Post #300: Eight Years Of Ramen Noodle Nation (The Reckoner & The Squawker Reflect)

<The Reckoner:
21st Century Self-Portrait

(Picasa-Style, 2012)>

Reckoner's Note: There's a saying I've often heard in my travels, I'm not sure of its provenance, but it runs along these lines: "A year in clubland is a lifetime."  We've probably heard many, many variations on this phrase, but it's easy to forget how temporary and transitory our life experiences often end up. 

Think about it. Bands tour with one, two or (in some cases) no original members, long after the glory days run their course. Beloved stores go belly up, amid whispers and rumors. Favorite clubs close up shop. Friendships founder over threadbare or nonexistent pretexts. Jobs dry up without warning. Newspapers and magazines wind down, after exhausting their reasons for being. Political parties carry on without their founders. We may not care to admit it, but that date stamp on our forehead is often closer than we realize.

Blogs are no different. When we started Ramen Noodle Nation in 2012, we had no great expectations, beyond chronicling our own mounting frustrations with the American system, and its increasingly one-sided division of spoils. Like many blog founders, we figured that, after a year or two, the whole experience would run its course, and we'd move on to other creative pursuits.

That hasn't happened. 

Although sociopolitical commentary remains at the dark, snarky heart of Ramen Noodle Nation, our themes have broadened, as our focus has broadened. At various times, the Squawker and I have tackled classic punk records, as well as the digital sweatshop, food insecurity, pay to play culture, and the realities of bringing home the political revolution, to name a few -- all driven by a purely personal slant, as only we can do it.

Along the way, we've also taken time to celebrate outsider art and writing, whether it's our own efforts in those categories, or somebody else that we want to highlight...which just goes to show, that we aren't always in a dark mood here at Ramen Noodle Nation Towers, where the crows and the ravens don't mind keeping us company.

We're still going strong, which means, in short, that this experience is still doing something for us. We hope you feel the same way. The Squawker and I recently sat down to discuss these, and other developments -- the highlights follow below, along with a few of our greatest hits. Here's to the next 300 posts, then. --The Reckoner & The Squawker

<"We Only Had $5 Between Us">

RECKONER: The reason I wanted to do this with you is because, I just suddenly realized – in looking at the number of posts, this would be number 300. I thought, “Well, usually, people do something or other...”

SQUAWKER: I never did on mine, but...

RECKONER: Well, it seemed appropriate, so...

SQUAWKER: All right. I don't even know what number of posts I'm on. I think I have a thousand (laughs).

RECKONER: In the case of this particular effort, what was it that made you want to do it, to begin with, when we started, back in 2012? Because if I recall, you kind of started it, and then, I sort of chimed in, once you got into a groove?

SQUAWKER: It was kind of my idea, because I was talking about doing a book – I actually wanted to write a book with you, about being poor, and falling down the ladder of American society. Because I had always struggled in adulthood, and I was raised upper middle-class, and I had no idea what was waiting for me.

Though, in my case, disability kind of threw me off the ladder, rather than falling down from my own lack of effort, or so. But I remember saying to you, “Hey, let's write a book on being poor in America,” and then, I thought, “Hey, why don't we do a blog on it?”

But I came up with that name (Ramen Noodle Nation). Because when I was poor, I always had to eat all these damn Ramen noodles (laughs), remember?

RECKONER: That's where you got it from?

SQUAWKER: Yeah. Remember, in Chicago, there was one day, we had $5 to eat the whole day, and we only had $5 between us. And I had to go and buy two of those Ramen noodles to eat. Then I could eat tuna fish – I wasn't allergic to it yet – and I made Ramen noodles and tuna for dinner.

RECKONER: Yeah, and I remember when you were working at that crappy job of yours, you'd give me, I think it was, a fiver every day, or for the days you were working?

SQUAWKER: Yeah (laughs).

RECKONER: I thought, “OK. I've got just got enough to get that one really cheap brand of pizza, and I can get, maybe, a two-liter or two to go with it.”

SQUAWKER: Yeah, and that's all you could get.

RECKONER: That would be my dinner in that era.

SQUAWKER: Remember, they used to let me eat at work, but they got annoyed if I ate too much there.

RECKONER: Yeah.

SQUAWKER: So really, all I could ever get was a sandwich. It's not like I could make myself a complete meal. I could get away with making myself an egg sandwich in the morning, before the kids were awake, or eating a turkey bologna sandwich. And those kids, they were skinny, but they never bought them really good food there. It was all just really processed, and cheap stuff, and it wasn't really good at all.

RECKONER: Yeah, the thing I remember about that era the most was, “Eat everything you can now, because this is going to have to last you for awhile, till the next time.”

SQUAWKER: Well, I found out later that your metabolism actually gets worse if you're on a feast or famine (type of diet), if you're one of those people. Some people, if they have less food the whole day, they'll lose weight, but I have the kind of metabolism, where if I starve all day, and then, finally food comes in, the metabolism's dropped down, I gain weight. That's what happens to people, easily.

