[e-commentary We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us.] [Yes, it will allow you.]
. . .
K “We passed on the street. Swapped smiles. Why not? It did not cost anything. But I do not forget that he demanded that my friends be locked away in concentration camps if they refused to take the ‘vaccine’ based on their sincere and reasonable religious, scientific and legal grounds. I will never forget. To forget is dangerous and ill advised.”
J “We do disagree. There were and are sound reasons to quarantine individuals. That is the role of government.”
K “And he wanted to deny all medical care to them. These types of invasive actions are likely to lead to kinetic responses. Health care insurance companies in the U.S. are in business to deny valid health care claims, I know, but I will not allow someone to deny all medical care to me and my friends as a matter of public policy. That is the line too far.”
. . .
K “I extend my hand to some individuals to show that I bear no hatchet. Out of habit and social custom and not out of conviction or friendship. I only do so because their hand is extended and open . . . and they do not represent an immediate threat. At this time.”
J “I always pause and reflect on the person and the situation when I hear the observation: ‘You may bury the hatchet, but you never forget where you buried the hatchet’. I admit that I always log the lat-longs of the cache.”
K “Me too. I’ll forgive and forget if it is good for my soul.”
. . .
J “He and I did talk a few times and discovered that we no longer are in agreement on the major issues of the day. So be it. We went our ways. Life goes on.”
K “He may be what I often call a friend or former friend B.C. Before Covid.”
. . .
K “She and I were in remarkable rapport on all the major issues of our time. And then the Middle East issue emerged and erupted. We have diametrically opposite views with absolutely no middle ground or possibility of compromise. Yet, we must negotiate a modus vivendi so we can focus on another critical issue that requires our immediate attention. Imagine that.”
J “Stay in the shared swimming lane.”
. . .
K “Our potential circle of friends is largely constituted of dues-paying ‘parvenu PMC people’ who are furiously obedient to authority and ever so eager to exercise authority over others at any opportunity. The expensively schooled and lightly educated crowd were so effusively unctuous at such a tender age. I saw intimations of the personality . . . in college and felt some ineffable distance and dislocation from them. I must deal with them at work professionally, but I rarely see them personally. On the best day, the pool of possible friends is small.”
J “With each passing day, I get more tired of humanity. I can see a clear trajectory to my perspective out ten years. The realization is disappointing but palpable.”
. . .
J “The advice to avoid discussions about politics and religion once seemed harsh and confining. Why curtail conversations about the most important questions in life. However, some discretion is prudent. There are many observations I will not observe at the Thanksgiving table this week.”
K “Someone once said ‘Friends come and go but enemies accumulate’. I have tried at least to avoid accumulating gratuitous enemies. Without selling out.”
. . .
J “A greater chasm has opened in the last four years between those I considered friends than in the previous forty years.”
. . .
K “I wonder what our friend Montesquieu would say.”
. . .
J “Centenarians usually point to quality friendships as a basis for a long life. We will all be living shorter lives.”
. . .
J “Every relationship is now tentative and conditional and awaits the next divisive issue to recalibrate the arrangement.”
K “The faux issues designed to divide us concern me. Those in power are keen to get the folks with the burning torches to turn on the folks with the pitch forks. Think about it.”
. . .
K “What about us?”
. . .
Bumper stickers of the week:
Barbara Ehrenreich
“Celui qui fréquente habituellement quelqu’un et vit dans son intimité”
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