All Hail President Douche

Perhaps I should note, right up front, that I am not equating Barack Obama to a douche. Or more accurately, I am, but not in the spirit of meanness. South Park fans will understand immediately. For the rest of you, let me explain. After major elections overseas and several state primaries, my thoughts turned to voting and the process of election. A friend, discussing similar topics, brought up episode 808 (#119) of the well-known satiric TV series South Park, wherein a new school mascot must be decided by vote and the two choices are anything but ordinary: a turd sandwich and a giant douche.

To cut a complex story short, a boy who is told he must vote refuses, citing that he doesn’t agree with either of the candidates and it is a pointless exercise anyway. After heavy pressure from family, friends, and community members, including threats of bodily harm, he relents. But before doing so, he is advised by the leader of a nationwide activist group that “every election is between a Giant Douche and a Turd.”

So we have our foundation. And I am inclined to agree with Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators and principal writers of the South Park series. Most elections do seem to come down to the choice between between a douche and a turd. It is one unfortunate result of a two-party system. As much as we tout the wide variety of choice in political preferences, it really comes down to Democrat or Republican on the ballot. Though a few shudders of revolt have been felt from the Independent and Tea factions, most candidates elected to major offices still carry an (R) or (D) by their names. (Is it a mere coincidence that douche begins with (d) and turd contains an (r)? I wonder.)

So what should one do, when faced with the choice of selecting between a turd and a douche? How can one determine the lesser of two evils? Either way, the populace effected is sure to lose. Yet not voting – refusing to choose – is seen as an insult, not only to the nation as a whole but to the many who fought and died to bring the nation to where it stands today.

I argue that refusing to choose is not an insult to the nation but a measure of the abuse the political system is experiencing. Without strong figures of reason and credibility to vote for, what impetus is there to cast a vote? Why mark the box for a turd if a turd isn’t wanted in office? It becomes a catch 22: the only candidates with enough political savy and sway to reach levels of importance are all douches and turds, so only douches and turds can be elected. Which I believe is the point made by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. And for the more patriotic, who see refusal as a dismissal of the battles that gave us the freedom to vote, I can only ask if those same battles were fought so that we would only be able to choose between two corrupt, greedy, unappealing, unwanted, money- and power-hungry candidates. I don’t believe that was what any of those men and women fought for. I don’t believe that is what men and women the world over continue fighting for.

I whole-heartedly support the right to vote. 1,000%. It was meant to be our greatest freedom, our most powerful weapon of peace and justice against our own government and political system. I value that right beyond words and will defend it to my last breath. With force, if necessary. But it has been so misused. It has become such a pitiful shadow of what it could and should be. It’s the 21st Century. We are surrounded with technological and biological marvels. And yet we vote as though we are still in the Dark Ages, ignorant, apathetic, afraid. James A. Mishener once said, “An age is called dark, not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.” Well I see it, or at least the potential of it, and I refuse to vote for darkness. I refuse to vote for turds and douches and rampant liars and unconscionable thieves. Not when we, as a nation, are capable of so much better.

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A Bit of the “English”

I have returned.

Now how about a bit of literature? I recently finished Michael Ondaatje’s novel The English Patient. It’s set primarily in Italy against the backdrop of WWII though very little of the story includes battle. The main characters include a nurse who remains nameless for the first 30 pages, a patient who remains nameless nearly the length of the book, an English-trained Indian sapper who defuses bombs, and an ex-intelligence officer and thief … Hana, Almasy, Kip, and Caravaggio. Between these four and a handful of secondary players who enter and exit, Ondaatje weaves interesting tales with language and imagery that is often quite beautiful. It’s not a terribly recent book (the ones I read rarely are…a symptom of the bargain bin) but I remember advertising surrounding the publication and it being well-received by the general public. It might possibly have become a movie…or I might have gotten it mixed up with something else. With this mind, it’s hard to tell. At any rate, it’s a pretty good novel.

Hana is emotionally withdrawn and somewhat shell-shocked from her role in the war when Almasy enters her story, a man burned terribly and without hope of recovery. She vows that he will be her last patient, and they both refuse to leave their makeshift hospital in a ravaged Italian villa when the rest of the staff and patients move on. Caravaggio hears about Hana, an old family friend, while being treated in another hospital and goes to her. Not long thereafter Kip arrives, lured by the notes of a piano and the possibility of clever bombs. And an interesting love…square…develops. Though several years her senior, Caravaggio has always loved her; she loves the mystery and familiarity of the patient; and she loves the quiet presence of the sapper Kip. They are all emotionally and psychologically vulnerable, which manifests itself in different ways at different stages of the story, culminating in Kip’s unexpected explosion (emotionally, not physically; pardon the pun). At times, it’s difficult to follow the storyline, decipher who is speaking, understand how certain pieces fit together, but as a whole it’s interesting, beautiful, and certainly worth a read.