RECKONER: Yeah, well, nobody gave a shit, that was the problem. And so, it was what it was.

SQUAWKER: Yeah.

<"I Wanted To Provide A Voice">

RECKONER: All right, so that's where we got the title from – then, what were you were trying to do? Since you started by yourself, and I joined in, at a certain point?

SQUAWKER: I guess I wanted to provide a voice for people who were poor. Everyone's always like, “Shut up.” No one wants to listen. And then, when you're out in society, you always have to pretend like everything's great. You know what I mean? You have to hide how poor you are, as much as possible, and I thought, “Well, what would it be like to actually have a website, where people talk about what it's like to be poor?”

Now, of course, if you're poor in America – well, this may not be true forever now, because America seems to be collapsing – but poverty in America has different levels. When we lived in Chicago, we were very near the lowest level, but we weren't at the homeless level.

RECKONER: Right.

SQUAWKER: The homeless level is the worst. And we were maybe at the step above homelessness. But here, while we've had money problems and struggles, we at least have stable housing, we've been able to keep cars running. That's another level of it, where you're up a little bit. Like in Chicago, we couldn't even afford the bus, we had no medicine, we only had total, base level charity medical care – living in fear.

Back then, you couldn't even sit in a park, without worrying. Here, it's pretty safe in this park, and we live in the town this park is in. We don't have to worry about anybody coming up to mug or rob us.

RECKONER: “Accosted,” I believe, is the police term for it.

SQUAWKER: Yeah (laughs). I mean, we could probably sit here for four or five hours, and be left alone. Maybe the cops would come by, if you sat out here too long. But you know what I mean.

RECKONER: After dark, maybe.

SQUAWKER: Yeah, after dark. No one cares, so... Generation X and below are falling down the ladder. No one even lets us talk about (our experiences). It's like, “Baby Boomer this, Baby Boomer that.” We never even get to hear about anybody else's reality.

<"There's No One To Talk To...">

RECKONER: OK, so, given the fact that now, suddenly, almost a decade of this has gone by, how do you feel about what you've done? Do you feel it has accomplished that goal you set out to achieve?

SQUAWKER: I think we did succeed, as far as content, but I do wish it had been able to get more traffic.

RECKONER: Well, I don't know, it's improved over the last few years. I think that has a lot to do with the way things are, of course.

SQUAWKER: Yeah. Get more readership out there, and things like that.

RECKONER: Because, remember, it's hard to get people to think about these things, when things are deemed to be okay – it's when it all falls apart, that, suddenly, it becomes more noticeable to people.

SQUAWKER: That's one thing about being poor in America. There's no one to talk to about it. It's like, there's no one I can really call up and talk to, about the reality of my life. That's the worst part of it. I can find people online.

I mean, right now, as long as I keep the rent paid, and other bills, I don't care, but it's like, before, when I was in those positions, no one wanted to hear it. There was always so much, just silencing through it all.

RECKONER: Okay. So is there something you'd still like to do, that you haven't done yet? And if so, what?

SQUAWKER: I'd like to get more guest bloggers in here, and tell their stories.

RECKONER: Yeah, I've had that same thought, too.

SQUAWKER: I also think, maybe we should provide some voices, in terms of how coronavirus might affect lives. We're actually in a better position, because I get a disability check, and you work from home, so you know, there's at least little bit coming in every week, though you lost a lot of your newspaper freelance work, but we could survive. But I wonder about all of these people who are gonna become homeless.

<"Everybody Wants The Same Amount Of Money">

RECKONER: Right, because I believe all the temporary mortgage and rent exemptions are about to be lifted in three weeks, or something (like that)? I think I read that somewhere.

SQUAWKER: While we've paid our rent on time every month, how many of these people have three or four months worth of rent piled up, and then, they got the next month's to pay? I mean, it just seems insane to me, that they expect people to pay all these bills, and they aren't making any money.

And I noticed that everybody wants the same amount of money, and even the cable company raised their prices on us, during a global pandemic. “Oh yeah, your bill was 160, but now it's going to be 220 a month.”

RECKONER: Yeah, I feel fine about what we're doing, and I've tried to develop some other themes, like the stuff about food insecurity, and the creative class, and such.

SQUAWKER: I do think we're gonna be having a Great Depression, especially if they're not able to stop the virus. If you think about it, all the social discourse has basically been destroyed, and everybody that decides to say, “To hell with it,” they're all taking a gamble with their lives, immediately.

RECKONER: That's very true.

SQUAWKER: So that's not the environment where everybody wants to go out to eat, and spend money, and have the economy humming. I mean, even we eat out a little bit, at cheap places we want to (have) stay in business. I don't feel like eating inside restaurants yet.

RECKONER: There was a consultant in a news story who put it beautifully – and his answer was something along the lines of, “You can throw as much money at me as you want. But that doesn't mean I'm going to take a vacation, or go on an airplane.” And I suspect that's the mood that a lot of people may be in, even if they had money.

