Excerpt from novel, Two Trains Running

Chapter 16, from Two Trains Running

Bill was a biologist. He’d done a world of things in his life, not all of them pretty, but he’d finally decided to study life.

            People struggle to find a line of work that can keep them satisfied, fuel their interests, and maybe provide a living. Bill became convinced that the study of life had to be the greatest endeavor you could set for yourself. People were born, lived, and then died, as sure as the snake captured the neck of the mouse. We were caught up in the middle of it all; it surrounded us, this life.

            Yet, in the middle of the grandeur so many people schemed like petty scriveners, apparently oblivious of any of this green and pulsing panorama.

            At first it was the microscopic, it was the utter fascination of being able to peer into an entirely foreign world; foreign, yet a world that crept on your skin, and teemed in the tiny pools on littered sidewalks or in the rain filled footprints of moose or bear or fisherman. There were ecosystems in a drop or a dust mote. There were ecosystems in the colony of cells that composed the body of a bear, or a mite, or a blazing anemone, or a plant, or a human. The alarming activity that took place inside a single cell sitting on the tip of a vine climbing up some old oak tree deep in the forest and reaching toward the sun was enough to alert him to a life worth leading. This view of life was how Darwin had seen it; and what a view it was. It went from the microscopic and finally to the macroscopic until it seemed to encompass the whole panoply of life. The world buzzed for him like no electric sizzler frying the flies could.

            Tromping through the forest or tramping up a mountain the microscopic world would ever be with him. He could almost hear the movement at that fine level as sure as he heard the cicadas banging about in the bush. Then there were times when the whole sphere of the earth seemed to be nothing more than a cell in a larger body.

            And still it was all lost on a people who saw only the tips of the trees.

            It was clear that humanity knew nothing. But science seemed like a way to know something. The knowledge was just crumbs falling off the table, he knew. But it was nice putting things to the test. Once you were convinced that nature was the overarching dome of your life, and that not to understand it, or at least not to try to understand it, was to suffer a kind of eternal death, it became the simplest step to ask questions of it, and when no answers were forthcoming, to devise the answers and build the tests that would see if the predictions came true.

            It was so much like play, but with so much more reward Bill thought.

Election

I’ve seen a bit of self-righteous posturing about ‘undemocratic’ whining over the election result. I think the protests that are going on are mostly, but not completely, unproductive and the violence completely counter-productive, but it’s important not to forget a few key features from this election: 1) Trump got a minority of votes – the majority of voters rejected him; 2) Clinton got more votes than Trump; 3) neither candidate got a majority. In many countries this would mean a run-off election so someone got a 50% + 1 mandate. In this country we have the electoral college system, which overrules the popular vote so a run-off is not considered as long as someone gets 270. The founders had a pretty rational reason for the electoral college system, so large more densely populated states couldn’t consistently dominate smaller states in elections, and for them as a compromise between direct popular election and election by ‘qualified’ electors. It’s time may be past – that’s a debate worth having – but the result is what it is this time round. Resistance has to take a different direction than protesting the election.

It’s also true that if the result had gone the other way we would surely be seeing much shouting, protesting, and likely violence over the ‘rigged’ system.

American democracy has long been overrated, as all kinds of undemocratic influences have impinged on elections, notably but not only big money, but this was one of the most undemocratic elections I’ve witnessed, with outside influences playing an outsize role, and lies and distortion and character assassination featuring far more than policy or issues – far more than the normal abysmally high level. No one should brag about, or be too satisfied about the result.

Some humility is called for given the facts above. Humility is not likely to come from Trump, since the concept is nowhere in his constitution, but it should come from his fans (Hillary’s too).

Donald Trump's Hell

Donald Trump’s Hell

#Many people are saying…that they’d love nothing more than to see Donald Trump not just lose the presidential election, but lose in a stunning landslide. They want the message that this is not what the American people are about to ring out around the world, where rational citizens from nearly every nation are gobsmacked at what is happening in this one.

What happens after he loses?

He says he’ll just go back to his very very nice life, or a very very long vacation.

Here’s what I’d like to see:

Trump tries to go back to his very very nice life…but it doesn’t work out that way. Every deal he tries to make goes sour…no one wants to work with him. All his previous associates abandon him – too much of his true nature has emerged in the campaign. In fact, one after the other initiates lawsuits against him for his broken promises, false claims, defamation, and failure to pay his debts.

He tries to get another ‘reality’ show going but no network will pick it up.

As his businesses fail, bankruptcy rears its head again and he files for the 7^th time. This time he is unable to profit from bankruptcy; he’s blocked by court actions taken by creditors, staff, and workers.

Finally he’s forced to sell Trump Tower, but the proceeds are not enough to pay off all his debts and legal fees.

His wife leaves him for Warren Buffet.

His children abandon him, calling him a loser.

Broke, he takes a job with a life insurance firm that assigns him to a desk job in Fargo, North Dakota. He makes $30,000 a year. He is given a tiny cubicle with walls that are as high as his nose – his carrot top mop and scared eyes peer around at all the other workers in their cubicles. He tries to engage his co-workers with stories from his past but they ignore him, winking at each with sly smiles.

He takes the bus to and from work. It’s a 40 minute ride that takes him through a poor black neighborhood and a thriving Muslim enclave – every day.

At night he goes home to his 3 room apartment in a low rent part of town – most of his neighbors are Mexican - where he spends most of his time watching re-runs of The Apprentice – until the TV station cancels them.

He sits in his underwear and stares out at the brick wall of the rundown apartment building next door, just four feet way, sucking on cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon.