Southern Bookman

Cautious optimism that Warnock, Ossoff can win in Georgia

I'm beginning to believe that Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff can win their Senate races, despite Democrats' dismal record in Georgia runoff elections.

An alleged GOP feud is encouraging, although the conflict is unlikely to have much effect on Republican voters.

Warnock seems likable in his TV ads, while incumbent Sen. Kelly Loeffler's shrill commercials strike me as ineffective. Sen. David's Perdue's attacks on Ossoff also appear unconvincing. 

But my hopes for Democratic victories have been repeatedly crushed. Michelle Nunn. Jason Carter. Stacey Abrams. A gallery of dismal Senate candidates I can't even remember.

Georgia's Democratic Party over the years has done a good impersonation of the Washington Generals, the team that always got hammered by the Globetrotters.

The national Republican Party is pouring massive resources into Georgia, to reverse Joe Biden's surprising victory in the presidential election. Meanwhile, the Democratic plans are "vague," the AJC reported.

To counter that troubling report of Democratic confusion, national media darling Abrams appears well-organized in registering new voters and generating a strong turnout in the runoff.

Loeffler's Cruella de Ville and Perdue's J.R. Ewing personas violate the old maxim that voters like someone with whom they could have a beer. They epitomize the wealthy's greed and entitlement.

But Georgia's working-class voters, like those across the country, are known for voting against their own economic and social interests.

The attacks on Warnock echo those the forces of segregation made against Martin Luther King Jr., whose Ebenezer Baptist Church Warnock now leads. King was accused of communist ties and seeking to subvert American life. Now Loeffler uses the same playbook against Warnock.

Once again, turnout will be the key. If enough suburban whites join black and other minorities in voting for Warnock and Ossoff, Democrats will gain control of the U.S. Senate.

 

 

T.S. Eliot's letters to Emily Hale give unflattering portrait

T.S. Eliot might have found happiness by marrying Emily Hale.

Eliot chose instead a disastrous marriage to Vivienne Haigh-Wood. But Eliot deeply loved Hale, a passion mainly carried out through letters he obsessively wrote her, beginning in 1930 and ending in acrimony in 1957.

In a major event for Eliot scholars, the poet's 1,1131 letters to Hale deposited at Princeton's Firestone Library were unsealed in January 2020. Hale dismayed Eliot in 1956 when she gave the letters to the library. Under terms of the deal, they were to be sealed until 50 years after her death. She died in 1969, four years after Eliot's death.

Along with online viewing, a selection of the letters edited by John Haffenden will be published next year.

Eliot in a 1960 statement released in January along with the unsealing of the letters sought to justify his decision to marry Haigh-Wood in 1915 rather than Hale, with whom he was in love.

"To her (Haigh-Wood), the marriage brought no happiness...to me,, it brought the state of mind out of which came The Waste Land.,"  Eliot said. "And it saved me from marrying Emily Hale. Emily Hale would have killed the poet in me; Vivienne nearly was the death of me, but she kept the poet alive."

Paul Keegan in the Oct. 22 London Review of Books gives an exhaustive account of Eliot's relationship with Hale, which Keegan says resumed in earnest in 1930 when Hale visited London and came to tea with Eliot and his wife. Hale and Eliot began a correspondence which grew into a stream of letters from Eliot.

Eliot met with Hale several times before separating from Haigh-Wood, who died in 1947 after several years in a mental hospital. Eliot never divorced Haigh-Wood, forestalling any plans to marry Hale. Although he expressed sexual desire for Hale, their relationship apparently remained platonic.

After Haigh-Wood's death, Eliot again spurned Hale, although they continued to write each other until 1957, when Eliot married his secretary, Valerie Fletcher. Eliot  later claimed that he was no longer in love with Hale. The rejection caused Hale a nervous breakdown.

Another cause of the rejection was Eliot's strict religious beliefs; he was upset at Hale participating in Episcopal Church communion although she was Unitarian, as Keegan relates.

