Carol Bergman

 

At some point it became the tradition for a slave to stand behind him and whisper reminders that he was mortal.

-Goldsworthy, Pax Romana

 

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

 

Why are we walking in the dark, let's go over there, where the flowers are blooming.
      ― Han Kang, Human Acts

 

 

Some days, since the election, since Ukraine and Syria and Sudan and October 7 and Gaza, I feel like a giant thresher has mowed us all down, scraping our innards to shreds and shards. "And when in their wake nothing remains but a desert, they call that peace," wrote Tacitus a very long time ago (ad 56—c. ad 20). I could have put this quote up top, but I'll use it here in the first paragraph of this blog post, a lamentation about the state of war mongering and impotent peacemaking in the world. I know there are some who prefer to look away to maintain equilibrium and joy, but I cannot. I am a child of war, and as Nikki Giovanni, a poet—who passed away this week—once said, our lives are not about us, not really, they are about our duty, our efforts to make this world a better place for future generations everywhere. This requires truth telling without obfuscation, a writer's mandate.

 

These wars, these horrible wars. When will they ever end?  I include in the inventory: wars within us and wars among us.

 

The landscape, usually a consolation, feels like an Arctic desert with its bitter temperatures and high winds. I walk into it layered like an Inuit. The sun creeps out only occasionally and this time of year it is not warming. Quotidian tasks: the compost container is full and must be emptied. The laundry awaits consideration. There's a shopping list to fulfill. And, despite the temperature, I'm going swimming today.

 

 Last week I wrote about a drawing workshop I attended, and making art as a life-affirming action even if it is just sketching a thought in a letter attached to an email, or indoor gardening. I will continue with that theme here, among others, as undoubtedly this will be my last blog post of 2024, thus a reckoning of sorts, albeit ephemeral. My mood will lift in the pool, the hot tub, the cold plunge and the sauna. How fortunate am I. How important to remind myself that I am fortunate.  My refugee family escaped a war zone and landed here in these United States of America. And were welcomed. How quaint that notion seems in this hiatus between one administration and another.

 

The German word schande comes to mind. I am studying German again and German words and phrases surface constantly. A linguist friend told me, "Well, it is you mother tongue," meaning it has been in my ear from birth, or even before birth. An odd and delightful realization considering there was a time when I could not tolerate the sound of German.

 

My choice of quotations today evinces the complexity and contradictions of my mood. At an art opening yesterday, the promise of renewal, windows of the gallery looking out on a sculpture garden, the sculptures in high relief against bared to the bone trees. Inside, warm lights and warm conversation. "I keep running into you," a neighbor says, meaning in this small town. "I am here today as a citizen, not a journalist," I explain, inside the circle rather than outside looking in, a journalist's obligation and burden.

 

After the opening, we head to The Bakery for a coffee, brought to life by a new owner who has two kids and a high tolerance for teen energy. Upstairs, a college jazz band is playing holiday tunes, and two crooners are trying to sing above the thrum of the instruments. We are surrounded by students bopping as they study for their final exams, laptops out on the tables. Their concentration is formidable. And though no one else is dancing, we get up to dance, which makes everyone smile. It's a lush scene and we are in the midst of it, laughing and dancing.

 

Peace does not mean an absence of conflicts; differences will always be there. Peace means solving these differences through peaceful means; through dialogue, education, knowledge; and through humane ways…Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of Universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life.

 

-the Dalai Lama

 

 

I've been taking a cold plunge after I swim. I can only get in up to my waist and only for a minute or two. Occasionally I share the small well of water with others, some up to their necks. They cheer me on, start a conversation, a communal effort, our connection solidified without politics.

