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KAKISTOCRACY: Government By the Worst

by Fran Johns

THE OLD WORD IS A DESCRIPTIVE TERM WHOSE TIME HAS COME

At a recent San Francisco People’s March (Author photo)

(This is an exception to my policy of avoiding politics on this website, posted here just because this good Webster’s Dictionary word deserves our attention at the very least. Regularly my political observations are on Substack, weekly, @ The Optimistic Eye. C’mon over any time; it’s free.)

If anyone was worried about people being worn out after the National Day of Action that drew huge crowds all across the country on April 5, those apprehensions were put to rest the following week. We’re still working to prevent the mean-spirited and unfit people “running” the country from totally wrecking it. Hands Off!

Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez drew a crowd of 36,000 in Los Angeles on the 12th. Follow-up rallies brought out enthusiastic supporters of democracy in city after city, small towns and village squares over the weekend.

My personal favorite — possibly because I was there — was The People’s March / Fight Fascism for Democracy event in San Francisco April 12. Billed as a rally in support of “everyone under attack by the current government administration” the event featured representatives of faith communities, teachers, artists and an assortment of groups that have been targeted by Trump 2.0. Soft breezes drifted inland from the Bay, the sun shone on young progressives and gray-haired activists and the talks were a mixture of enthusiastic protest and be-good-to-yourself encouragement.

The signs, as protest signs go, outdid themselves.

I snapped a picture of one homemade proclamation carefully inked on cardboard (above) and held timidly aloft by a gentle participant. Be Kind, it urged. It’s going to take a lot of kindness to counteract the cruelty of policies that seem to get more stringent and oppressive by the day. Because the crowd was constantly moving and shifting I had hardly noticed the sign just a few feet from the kindness advocate.

KAKISTOCRACY it proclaimed. Who knew? In my undistinguished two years of college Greek and subsequent decades of political activism I don’t recall encountering the term. Its time has come! Government by the worst, the least qualified or most unscrupulous. Hello? Trump 2.0 has been identified.

Thank you, unidentified sign-creator.

If ever we have lived in a kakistocracy it is now. All talk about growing autocracy (true,) oligarchy (true) and fascism (scarily possible) aside, Trump 2.0 is the definition of a kakistocracy. From the multi-bankrupted businessman turned reality TV star turned puppet president to his cabinet choices of the excruciatingly unfit, not even Socrates could have come up with a better example of kakistocratic perfection.

Recently, for example, we saw Secretary of Education Linda McMahon blithely talking of young students getting A1 education; presumably she never heard about Artificial Intelligence. Then there was Health Secretary (God help us) Robert Kennedy, unaware that his department’s $11 billion “DEI” cuts actually had eliminated critical projects and key, highly qualified people. Well never mind, Mr. Kennedy’s going to unveil a shiny-object proof that vaccines cause autism, a pet project he’s still busy working on while Americans are dying of measles and whooping cough. 

Stupidities such as the above and cruelties such as mass deportations with no due process continue — showing how much damage a kakistocracy can do, especially when it’s headed by an aging, mentally challenged and supremely kakistocratic man.

All is not lost. We the people are getting some help from the courts. For example, just when ignorance (or disregard) of the constitutional right to a free press seemed to be vanishing, a judge blocked the White House’s AP ban. The ACLU, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Freedoms, the State Democracy Defenders Fund and a growing list of nonprofits and public figures are working with the courts — and in whatever other ways possible against the wrecking ball. They are all sustained by the support of ordinary people.

This is what living under and fighting against a kakistocracy looks like. At the very least, I think we should be calling it what it is. Meanwhile, since the Egotist in Chief delights in being first, we can award him this distinction:

Donald J. Trump, first American president to create a certified kakistocracy.

America Collection/General interest
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The Drama of Geezer Traveling

by Fran Johns
Globe showing flight path from Rome to San Francisco

LITTLE OLD LADY, TRAVELING ALONE! OH THE HORROR!!

ITA Airlines flight tracker (Author photo)

Blood was beginning to drip across the marble tile. What can I say?

After a trip to Sicily with a short stop in Rome, I had made it without incident from my hotel to Rome Airport FCO Fiumicino well ahead of 7 AM for a 9:10 AM flight home. I found my way to the ITA Baggage Drop area to trade my one small bag for a boarding pass. That was when the drama began.

Reaching for my passport, and briefly forgetting about my cheap-tissue-paper skin — i.e., thinner than even the better quality tissue paper — I brushed the pocket of my backpack and came up with a half-inch gash across the top of my left hand.