While Eliot's detailed letters to Hale are like an autobiography,  scholars don't have Hale's letters to Eliot. He destroyed them in 1960, perhaps in anger at her Princeton gift.

Or he realized that Hale's letters would give as negative a portrait of him as his letters to her. The letters reveal Eliot as manipulative, self-absorbed and cruel, according to Keegan's article.

Eliot's assertion that Hale would have killed the poet in him was unfounded. Still, had he married her, it's unlikely that he would have written "The Waste Land."

Was that masterpiece worth all of that pain? His letters to Hale detail the cost.

 

 

Random musings on Veterans Day

One more reason to worry: China's way ahead of the United States in rolling out 5G technology, according to a Wall Street Journal special report.

The Chinese can download a movie in 15 seconds, while it takes an American 15 minutes. Movies are censored in China, however.

China's huge lead in 5G technology seems like a major national security concern. But, as with climate change, there's no sense of urgency.

A strange Veterans Day, on the eve of the Masters beginning. A big story is how Augusta National's fall foliage compares with its usual April azaleas. Will players get a free drop from fallen leaves?

ESPN's College Game Day will broadcast Saturday morning from Augusta National's Par 3 course. Good the gang can talk about golf, with so many football games canceled because of Covid-19.

I never thought America would turn into Belarus. Trump in refusing to accept Joe Biden's election is acting more and more like Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko.

Following Saturday's spontaneous street celebrations of Biden's victory, Americans now need to stage massive protests as the people of Belarus did.

Christmas TV commercials have arrived again. I'm puzzled at car companies recycling last year's ads. Haven't the models changed?

World War I  ended on this day 102 years ago, followed by a global flu epidemic. Now, Covid-19 is resurgent throughout the world.

On this somber day, let's remember those lost to our 21st century pandemic and hope that an effective vaccine arrives soon.

 

 

Luc Sante recalls days on New York City's gritty Lower East Side

Luc Sante delivers vintage Lower East Side nostalgia in "Maybe the People Would Be the Times."

The collection of musical, literary and art reviews, profiles, autobiographical essays and fictional meditations looks back at Sante's days in the gritty New York City neighborhood during the 1970s and 1980s.

Before gentrification conquered the area, it was home to avant garde artists, poets and writers and punk musicians who loved the rank air of freedom on the crime-ridden streets.

While some of the pieces bog down in self-indulgent, meandering prose, Sante gives a fresh take on often covered subjects such as Patti Smith, CBGB, David Wojnarowicz and Rene Ricard.

Sante shines a light on obscure bands, albums and songs. His jazzy, insular language evokes the era's gauzy, dreamy atmosphere.

Nostalgia for the times and the ravaged neighborhood is a flourishing subgenre. Sante's hip writing will be treasured by his dedicated fans. Despite its narrow focus, the book offers pleasures for a wider readership, even at its most experimental.

An ominious turn: United States officially abandons climate change treaty

Overlooked in the chaotic battle for the White House, the United States on the day after the presidential election officially left the Paris climate change agreement.

With millions voting for climate-change denier Donald Trump, the United States abandoned the global commitment to reduce carbon emissions.

Trump announced in July 2017 that the United States would leave the 2015 pact that seeks to limit global temperatures. But the treaty required a three-year waiting period for a country to withdraw.

If Trump takes back the White House, the United States, with 15 percent of global greenhouse emissions, will commit itself further to promoting fossil fuels.

Trump has relentlessly reversed President Obama's climate change efforts, from weakening auto-emissions regulations to promoting the coal and petroleum industries.

He has also begun steps to open petroleum drilling in Alaska's Arctic Wildlife Refuge and other long protected wilderness areas.

Democratic candidate Joe Biden, near a presidential victory, promises to return to the Paris agreement. If Biden is elected, the country would have a month to rejoin the treaty.