 

There's scientific evidence that cold plunges reduce inflammation and cortisol levels. If nothing else, the cold water is bracing, it forces attention away from the chatter in our heads, negative or positive. I recommend it as an amusing interlude, too, as I always exit the plunge laughing. It's a respite from the world's woes, my aching aging bones, and deadline journalism. This week I interviewed Peter Zalmayev, my Ukrainian American broadcast friend, in New Zealand where he's on a 25 nation tour of the Global South to bolster support for Ukraine as the Trump administration takes hold. I tried to stay positive as I was talking to Peter, but like so many friends, family and colleagues, I have never felt so worried about continuing support for Ukraine and the survival of the American Experiment. It's been a helluva week. So, on Saturday, I took another cold plunge, metaphorically speaking, and went to a "collaborative drawing workshop" at the Dorsky Museum on the SUNY New Paltz campus facilitated by Professor Andrea Kantrowitz who has written, and illustrated, a book called Drawing Thought.                  

 

It was a joyful, peaceful experience. We sat in groups of three and worked on timed drawings together, passing the paper to our right at Andrea's direction. The results were remarkable, albeit weird, but the sensation of collaborative accomplishment was a model of humane, compassionate endeavor. One can only imagine what might happen if the Ukrainians and the Russians sat around their upcoming negotiating table drawing together. Admittedly, an insane thought, as bracing and enjoyable as a cold plunge.

 

 

Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less. Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.      

- Jon Batiste, musician

 

I have felt the requirement to show up, set an example, bear witness all my life…

  It feels like a spiritual requirement as much as a political one.   

-Jorie Graham, poet

 

 

 

And here on earth, walking elegantly and with confidence onto the stage, smiling, sitting down slowly, and then riffing on Beethoven's 5th Symphony, here is the talented young musician Jon Batiste. In both words and music, he has become a sage, an exemplar of what` an artist can do in hard times: continue making art. And he's only 38.

Why am I thinking about him today? I had planned on writing about my fingerprints, if that makes any sense, which it doesn't, but not much does these days. And in the midst of the fingerprint snafu—a  futile attempt to retrieve my fingerprints—I  asked Pandora to play Jon Batiste. That settled me. Music usually does. So, too, poetry. So, too, sitting down to write, however tentative the effort.

 

The fingerprint snafu surfaces. I had them "taken" in 2018, for the second or third time since returning from the EU, when I was hired by a New York State  educational institution. I had thought they "belonged" to me and I could retrieve them, as needed. But no. I must pay for new prints every time they are required. "Even the FBI has my prints," I say, to no avail.

 

Definition of bureaucracy, as follows: a system of administration marked by officialism and red tape. In other words, Catch 22 at every turn. I am sure my readers will agree that that such bureaucratic entanglements are commonplace. Consider how many hours we spend talking to health care insurers these days, for example.

 

"Those who are ignorant naturally consider everything possible," Kafka wrote in his authoritarian dreamscape, The Castle. Which is where we are this week with the nominated cabinet of horrors and the President-Elect's new committee to obliterate bureaucratic inefficiency. This "new" committee is a feint, it's a cover. According to Project 2025, the President-Elect intends to reintroduce Schedule F, an obscure executive order from his first term that allows presidents to fire, at will, any federal bureaucrat who is seen as disloyal or resistant to his will. 

 

To be absolutely clear—because I am an educated and accomplished woman who wears suits—I am annoyed by robotic and/or offshore bureaucracy, but I am not on the President-Elect's page, nor will I visit the Kafkaesque Castle he is building for himself in DC. Far from. And I have no solution other than to write and teach with compassion and insight based on knowledge, if this makes any sense in a week that has challenged common sense.

I want everybody to be smart. As smart as they can be. A world of ignorant people is too dangerous to live in.

 

― Paul to Billie in Garson Kanin's,  Born Yesterday

 

 

I've started a couple of winter projects this year. The first is what I call "slow re-reading" of novels I've kept on my shelves through more than twenty moves over the years, across the continent and across the Atlantic.