SQUAWKER: Yeah. Well, I've been hospitalized before, for lung problems, and I suffer a disability where I don't have normal breathing capabilities – and I think a lot of people who've never been sick, they don't take this into consideration.

RECKONER: Well, I think the other fascinating thing, to me, about this, is – people never really thought about how everything was so intertwined. Because your ability to pay rent is directly intertwined, to your ability to earn money, or what little money you get, to pay it. And once that's taken away, there goes that money. There goes all those things that you used to take for granted.

SQUAWKER: Oh, one thing they're not talking about is, with medical care – most people who have decent jobs, they get all their medical care through their employer. But now, all the jobs are gone, all the medical care is gonna end.

And of course, we still have two fools that are against Medicare For All. I know a lot of people are voting for Biden are only doing so, because they think the Orange Demented Sociopath is gonna be the death of us all. They don't like Biden. Biden is kind of being forced on us, and while he has shown concession to a couple of things, he's not Bernie.

RECKONER: Well, who could be, though? We want to build from that, because he's not going to be around forever.

<"People Just Don't Have The Connections...">

SQUAWKER: The American lifestyle is kind of screwed up, too, and many people have figured that out. We all live in our own little boxes, and people just don't have the connections and community that they used to have anymore. Me and you, we've found community in a few places – but it's either been short-lived, based on this club, and this club – we've found it in the UU Fellowship that we have now. But even that's been stripped down, by coronavirus.

Sometimes, I wonder about my life. It's been like, a collapse life. I get sick and disabled in my late twenties. I have the economic bottom fall out. I have no medical care, it takes years to get diagnosed. We live in Chicago, try to make it there, and don't have it work out there, partially because of my health.

Then we move to this little boondock town in the middle of nowhere, and even that place, while it seems stable when we move there, it falls apart in 2004, with the few factories they had.

RECKONER: Because, if I remember correctly, there were three major employers that closed. I think there were a thousand jobs went out, between the three of them – that's what I remember. And all of a sudden, you had abandoned houses, blocks of them, and businesses closing, left and right.

SQUAWKER: Yeah. I remember, we had all these restaurants close, that had all these people leaving town. That place could get depressing, because, remember, we left Chicago to be there – and these people still saw big cities as dream life, and they hated the town. They were always saying, “This town sucks, why the hell did you ever move here?” And I was thinking, “Well, my life in Chicago was even worse, with all the crime.” And I wanted to settle there for life, and it's like, I just didn't get to. There was nothing to depend on anymore.

I don't think the center's even holding in American society – we could be collapsing. I know you don't agree with this, but I do believe that there could be a full societal collapse soon.

RECKONER: Well, there'd be a few more things that would have to happen – because, typically, if you look back at the ones (collapses) that have happened, there were several different knock-on effects that had to take place. They will, I think, at some point throw more money at it. They have already done it once or twice, and I don't think they're going to be avoiding that a third or fourth time, even.

Because, as I've said, the people that are deemed to be in jeopardy will want to take something back home, to show the folks back home: “OK. It wasn't everything you wanted, but you got something.”

SQUAWKER: Yeah.

RECKONER: People will tend to cling to that idea of, “Well, something...”

<"They Gave Us A Penny (Oh, Gee, Thanks...)">

SQUAWKER: I question capitalism. I don't believe in the capitalist system anymore. Which, I know, anyone who's a Boomer – a lot of conservative Boomers, they're all ready to get out the smelling salts when you talk that way. But they have to realize, this system isn't working for most people anymore.

I know I'm disabled, I'm kind of out of it, but the jobs, for the people I know, who are working – and I remember my years, where I had to piece together four and five part-time, crummy temporary jobs. Even the full-time ones I got here and there, they never lasted forever. It wasn't because I was fired, it was often because the money ran out, or they cut back business.

What do you think, though, of all these efforts to consider a whole new system? We're old, so I doubt we're gonna enjoy the benefits, but if people were able to turn things around, at least, maybe the young here, today's Millennials and down, would be able to at least enjoy a different type of life.

RECKONER: I'm old enough to remember the days when banks competed on the interest rates they would give you.

SQUAWKER: Yeah, I remember that. I remember having little savings accounts, when I was young – like Kid, and Teenager – and I had 3% (interest), and you actually could watch your money grow, if you left it alone. And we know that doesn't happen anymore. Even used to get a few dollars a month added to our bank accounts.

RECKONER: Actually, you know what we got, not too long ago?

SQUAWKER: What?

RECKONER: A penny.

SQUAWKER: That's sad (laughs).

RECKONER: When I went to look at the account the other day –

SQUAWKER: They gave us a penny. Oh, gee, thanks (laughs).

RECKONER: It's always been one cent, or two cents, yeah. I always laugh about that, because I thought, “Well, we've certainly come a long way from what you just described.”

SQUAWKER: Oh, wow.

<Feast Or Famine, Boom Or Bust>

RECKONER: That's one of the things we've sort of gotten into. It's all or nothing, basically. Feast or famine, boom or bust.

SQUAWKER: Well, that's how this society is, either for the very rich, or, “Forget the poor.”

