Caveat emptor! especially if it's free!

Once upon a time, when I was much younger and more naive, I was also less cynical. Somewhere along the way, I learned an old saying about politicians: "watch his lips, if they're moving, he's probably lying." Then I discovered the same truth holds for corporations, corporate executives, ads, marketing, etc. Having a former President like Nixon claim "I am not a crook;" or one like Bush proclaim "Mission Accomplished;" or a Democrat like Clinton sell out workers and the environment with NAFTA and "Welfare reform;" failed to help me rescind my cynicism.

absentee ballot envelope

Photo by J. Harrington

The question all this leaves me with is "can an economy function, never mind thrive, based on mutual distrust?" Here's a contemporary example, based only on my speculation. For the first year or so of the pandemic, it was pretty obvious that no helpful information was likely to come out of the White House or the remainder of the Washington, D.C. establishment. Even after the election was settled (it is settled now, isn't it?) the credibility of the CDC had been undermined and severely tainted by political influence, or the appearance thereof. Now, before we've reached a stage of herd immunity, we're being told we can, if we're fully vaccinated, remove our masks. How are we to know that the unvaccinated aren't lying? What about the children? Just this morning I read that "removing masks isn't a mandate." Talk about mixed messages.

Meanwhile, as a society we've claimed that certain workers are essential but don't pay them as if they are or treat them with much respect, if any at all. And then employers wonder why it's a challenge to get folks to return to work. I wouldn't, if I were still in the labor force. Why? I very much doubt my employer would see me as essential; nor guarantee a safe work place; nor provide adequate leave should I become ill. It's almost as if many employers believe workers should be grateful for crumbs from the table. The idiot who claimed to Make America Great Again left out several critical ingredients in that recipe: honesty, integrity and reciprocity, leading to the establishment of trust. Without trust, on what basis do we trade?

A Perfect Mess

By Mary Karr

          For David Freedman

I read somewhere

that if pedestrians didn’t break traffic laws to cross

Times Square whenever and by whatever means possible,

      
the whole city

would stop, it would stop.

Cars would back up to Rhode Island,

an epic gridlock not even a cat

could thread through. It’s not law but the sprawl

of our separate wills that keeps us all flowing. Today I loved

the unprecedented gall

of the piano movers, shoving a roped-up baby grand

up Ninth Avenue before a thunderstorm.

They were a grim and hefty pair, cynical

as any day laborers. They knew what was coming,

the instrument white lacquered, the sky bulging black

as a bad water balloon and in one pinprick instant

it burst. A downpour like a fire hose.

For a few heartbeats, the whole city stalled,

paused, a heart thump, then it all went staccato.

And it was my pleasure to witness a not

insignificant miracle: in one instant every black

umbrella in Hell’s Kitchen opened on cue, everyone

still moving. It was a scene from an unwritten opera,

the sails of some vast armada.

And four old ladies interrupted their own slow progress

to accompany the piano movers.

each holding what might have once been

lace parasols over the grunting men. I passed next

the crowd of pastel ballerinas huddled

under the corner awning,

in line for an open call — stork-limbed, ankles

zigzagged with ribbon, a few passing a lit cigarette

around. The city feeds on beauty, starves

for it, breeds it. Coming home after midnight,

to my deserted block with its famously high

subway-rat count, I heard a tenor exhale pure

longing down the brick canyons, the steaming moon

opened its mouth to drink from on high ...

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