and when the cheering stopped

I watched President Barack Obama's eulogy for the victims, survivors, and heroes of the Tucson tragedy.

President Obama was passionate, moving, respectful, somber, eloquent, elegiac, fatherly, priestly, rhetorical, and transcendent. His words were a healing and a balm. His words were pastoral, in the sense of being like a pastor, or a shepherd.

I thank him.

I didn't quite get the crowd. I was shocked at the cheers. It sounded like a pep rally. Very odd, and disturbing, to me. Off-kilter, misplaced.

But Mr. Obama rose above all that and sternly but poetically exhorted us to be led by our better angels. He invoked scripture and patriotism to summon our better selves.

May it be so.

the unflagging flagness of flag day

Flag Day. June 14. As a schoolkid, flags galore, a parade around the school. Then, in the Sixties, the flag was appropriated by the "America, love it or leave it" crowd, meaning the crowd that brooked no dissent, that wanted blind allegiance during an unpopular war, the crowd that seemed to say, "The flag means this and only this or else you are un-American and disloyal" and cue the music and the bromides and the jingoism. There were backlashes to all that, ranging from flag burning (which I opposed and still oppose and don't get, but still believe in freedom of speech even if I radically disagree with such speech or expressions of speech) to clothing of flag designs, on undies or kerchiefs or dresses or ties. One person's honoring the flag was seen as blasphemous by another, and vice versa. Then right after 9/11, we put a flag up on our house. Proudly, defiantly, gladly, collectively, sadly, yes, patriotically. Our hillside street on Tipperary Hill, in Syracuse, looked picture perfect with flags rippling at dawn or dusk. But should we have castigated a neighbor if they chose not to fly a flag? No, and we did not. But I myself felt it really was a time, like my childhood, when the flag was a true unifier, when it represented a huddling of a family under a protective shelter, a collective cloak of armor and quiet pride. That's just me. For some, it was a rallying symbol of jingoistic and simplistic revenge, or would-be revenge. I guess. I can't read minds. Today? I don't know. I think the right still likes to appropriate the flag for exclusionary and militant purposes. When I saw American flags waving in Berlin while Obama spoke or in Chicago when he won, I thought that maybe we were over with parochial possession of the flag's meaning. Don't get me wrong: it would be no counter-victory for broad-minded patriotism if the left seized the flag for its own agenda to the exclusion of others (not sure, really, how that would work). The flag is broad, its stripes sweep outward. Its stars are in a wide firmament, its colors are of multiple hues. May it stand for the values no one owns alone but that everyone embraces in a civil and free society (don't forget the civil in civilization).

It Once Was Lost But Now Is Found

"It once was lost but now is found," to mimic the words of "Amazing Grace," first encountered by me via Judy Collins. I thought it was a folk song, not a hymn. What did I know? The "it" here refers to my Obama '08 campaign button, whose loss was lamented in the preceding post.

I found "it" today by reaching into the right pocket of my black dress pants.

Bingo.

I thought I had already looked there.

"It" appears when one is ready, or not at all.

Can't create coincidence.

Or was "it" here all along?

Next.

Letting Go of Letting Go

I've posted before of losing things. Things like what? Objects, objets d'art, detritus, money, talismans, omens, flotsam, jetsam, effluvia, phylacteries, memorabilia, memory, vice, virtue, navel lint, connection, magnetism, mass, thinness, agility, and gravity; not to mention love and loved ones.

I can't find my Obama campaign button.

Bothers the hell out of me.

For weeks and weeks, I know precisely where I had kept it: on my bureau (actually my wife's but I've been using part of the top of it since I've lived here), right next to my deodorant. That is a rock-solid certainty.

Then several days ago, I retrieved the button. Why? I guess to wear it for the inaugural events. A badge of pride.

But I didn't wear it. I kept it in my coat pocket, the pocket of my winter coat, fingering it like a novitiate telling his beads, keeping track of the button's whereabouts so I would not misplace it.

Then I extracted it at some point out of my coat pocket for, um, safekeeping.