RECKONER: The biggest thing, I think, that needs to happen, is – if they're going to pass anything, they need to pass ways that people could actually create wealth for themselves. Because, as I've said, Annie's Adjunct Army isn't going to be able to do that. Not on a part-time wage.

Well, let's wrap this up in a neat little bow.

SQUAWKER: Okay.

RECKONER: What do you hope to see for the next 300?

SQUAWKER: Well, I think we should explore, maybe, more coronavirus (themes), and surviving – where things could go – one thing I've thought about writing about is talk about the intersection of, intersectionality, of economic justice, and other forms of it, such as racial justice, disability rights, different issues like that, that I wanna explore.

RECKONER: All right. Well, here's to the next 300, or whatever it ends up being.

SQUAWKER: All right.

Links To Go
How We Started
The Reckoner's Introduction To Ramen Noodle Nation:
https://ramennoodlenation.blogspot.com/2012/02/reckoners-introduction-to-ramen-noodle.html

The Squawker's Introduction To Ramen Noodle Nation:
https://ramennoodlenation.blogspot.com/2012/02/squawkers-introduction-to-ramen-noodle.html

Our Top 10 (Most Read) Posts:
Baby Boomer Dad:
http://ramennoodlenation.blogspot.com/2012/08/baby-boomer-dad.html

Flat Wage USA: The More Things Change, 
They More (Fill In The Blank):
http://ramennoodlenation.blogspot.com/2014/04/flat-wage-nation-more-things-change.html

Get Rich Or Pound Sand:
http://ramennoodlenation.blogspot.com/2012/02/get-rich-or-pound-sand.html

How Things Have Changed Since The 1980's:
http://ramennoodlenation.blogspot.com/2012/03/how-things-have-changed.html

Peter Tosh: A Lifetime Of Trick Language:
http://ramennoodlenation.blogspot.com/2012/09/peter-tosh-lifetime-of-trick-language.html

Poverty Level Republicans (You Gotta Love 'Em):
http://ramennoodlenation.blogspot.com/2014/07/poverty-level-republicans-you-gotta.html

Punk Rock Art Photos: "Dead Malls Don't Talk Back":
http://ramennoodlenation.blogspot.com/2019/09/punk-rock-art-photos-dead-malls-dont.html

Taylor Swift Sleeps In Satan's Pocket
(So Satisfy Your Artistic Soul Anyway, OK?):
http://ramennoodlenation.blogspot.com/2017/04/anti-discmakers-post.html

The College Degree Glut: Did Our Ancestors
Know Something We Didn't?:
http://ramennoodlenation.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-college-degree-glut-did-our.html

Those Who Believe Those On Welfare Are LAZY:
http://ramennoodlenation.blogspot.com/2012/07/those-who-believe-those-on-welfare-are.html

My Corona Diary (Take IX): Hey America (You Got Some Splainin' To Do About George Floyd)

<Lucy & Ricky debate the issues of the day...

Sixty-some years before we had to!>
<memegenerator.net>

<i.>

I don't know how much of an "I Love Lucy fan" you are, but I definitely dug it as a kid. Many of my favorite moments revolved around the lovable redhead concocting some wacky scheme or other -- sometimes with her friend and co-conspirator, Ethel Mertz, sometimes not -- either to get Ricky back (because her insecurity said so), get rich quick (being a '50s housewife was no picnic, right?), or gain some recognition well beyond her manicured little grasp (such as when she tries to join Ricky's big band, for instance).

Inevitably, though, Ricky would figure out what was really going on. Or sometimes, he knew from the beginning, and play dumb. Or he'd retaliate with a scheme or two of his own, aided and abetted by Ethel's husband, and cheap ass landlord, Fred Mertz. In any case, the moment Lucy got busted, Ricky would bellow something along these lines:

"Luu-ccc-yyy... You got...some...splainin' to do!" 

Sometimes, Lucy would pile denial upon denial upon denial, until Ricky punctured her defense with a well-placed one-liner. Other times, she'd break down and cry and confess to the whole damn thing, absurd as it was; if Ethel had been recruited, she might beat Lucy to the punch. In any event, Ricky would warmly forgive the ridiculous stunt, reassure his wife how much he loved her, and return to his unquestioned status as chief shot caller and breadwinner.

Such were the joys, eh? As a 10-year-old, those moments amounted to pure comedy gold. Not so much in the wake of George Floyd's death -- where it seems to me, a whole lot of folks got a whole lot of 'splainin' to do. And they aren't doing it too well.

"Hey, Aaa-merrr-ica! 

You got 
some splainin' to do!"

<"I Can't Breathe (Take I)">
<The Reckoner>

<ii.>

With Trump and his henchmen, that's a given, but I feel a sense of schadenfreude watching US Senator Amy Klobuchar -- Plucky Amy, as we've proudly christened her -- struggling to defend her tenure as Hennepin County Prosecutor (1999-07), one that largely escaped scrutiny from a mainstream media preoccupied with putting down the menace they saw in Bernie Sanders.

