Celebrate!

THE ABSURD TIMES Now these are the sorts of people we have living amongst us:

Ok, now that our current moron in chief has been removed, we can once again breathe and actually think. Of course, you realize that all those tax cuts, 2 Trillion tax dollars with be our gift to the upper .5% of the population, and Biden will have to deal with the consequences. Try explaining that to the American people. Let me give you a few facts about the American people to help you out. They have been described as a form of “Truth Decay,” but point out how ignorance these people are. We have to remember that about 79% of those who voted for Trump (republicans) are certain that the election was stolen. First, a few remarks about when he leaves. He has many court cases pending. The most important issue, however, for those who worry about the big, bad wolf is to make sure he looses any access to classified documents and new briefings. We should know enough about him to realize that he could and would sell them to the “enemy,” whoever will pay the most. It is highly unlikely that Trump knew nothing in advance of Israel’s assassination of the lead nuclear Physicist in Iran. Netanyahu mentioned him by name several times in advance, there was a flurry of activity with him and Pompeo and some Arab gulf states, also just in advance. Anything to make Biden's administration more difficult, don't you know? 1

) A woman dying of Covid, and now dead, kept asking how she could be dying because there was no such thing as Covid-19. Our leaders, and probably her church master, said so. So why did she die? Since, I’ve heard several instances of this from different nurses. They will believe him until they die, and many have. 

 2) As a result of this election, Republicans will have a free hand to re-district their own states according to the recent census. 

 3) Another woman, probably in Tennessee, thanked the nurse and said, “This is so much better than that Obamacare.” When she was told that it was Obama-care that did save her, she asked the nurse “Please don’t let any of my friends know?” What is this? 

 4) Certainly, during the epidemic that is growing, many lost their healthcare, as they were “laid off” which certainly doesn’t sound as bad as fired. But they lost their healthcare, of course. Still, they didn’t want any government health system, even when called Medicare of All, as it was, gasp, SOCIALIST. They would rather die, have parts of themselves amputated, etc.? Yes, better than being SOCIALIST! (Pol Pot, a southern Republican said, Pol Pot was a socialist, and that was that.) 

 5) We gotta kill all those indigenous people (Indians) up thar in North Dakota because they are talking about the environment. Global Warming? Nah. One Senator brought in a snowball to the Senate Chamber and that proved that there was no global warming. Wake up, citizens. 

6) As I write this, millions of people are flying or driving great distances to return from visits to people they presumably think highly of. They will carry infections with them, or pick up infections while there, and then, about the time of the pagan festival of Christmas, will feel the effects and many will wind up in the hospitals, but a new bunch will travel to do the same thing in case they skipped Thanksgiving (which has absolutely nothing to do with Pocahontas who was, in fact, shipped over to England to be observed like a monkey in a zoo). The after-effects are now spreading. Monday, Nove 29 was the biggest travel day. 7) Steve Manuchin of the Tramp Administration has tried to restrict 80 billion for Yellon to deal with and the rest he put under the approval of congress. Whether or not this is legal or works, who knows? Trump will try to do other things to complicate world and national matters in order to make things as difficult as possible for the new administration. 8) The Donald, his ex-Attorney (and how many have that distinction) has warned, under oath, that he is capable of starting a war to stay in office. 

 9) His people, if such they can be called, agreed with him against mail-in voting, to the point where they did not mail-in votes much. Just one final Example of stupidity. 10) All of this simply reinforces the point that he has only one priority: “What’s in it for me.” 

Christmas 

 Well, the so-called “Black Friday” once was explained the time of the year when accountants of large businesses could move from using read ink to black ink, meaning they were ahead. It has become besmirched to the point it is a sales gimmick and it seems we have had a Black November. 

So now, it is time to think up some gimmick for December. A few years ago, a very prominent Astrophysist named Neil DeGrasse Tyson posted something like “on this very day, December 25, a babe was born that changed the way we view the universe, saved us from the errors of the past, and gave us many things ranging from the simplest daily tasks to a prediction of the end of days. His name was Issac Newton.” Well, the response was overwhelming and furious. He was under attack for a long time on social media and eventually his show was cancelled, with “sexual harassment” given as a reason. I have no ideas about his sex life, so discount that. 

