Well, here we go again … a third season of The Lemonade Stand.
Always good to read kRIS for a laugh, but as a liberal political columnist, I must say the future in general doesn’t look like a walk in the park. A politically charged/morally arrogant Supreme Court has finally taken us down the rabbit hole with a snowball’s chance in Hell we’ll come out anytime soon.
Even if master hypocrites like McConnell and Graham repudiate Donald Trump and the narcissistic chaos and violence he represents, the damage is done. It’s not that the MAGA group is new to the landscape, the group has always been poised to strike from the bushes. It’s more that Trump has given these sociological malcontents the hope that homophobia, racism, and ethnocentrism will once again come to rule the day.
The way I see it, it will be the hindsight of history that Trump was always a grifter, no more no less. Unfortunately, January 6th and Roe vs. Wade are only the beginning of where this grift has led us.
On the election front, it’s bittersweet to see Ron DeSantis as a clear and present danger for Trump because in spite of our desperate need to have The Donald permanently out of the picture, in many ways DeSantis is far more dangerous. He’s actually intelligent, and let’s face it, he didn’t exactly major in healing at Harvard.
But there is hope it seems … with the recent Kansas abortion vote leading the way, the circular firing squad also known as the Democratic Party at long last has put a few wins on the scoreboard. Biden seems like he’s woken up from his nap, Manchin took the coal out of his stocking, and Sinema simply played politics to her advantage. We’ll see.
When I was younger and raised in a Republican family, I was taught to have faith in what our family perceived to be the vital cornerstones of Democracy – like the accuracy of the media, the wisdom of the Supreme Court, and the bi-partisan peaceful transfer of power. They were givens and made us feel safe. Yet in my lifetime, I’ve watched the trust and fabric of all three security blankets be shredded.
So what can we do? To begin with, the concept of Federalism and a functional Federal Union is broken, and in some ways, we almost have to start over. For instance, we have to decide if we are truly a country that is able to separate church from state. Wasn’t that one of the main points of creating America?
We need to educate voters that necessary institutions such as an effective military and an ever-ready National Guard, like inter-connecting highways, timely natural disaster relief, universal healthcare, and a host of other components of modern life are all (hate to say this) socialistic. Maybe we can call socialism something else, like Human Enhancement. Everyone must be informed that Human Enhancement is not communism, and there’s a need to invest in both the common good as well as in the individual good.
For non-Republicans, broken Federalism means we have to make the best of the ‘states rights’ reality because like it or not, that is the path we are on. From the time this country declared its independence, there’s been a deep schism between the Federalists and the states rights people, between the religious and the not so religious, between the haves and the have-nots … on those fronts, little has truly changed in more than two centuries.
So for all of you depressed liberals out there, even though it would be great if everyone could just ‘get along’, the reality is sobering – the world won’t soon be free of religious zealots and assault weapons for the depressed, which means at least for now, we must learn how to negotiate and survive in the rabbit hole. As I wrote months ago – individuals and families in America must begin to choose their gang color, red or blue, and be sure they live in a state that reflects their values.
For the truth is, my friends, in spite of most Americans (62%) disapproving the Supreme Court’s Roe Wade ruling, as long as this current group of judiciary zealots hovers self-righteously above us feeling free to leave skid marks on precedent, as long as we remain mired in an environment where absurdly easy access to AR-15’s and criminalizing ‘the right to choose’ are becoming part of the norm, what other solution is there? It’s not rocket science – take cover where there’s shelter … Hermione
Hermione Luck is editor-in-chief of The Lemonade Stand
Last Mother’s Day, I experienced the rarefied air found at the top of the social pyramid. The wife and I were guests of a friend who is a member of the Soho Members Club in Malibu, and the experience delivered all of the glitter expected when finding yourself in the promised land of the rich and famous.
The club, which I’m pretty sure relishes being a club, describes itself as a private setting for creative people in the arts, politics, and media. It’s a movers and shakers environment primarily enjoyed by L.A. progressives who anchor the entertainment world of America, which explains why kale and content are the passwords, and the secret handshake has been reduced to a pinkie bump.
So when you get out of your car stepping into a long, thin parking lot situated within a stone’s throw of the Pacific, the cars are parked with the very coolest car parked first, right next to the door entrance. It’s sort of like a handicapped space except exactly the opposite.
As I stood next to my own car waiting for the valet, I looked around the lot and maybe there was a vintage Bentley here and there, but basically it was the usual rundown of conspicuous consumption bigboy toys – Porsches, Teslas, Beamers, Mercedes, and Audis.
The valet wasn’t exactly impressed when he took the keys to our Subaru. I’m not sure, but I think he felt sorry for us, either that or he thought we’d driven into the wrong parking lot … at first, I considered acting self-possessed which would imply I’m important or at least in the loop, or perhaps I’d try to pull off eccentric which could suggest I possessed major talent, but to begin with, I didn’t have cool sunglasses which is a non-starter in L.A.. The valet probably parked the car across the street at a McDonalds.
The Soho setting in Malibu is on the beach less than twenty yards from the shoreline. It was a beautiful sunny day in the high sixties, and speaking of the high sixties, even the facelifts were looking pretty healthy that day …
I’m with the wife and we’re feeling pretty good about ourselves. Inside the place there’s real art on the walls, teak up the kazoo, polished steel everywhere, and with possibly a little pharmaceutical help on the side, everyone looked like they were in their happy place.
I’m really hungry, so the first thing I do is look for the buffet I was promised, and I gotta say, holy crap – it was like Christmas for people who had everything but wanted more. My fantasy was to place a chair right in front of the crab leg display and dig in. Who needs to keep on going back and forth to our table? I eventually came back to reality and stood in line waiting for my turn.
It’s hard to describe what free crab legs mean to me, and on top of that, all you can eat free crab legs. So after piling a pyramid of food on my plate, I moved on and I’m waiting, waiting, waiting for this chick to finish serving herself coleslaw. My entire family knows how much I love coleslaw and that I’d always have room on my plate, no matter how many crab legs were already there.
I’ve never been accused of being patient, but it just looked to me like this woman was analyzing each and every strand of cabbage before she considered it plate-worthy … then I reminded myself we were in L.A., so it was probably a search for mayo and its lethal trail of cellulite.
So I’m standing there, and I take a closer look at this woman bogarting the coleslaw and I realize she’s definitely a player – someone who smelled better than the food, someone who seemed to glow with skin and hair like you get on t.v.. She had an air about her. I never really knew what that meant before.
All that being said, this woman kept pecking, pecking, pecking at the goddamned coleslaw and when she was finally done, I looked at her plate – there were three carrots each the size of my my index finger, five shards of lettuce with a calorie count of maybe ten, volunteer strips of bell peppers and cucumber, some kale or maybe it was parsley, and of course the coleslaw.
This woman would be in absolutely no danger of having to go to WeightWatchers anytime soon.
