IN MEMORIAM: QUONDAM ET FUTURUS

May 25, 2020 kdez1011

For Memorial Day our president, Donny Bone-Spurs, five-time draft dodger, will take a break from golf and lay a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery. This is in spite of the Mayor of Baltimore’s plea that he set an example, stay home, wear a mask, and avoid crowds.

C’mon, Mayor Young! All that plague-prevention is for losers! Trump is a winner! As portrayed:

Hillary as Sauron? Really?

Waddling to the goal line

He’s super-macho! Invulnerable, even! He probably thinks dying in defense of the country is weak! Sad! Remember his remark about John McCain? “He’s not a war hero …. I like people who weren’t captured.” No doubt he also prefers military who don’t get killed. Then they can march in parades while jet planes fly in formation overhead, all for the glory of Trump.

This year Covid-19 is making that kind of thing difficult. Nevertheless, Trump is refusing to wear a mask in public and inspiring his followers to do the same.  My personal theory (picked up on Twitter, so you know it’s true) is that Trump is getting infusions of convalescent blood plasma from Covid-19 survivors. That’s why he’s so confident and virus-resistant. He’s not taking hydroxychloroquine, don’t be silly — that stuff is bad for you.

He’s also not about to lead us in memorializing pandemic victims. An esteemed reader texted, in reference to a NYT article, We Can’t Comprehend This Much Sorrow:  “I’ve been wondering why with all this death there seems to be no collective mourning – very strange to be so isolated.” Yes, strange and unnatural, especially on Memorial Day.

Plague column, Vienna

Someday we will mend this and remember our dead. In the old days people would put up “plague columns” after an epidemic. The art critic at the L.A. Times thinks we should take Trump Tower by eminent domain and build a plague column on that site. I like it. 

But for now, memorializing those who have gone before will only happen within the limits of what serves Trump and the GOP. They’ll exploit war-time patriotism, but they won’t acknowledge the U.S. 100,000 who have died of Covid-19. The entire right-wing media machine is geared up to deny the numbers, deny the necessity of emergency measures, and deploy Weapons of Mass Distraction like “Obamagate.”

Last Friday Kayleigh McEnany (Trump’s Press Secretary) and Chanel Rion (OANN) staged a little show at a White House press briefing. McEnany called on Rion (who is unauthorized and only there by special invitation) so she could ask a pre-set question: “if the President has considered pardoning President Obama for illegally wiretapping, illegally spying on citizens, and other potential crimes out there.” Chanel is a real piece of work — bucking to replace Michelle Malkin? Or maybe to be the next Sarah Palin? I’m keeping an eye on that one.

So it’s a Memorial Day without national unity of any kind. People feel isolated at home, or are out recklessly barbecuing their last. There is no collective mourning of the recent dead, and no agreement on how to honor veterans.

Personally, I will plant flowers on the graves of my ancestors whom I remember with respect. My grandfather was a surgeon in WWI, in some kind of proto-MASH unit, and it wasn’t pretty. But he could hunt and fish and dig clams and shuck oysters, and he was pretty tough — like this lady:

So in memory of my honored dead, I will harvest sorrel in the backyard to make Julia Child’s Potage Crème d’Oseille and forage the ingredients for Purple Dead Nettle Rice Bake. And then just keep improvising until better days roll around again. Quondam et futurus: once and future.