On one hand, Plucky Amy won praise as an early champion of the "innocence movement," who worked to free wrongfully imprisoned people, often through DNA evidence. Yet she also pursued harsh prison sentences for nonviolent crimes like drunken driving, failure to pay child support, vandalism...and oh yes, graffiti tagging, which might seem harder to explain in the Black Lives Matter era.

And, like many politicos of her era, Plucky Amy had no problem pandering to the drug war crowd. After data showed a local drug court sentencing offenders to probation, instead of prison, Plucky Amy blasted that outcome as "unacceptable" (see below). Instead, she simply served up the same old tired mantra: Build the jails! Lengthen the sentences! Stack them like cordwood! Keep writing the checks! As the counselor on "Intervention" would say...

"How's that 

working for you lately?" 

I think we all know the answer to that one.

<"I Can't Breathe (Take II)"
The Reckoner>

<iii.>

But this is the same person who turned in one cellar-dwelling finish after another in the Democratic primaries -- aside from a her third place showing in New Hampshire -- yet proudly declared, to the few adoring fans who cared, "We are punching above our weight." Such weird, self-aggrandizing puffery doesn't make a terrific leader, let alone a halfway decent dog catcher. Yeah, Amy...you've got some 'splainin' to do.

However, other players in the Biden Veepstakes, Kamala Harris, and Florida Congresswoman Val Demings, are also under incoming fire. Harris, of course, endured plenty of unforgiving scrutiny about her record as California Attorney General. Like Plucky Amy, Harris aggressively pursued minor crimes with an equally steely zeal, when she wasn't fighting to keep wrongfully convicted inmates behind bars, while declining to hold their counterparts in blue accountable. Sound familiar? 

Thankfully, voters saw Harris as someone who'd moved from writing a well-received book (Smart On Crime) that argued against draconian approaches to criminal justice, to an unlikely (and unconvincing) warrior for, well..."slightly less awful" prosecution, however she vaguely defined it. Alas, there wasn't much demand for that idea at the Democratic box office, so down she went.

As for Demings, the emerging details of her tenure as Orlando's police chief (2007-11) suggests an equally problematic cocktail of shiny happy initiatives (the creation of Operation Positive Direction, an at-risk youth program) versus troubling complaints of excessive force (the breaking of an 84-year-old man's neck, leading to an $880,000 damage award from a federal jury). So, Kamala? You got some 'splainin' to do!  And Val? You got some splainin' to do!

<"I Can't Breathe (Take III)"
The Reckoner>

<iv.>

What's really depressing here -- as the inconsistencies in these records suggest, along with the fallout of Floyd's death -- is how little has changed since the early 1990s, when police brutality debates lit up in the nightly news, especially when Los Angeles exploded (literally and figuratively) after the filmed beating of the late Rodney King, an event that my father, the World War II buff, described as "something that looked it could have happened in the Warsaw Ghetto."

And, like we did in 1992, we're hearing a lot of the same broken records getting played: "Can't we all get along?" "The looting and the violence is absolutely disgusting." Not to be left out, Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell opined that the cops involved "look pretty darn guilty." Yup. Just another lovely afternoon in Mayberry, right? Only one spoiled with a lethal chokehold. 

Here's the problem with all of the above mantras. Yes, looting is predatory behavior, and it's probably being manipulated by Trump and his minions -- what else is new? But let's think a little bit deeper. Looting is essentially a crime of opportunity: "It's there for the taking, so I'm going to run off with it, because the onlookers are either too scared or indifferent to stop me."

That sounds like a fair description of the so-called Paycheck Protection Program, where large corporations pillaged most of the $350 billion -- so quickly, in fact, that the fund ran dry after just two weeks. Poster children included the Ruth's Steak House chain, which hoovered up $20 million, though it had 5,000 employees and $468 million in revenue last year.

Where's the outrage there? I didn't hear much of it on CNN last weekend, as the talking heads largely focused on when the police might regain mastery of the various cities flaring up on their watch after Floyd's death. At one point, the LA correspondents speculated on how badly the high end fashion stores might fare, amid the expected angry mobs. "Good God," I muttered. "Are we ever in trouble."

In contrast, our hometown bookstore launched a GoFundMe campaign, because the pandemic's arrival hit them during their slowest time -- springtime. The store has lasted 21 years, and its reputation extends well beyond our community. They're a prime example of who should  have gotten the PPP money, yet circumstances forced them to crowdfund their existence. 

The community has rallied around the store, to the tune of $30,000, which management thinks might secure other types of longer term funding. But it really shouldn't have been necessary. As Cornel West so brilliantly told The Hill,"Looting is wrong, but legalized looting is wrong too...I look at the wickedness in high places first and then keep track of the least of those." Those kinds of imbalances has largely gone unaddressed, especially after 30 years of the "don't ask, don't tell" style of politicking that's left so many struggling to survive.

