Category Archives: Writing

Editorial Reviews

Learning from Taiwan about responding to Covid-19 – Summary

Author’s note: The complete article is titled:

Learning from Taiwan about responding to Covid-19 — and using electronic health records By Ezekiel J. Emanuel, Cathy Zhang, And Aaron Glickman JUNE 30, 2020

and can be found at:

Learning from Taiwan about responding to Covid-19 — and using electronic health records

SUMMARY:

Who beat the Covid Pandemic? If one measures success as fewest coffins per 100k or sustained economy, Taiwan kills the U.S.  

On a per 100k basis, the U.S. has 1,200 times as many new Covid-19 graves as Taiwan. The U.S. issued, begrudgingly, stimulus checks to idle workers and ailing enterprises. Taiwan? Not不(bù). By containing the virus, Taiwan prevented deaths and sustained its economy. What are some obvious differences in the two countries? Taiwan is an island. Taiwan is less populous than the U.S. What else?

Doesn’t being an island and having less people automatically give Taiwan an advantage over the U.S. in the fight against Covid? Other factors counter these advantages. Compare population density per square mile in Taiwan 臺(tái)灣(wān)= 1,680 vs continental United States = 103. Oh, and did I forget to mention her closest (81 miles) neigbor?

So, Taiwan’s successful response to Covid-19 was luck …NOT不(bù)!. Taiwan’s proximity to China abides. Since more than 1 million Taiwanese work in China, those workers carry home more than a paycheck. Having nationals working in the country where the pandemic originated and returning home posed danger but that danger never ensued. Why (was this so)?

Culture plus vigilance plus information equals power to the populous.

Taiwan has generated a culture of taking infections from China seriously. For example, Taiwan’s innovative electronic health records system made possible the country’s swift, targeted response to Covid-19. The health card gives the ministry regular, nearly real-time data. The availability of almost immediate data on patient visits allowed the country to efficiently identify, test, trace, and isolate cases. Therefore private patient data provides public populous good. But information potential does not always serve its many possibilities…

Having electronic health records solves nothing but the abstracts of time and space – unless innovatively utilized. The U.S. has come a long with its use of electronic records, thanks in part to the financial incentives built into the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009. What’s the next step for electronic records?

Size and site things. But the Republic of China and the “Land of the Free.” Differ in other and invisible ways.

Taiwan shows that data sharing is a challenge of policy, not technology. Americans’ health records privacy policy trumps technological solutions to national health care concerns. Americans seem reluctant to allow the Department of Health and Human Services to monitor patient encounters. Taiwan solves the riddle while the U.S. burns. When freedom prevents liberty, people die.

Putting privacy policy aside for popular good allows lifesaving innovations. Medicare and Medicaid could adopt something similar to the Taiwanese health card. Why haven’t they? Insurers already get data based on hospital and physician claims, albeit only weeks or months after encounters, making the information less useful for tracking infectious outbreaks. Adapting U.S. electronic health records to an expanded role would be work but not hard work because…

Accepting that hindsight may not always be 20/20, past experience should be the future starting point for developing a Taiwan like system. The U.S. has the benefit of hindsight for what went well and what went wrong with electronic health records development. Hindsight smooths the path 道(dào)to take the next step – health record utilization for public good. The U.S. needs a faster, more serious response to public health emergencies. When will this happen? Can it happen without serious revision of the privacy accord?

Shoring up the U.S.’s digital health infrastructure will help improve routine care in the long run while empowering us to better respond to future infectious disease outbreaks.

Writing

Despondent? Do What Robinson Crusoe Did.

CHAPTER IV – FIRST WEEKS ON THE ISLAND

And, first, I found that all the ship’s provisions were dry and untouched by the water, and being very well disposed to eat, I went to the bread room and filled my pockets with biscuit, and ate it as I went about other things, for I had no time to lose… [PS1] 

There had been some barley and wheat together; but, to my great disappointment, I found afterwards that the rats had eaten or spoiled it all. [PS2] 

While I was doing this, I found the tide begin to flow, though very calm; and I had the mortification to see my coat, shirt, and waistcoat, which I had left on the shore, upon the sand, swim away… [PS3] 

