A Libyan flower

Someone who abuses or discriminates in terms of sex is called a sexist. Someone who wrongs or tortures because of the race is called a racist. However, how is it called someone who differentiates or hurts for the sake of this or that religion?

There is no name.

Quite significant, there is no name to those who despise or massacre others because the latter are Jews, Christians or Buddhists and, however, the most appalling genocides have been committed on behalf of religion. It is normally talked the other way around, though, about fanatics who kill or destroy in the name of religion. Again, how do you call someone who makes someone else cry because this latter is a Muslim?

There is no name.

My dear friend R. has been wronged by certain "co-workers" in the department because she is Muslim. She steps in the office and finds a sticker on his desktop: "fuck you, R. and fuck all Muslims". Of course, it was meant to be a joke. This gruesome episode had a terrible effect on her and some on me, not least because she is indeed a smart and fine girl of whose friendship I am fond of.

All aspects of this story are awful. First: the story itself. I have spoken many times here about the low regards in which I hold the Western higher-education institutions, their officials and, particularly, the unwelcome and pretentious London intelligentsia. I will not come again to that. Second: although some actions have been taken (bullshit, anyhow, should have been more severe), the episode has been silenced -Not many people in the department knows. I thought that a true PhD community should know because some support for R. could stem from there. I have no experience on this and, for sure, I am quite naive, but C. tried to convinced me that is better to go quite about it. It was somewhat surprising but interesting, since C. is a woman.

The third aspect has to do, precisely, with the woman thing. R. got a lot of help and support from one of the female lecturers, who, to some extent, tilted the offense towards the side of the genre discrimination (some other people made part of story a claim for racism as well). There are probably grounds for that but, in my view, the solid prove is whatever is written in the sticker and there is nothing pointing out to that. On the contrary, it is sick and wrong to obscure support to an individual for the only true reason -because he or she is a person- and to present it in more ambiguous terms, feel aghast and grow conspiracy about it. How often we forget that the human rights scattered into live after painful labor in 1948 are individual rights. How often they are taken as a group, race or sex re-affirmation rather than as intangible principles above any human classification or social network.

I am an idealistic, almost Utopian individualist who, nevertheless, believes in the wonders and riches of human fellowship. I would like to live in a world where I can offer my whole support to R. as my dear friend and let her drive her own canoe of religion (as it is a intimate dimension of the individual). At the same time, I want to be allowed to question everything, utterly reject terrorism as pure evil with no justification whatsoever and to insult and spit on those -men or women- who practice it. Why not? In my little head there is no contradiction at all. We, as people, are just much more than mental schemes. Schemes and ideas are jails of vanity.

And, finally, the issue of control. It was my boss in Madrid who, unintended, tough me the virtue of the good salesman or the good leader: someone who offers, helps, influences without getting in the way, like a good soccer referee. The contrary leads to slavery. What are we without our freedom? What is lovelier than a young woman following her own way, being different from me, being independent from me? The God I believe in blew his breath on his creation and made it free and independent. Who are we to do otherwise? There is true joy in seeing good people around going their own way. It is written in the last chapter of St. John. Sometimes you only have to be there and smile, reconcile yourself and go your own way.  From individual freedom, human collaboration and love will spring. Fellowship will stand up from the garbage and from the barren soil, like daisies in the dump... Like the lonely and proud flower of the desert.

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Evils and demons

There is something that I cannot get straight in the Michael Le Vell case -how did he meet his alleged victim, the girl? In what context? What were the circumstances? How many years ago? One reads and reads the same rubbish everywhere, but has actually any media mention the important detail of how Le Vell met his supposed victim years ago? This is the first thing that calls upon attention (??).

One thing is clear, though -Le Vell is a drunkard. It just... Turns out to be too scary to understand his statements so well... . He talks about the "demons of the drink".

**

There is this pub right off Chiswick train station. When you enter through the first door on your left, you can see a one-liner by Henny Youngman -the puncher violinist from Liverpool (1906 - 1998)- written on the wall: "When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading"... The evils of drinking, he said.

On the train back to Vauxhall, I saw an advert dozing above the dozens of people who snoozed on their way back home after a very boring day at work:

Oh, yeah. Always good things come out from the fight of evils and demons.

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Breaking bad (3)

Probably, the only remarkable part of Breaking Bad, 5th season, is the end. As oppose to the endings in the previous two last seasons, there is no tension built in this end. It comes out of the blue and to me sounds implausible. But it is effective -Hank unravels the key figures of the Sudoku while sitting in the throne, poo-pooing. A scatological moment in the 5th up to the adrenaline levels released in the 3rd and 4th.

Interesting angle -a shade of grays scatters from it. For the sweet-toothy, the moment displays a whole array of savors to rub the palate. A million metaphorical interpretations. Leaves of Grass -or Drum Taps, maybe... the book looks too thin- is buried among weekly magazines (the eternal and the ephemeral) and constitute the reading material of a practical, down-to-earth man in the most unimportant and unnoticeable of moments: when he pulls down his pants and becomes equal to any other mortal. The ultimate fate of Walt Whitman (the smith who forged the modern American character, let's say), being relegate to a toilet reading for Hank, might also be extended as the shared destiny of the current America. Perhaps. W. W. and the beautiful The Learn'd Astronomer is the distinctive countersign of two outlaws, two men who want to stand out from an oppressive vulgarity, like the colorful houses jerking out of a sea of gray in some TV commercials. Walter and Gale follow the tradition of "what a man really has to do" against the common, the applause, the accepted and the award.