Back at the table, about halfway into my second pyramid of crab legs, after the girls came back with their collection of salads and desserts, our member friend started recounting a story she’d just heard from one of the waiters she knew.
She looked at us, pulled us closer to the middle of the table, and in a lowered voice told us discreetly, “J-Lo is here.”
At first, I didn’t pay attention because, you know, I was eating crab legs. Our friend continued. “A waiter told me someone on line actually tried to talk to her.” At that point, I perked up a bit, looked over and asked – “Jay Leno is here?” There was quite an estrogen laugh as I was socially pantsed and informed that J-Lo was Jennifer Lopez, not Jay Leno.
It was then that I put two and two together. “That was me,” I confessed, “at the salad table. I knew she looked like a movie star, but she was taking so freaking long with the coleslaw. All I did was tell her that it’s good for the colon, you know, to move her along, like what a colon does. She was pissing me off like she had coleslaw entitlement or something. In fact, she ignored me when I told her the first time.”
The wife almost choked – “You talked to her about her colon? More than once?”
I nodded my head. It didn’t seem like a big deal. “I don’t think she believed me the first time.” The wife shook her head. “Did she say anything to you?” “Not much, something like ‘I’m glad about that’. But now that I think about it, maybe she was being sarcastic. I do remember she wasn’t smiling.”
The girls wanted me to give them every detail of my interaction. Did I know what kind of shoes she was wearing? Up close, what was her make-up like? Her skin? Are her eyes really as big as everyone says? What else was she wearing? Is anyone with her? Ben Affleck maybe?
After finishing what I’d say was a four crab-leg conversation about my interaction with a major celebrity, I loosened my belt and stood up to walk around the club, hoping to walk off feeling somewhat bloated. Hopefully, I could rally for at least one, possibly two more feedings at the trough. There remained mountains of meat to conquer, three dessert tables, sushi, eggplant parmesan, calamari salad, and basically everything I ever wanted to eat. Maybe Jay Leno was somewhere around as well … I’d sure like to talk to him about cars over a heap of tiramisu.
As I walked among the tables and past both bars, I came to realize this whole fame obsession that people seem to have in America has tentacles where someone who sees a celebrity becomes a celebrity just by seeing them. Actually talking to a celebrity like I did could be eulogy material as in “He was a good man and told J-Lo about the benefits of coleslaw.”
On our way out the door, as we waited for the car guy to hike to get our Subaru which was parked in front of a detox center, J-Lo was having her picture taken with her kids in front of the next-to-the-door premier car. I almost said something to her, but I was out of colon information. I made eye contact as she posed for her picture, and I gave her a warm smile.
She pretended not to recognize me. At least that’s the way my agent is telling the story. I’m a celebrity now … I don’t have to play by the rules.
Maybe you’ll meet me in line someday.
not Jay Leno
kRIS Krankle is the founder of MILDEW Men with Intimacy and Learning Disorders Experiencing Women
Welcome Lemonade fans to our third Lemonade season. We hope to bring both levity and insight to the daily grind of watching the world being roasted …
The Soho Experience kRIS Krankle
Last Mother’s Day, I experienced the rarefied air found at the top of the social pyramid. The wife and I were guests of a friend who is a member of the Soho Members Club in Malibu, and the experience delivered all of the glitter expected when finding yourself in the promised land of the rich and famous.
The club, which I’m pretty sure relishes being a club, describes itself as a private setting for creative people in the arts, politics, and media. It’s a movers and shakers environment primarily enjoyed by L.A. progressives who anchor the entertainment world of America, which explains why kale and content are the passwords, and the secret handshake has been reduced to a pinkie bump.
So when you get out of your car stepping into a long, thin parking lot situated within a stone’s throw of the Pacific, the cars are parked with the very coolest car parked first, right next to the door entrance. It’s sort of like a handicapped space except exactly the opposite.
As I stood next to my own car waiting for the valet, I looked around the lot and maybe there was a vintage Bentley here and there, but basically it was the usual rundown of conspicuous consumption bigboy toys – Porsches, Teslas, Beamers, Mercedes, and Audis.
The valet wasn’t exactly impressed when he took the keys to our Subaru. I’m not sure, but I think he felt sorry for us, either that or he thought we’d driven into the wrong parking lot … at first, I considered acting self-possessed which would imply I’m important or at least in the loop, or perhaps I’d try to pull off eccentric which could suggest I possessed major talent, but to begin with, I didn’t have cool sunglasses which is a non-starter in L.A.. The valet probably parked the car across the street at a McDonalds.
The Soho setting in Malibu is on the beach less than twenty yards from the shoreline. It was a beautiful sunny day in the high sixties, and speaking of the high sixties, even the facelifts were looking pretty healthy that day …
I’m with the wife and we’re feeling pretty good about ourselves. Inside the place there’s real art on the walls, teak up the kazoo, polished steel everywhere, and with possibly a little pharmaceutical help on the side, everyone looked like they were in their happy place.
I’m really hungry, so the first thing I do is look for the buffet I was promised, and I gotta say, holy crap – it was like Christmas for people who had everything but wanted more. My fantasy was to place a chair right in front of the crab leg display and dig in. Who needs to keep on going back and forth to our table? I eventually came back to reality and stood in line waiting for my turn.
It’s hard to describe what free crab legs mean to me, and on top of that, all you can eat free crab legs. So after piling a pyramid of food on my plate, I moved on and I’m waiting, waiting, waiting for this chick to finish serving herself coleslaw. My entire family knows how much I love coleslaw and that I’d always have room on my plate, no matter how many crab legs were already there.
I’ve never been accused of being patient, but it just looked to me like this woman was analyzing each and every strand of cabbage before she considered it plate-worthy … then I reminded myself we were in L.A., so it was probably a search for mayo and its lethal trail of cellulite.
So I’m standing there, and I take a closer look at this woman bogarting the coleslaw and I realize she’s definitely a player – someone who smelled better than the food, someone who seemed to glow with skin and hair like you get on t.v.. She had an air about her. I never really knew what that meant before.
All that being said, this woman kept pecking, pecking, pecking at the goddamned coleslaw and when she was finally done, I looked at her plate – there were three carrots each the size of my my index finger, five shards of lettuce with a calorie count of maybe ten, volunteer strips of bell peppers and cucumber, some kale or maybe it was parsley, and of course the coleslaw.
This woman would be in absolutely no danger of having to go to WeightWatchers anytime soon.
Back at the table, about halfway into my second pyramid of crab legs, after the girls came back with their collection of salads and desserts, our member friend started recounting a story she’d just heard from one of the waiters she knew.
She looked at us, pulled us closer to the middle of the table, and in a lowered voice told us discreetly, “J-Lo is here.”
At first, I didn’t pay attention because, you know, I was eating crab legs. Our friend continued. “A waiter told me someone on line actually tried to talk to her.” At that point, I perked up a bit, looked over and asked – “Jay Leno is here?” There was quite an estrogen laugh as I was socially pantsed and informed that J-Lo was Jennifer Lopez, not Jay Leno.