And it was after long searching that I found out the carpenter’s chest, which was, indeed, a very useful prize to me, and much more valuable than a shipload of gold would have been at that time.  And thus, having found two or three broken oars belonging to the boat – and, besides the tools which were in the chest, I found two saws, an axe, and a hammer; with this cargo I put to sea. [PS4] 

I did my utmost, by setting my back against the chests…[PS5] 

All that I could do was to wait till the tide was at the highest… [PS6] 

I was in an island environed every way with the sea contented with this discovery, I came back to my raft, and fell to work to bring my cargo on shore… [PS7] 

I got on board the ship as before, and prepared a second raft…[PS8] 

I was under some apprehension, during my absence from the land, that at least my provisions might be devoured on shore: but when I came back I found no sign of any visitor; only there sat a creature like a wild cat upon one of the chests, which, when I came towards it, ran away a little distance, and then stood still. [PS9] 

…into this tent I brought everything that I knew would spoil either with rain or sun; [PS10] 

When I had done this, I blocked up the door of the tent with some boards within [PS11] 

In a word, I brought away all the sails, first and last; only that I was fain to cut them in pieces… [PS12] 

I found a great hogshead of bread, three large runlets of rum, or spirits, a box of sugar, and a barrel of fine flour…[PS13] 

But my good luck began now to leave me; for this raft was so unwieldy, and so overladen not being able to guide it so handily as I did the other, it overset, and threw me and all my cargo into the water… [PS14] 

…discovered a locker with drawers in it, in one of which I found two or three razors, and one pair of large scissors, with some ten or a dozen of good knives and forks [PS15] 

I smiled to myself at the sight of this money: ‘O drug!’ said I, aloud, ‘what art thou good for…[PS16] 

…in the morning, when I looked out, behold, no more ship was to be seen! [PS17] 

…what kind of dwelling to make – whether I should make me a cave in the earth, or a tent upon the earth;[PS18] 

1st,      health and fresh water, I just now mentioned;

2ndly, shelter from the heat of the sun;

3rdly,   security from ravenous creatures, whether man or beast;

4thly,   a view to the sea, that if God sent any ship in sight,[PS19] 

In this half-circle I pitched two rows of strong stakes, driving them into the ground till they stood very firm like piles, the biggest end being out of the ground above five feet and a half, and sharpened on the top. The two rows did not stand above six inches from one another.[PS20] 

…placing other stakes in the inside, leaning against them, about two feet and a half high, like a spur to a post; and this fence was so strong, that neither man nor beast could get into it or over it[PS21] 

I made a large tent, which to preserve me from the rains that in one part of the year are very violent there, I made double – one smaller tent within, and one larger tent above it; and covered the uppermost with a large tarpaulin, which I had saved among the sails. [PS22] 

Oh, my powder! My very heart sank within me when I thought that, at one blast, all my powder might be destroyed…[PS23] 

I think my powder, which in all was about two hundred- and forty-pounds weight, was divided in not less than a hundred parcels. [PS24] 

The first time I went out, I presently discovered that there were goats in the island [PS25] 

…by the position of their optics, their sight was so directed downward that they did not readily see objects that were above them;[PS26] 

Having now fixed my habitation, I found it absolutely necessary to provide a place to make a fire in, and fuel to burn: [PS27] 

I had great reason to consider it as a determination of Heaven, that in this desolate place, and in this desolate manner, I should end my life[PS28] 

All evils are to be considered with the good that is in them, and with what worse attends them.[PS29] 

…to live without my gun…[PS30] 

I set it up on the shore where I first landed – ‘I came on shore here on the 30th September 1659.’[PS31] 

…omitted setting down before; as, in particular, pens, ink, and paper, several parcels in the captain’s, mate’s, gunner’s and carpenter’s keeping; three or four compasses, some mathematical instruments  [PS32] 

I shall show that while my ink lasted, I kept things very exact, but after that was gone I could not, for I could not make any ink by any means that I could devise. [PS33] 

…my reason began now to master my despondency.  [PS34] 

I began to comfort myself as well as I could, and to set the good against the evil, that I might have something to distinguish my case from worse; [PS35] 

and I stated very impartially, like debtor and creditor, the comforts I enjoyed against the miseries I suffered, thus:- [PS36] 

