Good Dog

Dear Cricket,

You’re just a rambunctious puppy but now you’re famous. Everybody’s asking “Where’s Cricket?”

I had to sit with this for a minute.

I heard a zen monk tell about a sorrow that arose during prolonged meditation. He realized he’d found compassion for insects. He remembered the suffering he had caused. He apologized to the insects. Each one. Each individual insect.

Part of the attainment he sought was to face his past honestly.

I think that’s how it went.

Yesterday I heard a mystic say everything in the universe has a soul.

Cricket, I used to be afraid of all bees. I felt they had to be destroyed if they buzzed into my environment. It hurts to get stung.

I considered insects to be “bad.”

Cause of death, rolled up newspaper. Spray can of poison . Whatever.

They suffered.

So one day I was practicing piano with the door to the garden path at my sister Kate’s and during some Beethoven bagatelle I glanced down at my knee and there I saw a big fat fuzzy bumble bee right there on my knee, fast asleep.

So that was my tiny awakening. I felt the sorrow like that monk expressed. Without the fear I could see the beauty of the little bug.

I’m not afraid of bees! I don’t have to be cruel! Freedom! And some teachings tell us that karma action is involved, to repair the harm, the inflicted pain.

Cricket, I am sorry for all the bugs I smooshed. The harm I’ve done. My Life Review is going to be a mess. All I ask is a little help, guidance, to alleviate a little suffering if I can.

You are innocent. Not me though!

I’m not even close to conscious knowledge of how my life is affecting other animals, and people too. That would be “perspective.” I’m not there yet.

Cricket, we owe you a debt of gratitude. Perhaps you remind Americans that the cruelty is not the point, after all.

You did not deserve to be an icon to get out the vote in November. But if so, you are helping to save democracy. Good dog!

Thank you. The wild beasts turned out to be the human beings- again.

Now, about those cicadas!

PS I thought this song was really about the bee. I was so young!

https://youtu.be/e41IyhJVCJ8?si=-8HO4DOVq8y7SwDP

The Proceedings, Day Two

In the olden days there’d be a full spittoon on the floor right next to the sociopath/germophobe/defendant, and the attorneys reeking of whiskey and cigar smoke; the musty smell of old mushrooms and cologne, pervasive.

Every time someone sat a chair would creak, or a warped floorboard, and doors would actually slam, in the slammer.

I hope the defendant’s seat is solid wood and not ergonomic!

In a century of malfeasance nothing much has changed.

After decades of stealth trials against Clinton, a la’ Paula Jones, now the entire Republican Party is haplessly defending Trump from his mistresses.

You need the love of the serfs as well as the loyalty of the nobility and the generals to be a going concern as an autocrat. This courtroom is just one step on the path to greatness.

Someone open a window. It smells like a rat died in a patch of rotting pumpkins somewhere near the front row, and no-I would not like to be a fly on the wall for the opening statement of the Defense.

The echoes of a hundred corruption trials are summed up in a quote from the previous judge:

“Mr Trump, sit down!”

***

The Proceedings, Day Two

What Is That Smell, Your Honor? Should we clear the Court?

After years of Paula Jones stealth cases against Clinton we have the entire Republican Party trying to defend Trump from his many mistresses. Someone crack a window. It’s really stuffy in here.

It’s like old mushrooms and cologne.

I hope that Trump’s chair in the courtroom is made of wood and not ergonomic.

In the olden days there’d be a full spittoon on the floor right next to the sociopath/germophobe/defendant, and the attorneys be reeking of whiskey and cigar smoke.

In a century of malfeasance nothing much has changed.

You need the love of the serfs as well as the loyalty of the nobility and the generals to be a going concern as an autocrat. This courtroom is just one step on the path to greatness.

Someone open a window. It smells like a rat died in a patch of rotting pumpkins somewhere near the front row, and no-I would not like to be a fly on the wall for the opening statement of the Defense.

…Speaking of Abortion: Save the Whales!

Back in the seventies my roommate -a sharp African American poet/writer -used to ridicule my devotion to Pacifica Radio and she’d ask me every day “Are you saving the whales?” or “Did you save any whales today?” She’d laugh and laugh at my tie-dyed groundless, baseless, ineffectual cross-eyed idealism.

And I’d send Pacifica five bucks subscription or whatever.

It’s my question for Pro-Life Republicans. Most of them I believe are pretending to save all the whales. They are Bleeding Heart Conservatives who do not know their way around a Petri dish. And neither do I.

It was always a bait and switch. For a mere $5 trillion dollar tax cut, we (the political faction) will grant your wish and ban abortion.

The abortion issue was all about cutting taxes for the rich. Always.

An abortion ban should never have been a priority on the national stage! Never. It was thrust upon the public by cynics who needed votes for Reagan. Quid pro quo with religious fanatics led by television evangelists who had axes to grind and aces up their sleeves and revenue on their mind.

Money. M-O-N-E-Y.

And if family values was the issue, how can it be that the political spokesmen to ban abortion cheated on their wives so routinely? It was a thing with them. Reagan and his ilk. They cared not for their wives who they ditched or any little cell groups that were dividing somewhere unknown.

But no matter. This is now.

But what they should do is what I suggest.

They should- if they care about the sanctity of Life- save the whales.

Because when those whales are gone we know humanity could be next.

So those sweet little unborn zygotes will have no healthy parents to bring them to term if life on earth is extinct.

Human beings are in the food chain. If you want to save babies start with the environment in which they can survive outside the womb.

And that is true: The evolution of Life on Earth depended on some intricate organizing principle underlying it all. It’s supposed to fit together in a balanced way including all life. Not just you. Otherwise life could not be sustained.

That’s the mystery. Fish grew eyeballs and glowed in the dark. And then you came along.

Life had to await perfect conditions for life. That required organization in advance. A space in which to live and conditions for a chance of survival had to precede the cell groups. That’s the book of Genesis. Call it God or whatever. Same difference.

We prepare the environment for life as best we can. First. If possible. All of us on earth.

But do the Sanctity of Life people care about that?

Oh no. Fuck no! (And I use the F word advisedly.)

Sigh.

I have saved zero whales today. So we’re even.

Ronald Reagan saved not one whale that I’m aware of.

Jerry Fallwell saved no whales.

Billy Graham didn’t prevent ocean warming that fucked up the food chain on which the dividing cells of your future loved ones will depend.

I write in hopes those children when born won’t have to run for their lives from storms and fires and lightning strikes, and continue in desperation to deplete the energy we’ve already burned through.

I’m burning through a shit-ton of energy myself right now!

And no hunger in the United States!

Pro-Life Hucksters, you suck. So bad.

Save the whales!

I believe that President Biden will save a whale, if given the opportunity. By that I mean he’d at least consider mitigation of climate change and ocean warming. Tiny living cells afloat in oceans and oceans full of Life.

If you can save babies that exist only in theory you can save theoretical whales.