<Coda>

The fallout over Floyd's ugly death reflects an equally ugly reality in America today: who has power, and who doesn't. Who gets the funding to survive, and who doesn't. Who gets their phone calls returned, and who doesn't. The protests are just the latest twist in that reality, because we've heard that same old pious song and dance for so long -- "We feel your pain. We hear you. We'll do something about this." But that never happens. 

Instead, we get served what we've been served up for too long. Judges and prosecutors who show no appreciation of the fire and brimstone that they rain down so freely on the unfortunates paraded before them. Cops and corrections officers who fight for the right to live tucked away from the neighborhoods that they treat with the imperial disdain of an occupying army. Empty suits in higher offices, who stubbornly and self-righteously cling to the failed policies of the past, even as ample evidence piles up of their moral, political and strategic bankruptcy.

I'm not any crazier about random looting or violence than anybody else. But I'm also not going to join in any generic condemnations of it, especially when I consider the policy contradictions that confront me. 

Here in Michigan, Governor Whitmer's extension of her original stay at home order unleashed a torrent of far right protesters, who paraded around the Capitol with guns. Never mind that it's legal. As an image, it's pretty f#cking scary, along with the nooses and extreme Nazi symbolism that these groups brought with them. Yet they were treated with kid gloves. They didn't face pepper spray, rubber bullets, or tear gas, as far as I know. The only thing they didn't get was a police escort to and from their displays of mock militarism.

A black man dies slowly and hideously, with an officer literally standing on his neck, as a crowd gasps in horror. Yet the minute people rise up to protest, they're suddenly greeted with all the fury that their local police department can muster, even as they try to make their points peacefully.

How do we explain this slight inconsistency of approach? Either it's a case of institutionalized racism, good old boyism, us-against-the-world-ism -- "Let's do it to them before they do it to us," as Sergeant Jablonski so memorably put it on "Hill Street Blues" -- or some misplaced notion of both sides-ism, which envisions a seat for racists and extremists at the table, even if their dream is to ultimately overthrow the democracy they so flagrantly despise, and foreclose those options for good.

I write from seeing oversized pickup trucks bearing Proud Boys flags zipping past me on several occasions. (And you thought Proud Boys would give hybrids a chance...) I write from seeing a similar flag hanging from a house only a block away from the ice cream parlor (though it's since gone MIA). 

There you have it: two symbols coexisting side by side, one as All-American as you can get, one as ugly as it comes. Four years ago, we wouldn't have seen that happening. How did we get here, and how do we get out of the quagmire? Right now, the answers look anything but simple, or comforting. Hey America, you got some splainin' to do. --The Reckoner


CBS News
Paycheck Protection Program
Billions Went To Large Companies
And Missed Virus Hot Spots:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/paycheck-protection-program-small-businesses-large-companies-coroanvirus/

The Appeal
Kamala Harris's Criminal Justice Record 
Killed Her Presidential Run:
https://theappeal.org/kamala-harris-criminal-justice-record-killed-her-presidential-run/

The Hill: Cornel West:"We're Witnessing The Collapse 
Of The Legitimacy Of Leadership":
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/500325-cornel-west-were-witnessing-the-collapse-of-the-legitimacy-of-leadership

The Orlando Sentinel
Val Demings' Orlando Police Career
Could Hurt -- Or Help -- Her Chances 
To Become Joe Biden's Running Mate:
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/politics/os-ne-val-demings-profile-biden-running-mate-20200605-zmgqqhgpxrbcbhws4l22b66uaa-story.html

Vox.com: Amy Klobuchar's Record
As A "Tough On Crime" Prosecutor, Explained:
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/25/18225011/amy-klobuchar-president-prosecutor-criminal-justice-record

My Corona Diary (Take VII): From 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, With Love

<"From 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., With Love

(Take I)"/The Reckoner>

<i.> A Few Preliminaries

Some absurdities do a great job of speaking for themselves. Normally, I'd snap a photo of the following object, and upload it, but our regular camera has bitten the dust, and the one we're borrowing is the latest, greatest piece of tech that doesn't have a downloading cord to plug into your computer! Which means, you have to take it out to Walgreens, and do the honors there, for $7.99 a pop. To which I can only say..

"Ick! So much for user-friendly!"

For The Squawker and myself, imagine our surprise to see our stimulus check arrive the old-fashioned way last month -- by mail, and on paper, too. That felt strange, because we've been doing it the electronic way these last few years, so we just figured that Uncle Sam would do the decent thing...and deposit it electronically, as he's done in the past.

We were so busy, I didn't get to look closely at Trump's signature lurking on that official yellow piece of paper. Remember all the fuss he made, that he actually sign your stimulus check? 

Guess what? The Tangerine Toddler got me to look at it, anyway, thanks to this letter that arrived, from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (a/k/a The White House), with love -- also, on paper, and also, separately -- via the same US mail that our GOP-led government "forgot" to budget lately:

"Your Economic Impact Payment Has Arrived

"My Fellow American:

"Our great country is experiencing an unprecedented public health and economic challenge as a result of the global coronavirus pandemic. Our top priority is your health and safety. As we wage total war on this invisible enemy, we are also working around the clock to protect hardworking Americans like you from the consequences of the economic shutdown. We are fully committed to ensuring that you and your family have the support you need to get through this time.