Upon the whole, here was an undoubted testimony that there was scarce any condition in the world so miserable but there was something negative or something positive to be thankful for in it; [PS43] 

and let this stand as a direction from the experience of the most miserable of all conditions in this world: [PS44] 

that we may always find in it something to comfort ourselves from, and [PS45] 

to set, in the description of good and evil, on the credit side of the account. [PS46] 

But I must observe, too, that at first this was a confused heap of goods, [PS47] 

which, as they lay in no order, so they took up all my place; I had no room to turn myself: so I set myself to enlarge my cave [PS48] 

And here I must needs observe, that as reason is the substance and origin of the mathematics, [PS49] 

So, by stating and squaring everything by reason, and by making the most rational judgment of things, every man may be, in time, master of every mechanic art. [PS50] 

I had no remedy for but patience[PS51] 

And now it was that I began to keep a journal of every day’s employment[PS52] 

then fancy at a vast distance I spied a sail, please myself with the hopes of it, [PS53] 

and then after looking steadily, till I was almost blind, lose it quite, [PS54] 

and sit down and weep like a child, and thus increase my misery by my folly. [PS55] 

 [PS1]Hindsight is 20/20.

Now that Crusoe sees that they all would have been saved if they had stayed on board, he wishes that he had.

Opportunity fleeting – decision difficult

 [PS2]In every find, there is a truth.

In many truths, there is disappointment…

RATS!

 [PS3]In seeking to save oneself…sometimes some of that self must be lost.

 [PS4]From hence, ye beauties, undeceived,

Know, one false step is ne’er retrieved,

    And be with caution bold.

Not all that tempts your wandering eyes

And heedless hearts, is lawful prize;

    Nor all that glisters, gold.

 [PS5]Sometimes fight makes right.

Other times, discretion is the better part of valor.

Often, you have no choice.

 [PS6]Wu Wei…wait for the appropriate time.

 [PS7]When all you have is a surrounding infinite see and a confining deserted island, you fall to work to survive.

 [PS8]When good luck befalls you, don’t stair it in the mouth.

 [PS9]Fear of the unknown can the greatest fear of all.

The feared may not be so fearsome.

Going about one’s business may be a remedy for fear.

Looking the feared in eye may cause it to cower and run away.

 [PS10]Not everything will spoil

Not everything will last

The rain and sun will come for some

Seek shelter for that mass.

 [PS11]Though fears of one

They may subside

Not all the danger lurks

When one is looking or alert

So build a door with locks.

 [PS12]Things for purpose have more than that

So, keep them for that day

When purpose comes for odds and ends

Hoarding sometimes pays.

 [PS13]Outside one’s health there are delights

That’s why we suffer here

So take a swig then take a bite

Revel in slight cheer.

 [PS14]Good luck lasts not forever…

Bag luck takes its place…

But look back in deep water…

For those forlorn pieces of eight.

 [PS15]Steel defeated the savage

So, it was defeat I finds in the drawer

If you are centuries ahead of your henchman

Discover safety within the drawer.

 [PS16]We were poor, so we took food and water

They were rich, so took they jewels

At sea their thirst did urge them

To trade treasure to fellow fools

Fate took most they ‘fore us rich

Before Thai pirates took their best

We survivors roped together

Sinking now to final rest

 [PS17]One choice dear fate allows us

To act before she does

If apathy aboundeth thee

Then thy ship adrift to lee.

 [PS18]A shelter from the elements

Be quick or sound the choice

Sleep the night in comfort

Or fear for life the North

 [PS19]Stay thee healthy drink fresh water

Find shelter from the sun

Secure thyself from beast and man

Have a view when tomorrow come.

 [PS20]A bulwark to nature’s aggression

Must have shape and height and depth

To slow the charge that soon to come

And prevent their climb upon.

 [PS21]Brace for push and pressure

For that be initial take

Of enemies before us

Now hiding in the wait..

 [PS22]One layer might betray thee

Two better but not best

A third to cover over all

Put rains hard to the test.

 [PS23]Precious and yet volatile

Keep safe but separate be

A flash or spark might send all

In piece to shing sea

 [PS24]In full it be jeopardizing

In parcel it be safer

Take the time to put your stock

Away, weigh be it sack or wafer

 [PS25]Getting your goat may be the point

Of another who appears to distract

But finding your goat can be your wish

When roots and berries stack.