I wasn't born yesterday; I was born the day before yesterday. My book collection spans several decades and some of the pages are brown and brittle. Once re-read, I toss them into the recycle bin or donate them. But I won't do that until I have pulled some quotes and taken notes about the author's bio, narrative devices, and the armature of the book—the foundation that holds the book's "meaning" together.

 

I rarely buy new books these days. I belong to three libraries and borrow e books, though occasionally I buy an e book. In other words, once the novel is reread and I toss it or donate it, it's physical disappearance is final, like a death I suppose. Perhaps I am grappling with mortality or, at the very least, divestment of material possessions. That said, I think I get smarter every time I reread a book knowing that I won't keep it; it embeds in my heart, my psyche, and my brain. I hope this is not an illusion. At the very least, slow re-reading is a good discipline for a writer. And it's meditative, it forces me to linger, to take my time and disregard the fast moving social media world seducing me. Who needs that world?  Who really needs it? Why have we been persuaded that we need it? Distraction is not the same as education. Some of our citizens are so distracted by social media scrolls and trolls that they are not thinking clearly. They are befuddled. They do not know what a disruptive calculating fascist is, or how he—or  it—behaves. 

 

So the election has surfaced after all, much as I try to suppress it for a few hours a day.

 

My second winter project is to immerse in old movies, many of them free, albeit with occasional ads. My husband, is a screenwriter and movies are his thing. Indeed, he is an encyclopedia of movie history. I, on the other hand, am on a movie history learning curve, which is good for my brain and my spirit.

 

 

First up the other night: Born Yesterday. It was made in 1951 during the McCarthy HUAC hearings which do not feel that long ago given the insanity in Congress right now and the prospect of worse. Indeed the setting of the story is Washington DC. Strange, how the capitol always looks sublime in a photo, a film, or the faux backdrop on MSNBC as the pundits pundit about our faltering democracy.

 

Holliday plays Billie Dawn in the film, a reprise of her stage performance. Billie is  a "dumb blonde" hooked up with a mobster who is in DC to corrupt a politician. Holliday, the person, was not at all dumb. She  started her career in a group called the Revuers, a Saturday Night Live-style political sketch show based in Greenwich Village. And because she hung out with left leaning activists, she was  "called to testify" before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee in 1952 chaired by Senator Pat McCarran who was trying to push anti-immigrant legislation through Congress and enjoyed targeting anyone of "Middle European" descent, Jews in particular. Plus ça change.

 

"Called to testify" isn't quite accurate; she had to defend herself against accusations of "communism."  Her lawyer told her to pretend she was Billie Dawn and  "play dumb," which she did, refusing to name names. But she still was black-listed and her career suffered, and so did she. She died at 43 from breast cancer. Her performance in Born Yesterday is her memorial and her legacy, an indictment of ignorance, and a celebration of a woman's acquisition of knowledge and emancipation.

 

We'll always have Paris.

-Rick to Ilsa in Casablanca

 

Screenplay credits: Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, Howard Koch.

 

Based on Everybody Comes to Rick's by Joan Allison and Murray Burnett

 

 

My friend Liat, who lives in England, texted me from the Eurostar to say she was on her way to Paris to celebrate her birthday. Her husband surprised her. What a gift! Memories of my trips to Paris surged, and I wanted to be there, and stay there. It was because of the election and the decade I spent overseas away from America. I asked myself: What are you doing here?  Why did you come back? 

 

I was alone with this rhetorical question. My husband feels more American than European—he's a third generation American, whereas I am a first generation American raised in a European household. But feeling American, whatever that means, it was not the only reason we returned. We had a young child and we wanted her to have grandparents. I never had grandparents. So we returned to America, relinquishing our jobs and flat, many of our accumulated possessions, our friends, and our colleagues. But we were pleased that our daughter would have dual citizenship and grandparents. She is now married to a man with dual citizenship and she crosses borders with ease. "I'm relieved we live in New York State," I said  to her during our first post-election conversation, hoping this would provide some comfort to both of us. But then I channeled John Lennon and thought: Imagine if there were no countries and no religions and no terrorists and no soldiers and no bombs and no drones.

