Tuesday, August 4, 2020

Trump's nonsensical self-justifying drivel: "What the f*ck is he talking about?"



PIERS MORGAN: President Trump's painfully deluded train-wreck HBO interview proved he hasn't just lost control of the coronavirus – he's lost control of reality

By Piers Morgan for MailOnline

In every great American crisis, there is a moment where the whole world can see the true character of a President.

For George W. Bush it came when he was photographed staring down from the luxurious comfort of Air Force One on the wreckage wrought by Hurricane Katrina, after his government's woefully inadequate federal response. The picture made him look detached and uncaring, and worst of all, a weak and ineffectual leader. He never recovered from it.




For Bill Clinton, it came with his infamous 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms Lewinsky' declaration. When it turned out he had indeed had multiple sexual relations with that woman, his reputation was badly damaged.
Conversely, for John F. Kennedy, you could point to his rousing 1962 speech challenging America to go to the moon, instilling in Americans a spirit of unlimited optimism, as the moment when he sparked a deep abiding popularity that lasts to this day.

Similarly, for Ronald Reagan, his audacious 'Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!' command at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate to the leader of the Soviet Union, cemented his place in history.

For President Donald J. Trump, there have been many grim moments during his catastrophic handling of the coronavirus pandemic that may end up defining his presidency.

For President Donald J. Trump, there have been many grim moments during his catastrophic handling of the coronavirus pandemic that may end up defining his presidency. 



During an extraordinary, toe-curling HBO interview with AXIOS's Jonathan Swan (right), President Trump exposed just why the US has become a horrifyingly bad template for how NOT to combat Covid-19.

But last night, during an extraordinary, toe-curling HBO interview with AXIOS's Jonathan Swan, he exposed just why the US has become a horrifyingly bad template for how NOT to combat Covid-19.

In an attempt to defend his indefensible record, and specifically why the US has one of the worst death rates in the world, Trump suddenly produced a collection of graphics.
'Look at some of these charts,' he said. 'This one, right here, the United States is lowest…in numerous categories…lower than the world.'

'In what?' said an incredulous Swan.

'Take a look,' said Trump, handing the chart over.

Swan, a very good and well-prepared journalist, studied the chart quickly and forensically.

'Oh, you're doing death as a proportion of cases,' he replied. 'I'm talking about death as a proportion of population.'

'Well… well…' Trump stammered.

'That's where the US is really bad,' persisted Swan, 'much worse than South Korea, Germany etc.'

'You can't do that!' exclaimed Trump.

'Why can't I do that?' asked Swan, looking understandably confused.

'You have to go by the cases,' said Trump. 'We're last, meaning we're first!'


It was a stunning exchange.
  
George W. Bush it came was photographed staring down from the luxurious comfort of Air Force One on the wreckage wrought by Hurricane Katrina, after his government's woefully inadequate federal response.

Bill Clinton, infamously said: 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms Lewinsky'. He is pictured at his impeachment.

Here was the President of the United States telling a journalist that he couldn't mention America's shocking coronavirus death toll because all that matters is not how many people have died, but how many people have been tested.

'You know there are those that say you can test too much,' Trump blathered. 'You do know that?'

Swan didn't know that, because nobody other than Trump has said that.

'Who says that?' Swan asked.

'Oh, just read the manuals,' Trump retorted. 'Read the books.'

'Manuals?' Swan pressed. 'What manuals?'

'Read the books, read the books,' Trump repeated.


Of course, there are no manuals, or books, that say you can do too much coronavirus testing.

Obviously, as any scientist will attest, you can never do enough testing. It's the only way to get on top of this virus until there's a vaccine.

What Trump actually means is that he wishes America did less testing so they didn't have so many cases because it makes HIM look bad.

That's why he doesn't want to talk about America's appalling death toll because, again, it makes HIM look bad.

'A thousand people are dying a day,' Swan told him.

'They are dying,' replied Trump. 'It's true. It is what it is.'

Wow.

'It is what it is' - that was the President's staggering response to the ongoing horrific slaughter of Americans by a deadly virus.

No empathy, no apology, no expression of sorrow.

Just a heartless, dismissive shrug.

The problem for Trump in this crisis is that the stats don't lie like he does.