If someone is trying to find a vein below my paper-thin skin when a blood test is required, good luck. Veins are nowhere to be found. But in the Baggage Drop area of Fiumicino Aeroporto, one small scrape and you’d think Vesuvius had just erupted in A-negative.

I had managed to grab some tissues from my pocket as the gusher began. But keeping it at bay required pressing one tissue, with my right hand, onto the back of my left. This left no available hand for doing stuff, and stuff needed to be done. I quickly attempted to wipe up the mess on the floor with the remaining tissues, deploying one foot before I ran out of appendages.

A horde of uniformed ITA people descended from nowhere. I had triggered the “Little Old Lady” alarm. I heard, for not the first of a zillion times in recent years, “Are you traveling alone?”

Ohforheavenssakes! At what age is it required that “Little Old Ladies” be accompanied by a “Keeper?” Admittedly, if I’d had a “Keeper” he or she would have produced the passport and avoided the whole drama. But still. The wound, which drew attention to my amply-wrinkled face, had triggered the “Little Old Lady Traveling Alone” alarm. The horde had taken over.

“No problem! No problem!” they were saying, guiding me onward and leaving the insufficiently wiped mess on the tile. Who cleans the floors at your houses? I wanted to ask. But I didn’t. I watched politely as someone picked up my tiny carry-on (the under-seat size) and backpack and guided me onward, away from the unsightly splatters.

I had a Band-Aid in my backpack. All I needed was that one Band-Aid and I’d be on my way. I desperately wanted to shout, had anyone been listening, Could someone please just help me get the #$%&+ Band-Aid so I can have two hands again!?! But I didn’t. I had been trying very hard to represent the Friendly American despite our current unfriendly administration.

One young helper agent disengaged himself from the horde to take over my small bags — and me in the bargain. I began to understand I had an invisible tattoo, “LOL-TA.”

“The chair is coming,” said the polite young man. “Wait here.”

I was apparently to be wheeled off, through Passport Control and the two-mile maze I had negotiated on the trip through FCO Fiumicino from which I was now returning. It had been an altogether pleasant walk — but of course, I’d managed not to injure myself on that leg of the journey.

While waiting, I engineered a raised left-hand maneuver long enough to reach into my backpack and retrieve a Band-Aid. Problem solved. I was anxious to be on my way, but once a wheelchair-designate, always a wheelchair-designate. I waited, obediently. However, I noted with some relief watching other wheelchairs come and go, that Rome Fiumicino features motorized chairs complete with a platform in the back for the driver.

My only previous airport wheelchair experience was once when I was re-routed through Seattle with 20 minutes to make a connection. I had played the “LOL” card and requested a chair. It was operated by a frail woman in a hijab who whisked me through a complicated series of passages and elevators to deliver me at the gate with several minutes to spare — and an overwhelming sense of guilt.

At least this trip would be guilt-free. Eventually, it began via a motorized chair with a pleasant-looking young woman who maneuvered me into the seat with my backpack in my lap and the other bag on the platform beside her. We were through Passport Control in a matter of minutes and headed to the A — E Gates.

“I take you to your gate,” said my driver as we sped along. “E-23.”

“Umm, if you don’t mind,” I said, “could we go to the ITA lounge?” This seemed a reasonable request. We were now navigating the swirling mobs of E Gates, and I knew, indeed, that the lounge was within range. As I had tried in vain to explain ever since the wound incident, I had done this entire business just fine, on foot, “LOL-TA,” when headed in the other direction.

The lounge had great appeal. I had access to it thanks to having declared myself years ago too old to fly overseas any way except Business Class. The lounge, I knew, had breakfast choices and hot coffee (I now also know to ask for “latte con café” to avoid the 80-octane Italian drink) and bathrooms, not necessarily in that order of importance. I still had over an hour before boarding, and E-23 was without any of those niceties.

“I think E-23,” said my friendly driver.

What to do? We were speeding towards E-23, and it seemed my destiny. At E-23 we came to a stop. I was gingerly assisted in getting off the fancy wheelchair and handed my tiny bag plus my backpack. “Arrivederci,” we said.

When my driver was safely out of sight, I picked up my bags and made my way through the cosmetics area of a mid-gate shopping center toward the lounge about an eighth of a mile distant. (As I mentioned, I’d done this before.) There I found breakfast, coffee, bathrooms, and easy chairs; what’s not to love about airport lounges? It was now 8 AM. Boarding was advertised as beginning at 8:10.