 

"We're worried about the tariffs," Jessica, another UK friend, wrote when I asked her about the British reaction to the election. "And also our new Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, once compared Trump to Hitler."  Surprisingly, therefore, Starmer was one of the first leaders to congratulate Trump on his win: "I know that the UK-US special relationship will continue to prosper on both sides of the Atlantic for years to come," he said.

 

Blah blah, blah blah blah.

 

Well, we'll always have Paris, I thought to myself, or the image of Paris, or the metaphor of Paris, the city of light and the birthplace of the enlightenment. If the enlightenment returns to America, will she be a 18th century lady stripping her petticoats in public, or will she be a woman in a burgundy pant suit taking the oath of office? And does this choice spanning the centuries make any sense?

 

Sometimes my memories of Paris are tethered to my dreams. I am in a café wearing a black trench coat writing in my journal as the tourists stream by. I speak French fluently, of course, and know my way around the city without a map. I sit on a bench in the Luxembourg gardens and read. As an expat, I vote absentee, but hardly pay attention to American politics in between Presidential elections.  I have nothing to kill, argue, or die for, and I live my life in peace.

 

 

Education is our only political safety. Outside of this ark all is deluge.

 

-Horace Mann (1796-1859)

 

 

   

This is what I wrote early in the day yesterday:

 

Election Day, 2024, and I am sketching out a post-election blog post at 12:48 p.m. In other words, it's still early; we won't have a result for a few days the pundits tell us. I voted by mail-in ballot and feel relaxed today, though I am not sure why.  Or, perhaps I do know why.  Beyond what we have done to encourage those in our orbit to vote, the postcards we've written, the canvassing we've done, we are powerless to influence the outcome. For a few hours—or days—during this hiatus, suspended in a hammock of time, we can listen to music, enjoy the crisp autumn weather, enjoy our friends and family, and let go.  We all need the rest.

 

Early this morning, I went for a workout and then to my local supermarket where I had yet another interesting encounter while standing on line. The woman behind me was eager to talk about the election. This is how she began:  "I am so freaked out, my daughter is so freaked out, they are trying to take away our vote."

 

Where to begin? How to say all I needed to say as the line inched forward. How to maintain my cool and empathy for this hysterical uneducated—or  undereducated—woman ? In that moment of confusion, I made a silent decision to carry a copy of the Constitution with me from now on. I could have pulled it up on my phone, but that would have been too distracting. I remained silent, but also attentive.

 

"I know I need to relax, right?" she said.

"Best to calm down," I began, "for your daughter's sake, if not for your own."

"I believe in the women's right to choose."

"Excellent. That is good for your daughter, and for all women," I said.

"But they are trying to steal our votes?"

 

The "they" in her sentence gave me pause. I took a breath and asked, "Who is they? Women have been able to vote since 1920. Are you familiar with the 19th Amendment?"

 

She was not. Indeed, she had conflated Roe v Wade and a woman's right to choose with a woman's right to vote.

 

Once outside in the lot, unloading the apples and cider for my drop-by election party tonight, I thought to myself: This is a blessing. Now we know how undereducated even our "liberal" population is. We have to get to work.

 

And this is what I wrote this morning:

 

November 6, 2024, waking to the result that Trump has smoked the Democrats, that the Republicans have taken the Senate, and may take the House. Disbelief, shock, sadness.  Were we—the Democrats among us—misled or in denial? The sweep is difficult to compute. Our daughter calls for an early morning FT post mortem. Her dad is an historian, and she has incisive historical perspective: "It began with the backlash against Obama," she says. I manage to eke out one sentence: "I am glad we live in New York State."

 

Facebook has gone silent except for one friend who has set up a shrine and is sitting shiva for the United States. It does feel like a wake, but I can't relate to this response. A Black male friend writes: "Sadly all the dog whistles are turning into sirens." This does not explain the Black vote or the bonding between Black and White males. That has to be examined in the months to come.