Gawd!

Right.

Where?

God knows (presumably) (is it not presumptuous of us to assign the metaphysical boundaries of omnipotent knowledge? Maybe I've placed this mere object beyond the verge?).

It's not just the fetshistic and ritualistic attachments I am prone to, not just the neurotic-obsessive -compulsive mania; it's also the abject despair of: This Is It. This Is What the Sunset Years Will Consist Of. This And So Much Painfully More.

Plus, the shame of knowing that no one believes me when I say I know exactly where it was (past tense being operative here).

Spare us, O Lord.

Isn't that the refrain of many a litany?

The Litany of the Lost?

Sparkling Words of Wintry Inaugural

I was a bit harsh on myself yesterday. I can see now the ambivalence in the phrase "winter of our discontent." It can conceivably mean not only the ebb, the terminus of a time of discontent, but also a winter consisting of discontent. The latter meaning was ignored when Mr. Kokonuts called himself a "simple mind" or some such yesterday.

It turns out that Pawlie Kokonuts was a bit of a prescient pundit in using this wintry metaphor. Barack Obama closed his inauguration speech with rich winter symbolism, drawing on words of George Washington.

Here's the excerpt:

In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

"Let it be told to the future world...that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive ... that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

The Winter of Our Discontent?

Being an English major (LeMoyne College, 1970), I know that "Now is the winter of our discontent" are the opening words to William Shakespeare's play Richard III, a tragedy whose eponymous cinematic portrayal by Sir Laurence Olivier I still remember.

I confess my simple mind has sometimes been confused by those lines. Um, let me see: if it's the winter of the discontent, then it must equal the season of content, right? Huh? Yeah, Pawlie.

I am taking these lines terribly out of context -- and Richard III is a villain -- but my prayer is that it may indeed be the winter of our discontent and that it may indeed be true that "grim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front."

God bless Barack Obama on his journey, on our journey.

And here's some majestic footage to enjoy.

Out-takes

1. Several weeks ago, wearing an Obama T-shirt, I am accosted in the university area by a panhandler near Starbucks. I'm in no mood. "Hey, Obama!" he shouts out once I'm across the street. He takes me as an easy mark. I'm not. Like I said, I ain't in no mood. I always gladly help out the neighborhood guy, Mike, who makes his living collecting bottles and cans. That's his job. Mike never panhandles. In fact, he does not ask for anything, just works the streets, even in the dead of winter. We've become first-name friends.

2. Yesterday, Election Day, at Arby's in rural Upstate New York, a young truck driver glares and glowers at me; he wants to catch my eye. At first I thought he was staring at me because we knew each other. I come to realize it must be my Obama button. I'm afraid, honestly wary, about saying anything to him. He looks steely and fierce. I eat, read the paper (the Times, of course), don't raise my eyes. He leaves, drives off in his huge waste hauler.

3. Today, Hess gas station, west side of Syracuse, I'm buying the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Daily News, The Post-Standard. I'm standing in line next to a black woman, professional, maybe in her forties. I've got my bow tie on and sport jacket. Our eyes meet. I say, "It's a great day, isn't it?" "It's a beautiful day," she says, her face radiant, beatific. We both exchange campaign stories. I tell how the day before, in Athens, Pennsylvania, young and old, black and white, Hispanic, straight and gay, worked together. "This is America." She tells of having 18 kids, presumably students, work in the campaign. We have tears in our eyes. I think she thanked me. Huh? Did I thank her? I walk to my car. I want to just walk back inside and hug her, but by then she was either gone or other customers were in line. Plus maybe she'd think I was weird, but I don't think she would. More likely, I'm afraid of what emotions would pour out of me.

4. Later this morning I fetishistically go to buy another copy of the Times (they say they were selling for $199 on Ebay; people in various cities waited in line merely to buy newspapers!). I wanted a copy without a price tag of $1.75 on it (besides, it's only supposed to be$1.50). I want a clean, unblemished original. An older woman, matronly, 60s or 70s, is behind the counter. Humorless. You know the type. "It's pretty historic. A good day to buy the paper." Nothing. Blank. "Here's your change, sir."

