season, it seems there are forces arrayed to assure that  privileged young people be made as comfortable as possible.

Graduation speakers, for example, have been be pressed to drop out if they in any way would cause grads and the faculty to be upset.

International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde was to address Smith graduates but was thought by many there to have instituted regressive IMF polices in developing countries. She stepped aside.

At Brandeis, former Dutch legislator and human rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali cancelled under pressure because of her criticism of radical Islam.

And at Rutgers (where two years ago Jersey Shore's Snooki was paid $32,000 to speak) Condi Rice was scheduled to deliver the commencement address, but also withdrew because she was, well, George W. Bush's National Security Advisor when he launched his preemptive war against Iraq.

In all cases, rather than challenge students, perhaps causing discomfort by their encountering individuals and ideas that do not fit a comfortable politically-correct ideology, university officials backed off to avoid any appearance of disharmony or discord during pampered graduates' special day.

Further, other efforts to provide comfort rather than challenging discourse among undergraduates are also underway, largely out of public sight.

As reported in the New York Times, until taken down recently from its website, students and faculty at Oberlin College found the following admonitions about "trigger warnings," alerts similar to the movie rating system that warn about violence, "language," nudity, and "strong sexual content."

At Oberlin, these triggers apply mainly to required readings and the content of classroom discussions--

Triggers are not only relevant to sexual misconduct, but also to anything that might cause trauma [my italics]. Be aware of racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, cissexism [bias against transgender individuals], ableism, and other issues of privilege and oppression. Realize that all forms of violence are traumatic, and that your students have lives before and outside your classroom, experiences you may not expect or understand.

This means, as it literally has occurred on a growing number of campuses, that Hamlet might contain a trigger warning about violence and the Merchant of Venice would include an alert to students that by reading it they would find evidence of anti-Semitism.

What to be concerned about in Huckleberry Finn or the Great Gatsby? Or anything from classic Greek literature? I think you know.

This all sounds boring and oppressive. What would our young friend think? I think you know that as well.

May 7, 2014--NY, NY: A Mirror to Nature

He came at us from out of the shadows behind Cooper Union where we had just been at a public discussion between Colm Toibin, Francine Prose, and Salman Rushdie. About literature and freedom and art and truth and rebellion. And worry about the shrinking audience for serious literature. "Only old farts like me will remain," Salman said with an ironic smile.

So we weren't prepared for what felt like an imminent assault, or at least pressure to give him street money, while still with our minds on Toibin and Yates, Lady Gregory and Easter 1916 in Dublin.

From the shadows he seemed darker and more muscular than at first. And taller, towering above my six-foot-three. Even as racist as it may have been to stereotype him, I shivered with fear.

I moved the three of us along, hoping to merge with the crowd ahead bunched up waiting for the light to change. Safety in a crowd, I thought.

Before we could get to safety, he reached toward us. We recoiled, trying to avoid eye contact. But I stepped ahead, toward him, feeling I would try to take whatever brunt might come. We were getting, thankfully, closer to the corner where it was lighter and where there was a cluster of young people.

"Do you know how to kill . . ."

Trembling, I was unable to hear the rest.

"What did he say?" our friend whispered.

"Something about killing," Rona said.

"This is getting very scary," I said. Our friend cringed.

"Do you know how," he repeated, "to kill . . . a mockingbird."

By his pausing I felt relieved--he was playing with, not threatening us. Perhaps knowing where we had just been.

So I took a chance and, trying a smile, said, "I think I do."

He laughed and speed ahead.

"What was that about," our friend said, equally relieved.

"It's a New York story," Rona said. "Maybe he's a street artist."

"I hate those," our friend said, "I like my art in theaters and museums, not on the street."

When we reached the corner, with the light still red, he was waiting for us.

"As Shakespeare wondered," he asked, "when you hold a mirror to nature, what do you see?"

"What?" our friend said now full-voiced. More her old cantankerous self.

"What Shakespeare said about the Mirror of Nature."

"From Romeo and Juliet?"

"Think more," he said. "It's something you need to know the answer to." And with that he darted to the other side of Lafayette Street, avoiding the stream of cars and taxis.

"I think it's from Hamlet," I said, after a moment to think about what had just happened. "I can't remember the context, but we should look it up."

Which, later that night, I did.

In fact, it is from Hamlet. From Hamlet's instructions to the players. He advises--

. . . suit the action to the word, the
word to the action; with this special overstep not
the modesty of nature; for anything so overdone is
from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the
first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the
mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature,
scorn her own image, and the very age and body of
the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone,
or come tardy off, though it make unskilful
laugh, cannot make the judicious grieve  . . .

Overstep not, indeed, I thought.