 

Then there is the commiseration from friends overseas as though the result has nothing to do with them. Problem is, what happens here will affect the world, that's obvious: Ukraine, Israel, NATO, Gaza. All will be impacted as of January 20, 2025.

 

How is my day different? My life different? Is this now a fascist country? Important questions posed my my daughter.

 

"Off for a swim," I say as we end our FT call and go on with our lives, one day at a time.

 

In the pool, three ideas for stories surface as I count my laps, a meditation. This is solace. I imagine a conversation with myself: As I writer, it's my mandate to witness and document—if  I am able—as  I did with Covid in my Virus Without Borders blog posts. I will do something similar in the weeks and months ahead, taking detours into other subjects as they occur to me. And as an educator, I will devote myself to my students and to other educators struggling in the classroom. I will resist book bans, pressure from School Boards, and encourage the pursuit of knowledge, the completion of important projects, and through knowledge and achievement hope for a more educated and compassionate electorate. This is a radical project suffused with hope. It requires courage, activism and resistance to despair. I hope some of my readers will join me in similar endeavors.

 

The mission of women is to be beautiful and to bring children into the world.

 

-Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Reich Minister of Propaganda, 1933-1945

 

 

I woke up this morning thinking about the Bret Baier interview with Kamala Harris. Not the obvious ploy of his aggressive interruptions, but the semiotics of the camera shots from behind Baier's muscular shoulders looking down on the Vice President and dominating her. Not only did he use his voice to try to diminish her, he used his stature, literally and figuratively. As I have worked in newsrooms and studios, I am sure, absolutely certain, that the camera person was instructed to shoot from behind Baier at regular intervals. The semiotics of the managed scene was reminiscent of Trump stalking Hillary during their debate.

 

Any woman who has struggled to make herself heard, to achieve status, earn a wage equal to her male peers or—on the more domestic level—get her male partner to pull his weight raising children and running a household will understand what happened, what viewers saw and understood: propaganda.

 

My early morning realization would not quit. I went online to read excerpts from Mein Kampf. There have been rumors that Trump read Hitler's 1924 manifesto and kept a copy by his bedside. I am sure he has it memorized by now. The parallels between the two men are stark. Hitler began writing while he was in prison following his conviction for high treason to overthrow the German Republic in what is known as the "Beer Hall Putsch." Trump has not yet been imprisoned, but he and his cohorts attempted a violent coup. They already have the Supreme Court in their pockets, and many federal judges.

 

In recent weeks we've heard the word "misogyny," to describe the reaction of some men—white and Black—to the possibility of a woman becoming their Commander in Chief. And we heard President Obama blasting Black men for such a reaction. He even invoked Michelle during the encounter, and laughed as he did so, as did his audience. But it is not a laughing matter for men to denigrate women and threaten them with incarceration in the domestic sphere. What JD Vance is saying about women and what Joseph Goebbels said are nearly identical; one a lawyer, the other with a PhD in philology. All the education in the world did not dampen their hatreds.  

 

 "Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it," Goebbels once said. Sound familiar?

 

On the eve of this election let us keep in mind that it doesn't take much for a democracy to fail, and for a frightened population to fall under the spell of despotic, manipulative killers. It's our mandate as free Americans to fight the fascists in our midst at the ballot box, to make this election a landslide, and to ask everyone we know to stand with us.

 

 

Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount."

                                                                        ― General Omar N. Bradley

 

 

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded  the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize to the Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No one can know for certain the Committee's deliberations behind closed doors, but it seems obvious that the Doomsday Clock has inched further to midnight this year. The "taboo" against using nuclear weapons is "under pressure," the Committee wrote in their announcement, an understatement. And though conventional weapons can wreak destruction beyond all imagining—Vietnam, Israel, Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine and now Beirut—it is the specter of a nuclear explosion, and various disarmament treaties that for the last 80 years have acted as a deterrent to the annihilation of all humankind.

