Susan Corso's Blog — iAmpersand

Day 89 The Belief Borrowers; and, How You Came to Believe What You Believe

The New York Times has seen days of considerable turmoil since they published Senator Tim Cotton’s incendiary Op-Ed on Tuesday. Over one thousand staffers and reporters of The Times objected to the piece. The Opinion page editor has resigned. In an article detailing the story, the author wrote, “‘American view-from-nowhere, “objectivity”-obsessed, both-sides journalism is a failed experiment,’ Wesley Lowery tweeted of the Times debacle. ‘We need to rebuild our industry as one that operates from a place of moral clarity.’” Wesley Lowery is the white, male reporter who began the cascade of truth after the shooting in Ferguson, Missouri. Attorney General William Barr “said he did not think racism was a systemic problem in policing, though he acknowledged general racism in the United States. ‘I don’t think that the law enforcement system is systemically racist,’ he said on the CBS program “Face the Nation.” ‘I think we have to recognize that for most of our history, our institutions were explicitly racist.’” Uh, what? Could it be a little more they-went-thataway? Um. And Archie Bunker wasn’t racist, right? Puh-lease.

PandemicSusan CorsoJune 8, 2020metaphysics, coronavirus, COVID-19, #GlobalVaccine, belief systems

Day 88 Coming to This Tipping Point; and, Metaphysicians of the Heart

Peaceful protests continued unabated across the country and around the world. As Andy Ramos, 72, mayor of Alpine, Texas had it, “My generation, we did a lot of good, but we stagnated. We need a push in the butt and you guys are the ones who have to do it. You have to bring social change to this world.” One of the largest protests was in the nation’s capital, where new fences, concrete barriers and a force of unidentifiable guards have shrouded the White House, projecting a new symbolism of militarized defensiveness rather than openness and democracy. Roger Cohen did not pull his punches this week. “No, the point would be this: to assert with a great show of force, after the slow-motion murder of George Floyd by a white police officer, that the oppressive system that produced this act is not about to change and armed white male power in America is inviolable. That is Trump’s fundamental credo. His Bible-brandishing, American Gothic portrait this week outside St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington is one of the most disturbing portraits of psychopathic self-importance seen since 1933.”

Day 87 The Horns of a Dilemma; and, Begin Within

Americans are notoriously protective of our privacy, deeming it a fundamental human right. I agree, and ... “Amid a protest movement ignited by a video showing police brutality—a police officer pressing his knee against the neck of George Floyd for nearly nine minutes—hundreds of other incidents and videos are documenting cases of violent police tactics in the United States. “They are often captured by bystanders and sometimes on live television—a compilation posted on Twitter by a North Carolina lawyer included over 300 clips by Friday morning. And they have occurred in cities large and small, in the heat of mass protests and in their quiet aftermath.” It’s because there are cameras in cellphones that we are able to have this evidence. For which I’m grateful, and ... this is the flip side of our insistence on privacy.

PandemicSusan CorsoJune 6, 2020metaphysics, coronavirus, COVID-19, #GlobalVaccine, no h8

Day 86 Heart Broken Open; and, An Embarrassment of Justice

I am deeply spiritually indebted to Dr. Kihana Miraya Ross, author of “Call It What It Is: Anti-Blackness—When Black people are killed by the police, “racism” isn’t the right word.” Dr. Ross is a professor of African-American studies. In one essay in yesterday morning’s New York Times, she graciously exploded both the innocent and ignorant complacency that have been mine as an educated, privileged, white woman. There was no calling out. There wasn’t even any calling in. No, there was a call, a clarion call, to a willingness to educate myself and to be educated by those who know much more than I do. I am appalled at how little I am educated on the subject of racial justice.

PandemicSusan CorsoJune 5, 2020metaphysics, coronavirus, COVID-19, #GlobalVaccine, anti-blackness

Day 85 Reactivity, Too Much, Too Little; and, The Dramatics of Scale

Nicholas Kristof’s column this morning was entitled, “Trump Uses the Military to Prove His Manhood: The president’s response to the coronavirus that killed more than 100,000 people was lethargic and ineffective. But when it came to anti-racism protesters, it was time to call in the troops.” What is it about America that consistently provokes one or the other of two entirely inappropriate responses to everything? Either we pussy-foot around, and do nothing or not-quite-enough to solve a problem. Or, we pathologize whatever the issue is and hit it hard with an over-the-top reaction. Where’s moderation? Where’s the middle ground? Where’s considered, thoughtful, logical response?

