Today is the birthday of Grover Cleveland, the nation’s 22nd president from 1885 to 1889 and its 24th president from 1893 to 1897, who was born in 1837 in Caldwell, N.J.

Among all US presidents he scored high, if not highest, in integrity, honesty and independence. As a democrat he fought against corruption and protectionist trade policies. He is supposed to have said this:

“I would rather the man who presents something for my consideration subject me to a zephyr of truth and a gentle breeze of responsibility rather than blow me down with a curtain of hot wind.”

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/18/this-day-in-politics-march-18-1223872

On my hike yesterday, out and up in the Eastern Gorge there were plenty of mild breezes. The hot air emanated somewhere else in Washington DC. But that was not the only contrast that came to mind.

Here I was, amidst indescribable beauty, strong enough to tackle a considerable climb, some of it in snow, accompanied by one of my most cherished persons on earth, discovering the first wildflowers

and digging into a sumptuous sandwich during a picnic on a sunny if cold meadow.

All this while others are too afraid to eat anything that is not coming out of a vending machine for fear of poisoning, put behind bars, harassed and violated by people out for revenge. I am specifically referring to Ramsey Orta, a friend of Eric Garner, who filmed and later posted a cell phone video of how Garner died in a police chokehold. Orta has been in prison since 2016, and is fearing for his life in retribution of showing police brutality. I cannot independently assess the validity of the claims, but the article has taken hold in my head since I read it last week.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/13/18253848/eric-garner-footage-ramsey-orta-police-brutality-killing-safety

On March 3rd, 2015, Orta’s cell block was served a meal of corn, cabbage, bread, juice, and meatloaf. He didn’t touch it. He’d fallen ill a few times after eating the food at Rikers and was convinced he was being targeted and poisoned.“Eat, inmate,” a CO commanded, banging Orta’s cell with a baton. The guards were all standing too close, watching too intently as the others ate. This kind of attention was unusual. He saw others from his cell block staring down into their meatloaf, forks frozen in midair.

Court documents filed six days later alleged that the prisoners had suffered and continued to suffer from “nausea, vomiting, pain, dizziness, aches, headaches, stomach/intestinal pains, dehydration, diarrhea, nosebleeds, throwing up blood, diarrhea with blood, and/or an overwhelming sense of illness.” The symptoms were consistent with human consumption of rat poison, and when the tainted meatloaf was finally tested, the results found that the blue-green pellets visible in the meatloaf were brodifacoum, the active ingredient in rodenticide.

Not the kind of country Grover Cleveland envisioned. And one that seems just fine for those currently at the helm. As I said, contrasts.