When Swan pointed out that South Korea has a population of 51 million people but has only suffered 300 coronavirus deaths, Trump inferred, with zero evidence, that the statistics were fake news.

It's his default response to any facts he doesn't like, but now he is being exposed by the cold, hard reality of data-backed truth.

The World Health Organisation reports today there have been 18,100,204 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the world, and 690,257 deaths.

Of these, America has had 4,629,459 cases, which is 25% of the global total, and 154,226 deaths which is 22% of the global total.

Yet it has just 4.2% of the world's population.



So whichever way you look at the numbers, the United States is doing catastrophically badly.

When Swan told Trump that up to 1,000 Americans were dying everyday, the president said: 'It's true. It is what it is.' Pictured: Bodies are transferred to a temporary morgue in Brooklyn during the height of the pandemic.

Trump knows it, everyone knows it.

But he also knows if he admits it, it may cost him the election in November.
So, he's now reduced to lying, obfuscating, deflecting, and anything else he can think of to avoid being held accountable for what has happened on his watch.

Last night, Americans saw their President deny the incontrovertible.

They saw him pretend he's got coronavirus under control when he's completely lost control.

And they saw him challenged relentlessly on all this bullsh*t by a top-class journalist determined not to let him off the hook.

It made for electrifying but very unedifying viewing, combining the detached uncaring conduct of George W. Bush during the Katrina crisis with Bill Clinton's cynical lying about Monica Lewinsky.



There were many other awful moments during the interview, including Trump once again offering weirdly uncritical support to accused child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, refusing to call the late civil rights campaigning legend Congressman John Lewis, 'impressive' because Lewis hadn't gone to his inauguration, and stoking self-serving fears of election night mail voting fraud.

But it was his meandering disingenuous nonsense about coronavirus that swiftly went viral around the world.

Some people on social media even assumed it must be a comedy sketch given how preposterous it appeared and the fact it was appearing on a network famed for shows like Veep and Succession.



This, sadly, was very real.

I didn't laugh.

Instead, I cringed, I despaired, and then I felt angry.

America is being overrun by coronavirus because its narcissistic President has put his personal ego before doing his job – from spewing his dangerous 'cure' theories to trashing his top medical experts if they dare to speak the truth and boasting inanely about his covid news conference TV ratings.

Trump's made the crisis all about him, not the American people.

As a result, the American people are dying in massive numbers all over the country.
Jonathan Swan's constantly bemused face last night perfectly summed up what we were all thinking as the President brandished his meaningless self-serving charts and spouted his nonsensical self-justifying drivel: what the f*ck is he talking about?


Monday, August 3, 2020

The lost Lenore




Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
    While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door
            Only this and nothing more.”


    Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
    Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow
    From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
            Nameless here for evermore.




    And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
    So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
    “’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;—
            This it is and nothing more.”

    Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
    But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
    And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;—
            Darkness there and nothing more.




    Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
    But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
    And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—
            Merely this and nothing more.

    Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
    “Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;
      Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—
            ’Tis the wind and nothing more!”




    Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;
    Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
    But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—
            Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”
            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”




    Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;
    For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
    Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
            With such name as “Nevermore.”

    But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
    Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—
    Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before—
On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”
            Then the bird said “Nevermore.”




    Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store
    Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
    Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
            Of ‘Never—nevermore’.”

    But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
    Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
    Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
            Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”




    This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;
    This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
    On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,
But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,
            She shall press, ah, nevermore!

    Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
    “Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee
    Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”
            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”




    “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
    Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—
    On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—
Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!”
            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

    “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore—
    Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
    It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”
            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”




    “Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—
“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
    Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
    Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”
            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

    And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
    And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
    And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
            Shall be lifted—nevermore!

Sunday, August 2, 2020

As I went out one morning (with a nod to W. H. Auden)




As I went out one morning 
Walking the primal road
My shoulders were bent over
With an invisible load.

And down by the creek where the salmon
Sing all day in the spring
I heard a man with holes in his clothes
Say, “Love has no ending.”

I wondered at his heresy
He wasn’t supposed to speak
Of things he did not understand
And shouldn’t even seek. 







“I love you, Lord, I love you,”
the ragged man proclaimed,
although his face was badly scarred
and his body bent and maimed.