 [PS26]Again with the goats

This time hunting…

Intent on their pasture

Goats never look heaven

So be with us

Attacks from above

 [PS27]A house without a heat

Be careful in thy placement

The needs of flame provided

But protect from smoke and spark and spread

 [PS28]Desolation claims not just the land

But one’s soul it do so grasp

Till thy life not worth living

And death a welcome rest

 [PS29]See the foul as designated evil

But mine out the sister good

See what worse might yet offend thee

See what better be understood

 [PS30]One good is gun in hand

When hunting out the land

But those before had none

And yet still they hunt the stnad

 [PS31]Mark thy days in solitude

For rescue come not soon

Have something to count and see

The past on future noon

 [PS32]Tools of technique serve one well

Writing parts the more

Though might weather through the years

One writes then writes no more

 [PS33]A list exact in pen and ink

Is what I spoke of thence

When ink be gone how make thee more

Set about it now and hence

 [PS34]Might anything rule hopelessness?

Try reason first and last

For only you can work the tools

To wreck the wretched past

 [PS35]Comfort comes in segments small

When mind grapples with the matter

All that one can do at now

Is put out what might be worse

 [PS36]Line them up in front of reason

Call forth one by one

Place on each a name and sign

Then pair them with a prince

 [PS37]Being alive and wishing you were dead

Is much worse than being dead

Take heart in every sunset

In light with hope arise

 [PS38]When one decides that he’s unique

To misery so deep

Realize the others lost

Be calmed for one night’s sleep

 [PS39]Take thy sustenance as it is given

Eat alone, enjoy the taste

For time eternal takes the rest

Slow your sour pace

 [PS40]What you have is what you’ve got

Wear it well and long

A day will come when patches fall

And naked taken yon

 [PS41]A world awash with evil

Might crush me like a bug

But here and now I rule in small

I’m safe and soft and snug

 [PS42]Be there no one else for dialogue

Still I have all else about me

Chop and sing and curse the sky

Why mourn? I have what’s necessary.

 [PS43]Conditions miserable demand a mate

To offset thankless times

So negative or positive

Make sour now sublime

 [PS44]At the point of most miserable

Direct thyself away

To parts unknown but better

Above despair thy stay

 [PS45]Find comfort where there is none

Seek shelter in the deluge

Always there in hidden crevasse

Two side and top, a refuge

 [PS46]If life to you is only cost

Review your own accounting

Ledger’s without credit

See debt galore amounting

 [PS47]When wrecked anew you find yourself

Scattered without order

Confusion rules and things pile up

Till there’s no space within border

 [PS48]Order thing, expand if must

But solve the problem quickly

A hoarder’s home beneath the dust

Becomes a cave and sickly

 [PS49]Reason rules the fertile mind

Mathematics becomes the tool

So substance spawns from that no here

Believe not? Then you’re a fool

 [PS50]Bring me each great problem

Give me such great time

Though crude at first and then refined

Confusion seeks design

 [PS51]And there it is, a pause

When stymied he doth sit

Defeated by a quarry

Succeeded by his wit

 [PS52]Journal thy time

Remember the gaps

Though posterity cares not

Record with sap

 [PS53]A distant hope of fancy

In motion and then gone

She raised my hopes then lowered

In brief, quite like a song

 [PS54]Blinded by the light of hope

Fallen by arisen false

Exhausted lie I staring

Alone with suffered loss

 [PS55]Mourn the passing ship of hope

Be a child for just this

Let misery and folly bring you down

People

America – Red, Black and Green (Fear, Hate and Greed in America)

What emotions take queues from the brain’s primitive parts? Which colors attribute to these vibes? Without intellect, these feeling fall subject to who? When a population and its leaders fall victim to primitive feelings, who also falls?

A person counts fear as real until it can be examined. If the thing feared cannot be examined by the individual, trust becomes vested in the state to define and resolve. The state, therefore, holds the power to extinguish fear or inflame it. Genuine action and enlightenment solve actual and unfounded fears. Manipulation, deception and obfuscation exacerbate fear of an unknown.

The media often leads with stories which scream hyperbolic but exist rare in this world. Media confects scary medical facts from myth and conjecture. Predators portrayed as slick and devious, offenders in sophisticated, rehabilitative lockups, documented from questionable sources or phony experts. Generators of fear get what they want via mindless reaction.  National scares morph into trends. Millennial fever burns up the treetops of sane analysis. Profiteers love the slaughter. Minority politicians count majority votes. Fear wins over freedom most of the time these days in this place.

