Tag: Agent Orange

Agent Orange versus my optimism/pessimism

The Trump adult male scions – THEM I need a name for; any ideas?

Arthur could hardly find any questions at all to ask me for Ask Roger Anything:

What the hell should we call the Orange Guy? I personally don’t want to use his surname, title, or anything else that would indicate respect for him that I don’t have. What’s the alternative(s) without being too childish?

I think this is a personal decision. I’ve seen Drumpf (based on the family name) which carries over to the proto-Nazi activities such as vilifying the press, and I briefly used that, but it’s a pain to spell. Others drop the T from the surname and refer to him as Rump because he’s such an ass.

I was quite taken by Hair Furor, but it works better in writing than in spoken word, because it sounds exactly as it’s SUPPOSED to sound.

Currently, I’ve settled on Agent Orange, a defoliant used during the Vietnam war to destroy the enemy’s plant life but which managed to harm or kill innocent civilians and American troops, because I find him toxic. A guy named Michael who I knew for only a short time died from it in the early 1980s. I’m not married to that term, but it’ll do for now.

All things considered—interpret that as you want—are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future? If pessimistic, what are a couple things that if they changed might make you more optimistic? And if you’re optimistic, what’s your secret?!

Yes. I mean I’m optimistic because my faith requires it. I don’t mean this in a doctrinaire way, but rather how I take being a Christian. I believe, honestly, that people can change, that we all have a shot at redemption. I’m pessimistic because, despite my faith, that’s what I tend to default to, from painful experience.

Melancholy gets in the way too, and it’s not just me: Americans who voted against AO are feeling unprecedented dread and despair.

I’d be more optimistic if I thought we were all dealing with the same facts. There was this story about the Trump adult male scions – THEM I need a name for; any ideas? – involved in some unsavory pay-for-play scheme, for the second time since the election.

Someone, who I know personally, chimed in and said it was “Fake news. Fake news. Fake news.” And she said, “Research it.” I said, I did. And she said, “Please, check with Trump sources,” by which time the boys were backpedaling, not knowing HOW their names showed up on the invitation.

I wrote, “They realize they’ve been caught doing something egregiously wrong and try to change the narrative, to be kind. You do not seem to understand the definition of ‘fake news,’ which [contains] articles that are false, written to deceive. These are mainstream news sources [TIME, the Wall Street Journal] playing the appropriate role as the fourth estate, ignoring a politician’s spin…”

I also cited Mark Evanier, who noted: “You get the feeling we’re facing four years where the response to every single criticism of the Trump presidency will be that it’s a lie, the evidence is phony and even it were true, we don’t care what anyone says.”

And it went on from there.

John Ziegler, conservative radio host: “Over the years, we’ve effectively brainwashed the core of our audience to distrust anything that they disagree with.” The quote was in a New York Times story about how conservatives are now using the term “fake news” for anything they disagree with. And even educated people are buying into it.

We can’t fight climate changeGLOBAL WARMING if we can’t agree it’s happening. Plus the nominees for Cabinet positions under Agent Orange are anti-environment, anti-labor, anti-education, et al. How optimistic do you want me to be? Still, we try.

Only slightly off topic: NO one should ever use the phrase “Do your research” on social media without a link to the research THEY are referring to. As a librarian, I need to know WHAT sources someone is quoting that I need to investigate. I’m sure I’ve written that before, but after the aforementioned incident, I feel the need to reiterate it.

Jaquandor asks a similar question:

Is it just wishful thinking that I increasingly see Trump as the somewhat accidental victory of a dying worldview?

I find in AO’s victory, and some right-wingers in Europe, including the Brexit vote, a return to tribalism. When the world is scary, with bombings and shootings and stabbings and trucks being used as weapons, I suspect that there will be a certain desire for a “good old days” that doesn’t exist, that closing the borders ultimately won’t fix.

I would like to think of it as a dying worldview, but I’m not convinced I’m right.

I think things are likely to get pretty cruddy short-term

Now THAT I agree with!

The family saw a production of Camelot at the Capitol Rep in downtown Albany on Christmas Eve afternoon. It was EXTRAORDINARILY good, with knights and ladies and even the leading lady doubling as instrumentalists. But in the end, I was incredibly sad.

That ideal of working things out under the rules of law, and brainpower, lost! War won out. And this was a day or two after Agent Orange called for a nuclear arms race.

…but I remain optimistic long-term. Am I dumb to think that?

Well, no, you’re not dumb. Without hope, what is there?

At our most recent Christmas Eve service, I read aloud Isaiah 11: 4a, 5-9, which contains the familiar, albeit misremembered, passage about the wolf and the lamb. Either it is a prophecy, or it is an entreating that we help make it happen. Either way, I am not without hope.

 

R.E.M. meme: Agent Orange and Strawberry pie

I’d eat more pie. I had this conversation with someone at work recently, and I posited the notion that pie is a perfect food.

There was this Rock and Roll Fridays: Questions from Lyrics meme that became defunct in 2011. One of the artists it covered was R.E.M., which also became defunct in 2011. And since Michael Stipe, the lead singer had a birthday this month, on January 4…

1. MAN IN THE MOON “If you believe, they put a man on the moon…”
What public scandal such as Roswell, Kennedy Shooting, Agent Orange, etc do you question?