The man was clearly crazy
For as he spoke his rhyme,
The salmon danced in the shallow stream
In fish-determined time.

I didn’t try to love him
But I loved him just the same
For he broke the diver’s quivering bow
And called his God by name.

“Oh tell me, man, oh tell me,”
I cried in my anguished state,
“What is the secret of the world?
Where is the end of hate?” 







And all at once his face had changed
To an evil, ugly mask
His body had become the hate
About which I had asked.

“How stamp this mask into the mud,
How keep despair at bay?”
“You can’t,” he told me, grinning,
"But my God can point the way.”

“How dare you speak of God, you wretch,
When God’s abandoned you?
How dare you use the Holy Name?
He doesn’t want you to!





Your life’s just spent surviving
With the sidewalk as your bed
And taking poisons in your veins
And scrambling to be fed.”

The man just stood in leaves and mulch
While the salmon sang and spawned:
“Just see the other side of me
And tell me I am wrong.”

Another face appeared just then
A face all beaming bright
Its eyes were streaming like the sun
With pure mysterious light:

“You blinded fool, you stand before
A drop of mist made rain
An eye that Paradise looks through
That holds both joy and pain.” 






“I cannot understand you, for
You play such games with me!
How can you masquerade as God
And tell me how to see?”

“No one knows how Life began,
From Nothing came our birth.
A stir of seething molecules
Sparked all the life on earth.”

“Don’t tell me, wretch, you are the one
Who made this world come true!
Imposter, get out of my road,
I cannot look at you.”

“Just so,” the man said, streaming light,
“For no one knows the why.
But you will be forever changed
By looking through my eye.”



Nonsongs and Neopsalms: a compendium of poems by Margaret Gunning, (Part two)




Part two of an excerpt from a much longer book-length manuscript of poetry (Nonsongs and Neopsalms) that never saw the light of day, though some of the poems were excerpted and published in various literary magazines. These were written over a long stretch of time and represent multiple mental and spiritual transfigurations.



                                       
Delivery


This is a strange
Horse I ride, feet
Pointing up, all bloodless and blue
On a long trail of ether.

My brain swims in a vault of chrome
through the removed murmur of voices
and a distant
Clinical clanking.

I will emerge now, slick and
purple as a baby.  The surgeon’s eyes
Crinkle over the mask.

Hands cool as paper, hands that have never
Handled a snake, patiently suture
All of my holes.  The work is true.


Emergency waiting room


Which is worse:  the spilled
smell of
accidents
or the sound
of magazines
slowly
growing older
in this
ticking house of death?
  
Sorry

My heart unclasped
One day in your office,
Suddenly, all in a shot, the catch
Broke loose, andit
Fell behind a pile of files.

I did not mean to;
It was an accident of gravity.
Earth reached up and pulled it down.

I stood dizzy,
My centre lost, the core
Riven.  It felt silly
to lean over like that.

My face grew hot.

There was no way to put it back.
The space had grown over already;
The fall had changed me.

I left that place different,
Looked outside.  The light
Hurt my skin.  The world
was a new color.

I wiped my eyes, and kept on walking.
A small place
in my chest
Grew still with singing.


loom (a hymn of gratitude)

God sings
As she works.  My, my.  A merry

tune:  Bach; birds.

This weaving

of flesh fibres, new nerves

stretched across dead pain, Awakens
the ache of joy.

How it tingles!  Deft hands move,
A shuttle.  Darting threads,
A gleam.  A sense of fabric.

Substance where there were holes.

The moths driven out.

I will hold now.  No secrets will
Spill through.  The bag is
Solid; it nests
All the marbles.


  Somedays

Somedays, the harshness of nostrils

Bus-lurching crowds, rudespeak
of news-seekers, is too much for me,

I need to nestle, to throstle,
wrestle with the renewal

(of your mint-melting
inner adagio)

The bus vomits; I catch hold of things
again.  Taking charge of the crowd,
grabbing thumbs
manipulating the traffic

pulling the world with a pair of
pliers

It’s no good any more:  I need your dependable
light somnolence:  the old silk robe
of your being
(I need to
wear you
like
hair)

 Crown (For Joshua)