 

Survivors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima have become living witnesses to the nightmare scenario of nuclear holocaust. Having met a few of them, I was particularly gratified to read about the Nobel announcement as many are aging out of recognition for their efforts to work for a sustaining peace in our troubled world.

 

I first met then 83-year-old Sueichi Kido from Nagasaki in May of 2015. He was one of twenty survivors of the atomic blasts who traveled to New York for the opening of an exhibit in the UN lobby, and discussions about the world's nuclear arsenal. A small man with a cherubic face, badly burned, Mr. Kido, a retired history professor, has devoted his retirement years to telling his story. Miraculously, he is still alive, and still working for peace. "There aren't many of us left. We are getting old, we are sick," he says. Five-years-old at the time of the blast and living within the 2 km epicenter, his mother carried him away from the wind and flames in search of shelter. Flesh was melting off their bodies, they were thirsty. There was no water, no shelter, no medical facility. The city had been incinerated. Needless to say, there was no question of a normal childhood for Mr. Kido after this holocaust. He didn't stop trembling until he was ten-years-old, or laugh, or play. PTSD doesn't describe the implosion in his body and his soul.

   
The survivors of the bombings are called hibakusha, a Japanese word that literally translates to "explosion-affected people." Hibakusha and their children have been stigmatized in Japan and it is only recently that the government has recognized their medical complaints as a consequence of the blasts. My husband's uncle, Norman Cousins, the editor of The Saturday Review used the platform of the magazine for a post-blast adoption program. Subscribers sponsored orphans and later brought twelve disfigured  "Hiroshima Maidens" to the United States for reconstructive surgery.

 

You can read about the project here:

 

 https://hibakushastories.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Hiroshima-Maidens.pdf

 

There is a plaque set in a stone dedicated to Norman Cousins at the Peace Park in Hiroshima,  and members of our family still attend ceremonies there every year.  President Truman and his advisers censored the press after the blasts and suppressed the stories of the military witnesses and survivors. Even General MacArthur doubted the wisdom of dropping the bombs, and feared it. He argued that the saturation bombing of Tokyo—200, 000 killed—just  prior to the nuclear blasts, would end the war just as quickly. 

 

"We knew the world would not be the same," J. Robert Oppenheimer said after the first test blast on July 16, 1945. "A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita... "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

 

This post is dedicated to President Barack Obama, the first American president to pay his respects at the Peace Park in Hiroshima. 

 

 

 

 

 

My sense is that if I spend more time talking to you then I spend complaining about you, then something wonderful often happens and the enlightenment is mutual.    

         

Ta Ne-hisi Coates, The Message

 

 

The man in the straw hat sat next to us at the Mexican restaurant and stared at us as he ordered. He threw glances, smiled, guffawed. It was obvious he was keen on conversation and hoped we were willing. I wasn't pleased as I'd looked forward to a quiet evening with my husband parsing Jack Smith's new filing to the DC court. Before long the man in the straw hat commented on the fish design on my husband's shirt. I'd bought it for him years ago in Sag Harbor; my husband loves to fish. Now the man in the straw hat said, "Do you like to fish?" And, of course, that began a bonding conversation between the two men about fishing. Before long, the man in the straw hat revealed he was a pastor, an evangelical pastor, that he ran a rehab somewhere, that he'd been an addict, that he'd met his wife in grade school and really really loved her, that his five kids and five grandkids lived with them during Covid and that none of them were vaccinated and look at them all: they are all thriving now.

 

I kicked my husband under the table. It was obvious he hadn't heard the bit about the vaccines or he might have stopped talking to the guy. We all know that there is a strong correlation between anti-vaxxers and the traitor running for president who can't keep his mouth shut, whose mouth is spewing hateful, horrible lies all day long, who exacerbated the pandemic, amplified its toll, because of the anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers who still adore him.

