Ransom and I watched Pretty Woman a couple weeks ago. It was the first time I rewatched it since it came out. Most of it was familiar but the scene that I remembered most clearly is the scene at the San Francisco opera when Richard Gere delivers the line above. I've always loved the thought and I agree with it.
My first opera was Macbeth. Though I was at times bored I did in fact love a lot of it. Whatever I was feeling I knew I was in the presence of something very special. By the time I heard La Traviata a few years later I was hooked -- just as Julia Roberts's character was when she saw Traviata. It remains my favorite opera I think -- just one glorious tune after another. And of course Violetta dies at the end. What's not to love?
I haven't written for several months because, quite frankly, even my cynicism doesn't rise to the level of what's needed these days. What can I possibly say about the heart-breaking, sickening tragedy taking place in Washington -- to say nothing of Syria, Africa, the Great Barrier Reef and much of the rest of the world? As a species we have taken a dramatic turn towards oblivion and I find it hard to be make smart-ass comments about our fall.
But many of my followers -- ok, one of my followers -- asked me to write again. So I'll try.
Do we have a future? Will we muddle through? Is this conservative attack on America just another swing of the pendulum? Will sanity return to America?
Deep down -- very deep down -- I think things will get better. But they will get a lot worse before they get better and that's going to make everything much harder four, eight and twelve years from now. If the Idiot-in-Chief serves his full four-year term, xenophobia, homophobia, racism and ignorance will all have a stronger foothold on the American psyche. Not caring about facts leads to terrible decisions; not caring about the planet leads to the death of the planet; not caring about people's rights leads to deep-seated resentment of power; not caring about our relations with the rest of the world leads to mistrust, anti-Americanism, isolationism and, perhaps, a state with many of the characteristics of North Korea.
Not a great time to be a cynic -- being right holds no real reward. And, from where I sit, an impossible time to be an optimist.