My favorite pieces come from the desert descriptions and stories from the burned patient (the “English” patient). They are really, extraordinarily beautiful.

Some of my favorite passages:

“Gradually we became nationless. I came to hate nations. We are deformed by nation-states. … The desert could not be claimed or owned – it was a piece of cloth carried by winds, never held down by stones, given a hundred shifting names long before Canterbury existed, long before battles and treaties quilted Europe and the East. … It was a place of faith. We disappeared into landscape. Fire and sand. … Ain, Bir, Wadi, Foggara, Khottara, Shaduf. I didn’t want my name against such beautiful names. Erase the family name! Erase nations! … Still, some wanted their mark there. On that dry watercourse, on this shingled knoll. Small vanities … But I wanted to erase my name and the place I had come from. … It was easy for me to slip across borders, not to belong to anyone …”

“… They are wakened by the three minarets of the city beginning their prayers before dawn. … The beautiful songs of faith enter the air like arrows.”

“A man in a desert can hold absence in his cupped hands knowing it is something that feeds him more than water. There is a plant he knows near El Taj, whose heart, if one cuts it out, is replaced with a fluid containing herbal goodness. Every morning one can drink the liquid the amount of a missing heart. The plant continues to flourish for a year before it dies from some lack or other.”

There are other great passages but these remain among my favorites. If you have a rainy afternoon and hanker for something a bit foreign, this would make a nice read.

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Futility

Well, the season of brotherly love has ended. Call me a pessimist, a cynic, a curmudgeon (all true), but a few days ago I got a call that punctured the bright balloon of Christmas delusion and ushered the real world back in. Criminals posing as lawyers, bankers, judges, and friends victimized my neighbor’s step-mom. She wasn’t the first. I watched the same thing happen roughly ten years ago to another neighbor and the similarities are sickening.

Both were older widows well past retirement; both owned their homes, a small parcel of land, and had several thousand in savings; both were “be-friended” by wealthy couples who wanted to “take care” of the women; both women signed all manner of papers they did not understand; both women died suddenly and unexpectedly with all their worldly possessions and belongings deeded to the wealthy couples who “befriended” them.

It sounds fake. A crummy sub-plot in a soap opera or B-movie. But I’ve seen it myself and know it’s real and true and still happening. The latest victim, we’ll call her Ruth for the sake of anonymity, had no blood family and only a few ties by marriage, step-children who never cared much for her. Only one even bothered to remain in contact with her (my neighbor). When she told him about the wealthy couple offering to make sure she was cared for, he was suspicious, but she was convinced they were good people and began signing the papers they put in front of her. A power of attorney in case she suddenly fell ill; access to her bank accounts and savings to make sure her bills were paid; and among the god knows what else they slid under her pen, more powers of attorney and a deed for her house and property. She signed them all. By the time she began questioning their motives, she was falling ill and had nothing left in her name.

Even so, she had the first power of attorney revoked and asked her step-son (my neighbor) for help to get them out of her life. She told him what she knew (though nothing of the secondary powers of attorney or deed, which she apparently never knew she signed) and he helped her take the couple’s names off her bank accounts that very day. The very next day, a new power of attorney was filed in the courthouse and the couple claimed her bank accounts again; it so happened that they had friends in the bank and the courthouse keeping them abreast of any changes. Before she could reverse it again, Ruth had a small stroke and went into the hospital. While there she was declared incompetent due to dementia. My neighbor admitted she had been getting worse during the last few months but did not think she was anywhere near incompetent. At any rate, she was soon sent home under the care of the wealthy couple.

My neighbor was called away on business but had his wife call every few days to check on Ruth. Ruth herself rarely answered but one of the couple often did. They assured the wife that Ruth was fine and they were taking care of her. When my neighbor returned he went to check on her and found her alone in her house, dirty, ill, and unresponsive. He called 911 and she was taken to the hospital. There, they said she was dehydrated, suffering from massive organ failure, and had not eaten in days. She died within a few days, having never truly regained consciousness. She was in the ground within 36 hours.

My neighbor is speaking with attorneys to see what his options are. They aren’t encouraging. The wealthy couple are “upstanding pillars of the community” with the man (and mastermind) a deacon in the church, an ex-judge, and a practicing attorney himself. His brother works in a major bank in the area. His years in the courthouse and law office provided him plenty of contacts but he also had fingers in real estate agencies, which came in awfully handy in tracking down new blood. It so happened a partner in one of those real estate agencies was the man behind the crimes perpetrated against my other neighbor. He’s also high in the church, has close ties with the courthouse, and has two sons in the state police.

How very, very convenient for them both.

I wish my neighbor luck but hold little hope for him. Who knows how deep their influences run, but from past dealings I can tell you they pull some strings all the way to the state capitol. And they certainly have deeper pockets and more legal experience to defend themselves than my neighbor could possibly raise to attack them. It’s just another example of our wonderful justice system and those who use it.

All I can say is, watch your back.

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