Gated communities, background checks, drug testing loom ore the land. Common social ills become crimes. Punishments plague the poor only and severely. Everyday life sees every citizen as a possible perpetrator of every possible crime. By exploiting vulnerabilities, government at all levels now intrudes on all of us most of the time. Freedom from fear comes not from an overweening government security state but from individuals working individually and together against the real and imminent perpetrators of crime.

Hatred nurtured by experience or upbringing becomes the DNA of a population segment. Something unjust, real or imagined sets hate in motion. It takes a village to keep hatred’s embers burning through generations. When hatred stokes the minds of children early with stories and rites, bystanders can do little to lower the temperature or slow momentum.

Upbringing alone does not present as the only breeder of haters. Media, mentioned above as a fear generator, employs hate to sell papers. Community, through mobility of place and employment, thins and has less impact than it did in the 1950’s. As community thins to the point of collapse, the pillars of hatred erect and thicken and overshadow good sense. As divisive cable news and websites erode common bonds, dignity and mutual interests disintegrate with those bonds. The victors be the haters and the haters be us.

Greed breeds greed. The way one makes money should be more important than making money itself. Money can be made the old-fashioned way by cheating, lying or robbing. But there is profit in fear and hate. Race bating keeps minorities in their ghetto and in their low wage jobs. The big bad wolf needs to be combatted, so security must be increased, and evil must be hunted down. Both the suppression of minorities and the enhancement of security cost money. Money is made on these overemphasized emotions.

The foundational myth that anyone with good idea and strong will can make it in America has been replaced by the reality that American capitalism evolved into a dog-eat-dog system. As far as social advancement, class here offers less mobility than in history’s societies of more rigid class structures. America must jettison the thinking that government is the problem, that corporate responsibility holds no allegiance but to shareholders and that making money adheres to no moral code. Republicans no longer nurture balanced budget and investment in public goods. Nurturing now a no-tax philosophy and letting things take their own course without government interference ends poorly. Supply-side assumptions yield stagnation – leading to workers giving up because hope holds meaning only to the fool. Productive economies treat all people equally and reward them accordingly. Sharing must exist alongside rewards. Profit sharing, antitrust enforcement and limiting special interest money can replenish the stock of social capital.

The colors of the aforementioned emotions are red, black and green. The American landscape has always had a red scare: from redcoats, to redskins, to communist and socialist. Black is the color of racism in the United States…now to include brown for emigrating populations. Our money is green, and we envy those who have it, no matter how they make it. Big money is in racism and fear of socialism. While the population barricades against fear and arms for invasion, the manipulators of such make money from it and lose no sleep.  

Politics, Studies in English Literature

More Thoughts on Watership Down

This post was inspired by Ross Douthat Opinion Columnist Oct. 22, 2019.

Read Ross’s opinion piece.

The following are some of my notes on his piece…

What is Ross Douthat’s plot?

A NEW Political Founding is a home resulting from both vision and struggle.

What does liberal order mean? The political structure of a party with tenets in the liberal mindset.

OTHER:

By shedding emotions in order to achieve certain goals, one comes full circle and becomes extremely emotional when those goals are threatened, impaired or ignored.

Every dogged pursuit without human and emotional consideration leads to separation from humanity.

Every suppression of humanity leads to depression and skepticism.

When a society, however large or small, by denying agency to a group or individual plants the seed of decay or segregation in its midst.

When the fundamentals of humanity are sacrificed for order or safety or escape, that society initiates its own demise rather than rebirth.

Societal good results from distributed input of virtues and values rather than one credentialed souls generous or will.

The village of ideas, strong and wise and prescient, contribute more to a society than any one type of mindset.

The impossibility of uninterrupted comfort or impenetrable safety must be accepted as future elements in a establishing a diverse society.

Ignoring reality, a liberal society must choose between dark futures: one that leaves fate to others or cruel nature; the other which constricts society to total control and harsh sanctions while still ignoring the enemies at the gates.

However, when combining ignorance of threat with suppression of descent, a society evolves into the worst of all worlds: societal elites escaping from a lower class of citizen temporarily in a doomed high castle.