"On March 27, 2020, Congress passed with overwhelming bipartisan support the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES Act, which I proudly signed into law. I want to thank the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate for working so quickly with my Administration to fast-track this $2.2 trillion in much-needed economic relief to the American people.

"This includes fast and direct economic assistance to you.

"I am pleased to notify you that as provided by the CARES Act, you are receiving an Economic Impact Payment of XXXX by check/debit card. We hope this payment provides meaningful support to you during this period.

"Every citizen should take tremendous pride in the selflessness, courage and compassion of our people. America's drive, determination, motivation and sheer willpower have conquered every previous challenge -- and they will conquer this one, too. Just as we have before, America will triumph yet again -- and rise to new heights of greatness.

"We will do it together, as one nation, stronger than ever before.

(Signed...)

For more information on our Economic Impact Payment, please visit IRS.gov/coronavirus or call 800-919-9835.

<"From 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., With Love

(Take II)"/The Reckoner>

<ii.> A Few Takeaways

Strangeness abounds on any Trump project, and this letter's no exception. A few takeaways that have occurred to me, since I stuck the letter back on top of my desk:

1. The flipside of the letter features the same message...in Spanish. Seems odd, in light of Trump's demonization of the Latino community as "abusers," "animals," "criminals," "killers," and "rapists" -- to name a few of the less off-color terms he's used -- and his flatlining approval/electoral/poll standings (take your pick). 

Maybe he thinks the $1,200 or $2,400 check gets Latinos to shrug it off, and say, "All is forgiven"? If so, that's even more insulting than the name-calling.

2. "Our top priority is your health and safety." Then why push so hard to reopen an economy without some reassuring signs on the horizon, like, uh, I don't know -- the development of a vaccine? Or pushing all these companies with their fuzzily worded, gauzily condescending, huffing and puffing of "We're all in this together" advertising, to pay something like a living wage? 

On the bright side, I'm happy to see that we've settled, once and for all, whether we should drinking bleach, or injecting Lysol, to beat the virus. As Mr. Mackey, our friend from South Park, would say: Drinking bleach is bad, kids, m'kay? Just like shooting up Lysol, m'kay? So don't do it. Maybe Trump should ask him for an endorsement.

3. "As we wage total war on this invisible enemy, we are also working around the clock to protect hardworking Americans like you from the consequences of the economic shutdown."  Seems a bit rich, right, from a guy who doesn't start before 11:00 a.m.? Whose first task consists of madly Tweeting as he watches Fox News? 

Oh, and let's not forget his other big passion, golf, which he played for the first time last month since the pandemic broke out. Even in the face of death, a man's gotta swing his nine-iron, right? 

But this quote from Mark Meadows, to the New York Post, sums up the surrealism of the current mood in the White House bunker, better than I ever could: "I can tell you that the biggest concern I have is making sure he gets some time to get a quick bite to eat." With so many millions starving, it's good to know that our Commander-in-Chief isn't going to bed on an empty belly. 

4. The separate mailing of the actual check, and the cover letter, suggests some cunningly perverse plan on Trump's part -- preserving the US Postal Service that he's striving so hard to de-fund. But it's also a classic doublethink tactic -- the idea of holding two contradictory beliefs, no matter how contradictory, as George Orwell noted in 1984. On that evidence, Trump would have fit comfortably into any Politburo.

5. "We will do it together, as one nation, stronger than ever before." Try selling that to the protesters currently facing rubber bullets and tear gas, as they do in banana republics across the globe. Try selling that to George Floyd's family. Try selling that to the 75-year-old man who got shoved to the ground in Buffalo, by his city's over-militarized occupying army (excuse me, "police force"). Try selling that to anybody with an IQ above room temperature.

Well, what did you expect? 

This is Trumpworld, where no corner is too sharp to cut, where no procedure escapes without a serious gaming, where madness and mania runs through the proceedings like a red thread, where the fingerprints shine ever so brightly on the gun, one dripping in the blood, sweat and tears of the countless millions who have been shoved under the bus, to make way for the next crate load of unfortunates.

We'll see what round two brings, I guess, if it materializes. But seriously, guys...next time, leave the cover letter in your computer, okay? And maybe then, we could all get some sleep. -- The Reckoner

My Corona Diary (Take VII): Weekend Notes #1 (5/23-24)

<Just Another Day...
On the Zombie Apocalypse Movie Set:
"Downtown (Where We Live)"
Photo: The Squawker.

<i.>

Last weekend, The Squawker and I attempted to curb our cabin fever by riding around our humble little town, and spending some time (however brief) outside. For a change of pace, we parked downtown, which looked eerily like a zombie apocalypse movie set (see above). As in, totally empty, before the zombie army sets upon the lone victim -- or lucky outsider -- before they can react. That's how all those opening sequences start, right?

So that's what we did Saturday night. We parked at the end of one block, and walked in a square, stopping here or there to sit down on some bench or other. Finding a parking space downtown is usually a hassle, especially since our town has grown ever more gentrified.

