Bon Voyage

As the detritus ofthe 99% occupations is swept into dumpsters, the movement appears to be sinking. No leadership or agenda emerged during the protests. Quite the contrary, the occupiers seemed to lose sightof their broader goals, and let the symbolism of seizing public parks become their actual and only consensual objective.

We also learned this week that the Tea Party's popularity has ebbed and that the sixty Congressmen who identify with it may have a hard time getting reelected. The public has as dim a view of the Republican party as they do of the Democrats in the wake of a shamefully stalemated and ineffectual first session of the 112th Congress.

Meanwhile, the wayward course of the Republican Presidential race continues to reveal that the Grand Old Party is adrift. Herman Cain's support in Florida plunged from thirty four per cent to just ten in less than a month. His pitch about being an outsider and a non-politician was catchy, but now the limelight is on Newt Gingrich, the consummate Beltway insider and backroom fixer. Newt's ascendancy has energized the campaign of Ron Paul who despises Gingrich and is eagerly attacking him.

This all has the feel of the end of a cruise, when newly bonded passengers and shipboard lovers make earnest pledges to stay in touch but then don't even bother to send each other copies of their snapshots. We're just along for the ride and when the ship stops, we disembark as fast as we can.

The fact is that no candidate or movement today is realistically addressing America's challenges, all of which are international in scope. That's why the campaigns and movements that break in and out of the news have an air of unreality to them. Passionate fools lay the blame for whatever they don't like at the feet of easy targets: rich people, liberals, Muslims, illegal aliens, gays, abortionists, pot growers, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, etc. Politicians try to shield the populace from all unpleasantness: taxation, war, and the changes demanded of us over time.

The minority in the middle stands ready to support a leader who will eschew blame and chart a course of responsibility and sacrifice. We've been waiting a long time for such a favorable tide.

Poster of the Oranje by Jean Walther, 1939. This beautiful Dutch ship did not need to be repainted when it was pressed into service as a floating hospital during World War II. After the war, it was renamed the Angelina Lauro and saw long service as a cruise ship until a galley fire destroyed it. Her sister ship, the Achille Lauro, was hijacked by Palestinian terrorists in 1985. Click on the picture for a closer look.

No posting this week

I'm part of the throng that's jamming the freeways on this holiday weekend. Please come back next week.

Autumnal Reflections

Autumn at its most stark. My mountain has been visited by a frigid cloud and I can't see farther than a tree or two past my property line. The black oaks' leaves are yellow and they alone find something to glimmer about in the subdued morning light. Our October snow was untimely and warm days followed and melted it, but now there's no question that winter is nigh.

Thanksgiving is a harvest holiday and those are always the best. Traditionally, grain bins and smokehouses are full, the weather is not yet forbidding, and memories of summer are still fresh; indeed my tan hasn't fully faded. After Thanksgiving come the Winter Solstice holidays: Christmas, New Years, Hanukah, and Kwanza, and they'll be observed around fireplaces and with candles and colored lights. But today, it is the autumn leaves that blaze.

It is my custom at this time of year to reflect with gratitude upon my life, my family, my friends, and upon the state of the world. In this space, I've written before that I find hope in the fact that our dire economic straits are distributional and not born of famine, disease, pestilence, or want. We have food, energy, products, markets, and capital. We just need to learn to manage them better.

In the Bible, the first commandment given by God after finishing His creation is: "Be fruitful and multiply, replenish the earth, and subdue it." Thanksgiving should make us ponder how well or ill we are carrying out our charge.

Autumn Hills & My Studio by Robert Vonnoh (1858-1933). I don't know much about the artist other than that he was an avid student of French Impressionism, a beloved teacher in the US, and said to be of a gentle and melancholy disposition--a man who liked nothing more than to set up his easel in the open air. In short, a man of autumnal temperament. Click on the picture for a closer look.

No Posting This Week

My motherboard bit the dust and now I'm consumed with recovering and reinstalling. Please come back next week.

The Not-So-Silly Season

One year from now we will be voting for President. I'm reluctant to write another word.

There may have been a time that I looked forward to national races, but I can't recall when. We have a full year of punditry and predictions to look forward to, together with equivocations, clarifications, and gaffes--and all done in deadly earnest.

We'll no doubt witness a blizzard of attacks and allegations, and quite possibly an October surprise or two. It will fall to the vice-presidential candidates to cast the biggest and sharpest stones. The heads of the tickets will try to defend themselves, and defame their opponents, while still looking presidential. Absent a quick wit, it won't be a pretty sight.

And when all is said and done, very little of it will matter. Regardless of the winner, Washington will return to its horse trading over half measures.

In the past month, we've seen two Republican frontrunners rise and fall due to their vanity and ineptitude. Rick Perry wasn't prepared to debate the issues or defend his record, and Herman Cain wasn't up to scrutiny of either his policies or his character. Neither has exhibited any grasp of how complicated the world is or how far reaching a chief executive's curiosity ought to be. Perry announced a hastily conceived flat tax proposal that even conservative economists denounced as nonsense. Cain, losing his sense of humor and bonhomie, has resorted to barking at reporters, inventing strange facts about China, deriding the importance of foreign policy, and blaming Perry for spilling the beans about his harassment of female former employees.

Obama got in trouble last week when he made a joke at President Sarkozy's expense, so we may not be hearing anything funny from him again. Mitt Romney has never gotten a laugh in his life. Will no one save us from this impending gloom?


James Madison by Gilbert Stuart, 1804. Stuart painted the first six Presidents, including the Washington on our dollar bill, plus a thousand other American faces. The statesmen all appear formal and cerebral, reminding us that the United States did not begin as a populist democracy, but as a republic in the hands of an intellectual elite. Stuart himself was said to be an engaging personality who amused those who sat for him. What a waste that he didn't paint the smiles that he had evoked. Click on the picture for a closer look.

Night of the Living Chocolates

Sometimes we fly into the maw of our fears. On Halloween, we masquerade as demons. At the movies, we cry "Bring it" to those that would frighten us. And then there's trick-or-treating, when we let children forget everything we've taught them about candy from strangers.

The story of Hansel and Gretel is for a different time of year. The gingerbread home, bedecked with chocolates, sugared fruits, marzipan, and penny candies, wherein resides a cannibalistic witch, is a fine cautionary, but not for the night of October 31st. On All Hallows Eve, the kids walk right up and ring the bell, take whatever treats are offered, and soap the windows of old fools who won't come to the door.

Of course, each year the urban legends are rehearsed: razor blades in apples, maraschino cherries laced with LSD, and now, perhaps, counterfeit candy from China sweetened with anti-freeze (I made that one up). Even though the stories never pan out, they belong to the scary lore of Halloween. My uncle used to say he was going to pass out plastic bags to the kids, but he never did it.

I've saved up quarters this year in lieu of treats as I no longer allow chocolate into the house. I've also refused an invitation to watch football Monday night because I feel it's my duty to be home when the wandering sprites and neighboring goblins come to call.

Peddlers are extinct. Door to door Christmas Caroling has all but died out in the cities. Halloween is the only time I can think of when a stranger's knock is a welcome event. I wouldn't miss it for the world.


Hansel and Gretel in a scene staged by Grace Coddington and photographed by Annie Leibovitz for Vogue, 2009. The witch is Lady Gaga whose excellent duet with Tony Bennett, The Lady is a Tramp, was released this month. Click on the picture for a closer look, and Happy Halloween.

No posting this week.

Please come back next week for a Halloween posting.