5. Wearing the button is a cultural-political-emotional barometer of sorts. "Obama!" a woman in the post office says to me in the mall post office, in a good way, I surmise.

History

Walking the walk, I drove (not walked) to "battleground state" Pennsylvania (Athens, Pennsylvania, to be exact) today, making calls to prospective voters, for Barack Obama, I'm proud to say, this in addition to canvassing several weeks ago, with my daughter, 11, in Erie.

For once, The Laughorist was not a voyeur of his history or history with an initial cap (i-cap, as editors say).

I feel spiritually and emotionally obliged to post on this historic (not "historical," as some have erred) day.

I close with these two quotes, from an American treasure, the nonpareil ballerina Suzanne Farrell:

"You don't just become a ballerina; you have to get there, and the only way to get there is to live and dance."

I quote these words because if you substitute "person" or "citizen" for "ballerina," and if you substitute "act" or "do" for "dance," you have the same existential equation. More or less. Or you have parts of the same Zen koan.

And:

"You have to live in the now, and you make your now."

Amen.

See, liberals can say "amen" too.

American History

Win, lose, or draw, history was made tonight with the nomination of Barack Obama, the first African American to be nominated for president by a major party. I fully understand that such a status does not automatically qualify him for that job, or any job. I get that.

Congratulations.

I am proud to be an American, a Democrat, and an Obama supporter (with cash to back up that statement). At this point, I will not launch into an array of reasons for my supporting him (but one reason is rhetoric: I obvously believe in the power of words). Besides, my opinion is unlikely to change anyone's views. But picture me, an old white guy, backing this galvanizer -- and I'm not expected to be in the demographic of his supporters.

Congratulations, Senator Obama.

For the most part, this blog avoids overt political discussion. But at times such avoidance verges on the immoral.

Case in point: I am morally bound to ask:

why did the American media make so little of nearly 100 civilians, including an estimated 50 children, allegedly dying recently from an American airstrike in Afghanistan? Even if the allegation proves to be wrong, my God, can you imagine if it was one blond, blue-eyed child in Santa Barbara, California, or Greenwich, Connecticut, or Omaha, Nebraska, who died from an airstrike by occupiers of our land, however well-intentioned ? Can you imagine the cable chatter? American TV gushes more about somebody's Olympic bronze medal (that's an assumption; I didn't watch the Olympics) than the death of innocents, even if accidental, even if not by our forces, even if . . . .

We seem blind to the rest of the world, obtuse, as evidenced by a stroll through news coverage at The Guardian or Der Spiegel or the BBC.

Candidates' Cant

Of course, the most delightful thing about blogging is self-publishing. Who needs Corporate Publishing America (CPA), when we can publish ourselves?

To wit: The Style Invitational of The Washington Post published humorous suggestions for presidential candidates' slogans. Some of my faves were:

Dick Cheney: Why Settle for the Lesser of Two Evils? (Mark Eckenwiler, Washington)

Lorena Bobbitt: If Elected I Will Not Sever (Russell Beland)

Lance Armstrong: One Tough Nut (Ben Aronin, Washington)

Texas Gov. Rick Perry: You Know He'll "Faithfully Execute" (Mark Eckenwiler)

But, alas, I must report that none of my entries to this humor contest were deemed funny enough to see the light of day (or were considered too crude for a family newspaper and its online counterpart, or were nearly identical to the suggestions of too many other entrants).

So, in the interest of full disclosure and fully realized Laughorist humor, here are my suggestions (pared down to my favorites) for presidential slogans:

Sam Brownback: Brownback. Not wetbacks.

Hillary Rodham Clinton: It Takes an Electoral College.

Hillary Rodham Clinton: I Won't Blow It.

Barack Obama: Barack to the Future.

John McCain: Give war a chance.

Rudolph Giuliani: Here's your president, right here.