Acceptance and integration of the society within hold the only real solution to withstanding the terrible tides without.

Societal success depends on putting politics behind the humanity those politics represent.

Poetry

Belief

My experience with belief is such my experience with knowing
I seek belief in something or someone
            much as I wonder at the flow of water or the fall of grains of sand.
The more I experience and observe
The more I realize I do not understand
The more I distance myself from understanding.
As my pursuit of a belief in something matures
            I recognize my naivete about that subject
            And the complexity of belief as a whole.
Those in whom I would believe
            Prove as impenetrable as the reasons for nature’s wrath.
No construction or regimen can prevent the eventual
            Devastation of disappoint in a person whom have placed your faith.
No study can tell you when faux integrity
            Will fall upon you and crush your simple belief.
It would be better to study the water’s flow
            Or the fall of the grains of sand
            Than to work at belief in something of man
            Or man himself.
Though never fully understandable
            Water and sand are concrete in their content
Man and his manufacture live far too malleable
            For either belief in or understanding of thus
Take away my desire to believe
            Reinforce my faith in the pursuit of knowledge
            And the satisfaction of its fruits
That one day soon I will lay me down
            Among my dead beliefs and those I once believed in
The reality of water’s flow and sand grains falling
            Will comfort me, and my faith shall be with them.


Writing

Musings at 7:37 a.m. on New Year’s Day 2019

When desperate, the best thing to do is do better.  Don’t give up to helplessness. Don’t succumb to selfish grifting. Try harder. Sacrifice. Endure. See hope in the future. There are people and situations which can help you escape your misery. Find them. You’ll find the worst first. Then you’ll find that the best are flawed. But most likely your escape is the escape you fashion from the pieces of a past that you broke.  Pick up the parts that will serve you. Abandon those which cut your hands and break your heart. The puzzle parts are all there for you to put together into a new beginning. At some point you must stop looking back. Look down. Look up. Look sideways. Move forward but protect and defend what is precious to you at all costs.

Conspiracy

An Enchanting Rare Book

Fresh off my latest social disaster, I decided I would review the book which would answer a contemporary mystery.

The book was rare.  It was only printed on demand.  No local or online book seller had it.  No near library held it.

I found my prize at Jelly Fenellie Books in London for the purchase price of $100.  I ordered it and it arrived in three weeks…what a surprise!

It was NOT a stogie mimeographed copy or plainly wrapped amateur creation.  A hard back. A fine dustcover. A clear library-like protective coat.  And more…

This book had the editor’s signature, date, best wishes. This book had the embossed stamp of its prominent owner.  Inside, in just the preface and first chapter pages, I found more surprises.

At first, I tried to acquire this book by other methods.  I checked the online book brokers.  I called a rare book shop in Pennsylvania.  I called the publisher, the son of the subject, in Dallas.  I contacted the library listed in a universal library search.  No luck.

I found this premiumly priced, rare book at Amazon UK site for a high price and ordered it immediately.  I waited anxiously.  I feared something would happen in transport or delivery that would spoil my self-assessed treasure.  Not so.

The book arrived bubble rapped and well taped, though packaging torn, in my mailbox as in the timeframe estimated. I perused it then put it down as if the excitement was over.

When I did cautiously approach the book to read, I anticipated that I would be at first slow to find enjoyment in it followed by boredom followed by drudgery.  But that wasn’t the case.

First, I was delighted to see the signature of the author.  As mentioned, it was the editor but also the son of the subject.  It turned out early that this accomplished military edited amateurishly, but lovingly.  He caught the high points the father would have wanted.

Tracing the identity of the embossed stamp, I discovered an author of prodigious works in the area of intelligence and espionage.  Also, a colorful politician and public figure, if not an occasional scoundrel.  I pursued his trail and found other books and authors to the point I was afraid I would lose my original intent, to review my new rare book.

I reluctantly returned to my expensive find and, after reading only the preface, wondered why I had wandered off.

Great names and events of the mid-twentieth century fell easily on to the preface pages.  Fine, precise words. Time lines and lengths of time. Teasers.  Resistance to publishing this memoir.  A philosophy which I expect will guide this tale or reappear at the epilogue.