It was then that I put two and two together. “That was me,” I confessed, “at the salad table. I knew she looked like a movie star, but she was taking so freaking long with the coleslaw. All I did was tell her that it’s good for the colon, you know, to move her along, like what a colon does. She was pissing me off like she had coleslaw entitlement or something. In fact, she ignored me when I told her the first time.”
The wife almost choked – “You talked to her about her colon? More than once?”
I nodded my head. It didn’t seem like a big deal. “I don’t think she believed me the first time.” The wife shook her head. “Did she say anything to you?” “Not much, something like ‘I’m glad about that’. But now that I think about it, maybe she was being sarcastic. I do remember she wasn’t smiling.”
The girls wanted me to give them every detail of my interaction. Did I know what kind of shoes she was wearing? Up close, what was her make-up like? Her skin? Are her eyes really as big as everyone says? What else was she wearing? Is anyone with her? Ben Affleck maybe?
After finishing what I’d say was a four crab-leg conversation about my interaction with a major celebrity, I loosened my belt and stood up to walk around the club, hoping to walk off feeling somewhat bloated. Hopefully, I could rally for at least one, possibly two more feedings at the trough. There remained mountains of meat to conquer, three dessert tables, sushi, eggplant parmesan, calamari salad, and basically everything I ever wanted to eat. Maybe Jay Leno was somewhere around as well … I’d sure like to talk to him about cars over a heap of tiramisu.
As I walked among the tables and past both bars, I came to realize this whole fame obsession that people seem to have in America has tentacles where someone who sees a celebrity becomes a celebrity just by seeing them. Actually talking to a celebrity like I did could be eulogy material as in “He was a good man and told J-Lo about the benefits of coleslaw.”
On our way out the door, as we waited for the car guy to hike to get our Subaru which was parked in front of a detox center, J-Lo was having her picture taken with her kids in front of the next-to-the-door premier car. I almost said something to her, but I was out of colon information. I made eye contact as she posed for her picture, and I gave her a warm smile.
She pretended not to recognize me. At least that’s the way my agent is telling the story. I’m a celebrity now … I don’t have to play by the rules.
Maybe you’ll meet me in line someday.
not Jay Leno
kRIS Krankle is the founder of MILDEW Men with Intimacy and Learning Disorders Experiencing Women
Take Cover Where There’s Shelter Hermione Luck
Well, here we go again … a third season of The Lemonade Stand.
Always good to read kRIS for a laugh, but as a liberal political columnist, I must say the future in general doesn’t look like a walk in the park. A politically charged/morally arrogant Supreme Court has finally taken us down the rabbit hole with a snowball’s chance in Hell we’ll come out anytime soon.
Even if master hypocrites like McConnell and Graham repudiate Donald Trump and the narcissistic chaos and violence he represents, the damage is done. It’s not that the MAGA group is new to the landscape, the group has always been poised to strike from the bushes. It’s more that Trump has given these sociological malcontents the hope that homophobia, racism, and ethnocentrism will once again come to rule the day.
The way I see it, it will be the hindsight of history that Trump was always a grifter, no more no less. Unfortunately, January 6th and Roe vs. Wade are only the beginning of where this grift has led us.
On the election front, it’s bittersweet to see Ron DeSantis as a clear and present danger for Trump because in spite of our desperate need to have The Donald permanently out of the picture, in many ways DeSantis is far more dangerous. He’s actually intelligent, and let’s face it, he didn’t exactly major in healing at Harvard.
But there is hope it seems … with the recent Kansas abortion vote leading the way, the circular firing squad also known as the Democratic Party at long last has put a few wins on the scoreboard. Biden seems like he’s woken up from his nap, Manchin took the coal out of his stocking, and Sinema simply played politics to her advantage. We’ll see.
When I was younger and raised in a Republican family, I was taught to have faith in what our family perceived to be the vital cornerstones of Democracy – like the accuracy of the media, the wisdom of the Supreme Court, and the bi-partisan peaceful transfer of power. They were givens and made us feel safe. Yet in my lifetime, I’ve watched the trust and fabric of all three security blankets be shredded.
So what can we do? To begin with, the concept of Federalism and a functional Federal Union is broken, and in some ways, we almost have to start over. For instance, we have to decide if we are truly a country that is able to separate church from state. Wasn’t that one of the main points of creating America?
We need to educate voters that necessary institutions such as an effective military and an ever-ready National Guard, like inter-connecting highways, timely natural disaster relief, universal healthcare, and a host of other components of modern life are all (hate to say this) socialistic. Maybe we can call socialism something else, like Human Enhancement. Everyone must be informed that Human Enhancement is not communism, and there’s a need to invest in both the common good as well as in the individual good.
For non-Republicans, broken Federalism means we have to make the best of the ‘states rights’ reality because like it or not, that is the path we are on. From the time this country declared its independence, there’s been a deep schism between the Federalists and the states rights people, between the religious and the not so religious, between the haves and the have-nots … on those fronts, little has truly changed in more than two centuries.
So for all of you depressed liberals out there, even though it would be great if everyone could just ‘get along’, the reality is sobering – the world won’t soon be free of religious zealots and assault weapons for the depressed, which means at least for now, we must learn how to negotiate and survive in the rabbit hole. As I wrote months ago – individuals and families in America must begin to choose their gang color, red or blue, and be sure they live in a state that reflects their values.
For the truth is, my friends, in spite of most Americans (62%) disapproving the Supreme Court’s Roe Wade ruling, as long as this current group of judiciary zealots hovers self-righteously above us feeling free to leave skid marks on precedent, as long as we remain mired in an environment where absurdly easy access to AR-15’s and criminalizing ‘the right to choose’ are becoming part of the norm, what other solution is there? It’s not rocket science – take cover where there’s shelter … Hermione
Hermione Luck is editor-in-chief of The Lemonade Stand
History is reverting toward barbarism. We have authoritarian strongmen in Russia and China, cyberattacks undermining the world order, democracy in retreat worldwide, thuggish populists across the West undermining nations from within.
What the hell happened? What is the key factor that has made the 21st century so regressive and dangerous? Is the populace rejecting liberalism? If so, what weakness in liberalism are its enemies exploiting? Let me offer one explanation.
Many of America’s founders were fervent believers in liberal democracy — up to a point. They had a profound respect for individual virtue, but also individual frailty. Samuel Adams said, “Ambitions and lust for power … are predominant passions in the breasts of most men.” Patrick Henry admitted to feelings of dread when he contemplated the “depravity of human nature.” One delegate to the constitutional convention said that the people “lack information and are constantly liable to be misled.”
Our founders were aware that majorities are easily led by ambitious demagogues, so our founders built a system that respected popular opinion and majority rule while trying to build guardrails to check popular passion and prejudice.