I was enjoying my latte con café in an easy chair when a smiling young man in an ITA Assistant uniform appeared at my side. He was piloting a motorized wheelchair.

“I will take you to your gate,” he said. Maybe a tracking device had been attached to my forehead, just below the “Little Old Lady-TravelingAlone” tag?

By now I had learned not to argue with management. Feeling a little sheepish, after having zipped from breakfast bar to coffee to bathroom to easy chair and to and fro for an hour or so in front of all these other able-bodied people, I handed over my bags and arranged myself primly upon the wheelchair.

This report comes to you from Seat 3A, ITA Flight AZ 640 Rome to San Francisco, where I continue to be treated with the exquisite care accorded a “LOL-TA.”

Safely deplaned, unassisted (Author photo)

America Collection/General interest
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Aging into the Zero Percentile

by Fran Johns

THIS IS HOW IT FEELS TO BE THE OLDEST PERSON ALIVE??

Photo by Harli Marten on Unsplash

It is right there on the website: 100% of the people in the world are younger than I am; 0% are older. The French Institute for Demographic Studies told me this. I found it more than a little disconcerting. But could I argue with INED, a public research institute specializing in population studies, working in partnership with national and international academic and research communities? 

One teeny reassurance was in the minuscule black tip of the still-alive-and-kicking graph of the world’s population. It looked like there had to be a few remaining others this old. That, plus the fact that I do have an actual friend or two still very much alive in their later 90s. 

So I clicked myself over to percentages for the U.S. and lo! the numbers looked a little better: 1% of the people in the U.S. are older, even, than I am. Whew. Do we care if 99% are younger? Nahh, we one-percenters are happy to occupy that tip of the iceberg. At least we, and it, are still clinging to the precipice.

All this came about thanks to my fellow WordPress blogger Neil, who grouses more about being old at 77 than I think should be permissible. 

“My status as an ancient has been made crystal clear to me,” Neil wrote, referring to INED’s revelation that 97% of the world’s population is younger than he is. He should grouse? He even admits to being “still nicely functional, still pretty much an ace at stumbling gracefully through life.”

Which brings us back to the whole demographic study business. At no point are the trends going to reverse. However more (or fewer) babies appear in any given 24-hour span, except for those who leave the planet for the hereafter, every one of the rest of us is another day older. 

Perhaps the only answer is to ignore wherever we are on the percentage scale and focus on the 24 hours. Aim to do the right things, Neil suggests. Seek justice. Do a little good somewhere. Love your neighbor. 

Smile when the sun goes down; it’ll come up tomorrow, whether you and i do . . . or not.

America Collection/General interest
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The Good Death: A Demonstration

by Fran Johns

SHE MODELED, FOR THE LIVING, HOW TO DIE WELL

Photo by Rafael Hoyos Weht on Unsplash

I’ve just finished an obituary of sorts for my friend Laurie, who died yesterday afternoon, slipping quietly into an ever-deeper sleep with those she loved best beside her. We should all, eventually, be so lucky.

The way you know you’re dead, in today’s senior living communities, is that your picture goes up on the hall table. Laurie and I laughed about that just last week, when I was saying I’d work hard at writing something elegant to go beside her photo. From somewhere in the ethersphere I am certain she’s getting the last laugh.

Elegance was easy to come by in this case. A decade ago Laurie had shepherded her physician husband through a descent into dementia, managing to keep him at home in their apartment until his own relatively gentle demise. They had raised two daughters and led a full, good life.

One daughter was extremely close to her mother, as was her wife, a particularly beloved daughter-in-law to Laurie.

So the first thing they did, en route to the Good Death, was to talk frankly and in detail about what exactly Laurie wanted. At 91 — precisely the age of this writer — Laurie enjoyed being with friends and family, walking her San Francisco neighborhood, reading and listening to music. She could still do most of these, but recent illnesses were imposing limitations. 

We talked, occasionally, of how she felt her quality of life had diminished. Because of my volunteer work with Medical Aid in Dying, which is legal in our state (and 9 others plus DC,) we talked a good bit about that option — which she said she would choose over any painful & debilitating end. 

A few weeks ago an intestinal issue sent Laurie to the hospital. Surgery would be required, the doctors said; and it would be a high-risk procedure.

No thanks, said Laurie, I think I’d rather go home to die in peace.

Which was exactly what she did. With a hospice bed positioned so she could look out at the distant mountains, a TV set she mostly kept turned off and flowers on the windowsills, she made herself comfortable. There was morphine for pain, but she had almost none.

