What other word than Great?

It is ironic how the things Trump destroys are the things that made us great: science, arts, health, foreign aid, generosity, an adherance to ideals.

A Great Nation is a beacon for foreign students and scientists and intellectuals. They compete to find a place in a great and prospering nation. Citizens and foreigners learn from each other in a country open to diverse ideas and debate, in a country that promotes advancement. 

That beacon defines greatness, and has done so for millenia. The centers of greatness have shifted over the years, but we can recognize where they have been thoughout history.

I mourn our greatness. I'm angry at how it is being destroyed: by simple stupidity, not from natural disasters or war or invading barbarians.

Home-grown barbarians are destroying us--barbarians abetted by ignorance, greed, and the selfish fear of politicians who could oppose them.

I want America to be great again. I want us to Make America Great. But we can't use that slogan any more for what it ought to mean.

 

In the morass

"The graveyards are full of people who thought they were irreplaceable."1 2 

The sad truth is that many of them were.

That's not the point of the original sentiment.

The point is--

If people are remembered for their worst mistake, President Biden will be remembered for his failure to stick to one term.

During the New Hampshire primary, we were inundated with ads and emails urgently telling us that a write-in vote for Joe Biden was the only way to prevent Donald J Trump from regaining power and ruining our democracy. It didn't make logical sense at the time. In hindsight, the opposite may have been true.

Me? I've been saying since November: "Don't blame me. I voted for Dean Phillips."

1  2

cooked a proper French omelette

...with chopped leek, chives, and garlic sprouts--greens from our garden.

In the fancy French omelette pan. (ok, it's a crepe pan, but still fancy and French.) 

The eggs were best-by March, and now it is May. They were fine. 

I'd been practicing omelette making before we all got scared from the high price of eggs and stopped eating them as cavalierly as we had done before. 

But that was no reason to stop completely. I mean, we ate fish last night that was certainly more expensive.

McGuire's Wicked Oz

Listening to the audiobook version of Gregory McGuire's Wicked apparently did some serious harm to my psyche. I get an inward cringe when exposed to any references to it, though I'm told the play and the movie were much more enjoyable. 

My childhood was an Oz-infused world. There was the annual network broadcast of the movie and thus pilgrimage to my cousin's house to watch it on her color TV. But most important were the books: the classics by L.Frank Baum with illustrations by John R. Neil, and then the later ones by Ruth Plumly Thompson--and then a few also written by John R. Neil. (I loved John R. Neil, as only a little girl can love the man who draws her ideal fairy princesses.)

To be able to read the Oz books was my main motivation for learning to read.

Our eldest sister Melinda (rhymes with Glinda) was the keeper of these sacred tomes. We would approach her with a request to borrow one of them only when we were certain she was in a good mood. What if she was in a bad mood, and said no? Then we'd have to wait even longer before we could ask again. (For the record, this feared scenario never happened. She never did refuse to lend us a sacred Oz book, once we'd worked up the courage to ask her.)

Most of the Oz books were inherited from our cousins. There were a few books missing from the collection. Prior to a Hanukkah trip to the discount bookstore where books were sorted by publisher, we'd check and carefully memorize the publisher: Reilly and Lee. Reilly and Lee. "Reilly and Lee," we'd say, entering the car, then again while entering the bookstore.

I appreciated that McGuire had read all the books. That showed in his details, like Smith & Tinker being the manufacturer of mechanical men in both the original books and in McGuire Oz. These details added to the creepiness--as if the true evil had always lurked in Oz--as if any adult could have seen it, the way we all learn horrible truths about the real world as we grow up. To grow up in the real world is to replace one-by-one the simple ideal explanations that the grownups start us off with. Likewise, McGuire Oz is an unmasked evil that we hadn't noticed before only because we were children.

But my Oz, our Oz, was a child's paradise.There was no evil truth to learn about the world, no need to grow up. No one ever died there. You stayed the age you liked best. 

When Dorothy ate a ham sandwich from a lunchbox she'd picked from a lunchbox tree, we asked our Orthodox Jewish father if we could eat a ham sandwich if it grew on a tree and he said yes. We could even eat ham sandwiches in Oz. Freedom and fantasy. Oz was the Best Place, a Refuge. Escape.

Oz never left me, no matter how old I grew. After all, you're the age you liked best in Oz--and why would anybody choose to grow up?

I listened to the Wicked audiobook during my pre-Covid, pre-remote-work, hours-long stressful car commuting to and from my out-of-state job. So ok, maybe I was already vulnerable? And ram, stomp, onto my childhood paradise went the well-written riveting narrative--I couldn't escape McGuire Oz, not until its sad sad ending.

No.

Some time I'm sure I will see the movie. The bits of stills from it I've seen are pretty. But I haven't the courage yet.