“When hands outrun the wisdom of the mind.”
----Grandmother
Grandmother was, in one of her poems, observing what has become known to us as cultural lag; that is, the inability of society to keep up with, and to timely adapt to, technological innovation. It is at moments like these that I return to the 'farm' (1) and to the lessons taught so long ago.
I recall one sojourn when I was young. I had yet to reach my teens, perhaps when I was 10, grandmother, in all earnestness, for she was nothing if not in earnest, inquired whether or not I thought there was such a thing as mental illness. I replied, in not the first blush of youth, that I didn't know, that I hadn't given it much consideration. As I recall this was in reference to a conversation about capital punishment and the insanity defense, a topic which hadn't troubled my youthful innocence and about which she felt an urgent introduction. Grandmother was like that.
“Let me ask you this”, she began in Socratic dialogue, “how many people have you known or observed are perfect physical specimens?”
Grasping for an answer I blurted out “not many I suppose”.
“Precisely!” she exclaimed, confirming her suspicions that underneath the exterior of this little barbarian a thinking human being did indeed reside ;that his parochial upbringing had not yet done irreparable damage; that the Lutherans had not quite extinguished the flame. (3)
It was an affirmation that has nurtured me, over the intervening decades, through thick and thin.
But I digress. It was also a revelation that, perhaps, this place is a giant madhouse; that maybe the protestants were right that man is, if not intrinsically evil, hopelessly mad. From that day forward the world assumed a different hue. Later, as I would reflect upon the imparted wisdom, I would ask myself “and we are about to arm this population? How could the Supreme Court be so stupid? Have they not beheld their countrymen?” It was then then that I was given to understand that there is nothing more dangerous than the True Believer except, of course, True Believers with a guns.
I bring this up because yesterday yet another act of senseless violence erupted in my adopted home in Georgia. It was close to home. I lived for several years in Winder, Georgia. My late wife was from there, many of my in-laws still reside therein
Winder, originally named “Jug Tavern” before some railroad Magnate appropriated the place as his own, is located on the Atlanta Highway about equidistant between Atlanta and Athens. It is the hometown of the late Senator Richard Russell, mentor to Lyndon Johnson and staunch segregationist who tried to filibuster Civil Rights legislation in the mid 1960s. It is also a town whose public High School sports teams are known as the Bulldoggs, with two 'g's. That's right, they can't even spell 'dog' properly, you know, god spelled backwards. As one would suspect it's politics are decidedly reactionary and ReSCUMlickan. Elections are held in Baptist churches, despite an abundance of public buildings in which one could easily exercise the franchise. I always felt a bit soiled when I went to vote as so too, I am certain, did the Lord.
I left Winder for Athens in 2007, just in time to see the rise of Obama on the horizon. In Winder Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones were all the rage; reaction was triumphant as White Southern Baptism, albeit with some reluctance, was about the process of accepting a Mormon in the White House if it meant barring the “Niggrah” at the door.
Winder is to Athens, as Howell is to Ann Arbor. That is, a hotbed of ignorance and reaction living in the shadows of Citadels of learning and culture. To travel the short distance down the Atlanta Highway through Statham and Bogart to Athens is to emerge from darkness into broad daylight, similar to the experience of driving down Highway 24 from Howell to Ann Arbor.
Winder has become a scene of tragedy, both personally and, now, nationally. Caught up in the hermetically sealed wrong-wing 'bubble” of Southern Baptism and Fox “News”, my wife's family dealt with the pandemic as one would expect in a community where tRUMP reigns supreme, where the pandemic is a “Democrat Hoax”, that it would “magically disappear” and, in any case, the Lord will watch over you and protect. My late wife's family has a long history of diabetes and related diseases which renders those of us of certain age vulnerable. Her niece, having been diagnosed with the disease, nevertheless showed up at a Thanksgiving Day dinner and passed COVID to her Uncle. He died several weeks later.
It could only be a matter of time before this nation's epidemic of Gun Violence would strike home.
Yesterday was the day. Some 14 year old with an assault rifle shot and killed two teachers and two students injuring another 9 in the process. This is a jurisdiction where cultural and political proclivities have come home to roost. This is what happens when one votes consistently against reason and science; where one sends idiots to represent them in Congress and the State Legislature; where weapons of war outrun the mental capacity of those who wield them. It is a sad tale, where the politics of ignorance and mendacity finally come to the homeland. It is a tale told in too often and in too many places here in America.
Imprison the Bastard.
No comments:
Post a Comment