I’m going to take a minute and whine about my very first world problem that arose today. It was an ordinary Thursday, which means I was doing VA house calls in my south territory around Sylacauga. After visits, the team went to lunch at Good Old Boys Barbecue in Childersburg, one of our usual lunch stops (Childersburg is not known for its food scene). I was halfway through my hamburger steak with gravy and onions, fried okra and baked beans when my phone rang. It was my travel agent telling me that five days prior to my departure, the tour company had cancelled my Eastern European trip. ‘Due to circumstances beyond our control, we are unable to offer a program of the quality that our guests expect’ etc. etc. I’m a bit miffed. On the scale of life disasters that I have suffered over time, this one is relatively minor, but I was looking forward to the trip which I booked eighteen months ago. Romania, Bulgaria and the Balkans will just have to wait for another day.
Given the very short nature of the notice, I trust that Tauck will give me a generous credit towards a future trip along with refunding what I already paid. We shall see. My travel agent and I got together this evening for an emergency meeting to figure out a plan B. My dates are set in stone at this point due to patient care responsibilities and theatrical commitments so whatever it is has a relatively narrow window. This will be less of an issue post-retirement. The locked in clinical schedules I have had for the last fifteen years or so have been the bane of my existence, and I am looking forward to jettisoning those. We looked at various options, but many had to be discarded due to dates not lining up quite right or airline schedules being impossible. We think there is an acceptable alternative, and I will know more tomorrow after he’s able to confirm with the tour company. When it’s set I’ll let everyone know what it is. I even have a plan C up my sleeve if nothing works out quite right. I’m tired and my brain feels fried after all of that. I had plans for some constructive things this evening, but I think it’s going to be bad television instead.
Just like Mongo, I am appalled at Pete Hegseth’s announcement today that the army’s firing squad execution of Nidal Malik Hasan is to be livestreamed to the public. First off, in a country as rich and supposedly civilized as ours, there’s truly no excuse for the death penalty over life imprisonment, especially as it’s been proven over and over again that death row inmates are innocent of their supposed crimes. Second, I can think of no reason whatsoever for any execution to be public, a practice pretty much abandoned by the Western world in the first part of the 20th century (the last public execution in the US having taken place in 1936). Extrajudicial mob executions, of course, occurred much later than this. Publicly executing Dr. Hasan puts us on the same moral plane as Al-Qaeda with their videotaped murder of Daniel Pearl. (Full disclosure, I knew Danny slightly at Stanford as an undergraduate and I will never go looking for that video). Only someone as morally bankrupt and dimwitted as Secretary Hegseth could even begin to think that this is a good idea. All of those around him not raising their voices in condemnation are just as compromised as far as I am concerned. I’m not saying that Dr. Hasan did not commit evil acts. A VA colleague of mine was at Fort Hood and in that building that day and provided first responder assistance to the victims and remains distressed about her experiences to this day. But this Old Testament thinking of blood for blood should be condemned to the ash heap of history.
The Trump administration has a very narrow view of what masculinity is and should be. Hegseth and Trump seem to buy in to a version which is all about conflict and competition and victory at all costs. We’re seeing it here. We’re seeing it in Trump’s need for a military parade and in the UFC cage match that destroyed the South Lawn of the White House. They choose Sparta over Athens. Sparta was victorious in the Peloponnesian War of the 5th century BC but when we look at which of those fabled city states left a lasting mark on our civilization, Athens wins hands down. From Athens we get philosophy through Socrates and Plato, the ideals of democratic leadership through Pericles and Solon, the drama through Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, oration through Demosthenes, and historical analysis through Thucydides. In general, the only Spartan most of us can come up with is King Leonidas and that mainly through his recent portrayal in the cartoonish 300 – a film that I’m sure is near and dear to Secretary Hegseth’s heart with its depiction of well oiled, well-muscled soldiers in leather bondage outfits.
We need to celebrate the whole of masculinity. What makes a good father is not just the strong man with the gun but also the deep thinker, the nurturer, the artistic visionary and creator, the empath willing to walk around in another’s skin learning his life and experiences. Perhaps our ideal masculine role model needs to be more Atticus Finch and less John Rambo. Atticus proved to be a hell of a shot when it was necessary, but only when it was necessary and did not make his ability to kill the center of his life. In a little over three weeks, we as a people have some stark choices about what we want to be and where we want to go in the future. I am willing to abide by governance of a majority with whom I disagree if it is actually a majority. The thing is, voter turnout is significantly lower than it should be which allows noisy politically active minorities to win elections and impose their will. It’s best fought by just showing up at the polls.
Because I am a gay man, my masculinity is often called into question. I’m just as much of a man as any other. I tend to express it in non-physical and competitive ways. Some of that is due to my upbringing. Some of that is due to my lack of physical prowess and kinetic skill, driven by the fact that I was such a tiny child. Some of that is due to intellectual gifts and my figuring out at a very early age that I would be better served solving life’s challenges with brain rather than with brawn. Some of that is due to my chosen profession which has honed certain skills with decade after decade of practice. I have a feminine side and traits. We all are capable of expressing and understanding all the complexities of gender behavior, traditional or non. But I don’t feel my need to form intense intimate relationships with other men rather than with women makes me more female than male at all. It just makes me more comfortable with people in general and gives me an ability to relate to all people in a more honest fashion. It certainly kept me from having any interest in the Greek system in college which is coming under scrutiny again due to heinous behavior at Cornell. Another example of the negative consequences of celebration of certain kinds of masculine traits above others. I would, however, caution everyone from jumping on the outrage bandwagon. I always regard those with trepidation, no matter from which direction they may come, right or left. When emotion takes the place of fact and reason, very bad things can happen. And there’s been way too much of this infecting our political discourse over the last few decades – it’s one of the reasons we’re in the pickle we are in.
