There were celebrations in progress yesterday on both banks of the Potomac Rivers broad and inexorable flow. It divides things in terms of mood. On the West bank, just up the Hill from the gray-brown-sometimes blue waters there was joy and relief. The joy sprang from the successful celebration of another orbit around the sun for Vic. He claims to be hanging on to the last of the years he can term his “early 70’s” decade.

Great effort had been expended at the Socotra Headquarters to provide festive party favors in prim little Mason jars. Those were, bagged in bulk for transport, and taken over to our local Outback Restaurant. Ken and his staff make it a sort of Big Pink Florida Room annex. Guests? A table of lovely women of an age sufficient to have discovered all the manifestations of life in a remarkable America and the luckiest of participants. A couple distinguished- or at least formerly- distinguished gentlemen with attentive staff. Great fun, modest age-appropriate hilarity, and a magical two fingers of whiskey to toast the occasion as a sort of benediction of a now long ago event that occurred at 6:19 EST at Detroit’s Mount Carmel Mercy Hospital. 73 years ago.

Later, laughter done and guests departed, the party rested quietly in the powered recliners off the conference room. We lit up the enormous flat-screen and saw that people on the other side of the broad River had conducted a different sort of celebration. It may have been the luncheon libation that enhanced the wonder of it. The images were not of the impending Juneteenth celebration but rather a Protest about a cease-fire in a conflict far away.

Which one? That is a symptom of our modern messaging. There is, of course, continuing high-energy tension in what used to be Ukraine as a part of Russia that became a separate Ukraine but now some of it, divided by their own Big River, part of Russia once more. We have spent tens of thousands of millions of dollars in supporting one side of that, but there was no reference to that. Another struggle has emotions flaring about the situation in Gaza.

There is plenty to talk about in that one, since the Israelis just made a splash by conducting a military raid to rescue hostage taken when this was started (we think) by Hamas, the ostensible leaders of Gaza. So, we get a little confused about the moving parts in this. Apparently the rational response to the understandable Israeli reaction is to tke spray-paint to the base of the statue across Pennsylvania Venue from from the senior care facility on Pennsylvania avenue. The figure atop the monument is that of Comte de Rochambeau, a French army commander who fought alongside George Washington during the Revolutionary War.

Messaging? We were briefly startled, having walked those steps long ago when they were pristine and dignified stone adorned with intricate bronze castings and up lifting spirt. these were bright paint that read short slogans in haphazard vandal scrawl. “Free Gaza,” “Ceasefire now” and one referring to a Chief Executive whose team is in a bitter fight for re-election: “Shame on you Joe.”

Retirement has caused confusion. Police stood around the monument looking a bit embarrassed at their failure to respond. We watched one of them stand stoic as he was hit by a bottle of water. No action was taken nor arrests were made. That was the surprising thing about it. It seemed to suggest that just a mile from our parking lot the city government of our Nation’s capital is unwilling to defend the works of art erected in honor of our history. That those great works should simply be the canvass on which new virtues might be sprayed from disposable cans.

We claim no advocacy for any participant in the current matter. We were horrified by the act that commenced this episode but more amid that a nuanced conflict far away can have such confused and violent application here, where there is supposed to be peace.

We saw this in the riots of 2020. The lack of direct response to violent elements in the “mostly peaceful” demonstrations seemed to imply a certain sympathy to the those acting out by the government we elected with the expectation they would keep reasonable order in the streets while respecting the right to express public concern. In our thoughts, that does not include torching Federal buildings we pay to maintain in good working order.

But of course, that reflects our new normal, which is living in a social war in progress in which we pretend it is not. We do not have a good sense of who the demonstrators across the River actually were. We knew old style demonstrators, and were part of those crowds long ago. These now? Recent immigrants? Indeterminate legal status? What was up with the Open Borders that brought more than ten million newcomers here with the apparent toleration for the violation of the laws we are expected to obey?

Acceptance of that behavior by the ones expected to keep the peace means something profound has occurred. Something signifying a sort of national derangement.

We had to take fairly dramatic action. When able, we pressed the button on the black box next ot the chair and raised it up so we could limp to The Patio, there, something remarkable, natural, and unspoiled gave us Nature’s opinion on the situation on both sides of the Big River. The hydrangeas got our vote.

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
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