 

I tried to start a conversation with the pastor's ever-so-retiring wife. I asked her name, but that's as far as I got. Then I called for the waiter and asked for the check. I couldn't wait to get out of there, away from the toxic pastor. Once we were in the car, I began to reflect on life in public places before Covid and before Trump. In those long ago days, my curiosity never quit, I'd talk to anyone. Now I sometimes feel that an invasive species has rooted itself into my once tranquil neighborhood. As much as I'd like to listen without judgment, which is my inclination as well as my occupation, I am finding it difficult, if not impossible, as our election looms.

 

Will we ever return to mutuality and civility as Ta Ne-hisi suggests we should and must?  It seems like a utopian ideal, one to continue to strive for nonetheless

 

A nationalist will say that "it can't happen here," which is the first step toward disaster. A patriot says that it could happen here, but that we will stop it.

 

― Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny

 

 

Freedom is not just an absence of evil. Freedom is a presence of good. It is the value of values, the condition in which we choose and combine the good things, bringing them into the world, leaving our own unique trace. It is positive.

 

-Timothy Snyder, On Freedom

 

I took Timothy Snyder's advice and put my body in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people, the Justice Court in the small village where I live in Upstate New York.  Full disclosure, I went with a friend who was feeling trepidatious after receiving a speeding ticket, and asked for support. She had never been to court before and had asked if I'd find out more about this particular court. Then she asked if I'd call my Sheriff "friend" to put in a good word, or if I knew the judge. I had interviewed the Sheriff for the local paper, but he is not my friend; there's a firewall between my professional and personal life. But my friend was scared, and not thinking clearly. I told her the request was inappropriate, and she understood.

 

We decided we'd both wear suits and tame our wild hairstyles, out of respect for the court and the formality of its proceedings. Our politics dictate this posture: humility, no one above the law. Thus do we all stand when the judge enters the courtroom; he is the emblem of our 240-year-old imperfect judicial system.

 

There are almost 1,200 Justice Courts in New York State, and thousands more in small towns across the country. They deal with small-town matters: evictions, family troubles, small claims, traffic violations, and are considered the courts "closest to the people," according to a New York State brochure I just read.  But for all its modesty, the rituals of a Justice Court are impressive, even awe-inspiring. On the day my friend was scheduled to appear, there was a long line to pass through a rigorous security check. The usual impulse to chat to a neighbor had dissipated, the hallway utterly silent. Once inside the courtroom, we were directed to hard wooden pews, and settled in to what turned out to be a long night. The movement of the police officers in their bulky bullet-proof vests and pistols, the lawyers in their black and gray suits, and the clerks conducting the well-choreographed proceedings were mesmerizing in their apparent harmony and efficiency. The judge seemed far away, snuggled behind his elevated, portentous desk, speaking privately—no microphone—and  sotto voce to everyone.

 

Then it was my friend's turn to approach the bench. Time had run out and her case was postponed until the following week, which was deflating and also stressful. There was nothing to do but go out for a hearty meal and try to relax.

 

I couldn't stop thinking about that courtroom all week, how quiet it was, how well organized. Everyone knew their role and their place, everyone was polite, and everyone appearing in front of the judge was—not surprisingly—attentive . I wondered if Trump felt anything similar in the courtrooms he has been in of late: fear, for example, or wonder. Is he totally oblivious to the rigors and purpose of our judicial system? In the best of times, in the worst of times, this is a system that works, that can be made to work if we continue to attend to its flaws and correct them.  

 

Most local justices are elected officials. If we don't approve of what they do, we are free to take our objections to the ballot box. As for the political corruption of SCOTUS, that's a more complicated challenge, one of many we'll be facing in the days, months and years beyond November 5th.

 

This post is dedicated to all the young American citizens, and new American citizens, who will be voting for the first time in November.