SINGULARITIES

  Defined as "the state, fact, quality or condition of being singular". In other words, something that is one of its kind, something so large, so monumental that at times we do not even notice its occurrence, or read the telltale signs too little, too late. Think of the many uses and applications of this term in our times, so many apt moments that we have begun to ignore them, their meanings and foretelling, and continue on our not so merry way. However, ignoring them does not make these singularities go away. Actually, by ignoring them, the warning signals, the blaring alarms, we only encourage more, and suddenly the singularity is no more, for all has changed. Most often, not for the better.

Take an application in the weather. It used to be that calling an event a "100-year rain, or storm" was unique, singular. Now, we have a more common usage of 500-year weather events, with worse predicted. How did we arrive at such a dire state of affairs? We simply denied the evidence before our eyes. We overuse water sources; now we face almost a Biblical drought in this country. Singularity no longer. The same goes for hurricanes, and as I sit here in hurricane risky territory, I worry, truly, yet we earned this state of affairs, the one which turned the singularities of a truly humongous hurricane into more frequent 'major" ones. Not good. Not good at all.

In many ways this country, until quite recently a singularity, a paradigm for a working, prosperous, respectful democracy, has now devolved in the midst of our tragic slide into autocracy. Just another Third World country, awash in its own inefficiencies, the blatant pursuit of wealth and power by conflicting tribes, and an impossibility or even a desire, to reach some kind of stasis and then work backwards to a better time, and then go forward again. That will not happen, any time soon if indeed ever. No more a singularity, rather a nation to be pitied, even mocked, as the arrogance and selfishness of supposed leaders trashed the idea of public service, of altruism. Changed was JFK's famous statement - "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country" - changed to the polar opposite. The country became the source of power as the manifestly, grossly unqualified and corrupt took over.

McConnell now mourns the "quality" of GOP Senate candidates. They might have won the primary, but when up against a rather saner candidate of the Democratic Party, their weakness, their incompetence, their lack of morals, are exposed to the bright light of our hotter than ever sun and air. What he does not admit, nor accept responsibility for, is his role in parleying it all to this state of being. His roosters have come home to roost; evidently, he does not appreciate their crowing. Too bad.

Worse, worst, actually, is when a singularity of mammoth proportion is in fact recognized as such, acknowledged as such yet even then there are those who insist on denying it, on homogenizing it, on invalidating it, trivializing its very singularity. When called out upon statements of denial, they proffer an 'apology', but the bell has been rung, the bigots satisfied, the proof before their eyes, validated, they feel, and there is nothing good that comes out of the whole mess. What indeed happens is that future events, even more acidic, more vicious, bloodier, will take place, encouraged by those who refuse to accept the lessons of history.

Abbas, way beyond his sell by date, demeaned the horrors of the Holocaust, a meticulously planned murder aiming at the extinction of the Jewish people, quite nearly succeeding, murdering, butchering over 6 million, including over a million and a half children. The world stood silent, even cheering by the wayside, complicit in much of the guilt if not so much by commission, then by omission. And Silence, a silence that threatened to deafen the world. He compared it to the battles of Israelis and Palestinians. Blatantly not the same, Does not even come close, not on either side. Forced to apologize, which counts for naught, it was not published in Arabic. Says something, does it not. When murderous cretins call for yet another such Holocaust - the blame goes back to the denial of the singularity of that horror. This is what is meant by something so humongous that we almost let that recognition and acknowledgement slip by. Much to our detriment.

There is yet another huge singularity, a slew of them, all connected within our nation. That is the entire political and judicial mess, the mammoth singularity we are living in and through. I wonder how many people truly understand the meaning, the effect, the peril contained within. But that is for another day, another blog.