This mini-Trump. This histrionic, petulant, entitled, raging, shameless small man. This liar. Even in the details – The WSJ reports that he listened to Dr. Ford’s testimony on a monitor in a side room. He denied this when asked by Senator Harris. Never mind the lies about all the rest of it, even for facts that can be verified, like drinking age in 1980s Maryland.

These sycophants. A huge round of applause, apparently, when Senator Graham walked into a closed-door meeting after the hearings. These hypocrites. After their female assistant so spectacularly blew her job by not catching the accuser in any conflicts and starting to dig into endangering facts with the accused, she was fired on the spot, and never publicly thanked for her role even pro forma after that. These angry old, white men, (a)rousing themselves after their cowardly silence in front of Dr. Ford.

And now they vote. Judicial temperament be damned. Truth be ignored. Power exercised. Perhaps it is just as well that the farce of having a Supreme Court pretend to be a neutral arbiter and guardian of checks and balances can no longer be upheld. And perhaps important to acknowledge that this is not only a Trumpian phenomenon but the result of a long arc – Bush himself made multiple phone calls to senators urging a vote for the dissembler. As one of Germany’s major newspaper wrote over night: The Senate hearings fully revealed the advanced state of decay of American political culture.

This courage. This exemplary willingness to overcome sheer terror for the good of the nation. This calmness, vulnerability, honor. This dignity. Whatever the outcome, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford will be a model for generations of women to come. As the target of unadulterated misogyny she stood in for all of us, prepared to sacrifice life as she knew it to do what is right. Reminds me of a another heroine, Käthe Kollwitz, “I am in the world to change the world.”

One of my thoughts while listening to the Senate Hearings was about today’s blog: How could I possibly write something while in a state of disbelief, upset, sadness, and above all anger at what is unfolding before us?

I came up with an imperfect solution, but the only one I could think of: depict a moment of unadulterated happiness during this last week of misery and churning, even if the happiness came swiftly, and went swiftly.

Boys and birds. All it took. Or, come to think of it, lovely girls as well. (Since I feel 100 years-old this morning I am allowed to use that youthful term for once.)

 

Boy and girl took me to see the annual fleeting spectacle of swifts filling the evening sky, before they descend, at some mysterious signal, into the chimney of a local grade school for their night’s rest.

 

The Vaughx swifts visit PDX every September during their annual migration South. With much old growth forest being cut down they use artificial structures like chimneys these days to take a break. They adapt to changing environments to ensure their survival. As we will have to do. Alas, hiding in chimneys is not one of our options.

Up to 12.ooo or more birds twirling in the sky, advancing and retreating until they disappear, it is a sight to behold.

The mood on the ground is communal and festive.

Young entrepreneurs make the rounds.

Up to 2000 people gather nightly on the school grounds, bring the kids, have a picnic, marvel at the movement and lightness above them. For a short while your awe of nature takes over and lets you forget the ugliness of our world.

As Flake declares he is voting for the liar and TV declares that too much of a year of woman is happily gone and this is the year of men, cherish whatever fleeting moments of happiness you can get – there won’t be many of them for many of us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhNqso6VElE

And Popper’s Elfentanz might as well have been written for swifts and not elves….