It’s purple out today; no mistaking
it.  Purple sings

The imperial air.  Where
roses were lost, that dimension

They were sucked into/I traverse
(as through a secret panel
or revolving door)

to the Other Side, where essence of roses
Smells.
Purple wings shot through
with veins – with skeins of slaughter
We know the price:  the smell of
(blood and roses)

Purple sings the imperial air.  Where
roses are hidden/purple roses
that spill

 You-riff (a favorite)

If mint ice cream could be made flesh,
(moreover
                Gershwin’s
                                   (innocent
piano keys (not the    (inanimate:  but the

        (hot
very (act of playing) teeth, a fine Mary-
morning

(could be a bald spot:a hunch of shoulders)
                                                                 (all
then I guess this Everywhere where we  (call
the universe/this minimouse, into the Here

would be exhaling you/expressing you
daily,
in daily bliss, dally, bless blush 
       
              doily
in gaily, /  earthshivering
Maymess triumphant, in Gerard Manley Hopkins’
hosiery/then, I guess your

Bashful tigersmile’s a paean to
“Great Chocolate!” eyes  (a-bleeding
                                         (monument to
(hooting hyaena’s
                            laugh’s a plainsong to)


  Lean into it


Haven’t they played this song before?
It’s pain, and it has been on my radio
For weeks now.  Let’s settle down

(my yoyo:  the tiny precious blue one,
has been asleep for days; some dream
told me it had died,
             (spring died,
That it   (would not be back again.)

“But an astral yoyo”  (this is
an official statement) broke loose

between our tromboning eyebeams,
our Sprung-together selves.  You are
an Arctic expedition; I a mere

can of Spam, better than eating the dogs
but less tasty than your bunkmate


           Everything stopped breathing


There was a gown
Made of apricots,
Woven from
A dream of bees, a smile
so drunken it was breathed by
Mother Teresa; I was saturated.
Then you came along like an
Old saddle, your walk as
wobbly as
Copland’s cowboy.
Was I expected to just
                                                           (go on)
breathing again?



  Mary Alice


I sing of Maryalice,
nun as sweet as she
(tied up in the AA meeting/back to back
with Ray the pervert, the man
with the gun in his pocket

Fisheye Red, Lazy Sprockett, and the kindly forever prostitute)

A dizzy harrumph, and Mary Alice spoke
of life/in an abstinent/dry convent


Not even the sacrificial
Wine/A sober nun!  I longed
to anoint
her
/        screwed brow
with the oil of self-congratulation the raw
Bursting sanctity of very existence.

Her voice was frail as a Gramophone,
her hug like rails,
her print dress (out of habit?) disdainfully
Particolored.  I wanted an umbrella

to shield her bent crown

from the raining destruction of reality
  

  Buzzed

Your hive was a hum of
Cortical surprise; a splendor
                                (golden fuzz)
Of psalms:  a salty                        of Bee
being.  Such passion
in the apiary!  Such dizzy repro- (se-?)
Duction!  Bee
attitudes frighten me.  I will pick
the salacious hairs, the
haloed laughter of swarms
From my bee-blurred eyes.


                                                
Three-part invention

(a) indigo eyes

I am the salt
you are the sweet
hair/
        My heartsprung

(horse) of the air,
au clair
ah! care,
         clover
to the/stables,
We.

     Drenched with the scent
of hens of hay
                    dear
of tree:  your/odor
(of salt
(of sap
(of sea


b) cunningerotic

Lip, let me laugh
You.  Set the salt
Sally, sashay down
The hay of my mind.

Seashorn,
feverworn
hairborne:  Your
face a chiming, a
Brining.  The
(stainglassed
seahorse
of your
                                          (voicy
                                      (ice




c)     Fifth chakra (for ray lynch)

a blues tunnel
blamed open

pitched down
to the base of the soul

Mermaids spinning
in your throat, Dear
heart:  shining vessel,

opened for a song,
shut open,

Wept for a penny

disabled
    the
by/(dreaming
      (door


  
Three more haiku

I.     Back road
                                             
The way unspools, retreating
           from a back window:
           Unreeling
           vision.

II.               Spiral

               Higher I mount, and higher.
               I look down.  The screw
               Turns deeper.
               I climb.

 III.           Final exam

              Horses explode from the gate.
              Pens surging forward –
              Furious
              focus.