There’s a name for this way to die: Voluntary Stopping Eating and Drinking (VSED.) The intestinal issue had spelled the end of her eating; stopping drink hastens the process. A popsicle-like swab was by her side to prevent any discomfort from thirst.

For a week, friends stopped by. We’d tell her how much she had meant to us; she’d return the sentiment — but nothing faux or flowery: “We really didn’t know each other that well,” she said to one visitor. “But I remember a funny thing you said not long ago . . .” 

Sometimes, as the days wore on, she would fall asleep mid-sentence. Nobody cared. 

Ten days after her return from the hospital Laurie’s sleep simply deepened and her heart and breathing stopped. Her two beloved daughters were holding her hands.

America Collection
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Ten Steps to a Guaranteed Good Day

by Fran Johns

BEFORE WE FORGET WHAT GOOD DAYS USED TO FEEL LIKE . . .

Photo by Catalin Pop on Unsplash

This piece was written in early 2022, when good days uninterrupted by bad news were easier to come by. When it resurfaced recently, thanks to a Medium.com friend adding it to a list of “Favorites,” I thought I’d reprint it (with slight additions & comments) here. Have a good day 😊.

1 – Start positive. Finding one hopeful thing to focus on can kick-start anybody’s day, especially when there’s not a lot of hopeful going around. Finders Keepers.

2 – Pay attention to Mother Nature. The planet needs help: turn off the water, turn the thermostat down if it’s winter and up if it’s summer, eat local. Meanwhile, fight for policy changes. (Or for restoration of environmental protections, as the need now more urgently seems to be.)

3 – Move. As long as you’re up, go for a walk. Running is fine — I did that, neighborhood 5k’s, marathon, the whole endorphin thing, for decades. But wa;ommg opens up brand new interactions with humankind and the natural universe. Plus, you can pick up litter (see Step 2.)

4 –  Listen to your grandchildren. Or anybody under 30. But ONLY if they’re explaining the viewpoints of their generation, or technology. Do not, under any circumstances, let them try to explain — or worse, invite you to try — Tik Tok. Looking at Tik Tok will lower your anticipated lifespan by at least 5 or 10 years. There are kids out there who may never reach adulthood.

5 — Eat pretty. My mother taught me that a colorful plate equals a healthy meal. You know: something yellow, something green, etc. Plus, your lunch guests will think you’re culinarily clever. Chocolate goes with everything. 

6 — Do a good thing. A tiny thing, like smiling at a street person (while looking him or her in the eye!) or a bigger thing like accompanying an immigrant to an asylum hearing. Good things may or may not do much for the recipient, but one or two can make your own whole day.

7 — Dump a bad thing. I for one carry around a long list of Oughts and negativities, such as I-really-ought-to-return-that-call-from-Suzie-whom-I-don’t-actually-know-and-it’ll-open-up-a- whole-can-of-worms-and-she-drives-me-nuts . . . But most of those Suzies don’t even remember your name. Every such person or chore wiped off your contact list/calendar permanently improves your wellbeing. This also goes for politicians, some of them at any rate.

8 — Go for another walk. You cannot go for too many walks. Or go to the gym, or do yoga or tai chi or anything else that requires putting away your cellphone. There is life without cellphone.

9 — Think positive. See Step #1. There’s plenty of darkness in the world but light overcomes it (thanks, MLK.) Or, to sort-of quote another great philosopher, Emily Dickinson, hope perches in the soul and asks nothing in return. Sometimes, reading the news (Uh oh, see Step 7) I despair. But then I turn the page and there’s someone doing something heroic in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds — say, Volodymyr Zelinsky — and if HE can think positive the rest of us can too. 

10 — Be kind. It doesn’t cost anything. In decades of being with people as they die (volunteering with hospice, End of Life Choices CA etc) I’ve never seen a mean person suddenly change and die kindly. I’ve seen a lot of kind people die peacefully. Along the way, the world just needs kindness. It perches in your soul, and reaches into infinity.

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General interest
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Music for Healing and a Helping Hand

by Fran Johns

“THIS IS WHAT WE DO. THIS IS WHO WE ARE”

Conductor Outwater & Pianist Ohlsson taking a bow (Author photo)

“When we are living in cruel times,” the maestro said, “music heals.”

Symphony conductor Edwin Outwater was speaking to an audience of several thousand* who, appalled by the cruelties being inflicted by our government on innocent people everywhere, had come for a few hours of healing, and the hopefulness that helping others can bring. (*Davies Symphony Hall seats 2,700+ not including the performers. I spotted very few empty seats.)