Better Living Through Beowulf

Enlightenment on Ca-moo and Absurdism in Literature

My interest in Absurdist literature and Albert Camus led me to email the blogger Robin Bates, author of the blog BetterLivingThroughBeowulf.Com, and ask him about these subjects.  Below is his reply:

Albert Camus was a superstar during his life, in part because he summed up intellectuals’ distress over a world

  • which old certainties seemed to be vanishing away
  • when religious belief was on the decline
  • after a second world war
  • now with an atom bomb

Existentialism has some connection with the theater of the absurd. If there is no god, the reasoning went, then our lives have no ultimate meaning and our lives are absurd. As put by some: We are just a chemical reaction that occurred on a small pebbling hurling through the vast reaches of interstellar space, and an encounter with a large enough meteor would put an end to everything in a moment. Existentialism was a response to that bleak view of the world.

It’s always useful for me to remember that existentialism has the word “existence” at its core–it’s a philosophy that directly addresses existence questions, such as

  • why are we here?
  • where did we come from?
  • why do we die?
  • what is the meaning of our suffering, etc?

If there is no meaning to life, then it shouldn’t matter if Meursault shoots the Arab in The Stranger. In The Plague, such a sickness causes us all to question the meaning of life. Is there meaning in pushing a rock up a hill over and over, given that this could be a metaphorical expression of many of our lives.

Existentialists traced their thinking back to a number of others, including

  • Dostoevsky (especially the Grand Inquisitor chapter in Brothers Karamazov),
  • Nietzsche (wrestling with the death of God),
  • Kafka, and
  • Kierkegaard (Christian existentialists look to him).

The hard-boiled detective novels of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler have been described as existential, with the private eyes seeking to solve sordid crimes, even though the world won’t be that much of a better place even if they are successful. “You’re just a grubby little man in a grubby little world,” one villain tells the detective in Murder My Sweet. In The Maltese Falcon, when pushed to defend why he does what he does, Sam Spade replies, “When you’re partner dies, you’re supposed to do something about it.” It didn’t matter that his partner was a sleaze.

And that gets at one of the existential answers, one that existential authors like Ernest Hemingway also arrived at. If there’s not greater meaning [in life], then you determine a meaning and then you dedicate your life to that meaning. Sisyphus’s life has meaning because he dedicates it to pushing the rock up the hill, even though from another vantage point it’s all absurd. In fact, certain existentialists saw a kind of heroism in dedicating efforts to something which might be absurd.

There’s not much heroism to Vladimir and Estragon waiting around for Godot (God?) in Samuel Beckett’s play–so there’s a thin line between absurdism and existentialism.

Now, there are Christian existentialists, with the apparent absence of God from the world requiring a leap of faith (Kierkegaard). Existentialism is often seen as a very individualist philosophy, which is why it has fallen out of favor with some. After all, as soon as you start talking about families and communities, individual searches can seem somewhat selfish and self-absorbed. But there’s no doubt that existentialism has had a major influence on world literature. A whole generation of young people looking for meaning saw Camus as their spiritual guide.

Pub Theology, Vignettes

Lonesome in Langlade?

A bit of France off the coast of Canada.  The islands of St. Pierre, Miquelon and Langlade are rich with anomalies, not the least being their status as France’s last foothold in North America.  A hermit of Langlade off the coast of Miquelon island rich with mysteries, not the least being his status as Langlade’s last human inhabitant of this soon to be uninhabited island of France’s last foothold in North America.  Not much is known of this individual, but with our application of creative non-fiction, let’s fill in the blanks.

 Where to begin?  The mouth hell, shall we?  The waters between Miquelon (Michael) and Langlade (a corruption of “l’île à l’Anglais” or Englishman’s Island) are called Gueule d’Enfer (Mouth of Hell).  More than 600 shipwrecks have been recorded in this point since 1800.  Half-wild horses, the survivors of earlier ship wrecks, graze on the grassy hillocks.  The accidental equine tourists or Langlade, are joined by the intentional residents – white-tailed deer, brought over from Canada in the 1950’s.  These fully-wild forest cattle have proliferated in the thick brush and stunted spruce forests.  I’ve described how the largest of the four-legged creature of Langlade arrived.  How the bi-pedals?  That’s where creative non-fiction comes in.