Day 84 The Forgiveness Mistake; and, Afflicting the Comfortable

It takes some chutzpah, granted, to disagree with a sitting pope, but I disagree strongly with Pope Francis. He’s wrong. “Pope Francis said on Wednesday that he was watching the ‘disturbing social unrest’ in the United States with ‘great concern.’” Okay, it is disturbing. Not the social unrest per se, not the actions of the protesters either. What’s disturbing is what’s under those things. Brutal, discriminatory police violence. Blatant disregard for systemic racism. Bellicose government reactivity. FWIW, the protests are meant to be disturbing because unless the complacent are ‘disturbed,’ it’s patently clear, and has been over a long, long time, that nothing will be done to root out and dissolve the racial discrimination woven into the very fabric of our democracy. Duh. A five-year-old could tell you this.

PandemicSusan CorsoJune 3, 2020metaphysics, coronavirus, COVID-19, #GlobalVaccine, police violence, new normal

Day 83 Listen is An Anagram; and, A Purposeful Silence

“On #BlackoutTuesday, artists go quiet to focus attention on protesters’ message” read the headline. Millions of people worldwide are heeding a call for a day of silence on social media to amplify black people’s voices under the hashtag #BlackoutTuesday. Maybe every Tuesday should be #BlackoutTuesday for a while? Leave it to the artists to do something simple, clear, and immediate. Always. Always it’s the artists who lead us. If only we could remember that, and look to them instead of the political arena for leadership.

Day 83 #BlackOutTuesday #BlackLivesMatter #BlackOutTuesday #BlackLivesMatter

#BlackTuesday #BlackLivesMatter #BlackTuesday #BlackLivesMatter

Day 82 It Only Takes One; and, Could That One Be You?

“In Louisville, Ky., a confrontation on a crowded street was partly defused when a woman stepped forward and offered a police officer in riot gear a hug. They embraced for nearly a minute. There were reports of clashes later in the night, however, and a local news outlet reported that at least one person had been fatally shot.” A hug. After demonstrating peacefully for three hours in Seattle, police officers opened the downtown area to protesters. “Rashyla Levitt addressed the crowd through a megaphone, telling them the group had made history. “We marched for justice. We marched for peace,” she said. “We marched for each other. We marched for our streets.” For justice. For peace. For each other. For our streets. Also in Seattle, “Others weren’t ready to end the night. They approached a line of officers in riot gear, shouting and cursing. Some protesters—including Elijah Alter, 24—rushed to intervene, pushing them away from the line of officers. ‘Because of our solidarity, we made them change their mind,’ he said. ‘Do not ruin it on a violent end.’” Intervention. Solidarity. Change their mind. From Atlanta, “The demonstrators stopped—hundreds of them, black and white—and sat. A self-appointed leader among them, an entrepreneur named John Wade, praised them for their nonviolence.” Sat.

Day 81 Why Silence Equals Violence; and, Complacency is Complicity

“As protests spread from coast to coast, mayors in more than two dozen cities declared curfews—the first time so many local leaders have simultaneously issued such orders in the face of civic unrest since 1968, after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.” 1968 was 52 years ago, and while there have been incremental changes in some parts of the country for some persons of color, the predominant narrative is no different now than it was then. As one protestor said, “I’m not here to fight someone,” said Eldon Gillet, 40, who was on the streets in Brooklyn. “I’m here to fight a system.” Another said, “I’m out here so that my two kids never have to be.” In “a country already ragged with anger and anxiety,” as one story had it, “With a nation on edge—ravaged by a pandemic, hammered by economic collapse, divided over lockdowns and even face masks, and continuing to be convulsed by racial discord—President Trump’s instinct has been to look for someone to fight.”

Day 80 Everyone Answers to Someone; and, A Common Denominator for a New Day

The Quitter-in-Chief resigned the United States’ membership in the W.H.O. “‘We helped create the W.H.O.,’ said Dr. Thomas Frieden, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has worked with the organization since its creation in 1948. ‘Turning our back on the W.H.O. makes us and the world less safe.” No wonder the Accuser-in-Chief is scrambling; he’s killing off his dragons faster than they can appear. Now he no longer has the W.H.O. to blame. Now you and I know that W.H.O. stands for World Health Organization, but what if it didn’t stand for anything? Except the word that the acronym spells: who. Because the irony doesn’t escape me at all. Of course. The I’m-the-Most-Important-and-Only-Important-Person-in-the-World-in-Chief has resigned from all the who[s] in the world.

