As a college student I thought of political science as an adjunct of philosophy. I didn’t appreciate its practical value. Later, in law school, I recognized its value in creating the infrastructure for our American institutions but only insofar as its organizing principles provided for the efficient operation of government. Today, with more experience in the world and having lived on three continents, I have a full appreciation for the complexity and genius of American democratic institutions, but lately I’ve wondered if America hasn’t become too complacent with a system that’s been durable and adaptable for more than 200 years?
Archive for Books – Page 23
Take a good look at this face. Remember it. Tell me if you think his history and bio would withstand the extreme vetting called for by the Trump White House and Department of Justice. Today, April 24, 2017, two Democratic lawmakers from New York sent a letter to President Trump asking that he be fired from his position as Deputy Advisor to the President for his anti-Semitic associations and views. I’ve written about him before but think his position as a presidential advisor and new information about his past activities warrants his immediate dismissal.
In Erica Jong’s 1973 novel, Fear of Flying, we were introduced to the “zipless fuck,” a sexual encounter involving two previously unacquainted persons with no emotional commitment.
In Grounded, a play by George Brant, a young woman in an Air Force flight suit tracks a terrorist on the ground 8000 miles away. She’s “flying” a missile-armed drone from her air-conditioned trailer in the Nevada desert. She is prosecuting America’s zipless war.
As an ex-Marine fighter pilot, I resist the conflation of jet pilot and drone operator. Real fighter pilots strap in, light the fire, pull G’s, land on aircraft carriers, and swap sea stories in the Ready Room. In Grounded, the unnamed pilot feels the same way. She’s a hard charging, adrenaline-fueled F-16 driver, but following maternity leave she finds herself assigned as a UAV (unmanned air vehicle) “pilot” in a windowless trailer in the Nevada desert. She is not happy with the assignment. She misses the excitement. She misses “the blue,” but war is changing and she has to deal with it.
“Do you know how lucky you are to be old?” This pointed question is asked of a character in a new novel called Our Short History. It’s the story of a woman dying of ovarian cancer who’s writing a letter for her 6-year-old son to read when he turns 18. Read the interview with its author on NPR’s Weekend Edition (Saturday, April 1, 2017). She’s fascinating and so is the story.
More to the point on a personal note, I don’t think I’ve ever seen old and lucky in the same sentence, but it’s true. Most of us have the same familiar complaints about getting older. We don’t see it as a blessing. We kvetch about our aches and pains, lament the doctor visits, wish we could still run marathons, and feel compassion for friends leaving the homes they love for “retirement communities.” The other day a friend told me when he gets together with peers the conversation almost always begins with an “organ recital” – a list of all their current health problems.
I’m so sorry that Saul Bellow is dead. The 1976 Nobel Prize winning author of Herzog and Henderson the Rain King would have been the perfect writer for Trump: The Novel. Cited at the Nobel ceremony for his “human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture,” he might have used the 45th President’s antics to give us another great picaresque novel.
After all, Bellow’s protagonist, Moses E. Herzog, is a lot like Donald J. Trump. Unhinged and lonely, he tries to connect with and make sense of the world by writing letters to anyone and everyone. If the novel had been written in 2016, Herzog would have Tweeted. It’s much simpler and easier. 140 characters. No stamps. No trips to the Post Office.
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