Memorial Day 2020
One if By Land, Two if By Sea . . .
During the past few decades, the traditions of so many professions became so degraded and besmirched. One is the ancient profession of lying. The current crop of fabulists, falsifiers, tricksters and toadies in the Media Blob is deplorable and deplorably inept. I am reminded of the time, many years ago, when I was mercifully informed by one relative that another relative was “a pathological liar", and to beware of her.
I was shocked, stunned! “It can’t be. She is so bad at it — how can this be true?”
Sadly, very sadly, many of the standards of this nation have slipped to the point where even the fine art of lying has become abysmally bungled. Even the lies told in silence are farcical. Fiction looks like a pale imitation of reality, unless it is reserved for satirical comedy, and, even then, it is hard to tell the difference between satire and real-life.
The art of comedy has taken a huge hit because of the Puritanical Political Class, the overseers of a nation that now largely ignores them.
What a wonderful feeling for me, on this day of wondrous memories, to celebrate the old as if it is new — independence from all of that tommy-rot that is held to be sooooo sacred by the idiot hypocrites. Is there an American alive today, a true American — who does not sense the patriotic fervor of revolution, even the daring act of going un-masked — anywhere! Of course, masking and unmasking have come to mean rather sinister deeds upon the liberties of man- and woman-kind in America.
Let us all be kinder to one another and expect the standards of living life in America to rise along with our hopes, in the uplifting knowledge that we are all a lot stronger and smarter than the nincompoops-in-charge tell us we are. We are the natural and deserving inheritors of the freedoms for which our beloved ancestors — beloved relatives, friends, and unknown patriots — fought and died.
May we all raise our voices in prayerful song to the Almighty who blessed us with enough courage and enough conscience and enough common sense to know truth from falsehood, candor from poppycock, and faithful devotion to virtue from the cheese-ily crafted corruption that is currently on display round-the-clock.
My classic-flick pick for this evening is the exquisite 1944 Victorian film noir, Gaslight, directed by George Cukor and starring Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, and Angela Lansbury, among other timeless thespian luminaries. One of the final scenes of Paula Alquist Anton voices the words of a woman triumphantly facing the man who had tried to rip her off through gaslighting her. The entire world of caged citizens needs to see this movie, although I always find the word, hate, a bit strong. Loathe handles the sensation more capably.
If I were not mad, I could have helped you. Whatever you had done, I could have pitied and protected you. But because I am mad, I hate you. Because I am mad, I have betrayed you. And because I'm mad, I'm rejoicing in my heart, without a shred of pity, without a shred of regret, watching you go with glory in my heart!
On this day, as I commemorate Memorial Day, I take a break from my work of translating the latest chapter of THE DAWN into L’AUBE, Chapter 69. Last night, I worked on the very silent murder by Emile the Blacksmith of the Notaire, the notary, for pilfering title deeds from French prisoners-of-war, and from one in particular named Gustave, son of Roussillon.
Scary!!
I asked Dear Husband last night, “Who wrote this stuff?”
At times, I inspire myself. In English, here is the passage that proves treachery is not a new invention:
Guillaume stared at the notary. He was of average height, average build, average weight, and average appearance. Even for a French man, this man was just average. Yet, mediocrity was no excuse to become a traitor. Had not Jean Giraudoux said, Only the mediocre are always at their best? France was now filled with millions of average men and average women who were confronting the ordeals of wartime in their own average ways. Curiously enough, they were prevailing over their own fears. They neither demanded supreme acts of their own, nor did they sink into and wallow in the mire, the mud and mire, the putrid mud of corruption and the sinkhole of perfidy.
Happy Memorial Day to all Americans in a land of liberty, filled with treasured heroes and cherished memories!