According to the 1999 census, Langlade Island was almost deserted.  Only one inhabitant.  Langlade’s sole year-round inhabitant being Charles Lafitte.  That’s it.  Census data is sparse and anecdotal info curt, but the imagination can inveigle what’s missing.  We know how the birds and the bees and horses and the deer got here.  How did Charles la light here?  And wh why does he stay?  Perhaps, he prefers the anonymity of the near permanent fog to the exposure to the madding crowd.  Or, more likely, a woman put him here (if he were to explain).

Assuming old Charles is no horse whisperer, who does he talk to when no one is listening?  Mr. Lafitte has dogs.  Those dogs surely accompany him in all kinds of weather, whether it be meteorological, psychological, or philosophical.  The gods didn’t burden canines with the curse of mood.  When a man locks his wife and his dog in the trunk of his car, when he lets them out, he always knows which one will be glad to see him.  What kind of dogs were they?

If it were me, because my own experience with dogs, they would be Turkish shepherds.  I love the hilarity of dachshunds, but the eventuality of back issues and totality of their uselessness would prohibit them from being companions at my hermitage.  The beauty and power of the German shepherd appeals greatly to my esthetic appetite, but in a starvation scenario I might appeal to those great big teeth she has.  No, give the soft mouth and hard bark of an Anatolian mix.  Enough Pyr (Great Pyrenees) in her takes the lion out of Anatolian.  Or Akbash (white face) mix, cousin to the Anatolian (Karabash = black face).  You can’t beat having two companions, one of which you always know will be there, the other you never know where she is.  But, the most curious thing about Charles Lafitte is not his chance to be a hermit or his choice of canine companions, but his nickname.

The hermit Charles Lafitte, at some point, acquired the moniker “de Gaulle”.  I doubt that this name stuck simply because he is French.  I would have thought Napoleon would have better suited for a superficial and derisive reference.  I guess having the first name Charles would be a good start towards the application of “de Gaulle”.  Seems too easy.  Maybe he had a big nose.  Well, come on, a Frenchman with big nose…doesn’t that go with the territory?  Possibly, it disparagingly likens Mr. Lafitte’s estrangement to man as a distant comparison to Charles de Gaulle’s government in exile as a resistance to the Nazi occupation of France in WWII.  If Charles’ isolation was known to be connected to some criminal connection, I imagine he would be known as “Jean” Lafitte, you know, like the 19th century pirate.  If a woman sent him to Langlade, I might call him Charles “Defeat”.  If he was simply a mad man, how about “Chucky”.

I could go on, but interest is probably waning for you the reader and the morning sun is waxing for me.

P.S. Charles Lafitte passed away in July of 2006…just before the road on the isthmus between Miquelon and Langlade opened to traffic.

P.P.S.  I researched Charles de Gaulle and was reminded that the french general led the government in EXILE against the Vichy Government.  This explains Charles LaFitte’s nickname.

Pub Theology, Vignettes

Do Not Leave Children Unattended in Waiting Room – Episode #79

Last week, four blond, blue eyed, fare skinned people sat in the a medical clinic waiting room.  One would guess these people were related based on the physical characteristics.  I was one of them.  Heck, I thought, we could have been related except…  The other three, all children, took up all of the other chairs in the room.  The youngest, a boy, sat sideways with feet on a second chair and a ballcap on a third.  The oldest, a teen girl, sat on two chairs with a windbreaker on another and a purse on a fourth.  The middle child, a gangly boy, laid across three chairs, his boat like shoes snaked through the armrest of a fourth and his handheld video game extending under the armrest of a fifth.  It occurred to me, who raised these kids?

I heard the staff behind the window complaining loudly about these discourteous folks.  I agreed but ignored it.  Don’t meddle.  The voices I heard were clearly meant to alert the rude guests to straighten up and act properly in public.  Several times a clinician poked a head through the window and glared out.  To no avail.  I thought, they want someone to be embarrassed.

Eventually, the female of the group stood, grabbed her stuff and walked through the patient entrance.  The youngest boy hurriedly followed with his stuff and was whining about being left behind.  The gangly boy, who was left behind, sensed the absence of his family at some point and went to the window to ask where his sister and brother went.  I wondered, where are the parents?

The woman, confronted by the deserted boy, instead looked out the window at me, puzzled, and asked, “He’s not yours?”