The crimes of the constitutional order are by now well known, the most egregious of which was acquiescing to the existence of slavery and prolonging that institution for nearly another century. We also must not forget that the early democratic system enfranchised only a small share of adult Americans.
But the genius of the Constitution was trying to prevent undue concentrations of power by dividing power among the branches. They built in a whole series of republican checks, so that demagogues and populist crazes would not sweep over the land.
While the Constitution guarded against abuses of power, the founders believed that a much more important set of civic practices would mold people to be capable of being self-governing citizens:
Churches were meant to teach virtue; leaders were to receive classical education, so they might understand the fragility of democracy; everyday citizens were to lead their lives as yeoman farmers so they might learn to live simply and work hard; civic associations and local government would instill the habits of public service; patriotic rituals would instill shared love of country; newspapers and magazines would in theory create a well-informed citizenry; etiquette rules and democratic manners were adopted to encourage social equality and mutual respect.
The founders knew that democracy is not natural. It takes a lot of cultivation to make democracy work.
Just as America’s founders understood that democracy is not natural, the postwar generation understood that peace is not natural — it has to be tended and cultivated from the frailties of human passion and greed.
The postWWII generation championed democracy, but they had no illusions about the depravity of human beings. They’d read their history and understood that stretching back thousands of years, war, authoritarianism, exploitation, great powers crushing little ones — these were just the natural state of human societies.
If America was to be secure, Americans would have to plant the seeds of democracy, but also do all the work of cultivation so those seeds could flourish. They funded the Marshall Plan, and they helped build multinational institutions like NATO, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.
American military might stood ready to push back against the wolves who threatened the world order — sometimes effectively, as in Europe, but oftentimes, as in Vietnam and Iraq, recklessly and self-destructively. America made sure that it championed democracy and human rights, at least when the Communists were violating them (not so much when our allied Latin American dictators did so).
Over the past few generations that hopeful but sober view of human nature has faded. What’s been called the Culture of Narcissism took hold, with the view that human beings should be unshackled from restraint believing that we can trust ourselves to be unselfish.
Democracy and world peace became taken for granted. As Robert Kagan put it in his book “The Jungle Grows Back”: “We have lived so long inside the bubble of the liberal order that we can imagine no other kind of world. We think it is natural and normal, even inevitable.”
Even in America, over the past decades, the institutions that earlier generations thought were essential to molding a democratic citizenry have withered or malfunctioned. Many churches and media outlets have gone partisan. Civics education has receded. Neighborhood organizations have shrunk. Patriotic rituals are out of fashion.
What happens when you don’t tend the seedbeds of democracy? Chaos? War? No, you return to normal. The 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th centuries were normal. Today, big countries like China, Russia and Turkey are ruled by fierce leaders with massive power. That’s normal. Small aristocracies in many nations hog gigantic shares of their nations’ wealth. That’s normal. Many people come to despise cultural outsiders, like immigrants. Normal. Global affairs resembles the law of the jungle, with big countries threatening small ones.
This is the way it’s been for most of human history.
The 21st century has become a dark century because the seedbeds of democracy have been neglected and normal historical authoritarianism is on the march. Putin in Russia and Xi in China seem confident that the winds of history are at their back.
Putin has established political order in Russia by reviving the Russian strong state tradition and by concentrating power in the hands of one man. He has established economic order through a grand bargain with oligarch-led firms, with him as the ultimate C.E.O. As Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy write in their book, Mr. Putin, corruption is the glue that holds the system together. Everybody’s wealth is deliberately tainted, so Putin has the power to accuse anyone of corruption and remove anyone at any time.
Putin has redefined global conservatism and made himself its global leader. Many conservatives around the world see Putin’s strong, manly authority, his defense of traditional values and his enthusiastic embrace of orthodox faith, and they see their aspirations in human form. Right-wing leaders from Donald Trump in the United States to Marine Le Pen in France to Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines speak of Putin admiringly.
But the problems of democracy and the liberal order can’t be solved from the top down. The real problem is in the seedbeds of democracy, the institutions that are supposed to mold a citizenry and make us qualified to practice democracy. To restore those seedbeds, we first have to relearn the wisdom of the founders: We are not as virtuous as we think we are. Americans are no better than anyone else. Democracy is not natural; it is an artificial accomplishment that takes enormous work.
Then we need to fortify the institutions that are supposed to teach the democratic skills: how to weigh evidence and commit to truth; how to correct for your own partisan blinders and learn to doubt your own opinions; how to respect people you disagree with; how to avoid catastrophism, conspiracy and apocalyptic thinking; how to avoid supporting demagogues; how to craft complex compromises.
The citizens of democracy are not born, they are made. If the 21st century is to get brighter as it goes along, we don’t only have to worry about the people tearing down democracy … we have to worry about who is building it up.
The GreekPerspective
by Homer the Gaucho
Lemonade Overseas Correspondent
This is Brooks at his best as he seems to know a lot about behavioral psychology and its affect on history. For me, the critical idea of the piece was all of the checks and balances (churches, education, unbiased information, civic associations, basic etiquette) as safeguards of the common good with respect to majority rule.
In a somewhat similar fashion, ancient Greek history reveals that ‘checks’ came about organically by obliged participation of all citizens – I don’t think they were spelled out by law or design. I’m not really sure about how they characterized the natural depravity of the human soul, but it did not seem to be reflected in their design of democratic governance.
As we’ve discussed previously, scale of democracy plays a vital part here. America’s huge and ‘inclusive’ democracy is so out of context to the ancient’s homogeneous world. I think scale also affects how societies manage individualism and how that fits in with collective responsibility.
Virtuous civic practices (as Brooks points out, practices that are failing in the US) are much easier to manage in smaller traditional societies that have natural organic alignments of language, religion, blood, customs, etc. Early Greeks, although the creators of Democracy, were much more collective and ‘common good orientated’ than the term suggests (viewed from the American definition of Democracy).
And finally, if what Brooks says is a roadmap of the future then I would think that the Chinese system is well placed to be in the driver’s seat. I think over time restrained common good bests hyper individualism especially given the scale and complexity of today’s societies.
Homer the Gaucho is the pseudonym used by Damon Morrison, born and raised in America, married into a Greek family, student of Greek History, living in Athens for the past 28 years.
We’re inspired by the legendary tech journalist Kevin Kelly, who, for his 68th, 69th, and 70th birthdays shared his life learnings on his Technium blog.
Here are five of his best
Anything you say before the word “but” does not count.
The thing that made you weird as a kid could make you great as an adult.
It’s not an apology if it comes with an excuse.
Denying or deflecting a compliment is rude. Accept it with thanks.
Ignore what they’re thinking of you because they’re not thinking of you.
Here’s a few more from friends / D. Brooks
Job interviews are not really about you. They are about the employer’s needs and how you can fill them.
If you can’t make up your mind between two options, flip a coin. Don’t decide based on which side of the coin came up. Decide based on your emotional reaction to which side came up.
Marriage is a lifetime conversation. Marry someone you want to talk with for the rest of your life.