In the few short months since raging wildfires brought suffering and devastation to their Southern California neighbors several ambitious musicians pulled together an astounding feat: An hours-long benefit concert involving the San Francisco Symphony, Musicians of the San Francisco Symphony, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the full San Francisco Symphony Chorus. With noted piano soloist Garrick Ohlsson thrown in for good measure and a surprise encore, after the applause died down, of a piece from the Leonard Bernstein operetta Candide.

Net proceeds from the event will be split evenly between two organizations providing relief to Los Angeles fire victims, the Entertainment Community Fund and Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles: ReBUILD LA.

The concert was a healing time, and more:

Orchestra and chorus gave the first SFSymphony performance of Aaron Copeland’s ‘The Promise of Living’ from The Tender Land; Ohlsson and the Symphony got standing ovations for their performances of a Rachmaninoff concerto and, after intermission, Antonin Dvořák’s Symphony №9. But it was Outwater’s remarks at the evening’s end that summed up the event and its meaning.

Music, he told the now-calmed (but still enthusiastic) audience, can offer both a balm and a bridge, bringing people together in times of need. (The Optimistic Eye was particularly happy with Outwater’s noting that Candide, after all, winds up with a salute to optimism.) We don’t stop to ask questions about political or social details, Outwater added; we simply pitch in to help.

“This is what we do,” he said. “This is who we are.”

# # #

(This essay appeared first on my new(ish) Substack page The Optimistic Eye, where I publish at the end of each week one positive message or potential action in defense of democracy. You’re welcome to visit or subscribe; it’s free.)

America Collection/General interest
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Naps, today, are mandatory

by Fran Johns
Man sleeping on sidewalk with sign "Back in 2 minutes"

WHEREVER YOU ARE, YOU NEED DEFENSE AGAINST THE CARES OF THE WORLD

(Author photo)

Naps are good. Ask my friend outside the California Street Trader Joe’s, whose paintings I often buy though admittedly do not hang.

I understand his position. Though I don’t work as hard as he does, I do follow the news, and to follow the news is to exhaust oneself. Relief is hard to come by.

After taking this photo on a Saturday, I attended church on Sunday. It’s a church denounced, in recent public commentary, as being Woke. This we accept (as a badge of honor;) we have a rainbow flag, and signs like “Immigrants Welcome” and “Black Lives Matter” out front, those sorts of blasphemies.

Reporting on our Woke rating from the pulpit, the pastor opened with a recommendation for naps. This followed just 24 hours after the above message from my street friend. What can I say?

God’s answer to today’s burdens? Nap.

# # #

If you want to read more about the cares of the world you’re invited to visit my Substack site, The Optimistic Eye (you can subscribe for free) on which I post, once a week, some optimistic word on political goings-on or one or two things we can do besides take naps.

America Collection/General interest
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Bot-Bomber is Coming for You

by Fran Johns

AND GOOD LUCK WITH GETTING IT TO BUTT OUT

Photo by Alex Knight on Unsplash

“Sheesh. What do u recommend? Talk tomorrow!”

I knew exactly what the text meant. It was late at night. A friend and I needed to fix the wording on a business document. I hit the Reply key to say what corrections I was making, when we could meet, where . . .

Bot Bully beat me to it.

“Sure!” he offered. Or, “Sorry, I’m busy.”

Who the heck does he think he is? He knows my mind?

Apparently. In the olden days, we used to think for ourselves. Actually, I still enjoy thinking for myself — but it’s getting tough.

“Awesome!” says Bot Bully before I get a chance to respond to somebody who sent a text containing the word ‘win.’

Someone else mentions ‘sick?’ I might have had a human-intelligent response, but here’s the Bot, butting in with “Get well soon!” or “So sorry!”

I worry that auto-think may eliminate brain cells altogether. If Bot Bully already has the answer, does human messaging have any role in our future? Artificial Intelligence v Human Brain? Bot Bully is winning.

For instance, atop my email list as I open my Inbox, suddenly here are red-emblemed Priority! messages. When they start appearing in all caps I will know our president and his co-chief Elon have taken over Apple Mail.

I miss the days when I could figure out my own priorities.

As I was typing the above, a pop-up bot announced that Genmoji and Image Playground are now available on this machine. There go my creative-illustration brain cells.

So okay, I get that AI is here, and wonderful, and all that.

I just miss thinking.

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