I’m not familiar with what current scandal exists about Agent Orange. I know that while no one can sue the government or the chemical companies anymore, the Department of Veterans Affairs has recognized certain cancers and other diseases related to Agent Orange exposure. I know there WAS denial in the past. Indeed, I knew a guy who was in constant and excruciating pain, almost certainly as a result of Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam, who died in January 1983, at a point when the powers that be were less forthcoming about it.

Not so incidentally, there are children in Fallujah, Iraq whose birth defects are being blamed on US weapons.

To the broader question about conspiracy theories, I’m sure there are things we don’t know that are being buried, but I have no vested belief in any particular narrative. It’s more like I wouldn’t be surprised if activities in the area of “national security” are taking place that a reasonable person might consider unconstitutional. Or that there are studies, buried by energy companies, that would call into question the efficacy of potentially profitable activities such as hydrofracking or the Canadian tar sands project. I don’t spend much time, though, on idle speculation.

2. RADIO FREE EUROPE “Radio Free Europe, radio free Europe, calling out…”
Have you ever used a shortwave radio or listened to another country’s radio broadcast?

Many years ago, when I used to listen to clear channel radio at night, long before there was Clear Channel Communications, I could receive, in Binghamton, NY, transmissions from Wheeling, WV and Cleveland, OH, among other Northeast/Midwest US cities, plus some stations that were in French. I was probably hearing one of these in Quebec if they were around in the 1960s.

And when I’m in, or near, Canada, I listen to Canadian radio, just as I listened to Barbadian radio when I was in Barbados in 1999.

3. IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT “It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine”
What would you eat if you knew it was the end of the world soon?

Probably wouldn’t change much, except I’d eat more pie. I had this conversation with someone at work recently, and I posited the notion that pie is a perfect food. Meat pies, fruit pies, all sorts of pies.

4. LOSING MY RELIGION “Losing my religion, and I don’t know, oh no I’ve said too much…”
Have you ever said something to someone that was negative about a religion only to find that person was of the faith you were speaking about?

No. Even when I was not particularly religious, I never found it necessary to mock other religions. Well, maybe cults such as Westboro Baptist.

5. NIGHTSWIMMING “Nightswimming, remembering that night…”
Have you ever gone skinny dipping at night, or night swimming in a lake, pond, river, beach, pool?

Yes, in a river, pond, and pool.

6. THE ONE I LOVE “This one goes out to the one I love. This one goes out to the one I left behind”
Is there a song you hear that reminds you of someone in your past every time you hear it?

Are they serious? There are literally hundreds of songs that, when I hear them, remind me of someone.

My college friend Lynn loved Lady Samantha by Three Dog Night, but HATED Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick by Ian Dury and the Blockheads.
Any number of songs in my father’s vast repertoire reminds me of him, even if I heard Dad sing it first. Case in point: The Notting Hillbillies’ Railroad Worksong, though they are very different renditions.
Celebration by Kool & the Gang; Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl by Ten Years After; Fantasy by Earth, Wind and Fire; Harvest Moon by Neil Young; Constant Craving by k.d. lang; To Love Somebody by Roberta Flack; and Summer Breeze by Seals & Crofts are among the many songs that remind me of exes.
And then there are classical works that evoke memories, such as Adagio in G Minor (Albinoni), which was played by my choir friend Arlene’s husband (violin) and son (organ) three weeks before she died of cancer; more than two and a half decades later, the music still devastates me.

7. STAND “Stand in the place where you work, now face west…”
What was the last childhood game you played as an adult?

SORRY, with my daughter, this month.

8. EVERYBODY HURTS “Everybody hurts, everybody cries, sometimes, sometimes everything is wrong…”
What is wrong right now?

I’m afraid that there will be even more political posturing in Washington, DC, and it will affect our fragile economic recovery.

9. DON’T GO BACK TO ROCKVILLE “Don’t go back to Rockville, and waste another year”
Where will you never go back to?

I went to Galveston, TX in the mid-1990s, which I rather liked, but I had to come in through Houston, which I thought was a big, ugly city.

10. ORANGE CRUSH “I’ve got my spine, I’ve got my orange crush”
What is your favorite fruit flavor and your favorite way to have it?

Strawberry almost everything – especially ice cream and yogurt.

11. SOUTH CENTRAL RAIN “Did you never call? I waited for your call…”
What was the last call you were waiting for?

It’s almost always my wife.

12. DRIVE “What if you did what if you walked? What if you rocked around the clock?”
What was the last thing you did that took hours and hours to finish?

Cleaning a section of the attic.

13. POP SONG “Should we talk about the weather…Should we talk about the government?”
What was the last thing you said about the weather and the government?

That the government agencies such as the National Weather Service, NOAA, and the USGS that provide services such as stream gauges and mapping to help them predict flooding in low-lying areas should continue to be supported. For budgetary reasons, some of the gauges in my hometown area (Binghamton, NY) and probably elsewhere, may be turned off for budgetary reasons in March. This seems, as the cliche goes, penny-wise but pound-foolish, especially after the 2011 flooding from tropical storms Irene and Lee. Some in Congress want to privatize the NWS, which troubles me greatly.

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