There’s nothing wrong with a great nation deciding to be a lesser one. But British and American voters need to know what this means. Brexit has ushered in cascading erosions of English provenance in everything from global finance to fishing. Trumpism means lower health standards, poverty, ecological disaster, and a full scale retreat from the 21st century. People who vote for these things should get package labels warning them of the consequences. At present they vote for living in substandard nations as if grievance will protect them from a diminished future.
**
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, did you ever read “Treasure Island?” I’m Blind Pew, the sinister pirate. Yep. I’m creepy and I know secrets.
Once, twenty years ago, a cab driver in New York City refused to take my money because he said I was the victim of dark magic.
That was back when we used paper money in cabs.
I wonder if he’d refuse my voodoo debit card?
Let’s live as if, in addition to grievance, superstition will protect us from diminished futures.
**
Ding Dong.
“Who’s there?”
“Blind Pew!”
“Blind Pew Who?”
“Blind Pew who gonna make you blind too!”
**
How did I get from Brexit and Trump to Blind Pew? It’s a high school English lesson…darkness ye will always have with ye unless you stand up to it.
Liz Cheney is standing up to it.
**
“The key to all secrets is your own brand of flight.”
Line from a notebook.
**
Montaigne catches on your wrist: “My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened…”
The wreckage that remains after superstition, that’s another matter. 500,000 Americans died while Trump was telling the nation to ingest Clorox.
**
There will be a day soon when old translations, flawed though they may be, will defy the odds and return to meaning—pages falling at the feet of reckless students, word-scraps carried on the wind. Cicero will get tangled in your hair: “a room without books is like a body without a soul…”
Planet of the Blind 