Day 79 Rise Up, Rise Up for Justice; and, Outrage and Fury for Peace

Larry Kramer is dead. Larry Kramer. It seems impossible. He was eternally accused of being too ornery, too angry, too stubborn to die. Artist and peacemaker Brad Heckman posted his portrait of Mr. Kramer on Instagram this morning: hecksign Be outraged, offended, angry and intolerant of any discussion or any one who describes you as unequal, undeserving or unnatural for being just as you are. RIP, #LarryKramer His quote applies to so much in the news right now that I’m shaking. Unequal. Undeserving. Unnatural. Epithets hurled round the world. For all sorts of spurious, specious reasons.

Day 78 Heroic Narrative Becomes Passé; and, Its Replacement Can Only Be Power-With

I always appreciate Letters to the Editor from The New York Times. Rachel Lucas from Hickory, North Carolina weighed in this morning. “When I read President Trump’s recent tweets insulting Nancy Pelosi, Stacey Abrams and Joe Scarborough, it occurred to me that given our leader’s great skill in attacking others, he should write a sequel to ‘The Art of the Deal’ called ‘The Art of the Insult,’ describing how to pick on people for their physical traits. “One chapter could focus on ‘Assigning Nasty Nicknames’ and another on ‘Fabricating Crimes.’ He could complete his trilogy with ‘The Art of the Lie,’ with chapters including ‘How to Rewrite History’ and ‘Never Admit a Mistake.’” I couldn’t have said it better myself. What a mish-mash of a horror show is the news this morning. Everywhere I went in the media, I found ratcheting reports of, as another letter-writer had it, “President Trump ... outdoing himself on the depravity index, if that’s possible, simultaneously checking a number of boxes as to how a monumentally failed leader and malevolent human being behaves when cornered, and in a time of crisis.” I wonder what a rodentologist would say about the Vermin-in-Chief?

Day 77 Hidden in Plain Sight; and, The Revelation of Healing

George Orwell wrote, “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” Perhaps. The long-standing and almost sea-to-shining-sea illusions have been ripped away. There is no longer a curtain in front of the Wizard. We have met the Wizard and it are us. Consider these off-the-top-of-my-head examples: Face masks are revealed to be a political sticking point rather than an assumed, civic necessity. Climate change is revealed to be the actual reality it is, and it isn’t going anywhere unless humans behave differently.

PandemicSusan CorsoMay 27, 2020metaphysics, coronavirus, COVID-19, #GlobalVaccine, hypocrisy, hypocrite

Day 76 What’s Good, What’s Bad; and, Manna From Heaven

Many years ago I had a friend with a truly annoying habit. She’d tell me about something that happened in her day, or her life, or the life of someone we knew, and then she’d add, “So that’s bad,” or “So that’s good.” At the time, I had just admitted to myself that I really was an intuitive, and I had begun my first tentative steps onto the path of living a spiritual life. I’d known her for more than a decade when I noticed her habit. Everything from finding a lucky penny, “So that’s good,” to losing her keys, “So that’s bad,” to finding them, “So that’s good,” got a rating. Rating? Is that what I mean? A judgment. A commentary. A qualification? Maybe quantification is better. Point being, she tacked on a judgment at the end of every story like some constant binary report card. When I was stronger in my own spiritual studies, a journey which she not only witnessed with me, but quasi-participated in, three or so years later, I asked her if she knew that she judged every experience or if she was unconsciously keeping a tally. She looked at me as if I had just landed from Planet Q, and responded, clearly astonished, “I do?” The United States has just passed a stranger-than-usual Memorial Day. The news is full of the good and the bad.

Day 75 An Offensive Defense; and, How Vulnerability Fuels Generosity

Notice the shadowy flag in the picture. Opinion columnist Charles M. Blow is not known for mincing words. “Trump put politics, his own political fortunes, over the lives of the American people, and the result has been catastrophic.” Nothing new here, right? The Outbreak aggregator went with this. “While the country neared six digits of death, the president who repeatedly criticized his predecessor for golfing during a crisis spent the weekend on the links for the first time since March. When he was not zipping around on a cart, he was on social media embracing fringe conspiracy theories, amplifying messages from a racist and sexist Twitter account and lobbing playground insults at perceived enemies, including his own former attorney general.” Again, just a yawn. Predictability is just so ... predictable. Columbia University researchers put forth a distinctly different model of the disease trajectory this week the theme of which is that had the U.S. acted just two weeks earlier, the death toll would be more than two-thirds less than it is. Mr. Blow again, “But Trump had spent the previous week downplaying the severity of the virus and blaming growing coverage of it and alarm over it on the media.” On the media. On testing itself. On China. On Obama. Or the governors. Or immigrants. Or the epidemiologists. Or the inspectors general. Or the airlines. Or any other of his flavor-of-the-moment pet scapegoats. Meh.