Not since the COVID crisis hit, though. With so many businesses closed, or operating on an abbreviated schedule, or sticking to curbside pickup, finding a parking spot has never been easier. Squawker and I did this on purpose, because lately, whenever we hit the beach -- or the bluff -- for recreational R&R, we've found ourselves playing human dodge ball with too many people who have the same idea. 

Some wear masks, but  great many don't. Not all of them adhere to that six feet away social distancing bit. You'll end up dealing with these things, even at the relatively late hour that we chose (8:30 p.m.) to slip out.

So on this particular night, we chose to change our tack, and it paid off. We felt a bit more relaxed than usual. As the saying goes, "You can't put a price on piece of mind."

We stopped at Dollar General on our way home, where I bought a few items that we needed (loaf of enriched white bread, package of fudge graham crackers, three-roll pack of paper towels, four-pack of toilet paper). We felt especially glad to see the last two items, as they're still incredibly scarce, so you snap up what you can, when you can.

We didn't get home till 9:30 p.m. When your sleepier town feels sleepier than normal, for reasons beyond your control, it makes sense to drag out the last errand, the last left turn or two, the last circle around the oval path that rings the apartment complex we've spent so much of our time these last two months, now going on three months.

Flicking on the TV, Squawker and I voiced amusement at arriving in time for the final scene of "Death In Paradise," -- where the fourth (and latest) inspector, Neville Parker (Ralf Little), claps his forehead, realizing that he finally has solved the mystery, after all...so now it's time to gather the suspects for the final solution/confrontation. It's one of our favorite shows.

Now, if only we could turn Parker loose on the COVID-19 crisis! Imagine the questions we'd raise: How'd our democracy get so f#cked up? How did the US get caught out so badly this time? Who are the biggest profiteers, and why are letting them carrying on, doing business as usual?

"He'd solve it in a heartbeat," I suggest.

<These were just two of the 

dozen-odd or so people 

we encountered that weekend...
"On The Beach (Take I)"
Photo: The Squawker

<ii.>

Sunday proved a totally different story, as it happened. At first, we weren't going anywhere. Life felt too hot today. The forecast that called for highs in the upper 70s/early 80s had proven right on the money.

Just then, however, I noticed that my weekend pop supply was running low. "Would you care if I went to the gas station?" I asked Squawker.

"If we're going to go anywhere, it might as well be now," Squawker responded. "I was going to lay down for a little bit, so let's go while I'm still dressed."

"Okay, then."

We head down to the Pri-Mart, which is only five minutes or so away from our apartment, and I plunk down my last tenner for three Diet Pepsi two liters, plus a King Size Kit Kat, and a bottle of unsweetened tea, for Squawker.

I almost head straight home, but then I change my mind. "Hey, why don't we take a quick drive?" 

"Sure, why not? I need to get out, even for a little bit."

"Yeah, we didn't really have a spring, did we?" 

So we head back downtown, past the ice cream store, where we see roughly half a dozen people in line. None are wearing masks, and they're standing right on top of each other. Six feet apart? More like six inches, if that.

"That seems like a big risk to take, not wearing a mask, just to get an ice cream cone," Squawker ventures.

"Yeah, I know," I sigh. "They act like we're done with the virus. But it's not done with us."

We hang a left from Main Street, past City Hall, and I suggest taking a rightward loop through downtown, which will plonk us back onto Main Street. 

But Squawker isn't having any of it. "It's hotter out here than I thought, and I'm having a hard time breathing in it. Let's go home."

"Fair enough."

So I follow my left, through two stop signs, and turn left again at the bluff, where I'll follow the long main road that takes us home. This time, we notice a lot more cars, and a lot more parking spaces filling up.

Summer has arrived, and so have the tourists, apparently, in spite of the COVID sword that seems poised so scarily close to each and every person's head. We notice license plates from Georgia and New York, as well as the usual suspects from Indiana and Illinois.

"I thought people weren't traveling during the pandemic." Squawker frowns. "Or even if they could, that they wouldn't feel like it."

"So much for that idea, I guess," I shrug.

Squawker's face clouds with anxiety. "Look at them. Hardly a mask on any one of them. They're sitting right next to each other, or walking right to next each other. I guess they're not feeling the fear."

"Seems like a fair statement to me," I shrug. But, well, I think that's part of the problem. See, between all the power hungry red state officials rushing to reopen, and our own homegrown menaces -- specifically the newly-revived militia movement, the Proud Boys, and so on -- all agitating likewise in so-called blue states, like Michigan, I've learned one thing.

Fear is in the eye of the beholder. How that helps us in our worst, longest sustained period of crisis -- COVID-19, the implosion of our economy, the shedding of jobs that accompanied it, George Floyd's death by cop, and so on -- remains to be seen. -- The Reckoner

<Sand barrier put up
to slow that lakefront erosion,

as it creeps up

ever so closer:

"On The Beach (Take II)":
Photo: The Squawker