By Donald A. Collins | 7 August 2023
Church and State
Morning, noon, and night the day’s news is now so dominated by media coverage of Donald J Trump, whose guilt as a lying, egotistical felon has already been made evident to most Americans. Sadly, many voters will continue to support him in November 2024 if nominated in his efforts to install authoritarian control of our fragile democracy.
This distinct possibility haunts me constantly as the daily bad news confronts and disrupts reality.
For examples take 2 of the page one August 6th Washington Post headline stories: “Nation falls deeper into division after indictment.”
Don’t fail to read this seminal description of where we are now!
And “Trump’s circle: from top aides to top witnesses?”
You can read both articles here and here.
The Democratic Party's greatest failure has been a failure of leadership. https://t.co/7RO7FJ64ez
— Bruce Bartlett (@BruceBartlett) August 5, 2023
At least seven currently serving advisers to former president Donald Trump took actions that are mentioned prominently in one of his three criminal indictments or have been interviewed by prosecutors, potentially putting them in a bind as cases advance. https://t.co/AmdnaSRH8a
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) August 6, 2023
WHILE IN NO WAY WILL I STOP WRITING ABOUT THE HISTORICAL DANGER WE ARE IN, sanity requires an average citizen of any political persuasion to seek an effective antidote and luckily I found mine!
Listening to famous comic operas!
Rising at 7 am in the morning, instead of rushing to listen to the latest tv mavens often repetitively telling Trump news, while attending to my usual morning ablutions, I put on one of my CDs.
How about true joy and emotional relief that comes instantly for example with the first notes of the overture of The Marriage of Figaro!
This Mozart classic has won top ranking ever since its debut in 1786 in Vienna. Its plot complications so cleverly twisted gets gasps of pleasure from its audiences, but even in just hearing the music one is elevated to lofty pleasure, something opera often does.
Its history is fascinating as it relates to other famous operas also covered here.
"The Marriage of Figaro" is a musical spectacle crafted by Mozart.
Learn more about the story behind its creation at: https://t.co/hEAKbUbouO#themarriageoffigaro, #wolfgangamadeusmozart, #classicalmusic, #opera, #operamusic, #musichistory, #musical, #theatercostumes #libretto pic.twitter.com/ciwc33N66W— Galaxy Music Notes (@galaxymusicnote) June 11, 2020
It is so difficult to avoid the constant material offered by ultra right OP ED writers as well as the dark media conspirators without evidence that never fails to remind me or any informed listener or reader to be like the excrement of a male bovine.
Of course, which media outlets on which you form your opinions certainly can be in dispute. For example, the $787 million fine over claims of voting machine fraud against one media source suggests truth in its reporting was amiss there. Perhaps elsewhere too, even now that one of its main commentators is no longer employed there.
Read here this story just to remind yourself, since these such get almost immediately forgotten in the endless flow.
Normal media companies can censor and spread bad info, but they don't get liability protection. A court recently ordered Fox News to pay $788M to Dominion for defamation.
A court can't order YouTube to pay $788M — and yet YouTube censors anyway!https://t.co/Gp7GFVOcRF
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) July 29, 2023
I read a recent obituary of the author on the complexity of analyzing truth which you many find amusing:
Harry Frankfurt, philosopher of excrement-level falsehoods, dies at 94
Harry G. Frankfurt, a Princeton University philosopher who wrote primarily on Descartes, free will and moral responsibility but found literary fame with his unexpected bestseller “On Bullshit,” a slim treatise on the pervasive, willful and devilish art of avoiding the truth, died July 16 at a care center in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 94.
He had several medical issues, including congestive heart failure, his daughter Katherine Frankfurt said.
Ahah, my contemporary!!! You can read the full obit here.
“I think the transgressive aspect of it did have a certain influence on its success,” Dr. Frankfurt said. “But the magnitude of the response makes me think that something else was involved. People in this country are starved for the truth.” https://t.co/MEywNhVPm6
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) July 18, 2023
In short don’t stop seeking the truth as some of our media daily provides outstandingly accurate information as well as the type mentioned above.
Unfortunately, one of our two main parties, the GOP, has allowed itself in its embrace of Trump to suffer a terrible virus which has spread into a potentially terminal condition that seriously threatens our democracy.
My wonderful opera antidote extends to such other comic masterpieces as Don Giovanni, Cosi Fan Tutte and The Barber of Seville, all by way with non-humous undertones which genius never omits.
Caution: I eschew many other operas I have loved over the years but have depressing somber themes such as La Boheme or Traviata since my meditation as humor doesn’t foreclose concern about our future fate beyond Trump, such as the well started 6th Extinction I have written about often before.
“The next few decades will be the end of the kind of civilization we’re used to.”
Humanity is consuming 175 percent of what the earth can regenerate. Biologist Paul Erlich says that our current way of life is unsustainable. https://t.co/AwaKLZFGsj pic.twitter.com/MU1jHpuMwI
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) January 2, 2023
But Dear Readers. Find your own antidote, as I suspect many of you have already done, far sooner than me.
When leadership is pun-ishing:
The year is 1799. Napoleon is strategizing with his advisors. A map of Europe is on the table before them…
Napoleon says “Behold, Gentlemen! Our destiny lies within our grasp!”
One advisor asks, “What is your plan, General?”
Napoleon slams his fist on the table. “All of Europe will fall to our forces. We shall take it piece by piece until our empire is established. My first step will be to unify the French people behind me!”
“But, General,” began another advisor, “no one has been able to bring the people of France together for decades. You as just one Frenchman really think you can do what many other Frenchmen have failed to do?”
“Corsican,” declared Napoleon.
Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC, has spent over 50 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of “From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013”, “Trump Becoming Macbeth: Will our democracy survive?”, “We Humans Overwhelm Our Earth: 11 or 2 Billion by 2100?”, “What Can Be Done Now to Save Habitable Life on Planet Earth?”, “Vote”, “Can Homo Sapiens Survive?”, “Will Choice and Democracy Win?”, “Can Our U.S. Survive 8 Plus Billion of Us” and “Economic Growth: A Cancer on all Earthly Life”."What Can Be Done Now to Save Habitable Life on Planet Earth?": https://t.co/fHuh0CG6JD
"We Humans Overwhelm Our Earth: 11 or 2 Billion by 2100?": https://t.co/TA4j7cp1tE
"From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013": https://t.co/lkC2t3E1A9 pic.twitter.com/bQsL2mLBcO— Church and State (@ChurchAndStateN) November 1, 2021
‘I interviewed Donald Trump…he could break up the United States’ | Adam Boulton
‘Violence at the core’: Trump could face 55 years behind bars in DOJ indictment
Bullshit, Truth, and Lies | Harry Frankfurt
Sir Thomas Allen directs Mozart The Marriage of Figaro
Earth currently experiencing a sixth mass extinction, according to scientists | 60 Minutes
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