We live by images. America has been captured by images since the “moving Picture” entered our lives. Even the writer of 1984 envisioned mandatory screens in every home way back in 1949. That may seem like ancient history, but invasive media was already the subject of speculation much earlier. Before it was media, it was letters hidden in a wall, or broken statues in the sands of Egypt. Perhaps it was as long ago when “Thy words are honey on my lips” were literally written on bread — to only be eaten when you learned what the honey traced letters meant.
In the cacophony of instant information that we live in at present, we forget that there are many easily identified enemies of clarity in any age — and the only cure is silence. That silence is hard won because the mind’s defense against silence is the chatter that clutters our mind. The questions that arrive in the mind to distract us from the silence. Today, Friday 28th, I finally got the courage to listen to the promised CNN Rant-o-rama featuring Biden vs Trump. Prior to seeing it, I had only watched or read several accounts of the evening. I had assumed that the event was going to be worse than the Battle of the Bulge and Biden had been overrun by Nazis. But watching it after all of the post performance hand-wringing was enlightening, to say the least.
Yes, Biden was tired, but considering his schedule — who wouldn’t be. Yes, his speaking was hindered by what sounded like a sore throat — but there was something else there and I don’t think anyone noticed. There were times that his opponent’s theater of the absurd made him laugh or shake his head in disbelief at what he was hearing. That just may be Biden’s super power. What else could anyone do at the petulant tirade of imagined wounds recited by Mr. Trump? All I could see was that the Trump Emperor was trying to sell America invisible clothes like the old tale goes, and Biden was in on the joke. I think the rest of us need to see “The Emperor’s New Clothes” for ourselves as well. Perhaps it would end all the hyperventilating of Biden’s so-called supporters, and we can get back to what we were doing before — doing what we can to encourage people to vote for Biden.