If you’re giving a speech, be vulnerable. Fall on the audience and let them catch you. They will.
Never be furtive. If you’re doing something you don’t want others to find out about, it’s probably wrong.
Never pass up an opportunity to hang out with musicians.
Dr. Vanilla
The above collection of playful insights brought to us by David Brooks and The New York Times allows us to celebrate language and brings to mind the great Bob Dylan and the reason why he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016.
As an edgy poet in the formative sixties, Dylan was a singer-songwriter who brought to light a darker side of American culture, seeming to channel a vision of who we might become, or worse, who we already are.
The eleven minute 1965 song Desolation Row epitomizes Dylan’s sociological genius. It’s length and the artist’s less than pleasing voice are beyond the attention span of most, but Desolation Row gives us paragraph after paragraph of poetry and tantalizing images, oftentimes surreal images that provide a hybrid of truth and warning, aimed at a society that in Dylan’s mind was terminally full of itself and inevitably lost … in my mind, the best poem of the twentieth century.
Desolation Row / Dylan
They’re selling postcards of the hanging They’re painting the passports brown The beauty parlor is filled with sailors The circus is in town Here comes the blind commissioner They’ve got him in a trance One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker The other is in his pants And the riot squad they’re restless They need somewhere to go As Lady and I look out tonight From Desolation Row.
Cinderella, she seems so easy “It takes one to know one,” she smiles And puts her hands in her back pockets Bette Davis style And in comes Romeo, he’s moaning, “You belong to Me I Believe.” And someone says, “You’re in the wrong place, my friend You’d better leave.” And the only sound that’s left After the ambulances go Is Cinderella sweeping up On Desolation Row.
Now the moon is almost hidden The stars are beginning to hide The fortune-telling lady Has taken all her things inside All except for Cain and Abel And the hunchback of Notre Dame Everybody’s making love Or else expecting rain And the Good Samaritan, he’s dressing He’s getting ready for the show He’s going to the carnival tonight On Desolation Row.
Ophelia, she’s ‘neath the window For her I feel so afraid On her twenty-second birthday She already is an old maid To her, death is quite romantic She wears an iron vest Her profession’s her religion Her sin is her lifelessness And though her eyes are fixed upon Noah’s great rainbow She spends her time peeking Into Desolation Row.
Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood With his memories in a trunk Passed this way an hour ago With his friend, a jealous monk NOW, he looked so immaculately frightful As he bummed a cigarette Then he went off sniffing drainpipes And reciting the alphabet You would not think to look at him But he was famous long ago For playing the electric violin On Desolation Row.
Dr. Filth, he keeps his world Inside of a leather cup But all his sexless patients They ARE trying to blow it up Now his nurse, some local loser She’s in charge of the cyanide hole And she also keeps the cards that read “Have Mercy on His Soul” They all play on the penny whistle You can hear them blow If you lean your head out far enough From Desolation Row.
Across the street they’ve nailed the curtains They’re getting ready for the feast The Phantom of the Opera In a perfect image of a priest They are spoon-feeding Casanova To get him to feel more assured Then they’ll kill him with self-confidence After poisoning him with words And the Phantom’s shouting to skinny girls “Get outta here if you don’t know” Casanova is just being punished for going To Desolation Row.
At midnight all the agents And the superhuman crew Come out and round up everyone That knows more than they do Then they bring them to the factory Where the heart-attack machine Is strapped across their shoulders And then the kerosene Is brought down from the castles By insurance men who go Check to see that nobody is escaping To Desolation Row.
Praise be to Nero’s Neptune The Titanic sails at dawn Everybody’s shouting “Which side are you on?” And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot Fighting in the captain’s tower While calypso singers laugh at them And fishermen hold flowers Between the windows of the sea Where lovely mermaids flow And nobody has to think too much About Desolation Row.
Yes, I received your letter yesterday About the time the door knob broke When you asked me how I was doing Or was that some kind of joke? All these people that you mention Yes, I know them, they’re quite lame I had to rearrange their faces And give them all another name Right now I can’t read too good Don’t send me no more letters no Not unless you mail them from Desolation Row.
July 21, 2022 – Today is Robin Williams’ birthday. He would have been 71. Can you imagine what a cool grandfather he’d be?
Just as Covid began to shut down the world as we knew it, TheLemonade Stand began as an e-mail in March of 2020. In an effort to navigate the sociological mess confronting us, further complicated by the previous four years of cartoon presidential leadership, the goal was ‘to make better use of our lemons’ by offering some homespun comic relief from our stable of writers.
Comic relief is a concept that is almost synonymous with the comedian/actor/social activist Robin Williams. On his birthday, The Lemonade Stand dedicates this issue to his immense talent and passion, a light in our dark reality whose vision we lost far too soon …
In the fifties, when I grew up on Long Island just outside the mega-experience of New York City, we had a television antenna on our roof which received three network stations. There were maybe ten hours of t.v. per day, if of course you had a television set.
I remember when this girl on my block bragged about having color t.v.. She captured every kid’s imagination because she could watch Bonanza, a feel-good men-in-charge cowboy western which was the first show in color ever broadcast on the airwaves. Believe me, Heide Perlman quickly had all the friends and men-in-charge she wanted.
By the mid-fifties, things began to expand exponentially by antenna, and basically out of nowhere, this hardly noticed yet reliable segment of broadcasting time emerged called late night television … it relied on broad stand-up comedy and interviewing famous guests. And as it expanded throughout the land, sharing ‘good night’ became a hot commodity as late night began to engrave itself as a needed and passive part of the day.
Late night television was true Americana … first of all, it made money out of real estate no one previously wanted. Secondly, signing off at eleven o’clock was simply moved to one o’clock, as we all continued to witness the American flag waving on a flagpole as the national anthem played.
I think the first time I stayed up that late as a child (with a babysitter who was bribing me), I wondered if I should stand up and put my hand over my heart as the music played.
In 1957, Jack Paar replaced Steve Allen on NBC’s The Tonight Show. Paar was an intelligent slightly eccentric figure who unlike Allen didn’t shy away from controversy. By 1962, Paar had worn out his welcome at NBC and this relative unknown called Johnny Carson was hired to replace him.
Johnny Carson became late night television, single-handedly capturing a coveted demographic that advertisers craved. Television watchers increasingly becoming willing to watch Johnny as they fell asleep each night, and little did anyone know at the time, that late-night television would become so fundamental to the American experience.
People in bed with each other, sharing something. Hopefully shopping. Possibly second base or even a boink
… and no matter where you went in America, everyone knew who Johnny was.
Johnny seldom gave unconditional support to anyone famous on his show. Although he seemed generous, he really wasn’t. He would give standard icons such as Bob Hope and George Burns their due respect, but the real meat for Carson, this former midwestern unknown, was welcoming an underdog entertainer … or if Carson were lucky that night, cherishing the unscripted and patently unexpected.