Biden calls for a massive effort to make buildings more energy efficient and developing wind and solar power to shift from a carbon-based economy.

The treaty seeks to keep global temperature increases this century to under 2 degrees celsius above pre-industrial averages. It calls for additional efforts to reach a 1.5c threshold.

Climate change has already advanced further than earlier projections, with soaring temperatures, drought, melting arctic ice, fires and hurricanes. Rising ocean levels will threaten coastal nations and cities.

The United States must rejoin the effort to reduce emissions if the world is to have any chance to limit climate change's devastation.

 

 

 

 

 

Another Democratic horror show

Tuesday night felt like a horror movie sequel in which the monster comes back.

What a dismal night for the Democratic Party. Even if Joe Biden does eke out an Electoral College victory, his presidency will be crippled by the GOP-controlled Senate. Rather than building their House majority, the Democrats treaded water, losing six members.

The GOP's rogue gallery marched on, invincible to Democratic attacks. Oceans of money, ridicule and ethical censure failed to defeat Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham, John Cornyn, Kelly Loeffler, David Perdue and Joni Ernst. Even embattled Susan Collins sailed to victory in Maine.

Even if Biden claims victory Wednesday, Donald Trump will do everything to hold on to the presidency. Legal precedent and federal law favor Biden, but this Supreme Court cares little for that. Trump like the Godfather will demand repayment from his Supreme Court appointees.

But maybe the so-called justices will rule in favor of American democracy, and the principle that every vote counts.

Lincoln appealed to "the better angels of our nature." Trump appeals to our worst traits. Trumpism is now a primary force in American politics.

But hey, the sun rose this morning. Autumn's in the air. I heard a song when I took a walk. Carpenters were working on houses down the street.

Through the years, I've seen the political pendulum swing back and forth many times. Happy days will come again.

 

 

 

 

Democrats look for surge in Georgia

Democrats hope that Georgia's blue wave arrives at last.

Joe Biden's chances look better and better in Georgia, forcing Donald Trump into late campaign appearances in the state.

Democratic candidates glimpse victory in the state's two U.S. Senate races. And the party appears on the cusp of retaking the House in the Georgia Legislature.

Former state Rep. Stacey Abrams, who fell short of a runoff against GOP Gov. Brian Kemp in the 2018 gubernatorial race, expressed optimism in an appearance on Chris Hayes' MSNBC show Monday night for a Democratic breakthrough.

To her credit, Abrams has led efforts to register and galvanize the state's new voters, most of them members of minorities who support Democrats.

The state has added 4 million new voters since 2016, according to a report by the New Yorker's Charles Bethea on the party's improved prospects in Georgia.

Forgotten as Democratic odds increase is Jim Martin's U.S. Senate campaign in 2008, in which he took incumbent Saxby Chambliss to a runoff, without the national support that Abrams and other Democratic candidates have received in subsequent years.

As with Abrams' bitter loss to Kemp, Democratic hopes have been crushed several times in statewide races. Kemp ran for governor while he was still Georgia's secretary of state, using that position to suppress black votes.

According to Bethea and others, many black voters are going to the polls for the first time this year, and record-setting early voting favors Democrats. Long lines have not dampened the turnout.

With Democratic candidates gaining in the state's two U.S. Senate races, the party is optimistic at reversing a long string of losses in state races. Georgia has two Senate elections because of the retirement of U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, one of the GOP's last moderates. A double win in Georgia might carry Democrats to control of the U.S. Senate.

In the campaign for Isakson's seat, Raphael Warnock, pastor of Martin Luther King's Ebenezer Street Baptist Church, is a more appealing candidate than the Republicans' ghoulish Doug Collins and Kelly "Atilla the Hun" Loeffler.

Warnock gave the eulogy for the late civil rights leader John Lewis, and has received endorsements from Barack Obama and other Democratic heavyweights.