But with all the controversy over the 25th, I think it is best to forget about that date as one to celebrate. [If you are at all interested, Newton predicted that the world would not end BEFORE 2040. Nothing more precise is available to me.] In addition, this year, so many covidiots (a new term listed by the Oxford English Dictionary) went to family gatherings in distant places so spread of it will really be taking its toll about that time. 

The 16th would be optimum time for such a celebration, and I have my own candidate any way. It also has the virtue of being pre-Winter Solstice. This time of the year, especially this year, leaves less and less to celebrate. In fact, there is hardly any reason to celebrate anything anymore. There may be a few happy moments here and there, but the senseless killing that continues leaves no ritualistic period untouched. This particular week, we have seen only stock market reports and airline delays as well as major highway shutdowns and deaths on our interstate highway system, all precipitated by a few days off for those fortunate enough to still remain employed during which they are obligated out of habit to spend money they do not have to send things to people they have no real use for and whom they would just as soon never see again. The new celebration! One wonders how many Beethovens, or potential Beethovens, or great artists have either been killed by war or aborted by poverty or economics. 

This winter solstice is the anniversary of Beethoven’s premier performance of his fifth symphony, as well as his fourth and fifth piano concertos, all at the same concert, with Beethoven as conductor and pianist. How often in the history of the universe does a phenomenon such as that occur? Yet I know of no mass celebration of what is clearly one of the greatest accomplishments of humanity. Beethoven spent his life yearning for international peace and brotherhood and eventually expressed it in his 9th symphony which you may hear this season, complete with the text of Schiller's "Ode to Joy". 

 The best version of it remains the 1963 recording of the complete symphonies conducted by Herbert von Karijan (although he did do the complete cycle two more times as technology improved). I shudder to think how many people may sit through a performance of it out of a sense of duty. Is it too much to believe that such accomplishments can be duplicated? In 1595, in England alone, perhaps 100,000 people were able to read and write English, and this is being generous. Out of this came Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, Nash, Greene, Ben Jonson, William Shakespeare, Sir Francis Bacon, and many others whose literature survives and lives to this day. Imagine any city or town with a population of 100,000 and imagine what would come out of it today? In addition, at that time, 95% of everything written was written in Latin, the remaining 5% in the various "living languages." The King James Version of the Bible was to follow, as was John Milton. 

 And it was not a matter of these people, these great artists, being unrecognized in their own time. Beethoven himself was widely praised, most prominently by Haydn who had also praised Mozart. However, Goethe and Beethoven were reportedly walking together down a street and passersby would wave. Goethe lightly observed that these people should stop flattering him with the recognition and Beethoven reportedly asked, "How do you know they are not waving at me?" There was no contradiction. So we can think of Goethe and Beethoven, Shakespeare and Spenser, and look for our modern parallels. 

Perhaps Nietzsche was right when he said that Darwin had it wrong, that "survival of the mediocre" is the rule. Even more of a warning is the thought that they both were right -- the fittest are the mediocre. My favorite line from that period (Elizabethan) is one I am often tempted to use, more often since the last four years, is “Ha! I fart at thee,” by Ben Johnson. A line often attributed to Shakespeare was actually by William Congrieve in 1667. (It is complicated, just take my word for it. The line is often spoken “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but that is actually a shortened version of it -- you see..., oh never mind, who cares?) 

 At any rate, Beethoven's birthday is the most fitting for us to celebrate. He even contributed to the war effort against Nazi Germany. How could this be? Well, the first four notes of his Fifth Symphony were used as the sign on for the BBC during those times and those notes signaled “V”, for Victory, in Morse Code (3 short and one long), Churchill’s rallying sign for the British. The last part of the last movement of his last symphony is constantly played at New Year’s Even and other festive occasions (the Ode to Joy, lyrics by Schiller, music by Beethoven). On day he gave a birthday cdoncert where he gave the premieres of the 4th and 5th piano concertos as well and conducted the premier of his Fifth Symphony. Now I submit that he contributed more than anyone else I know of who was born about that time and is worth of celebration. So, January 16 is the day to celebrate. Furthermore, WETA, available internationally via internet, will spend the entire day playing only Beethoven. Well, happy 250th.