By the middle seventies, it became both business and a privilege to be on Late Night with Johnny Carson. Johnny ruled as the master, polite but in control, the pratfalls of life being his stand-up shtick, like his classic look of ‘What me?’ after he told a joke that bombed. And no matter who appeared on his show, in many ways Johnny sat behind his desk bigger than them all.
One notable exception to the rule was Robin Williams. I think Johnny truly loved spending time with this unique and spontaneous talent.
There were times that William’s idol, Santa Barbara’s Jonathan Winters, joined him on the show … acknowledged masters, the elite of comic relief, they clearly possessed an unlimited capacity for creativity … they were lit fuses as soon as they walked on stage, and Carson couldn’t get enough of them.
Following is an early 90’s video montage of mostly Robin Williams doing Johnny, occasionally joined by Jonathan Winters, as well as clips from David Letterman. With Robin Williams especially, Johnny is clearly in heaven as he can’t stop laughing. And without question, Williams shares himself as a brilliant, thoughtful, complex, and creative genius.
Sometimes we forget the interesting acting roles to which Williams gravitated, so I revisited Terry Gilliam’s 1991 Fisher King which Williams did with Jeff Bridges, a movie centering on homelessness and mass shootings – subjects sadly relevant today. In Fisher King, Williams is a survivor of a mass shooting and searches his subsequent insanity for the holy grail.
Or if you want to watch Williams in a feel-good family movie beyond the classic Mrs. Doubtfire, I’d suggest August Rush which offers a Dickens/Oliver Twist touch.
So on his birthday, as we think back about this person who employed so much effort to make us laugh, you may not know this final fact about Robin Williams – further analysis determined that Williams died from a severe case of a disease called Lewy body dementia which has more than 40 symptoms that can randomly appear and disappear.
These symptoms include impaired thinking, fluctuations in attention, problems with movement, visual hallucinations, sleep disorders, behavioral and mood issues, and changes in bodily functions. It often took days to bring him out of its tenacious grip.
During the last months of his life, his wife called him a man on fire. In some ways, he’d always been a man on fire consumed as he was with social issues and the need, the obsession to entertain. Happy birthday, Robin. We miss you.
Be sure to get as far as the discussion about Clarence Thomas’s nomination as Supreme Court Justice and Williams’ comments on the future of Roe Wade.
Dr. Vanilla / Robin Williams
I’m a Man on Fire Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes
“Man On Fire”
I’m a man on fire Walking through your street With one guitar And two dancing feet Only one desire That’s left in me I want the whole damn world To come dance with me
Ohhhhhhhh
Come dance with me Over murder and pain Come and set you free Over heartache and shame
I wanna see our bodies burning like the old big sun I wanna know what we’ve been learning and learning from
Everybody want safety Everybody want comfort Everybody want certain Everybody but me
I’m a man on fire Walking down your street With one guitar And two dancing feet Only one desire That’s left in me I want the whole damn world To come and dance with me
Yay, yay. Come dance with me Over heartache and rage Come set us free Over panic and strange
I wanna see our bodies burning like the old big sun I wanna know what we’ve been learning and learning from
Everybody want romance Everybody want safety Everybody want comfort Everybody but me
I’m a man on fire Walking down your street With one guitar And two dancing feet Only one desire That’s still in me I want the whole damn world To come and dance with me
The thoughtful people of the Texas Republican party issued its 2022 platform designed to reflect God, Guns, and White-Out. In case you missed it.
2022 Texas Republican Platform
Reject “the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election” Abolish the constitutional power to levy income taxes Reject the Equal Rights Amendment End all gun safety measures Abolish the Federal Reserve Abolish the Department of Education Arm teachers Return Christianity to schools and government Affirm that homosexuality is an abnormal lifestyle choice End gay marriage Withdraw from the United Nations Withdraw from the World Health Organization
** Call for a vote for the people of Texas to determine “Whether or not the State of Texas should reassert its status as an independent nation.” **
Hi everyone, Hermione here … having a good summer?
I say go for it Texas – be your own country, go all right wing nut, and while we’re at it, lets’s add a few other states to your master plan as well – Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Florida come to mind. I mean go for it all, oh noble and wise longhorns … you have your own grid and we all saw how that worked out. No corruption or incompetence there, you know, being non-Federal and all.
Do you really believe that independence is the God-given right of everyone? After you talk to women about that, once you secede and move the capitol to Waco which I suggest you rename Wacko, will you allow Austin to secede from Texas and become independent as well?
What about what you teach in your schools – will you rewrite the history of the Alamo so Jesus wins? As you become an independent oil-savvy nation, will you join OPEC? Are the rumors true that after independence, you want to buy Mexico because it costs less than you expected?
In case you do secede, here are a few new planks to consider –
** Guns for Peace swap – submit a handgun/get an AR 15 ** People who own land get one and a half votes ** Pass the “Suck It Up Initiative” – outlaw divorce ** Yearly re-registering during Jesus Week to qualify for voting ** Award medals to Uvalde police for protecting each other ** Finance a (wall) hanging of Nancy Pelosi in the State Senate ** Outlaw all contraception except chastity belts ** Ban foreign languages ** Elect Clarence Thomas president of Texas
The thoughtful people of the Texas Republican party issued its 2022 platform designed to reflect God, Guns, and White-Out. In case you missed it.
2022 Texas Republican Platform
Reject “the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election” Abolish the constitutional power to levy income taxes Reject the Equal Rights Amendment End all gun safety measures Abolish the Federal Reserve Abolish the Department of Education Arm teachers Return Christianity to schools and government Affirm that homosexuality is an abnormal lifestyle choice End gay marriage Withdraw from the United Nations Withdraw from the World Health Organization
** Call for a vote for the people of Texas to determine “Whether or not the State of Texas should reassert its status as an independent nation.” **
Hi everyone, Hermione here … having a good summer?
I say go for it Texas – be your own country, go all right wing nut, and while we’re at it, lets’s add a few other states to your master plan as well – Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Florida come to mind. I mean go for it all, oh noble and wise longhorns … you have your own grid and we all saw how that worked out. No corruption or incompetence there, you know, being non-Federal and all.
Do you really believe that independence is the God-given right of everyone? After you talk to women about that, once you secede and move the capitol to Waco which I suggest you rename Wacko, will you allow Austin to secede from Texas and become independent as well?
What about what you teach in your schools – will you rewrite the history of the Alamo so Jesus wins? As you become an independent oil-savvy nation, will you join OPEC? Are the rumors true that after independence, you want to buy Mexico because it costs less than you expected?