With overwhelming campaign contributions, he's run a positive TV ad campaign, while his GOP opponents have been drawn to attacking each other, giving no attention to Warnock.

Democrats fear that the hapless campaign of Matthew Lieberman, Joe's son, might derail Warnock's chances of gathering enough votes in the race's so-called jungle primary to prevent a runoff.

Republican voters likely will close ranks in a runoff despite the Loeffler-Collins mud fight. Republican turnout would be galvanized if GOP control of the Senate hinges on the runoff outcome.

In the other race, 33-year-old Jon Ossoff has thrown a scare into incumbent U.S. Sen. David Perdue, whose main accomplishment in his first term was total fealty to Donald Trump. Polls indicate Ossoff is tied with Perdue, who backed out of his final debate with his quick-witted opponent.

The sixth congressional race between incumbent Lucy McBath and GOP retread Karen Handel is also drawing national attention. McBath beat Handel two years ago in the Democratic wave to gain control of the U.S. House. Lost by Ossoff to Handel four years ago, the sixth is one of those suburban battlegrounds undergoing rapid demographic change.

A couple of other Democratic candidates appear in good condition to take congressional seats.

Roy Barnes, the state's last Democratic governor, told Bethea that he sees signs of a Democratic surge. That would represent a wonderful late-life gift for 96-year-old former President Jimmy Carter and former U.S. Sens. Sam Nunn and Max Clelland. They and other Democratic heroes are primed to celebrate after years in the political wilderness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

America's day of decision arrives

America's day of reckoning is almost here.

I mailed in my ballot weeks ago, but will miss voting today with my fellow citizens. For years, I saw election day as a festive civic ritual, no matter which candidate won. But Donald Trump, who openly condones violence, has turned celebration into dread.

The United States has experienced voter intimidation through the years. But the country after the civil rights movement had reached an era of free expression of citizenship through voting. Then the Roberts Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, and the GOP, the party of the Great Emancipator, suppressed minority voting rights.

Some of my friends say they'll leave the country if Trump wins. A Trump victory would be a calamity for the nation and the world, but I know I'll never leave. We've come too far through the years to give up now. No matter what happens, we'll keep striving for a more perfect union.

 

Barrett hearing reflects degradation of political language

The Amy Coney Barrett hearings showed that political speech no longer bears any relation to the truth.

That a law professor from the leading Catholic university could spread such a web of evasions and falsehoods before a U.S. Senate committee is sickening.

With the GOP railroading Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court, the degradation of the U.S. Senate and the judiciary is complete. The Democratic members of the committee shamefully capitulated to Lindsay Graham and the other Republican apparatchiks.

"Here is the shadow of truth, for only the shadow is true," Robert Penn Warren said in the opening line of his poem "A Way to Love God."

In the Barrett hearing, the shadow spread further across the American republic.

 

 

Reading Louise Gluck in a time of troubles

A few years ago I downloaded on my old Nook e-reader Louise Gluck's "Poems 1962-2012."  But I never progressed far into the collection.

Since Gluck won the Nobel Prize for Literature last week, I've been reading a few of her poems everyday.

When she won the award, she made a comment that she didn't want to be a popular poet like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

At least Longfellow wrote a few lines readers remember. While I like some of Gluck's poems, many of them, called "austere" by the Nobel committee, are too solipsistic. If anything, she's anti-poetic with her trite language and ordinary insights.

Poets like Shakespeare, Frost, Stevens, Keats, Eliot and so on are known for memorable speech. I don't find much of that in Gluck's poems.

I grew tired of her Pulitzer Prize-winning collection "Wild Iris," although the title poem was fine. Poem after poem was written from the point of view of flowers, although they all sounded like Louise Gluck. After a while, I had enough of the garden.

Now I've progressed into poems I like better, based on the Odyssey. Still, the poems don't excite my imagination as my favorite ones do.

I'll keep reading through. It's better than watching Amy Coney Barrett, with those weird Republican witch eyes.