In case you do secede, here are a few new planks to consider –
** Guns for Peace swap – submit a handgun/get an AR 15 ** People who own land get one and a half votes ** Pass the “Suck It Up Initiative” – outlaw divorce ** Yearly re-registering during Jesus Week to qualify for voting ** Award medals to Uvalde police for protecting each other ** Finance a (wall) hanging of Nancy Pelosi in the State Senate ** Outlaw all contraception except chastity belts ** Ban foreign languages ** Elect Clarence Thomas president of Texas
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
The Merrick Garland Conundrum by Jack Goldsmith / NY Times
The evidence gathered by the Jan. 6 committee and in some of the federal cases against those involved in the Capitol attack pose for Attorney General Merrick Garland one of the most consequential questions that any attorney general has ever faced: Should the United States indict former President Donald Trump?
The basic allegations against Mr. Trump are well known. In disregard of advice by many of his closest aides, including Attorney General William Barr, he falsely claimed that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent and stolen; he pressured Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to count certified electoral votes for Joe Biden during the electoral count in Congress on Jan. 6; and he riled up a mob, directed it to the Capitol and refused for a time to take steps to stop the ensuing violence.
To indict Mr. Trump for these and other acts, Mr. Garland must make three decisions, each more difficult than the previous, and none of which has an obvious answer.
First, he must determine whether the decision to indict Mr. Trump is his to make. If Mr. Garland decides that a criminal investigation of Mr. Trump is warranted, Justice Department regulations require him to appoint a special counsel if the investigation presents a conflict of interest for the department and if Mr. Garland believes such an appointment would be in the public interest.
The department arguably faces a conflict of interest. Mr. Trump is a political adversary of Mr. Garland’s boss, President Biden. Mr. Trump is also Mr. Biden’s likeliest political opponent in the 2024 presidential election. Mr. Garland’s judgments impact the political fate of Mr. Biden and his own possible tenure in office.
The appearance of a conflict sharpened when Mr. Biden reportedly told his inner circle that Mr. Trump was a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted, and complained about Mr. Garland’s dawdling on the matter.
Even if conflicted, Mr. Garland could keep full control over Mr. Trump’s legal fate if he believes that a special counsel would not serve the public interest. Some will argue that the public interest in a fair-minded prosecution would best be served by appointment of a quasi-independent special counsel, perhaps one who is a member of Mr. Trump’s party.
But no matter who leads it, a criminal investigation of Mr. Trump would occur in a polarized political environment and overheated media environment. In this context, Mr. Garland could legitimately conclude that the public interest demands that the Trump matter be guided by the politically accountable person whom the Senate confirmed in 2021 by a vote of 70-30.
If Mr. Garland opens a Trump investigation and keeps the case — decisions he might already have made — the second issue is whether he has adequate evidence to indict Mr. Trump. The basic question here is whether, in the words of Justice Department guidelines, Mr. Trump’s acts constitute a federal offense and “the admissible evidence will probably be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction.”
These will be hard conclusions for Mr. Garland to reach. He would have to believe that the department could probably convince a unanimous jury that Mr. Trump committed crimes beyond a reasonable doubt. Mr. Garland cannot rest this judgment on the Jan. 6 committee’s one-sided factual recitations or legal contentions.
Nor can he put much stock in a ruling by a federal judge who, in a civil subpoena dispute — a process that requires a significantly lower standard of proof to prevail than in a criminal trial — concluded that Mr. Trump (who was not represented) “more likely than not” committed a crime related to Jan. 6.
Instead, Mr. Garland must assess how any charges against Mr. Trump would fare in an adversarial criminal proceeding administered by an independent judge, where Mr. Trump’s lawyers will contest the government’s factual and legal contentions, tell his side of events, raise many defenses and appeal every important adverse legal decision to the Supreme Court.
The two most frequently mentioned crimes Mr. Trump may have committed are the corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding (the Jan. 6 vote count) and conspiracy to defraud the United states (in working to overturn election results). Many have noted that Mr. Trump can plausibly defend these charges by arguing that he lacked criminal intent because he truly believed that massive voter fraud had taken place.
Mr. Trump would also claim that key elements of his supposedly criminal actions — his interpretations of the law, his pressure on Mr. Pence, his delay in responding to the Capitol breach and more — were exercises of his constitutional prerogatives as chief executive.
Mr. Garland would need to assess how these legally powerful claims inform the applicability of criminal laws to Mr. Trump’s actions in what would be the first criminal trial of a president. He would also consider the adverse implications of a Trump prosecution for more virtuous future presidents.
If Mr. Garland concludes that Mr. Trump has committed convictable crimes, he would face the third and hardest decision: whether the national interest would be served by prosecuting Mr. Trump. This is not a question that lawyerly analysis alone can resolve. It is a judgment call about the nature, and fate, of our democracy.
A failure to indict Mr. Trump in these circumstances would imply that a president — who cannot be indicted while in office — is literally above the law, in defiance of the very notion of constitutional government.
It would encourage lawlessness by future presidents, none more so than Mr. Trump should he win the next election. By contrast, the rule of law would be vindicated by a Trump conviction. And it might be enhanced by a full judicial airing of Mr. Trump’s possible crimes in office, even if it ultimately fails.
And yet Mr. Garland cannot be sanguine that a Trump prosecution would promote national reconciliation or enhance confidence in American justice. Indicting a past and possible future political adversary of the current president would be a cataclysmic event from which the nation would not soon recover.
It would be seen by many as politicized retribution. The prosecution would take many years to conclude; would last through, and deeply impact, the next election; and would leave Mr. Trump’s ultimate fate to the next administration, which could be headed by Mr. Trump.
Along the way, the prosecution would further enflame our already-blazing partisan acrimony; consume the rest of Mr. Biden’s term; embolden, and possibly politically enhance, Mr. Trump; and threaten to set off tit-for-tat recriminations across presidential administrations.
The prosecution thus might jeopardize Mr. Garland’s cherished aim to restore norms of Justice Department “independence and integrity” even if he prosecutes Mr. Trump in the service of those norms. And if the prosecution fails, many will conclude that the country and the rule of law suffered tremendous pain for naught.
Mr. Garland’s decisions will be deeply controversial and have consequences beyond his lifetime. It is easy to understand, contrary to his many critics, why he is gathering as much information as possible — including what has emerged from the Jan. 6 committee and the prosecution of the higher-ups involved in the Capitol breach — before making these momentous judgments.
Mr. Goldsmith served in the George W. Bush administration as an assistant attorney general, office of legal counsel, and as special counsel to the general counsel of the Department of Defense.
In case you missed the Santa Barbara Solstice parade, I hope you have a parade in your future. Long ago, I enjoyed the privilege to be on the Solstice board in the 70’s and early 80’s, with the local musical talent already in place – Jim Messina connected the event with top-grade local talent like Kenny Loggins, Jackson Brown, and Bonnie Raitt, who performed for free at the end of the parade.
The idea was to bring geographical and cultural blocks of Santa Barbara together. Neighbors and groups with common interests making their own toys, crafting their collective vision, then parading and flaunting it. An everyperson-peacock parade without shame.
Consequently, the originators produced a parade that included the sidelines, where the audience would join in. The founder, Michael Gonzalez was gay in a time (you have no idea) when it was extremely difficult to be so. He once quipped to me that at the beginning of his quest, “I thought of parading down State Street in a closet.”
Michael died of Aids in the early nineties and never witnessed the ongoing ten block spectacle it became. The experience combines exhibitionism with sideline participation. Just about everyone gets noticed … if they want to – Hermione
As we all look for more positive news, the Lemonade Stand returns to a more uplifting subject, the wedding ceremony. One of our writers enjoys the privilege of officiating this rite of passage, and today, the ceremony he uses is the first In Case You Missed It piece of the summer – Hermione
The WeddingCeremony
There are many mysteries that are bigger than us all – is there more than one life to live? How does pain turn into laughter? Why are promises so easy to make and so hard to keep?
There are other mysteries we are eventually capable of solving – how to love and be loved, how to forgive and move on, who is in charge of what … and if being in charge really matters.
Yet the mystery that unites us all today is one of the most engaging of all. How do two people – strangers – come to love each other and be married? How do two families sometimes from separate parts of the world come to merge their blood and their dreams? How does the Universe turn, to allow such unlikeliness to unfold?
This much is clear – we are all somebody’s children, and as such we have access to knowing what it is like to be small. To be afraid of the dark and of the unknown … to be afraid of being alone.
And this much is also clear – these two people who wish to marry traveled the unknown to get here, and after this day of celebration and dancing, of good food and sacred ritual, they will once again travel the unknown, but this time they will travel together – the unknown of bodies changing, the unknown of a family growing … the unknown and passage of moving beyond ourselves.
And these fellow travelers will have our blessing because we are here to honor their rite of passage and to declare that we truly love them. This day of their marriage will always be a day of joy and celebration in our hearts, and may they always find love in their union and journey.
And to these two families merging as one, may I simply say this – you are the parents and brothers and sisters of both, and you now share a new bond in the deepest sense of the word. You will share the same blood and drink the same wine. You will eat the same bread and embrace the same spirit. You will laugh and cry and dream and hope together, and the center of this communion is alive today in the body of your love and commitment.
The Offering
The Universe turned to bring two people closer,it turned to witness the moon in a star-filled darkness coming to dance before the sun … it turned to honor a dawn finding its way into the light,the image of two people offering their love.
And so this couple standing before us turns to each other to make their vow –vowing to honor life with their honesty and to respect love with their devotion,vowingto understand and nourish the family and soilfrom which everything grows.
And today,the Universe and this sacred marriage which emerges from its spirit, includes us all in its gift of light, bringing two separate worlds and families together, turning and traveling through space to allow their love to unfold.
Personal Vows
Ring Ceremony
I give you this ring as a sign of my love and faithfulness. Receive this ring as a token of wedded love.
With the authority vested in me by The Internet, I now pronounce you …
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Speaking of relationships, one size does not fit all
TOKYO — In almost every way, Akihiko Kondo is an ordinary Japanese man. He’s pleasant and easy to talk to. He has friends and a steady job and wears a suit and tie to work. There’s just one exception: Mr. Kondo is married to a fictional character.
His beloved, Hatsune Miku, is a turquoise-haired, computer-synthesized doll. After a decade-long relationship, one that Mr. Kondo says pulled him out of a deep depression, he held a small, unofficial wedding ceremony in Tokyo in 2018. Miku, wore white, and Akihiko Kondo a matching tuxedo.
In Miku, Mr. Kondo has found love, inspiration and solace, he says. He and Miku sleep and watch movies together. Sometimes, they sneak off on romantic getaways, posting photos on Instagram.
Mr. Kondo, 38, knows that people think it’s strange, even harmful. He knows that some — possibly those reading this article — hope he’ll grow out of it. And, yes, he knows that Miku isn’t real. But he says his feelings for her are. Mr. Kondo adds he plans to be faithful to Miku until he dies.
Mr. Kondo is one of thousands of people in Japan who have entered into unofficial marriages with fictional characters in recent decades, served by a vast industry aimed at satisfying the every whim of a fervent fan culture. Tens of thousands more around the globe have joined online groups where they discuss their commitment to characters from anime, manga and video games.
For some, the relationships are just for a laugh. Mr. Kondo, however, has long known that he didn’t want a human partner. Partly, it was because he rejected the rigid expectations of Japanese family life. But mostly, it was because he had always felt an intense — and, even to himself, inexplicable — attraction to fictional characters.
Accepting his feelings was hard at first. But life with Miku, he argues, has advantages over being with a human partner: She’s always there for him, she’ll never betray him, and he’ll never have to see her get ill or die.
Mr. Kondo sees himself as part of a growing movement of people who identify as “fictosexuals.” That’s partly what has motivated him to publicize his wedding and to sit for awkward interviews with news media around the globe.
He wants the world to know that people like him are out there and, with advances in artificial intelligence and robotics allowing for more profound interactions with the inanimate, that their numbers are likely to increase.
Pretend people, true feelings
It’s not unusual for a work of art to provoke real emotions — anger, sorrow, joy — and the phenomenon of desiring the fictional is not unique to Japan.
But the idea that fictional characters can inspire real affection or even love may well have reached its highest expression in modern Japan, where the sentiment has given rise to a highly visible subculture and become the basis for a thriving industry. “When we’re together, she makes me smile,” Mr. Kondo said in a recent interview. “In that sense, she’s real.”
The products for women are especially extensive. Fans can buy love letters from their crushes, reproductions of their clothes and even scents meant to evoke their presence. Hotels offer special packages, featuring spa treatments and elaborate meals, for people celebrating their favorite character’s birthday. And on social media, people post photos, art and mash notes promoting their “oshi” — a term widely used by Japanese fans to describe the objects of their affection.
For some, the relationships represent a rejection of the entrenched “breadwinner-housewife” model of marriage in Japan, said Agnès Giard, a researcher at the University of Paris Nanterre who has extensively studied fictional marriages.
“To the general public, it seems indeed foolish to spend money, time and energy on someone who is not even alive,” Dr. Giard said. “But for character lovers, this practice is seen as essential. It makes them feel alive, happy, useful and part of a movement with higher goals in life.”
While Mr. Kondo’s relationship with Miku is still not accepted by his family, it has opened other doors for him. In 2019, he was invited to join a symposium at Kyoto University to speak about his relationship. He traveled there with a new life-size doll of Miku he recently had commissioned. His talk ended in humor with what he believes are additional advantages of fictional marriage.
Always on time Doesn’t mind waiting Low-cost healthcare coverage Can be disassembled
As any Jewish mother would be prone to say, “what’s there not to like?” … though it does present the question what would a grandkid look like?
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
“Most of what I really needed to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but right there in the sand box at nursery school.”
Robert Fulghum
Share everything Play fair Don’t hit people Put things back where you found them Clean up your own mess Don’t take things that aren’t yours Say you are sorry when you hurt somebody Wash your hands before you eat Flush Take a nap every afternoon When you go out in the world, watch for traffic, hold hands, and stick together