The night when, after a very successful batch, Walt and Gale make a toast and the latter recite Whitman was so real. And the most real part of all was the moment when Gale explains why he quit -it is implied- his PhD. "I was doing everything that it takes", this and that, but he stops. He abandoned the crowded auditorium, the deafening applause, walk outside and, in silence, contemplated the stars. However, somebody who is able to quit a PhD cannot be later on so submissive to Walter's oddity and abuse. W.W. would always be Walt Whitman for him and not Walter White. It is possible that Gale admired Walter so much, but not to the point to betrayed and disposed of Whitman in exchange: The Learn'd Astronomer was in him before meeting White.

I can see some loose ends and tight knots... But Whitman... Oh, Whitman!

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Breaking Bad (2)

When Gus Fring drove Walter White to the hidden meth lab in the laundry facility, he said to him: "This is your new lab (...). You will have excellent help, as I had". And it was true. Gale Boetticher came along, a methodical, brilliant organic chemist. This stroke me: the help was not a Chemical Engineer. The job of scaling a 2-kg-per-week production up to 90 is supposed to be the job of a Chemical Engineer.

**

Years ago, when I was a sophomore or a junior student of Bachelor's degree, someone asked me to give a presentation to A-level students about what Chemical Engineering was about. It is not that I knew much what I was talking about then, as I am not sure I know now, but I found an old manual with a first, whole chapter explaining the difference between Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. Since then, my ballad has been the repetition of the message in that chapter: the job of a Ch. Eng. is to bring a lab production to an industrial, profitable scale.

**

I want to believe that this is still the job of Chemical Engineers in industry or somewhere else beyond the rainbow, because it is certainly not what Ch. Eng. Departments do in universities. The Chemical Engineering has ceased to be an engineering discipline with large-scale concerns there and has bent the microscope down on the science underneath more or less applied industrial processes which, by the way, are becoming smaller and smaller every year (nano-stuff, you know).

It seems that the third generation of Chemical Engineers, the first one entire and solely academic (circa 1950s) are to hold responsible for initiating the transformation. From that moment on, practically all text books landed on the scientific aspects of industrial operations and stop reflecting the practice of the profession (D.C. Freshwater, 1988). Countless highways for research in these directions opened. Most of the books are very good though and for me the Bird, Steward and Lightfoot Transport Phenomena (1st edition in 1960, I think) is a super-classic, unsurpassed wonder.

In 1988 N. A. Peppas, from Purdue, edited in the form of book a collection of articles reviewing the history of Chemical Engineering in different universities (and from several points of view) along the previous 100 years. The book, One Hundred Years of Chemical Engineering, has fallen in my hands quite unexpectedly. Very recently I had the fortune to gather myself over a hundred of books given away as gratuitous stubble because of refurbishing works in the Departmental library at UCL (!). Of course, the library is no longer a library, but it will be my pleasure to do the honors privately.

Peppas book reflects the transition towards the Chemical Engineering Science in different places. Don C. Freshwater, from Louisiana State University did actually not like the change at all and he is quite blunt in his judgments (I have to say that I agree with him). Peppas himself is much more moderate, but also presents the Hollister Report (1952) as an abrupt change in the road: "the report was only thirty-six pages long. It was polite to the older tradition, but firm in its recommendations to the new generation".

As far as I am concerned, I see the study of the science underneath the Unit Operations and Chemical Reactors as a fundamental must in the education of the Chemical Engineer. But I mean it. In the days of the transition, important mathematicians contributed remarkably to the new developments, such as the great Rutherford Aris. It was a difficult, mathematical accomplishment. Its study, a titanic, individual struggle. Curricula nowadays, however, contain little if any Math; little, if any Chemistry. And team work and group project are praised way more than individual effort... (!?) What do you think: that industrial engineers did not work together in the 20s, 30s or 50s, as they do today? What does exactly this bullshit come from?

ODEs and PDEs are something of singular proportions for the common advisor (lest the student), residues of old, abandoned courses, only rescued with no fully-understanding if unavoidable for the purposes of specific, applied research; for the same, a change of coordinates, the use of the Jacobian or a triple integral are exotic operations. As for the Chemistry, I think I have mentioned it here before: Chemical Engineer graduates cannot locate Al in the periodic table (leave alone, Mn or V or Ni, fundamental stones of alloys). Smart phones will do that for them and that will be called "smart use of modern technology", clap, clap, clap: you can set your brains to change the world, now. If you ask the common advisor to write down the molecular formula of acetone, be prepared: "it's been ages since I studied this, hihi". If one of their students dumps acetone through the drain, just like that, they won't see it much as a very important matter. Etc. What kind of Chemical Engineering is that? What kind of Science? What kind of scientists?

Furthermore, I believe the place of the Chemical Engineer belongs to industry, to production. The old discipline was initiated by an industrial inspector in Manchester -G. E. Davis-, a man able to enjoy the very details of his job who felt himself impelled to share them. That is the inextinguishable flame of the true teacher and master. In spite of the fact that a great deal of scientific generality can be found and applied across very different processes, there is no substitution for experience. You need to see to believe, to understand, to grasp. The only wisdom comes from professional experience. But, alas! Wisdom, knowledge do not matter. The number of mentors in Ch. Eng Academia is meager nowadays, the intellectual production unimportant. The soil and harvest of universitary Chemical Engineering is a barren plain.

**

If Breaking Bad had been a success in the 50s, Gale Boetticher would have been a Chemical Engineer.

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Summer news

One of the two or three valuable contributions in Libertad Digital -the journal- these days is that of Amando de Miguel, 76. The writer, intellectual and sociologist keeps writing full time, non-stop in the way journalists of true vocation do: pian-piano, either in rain or in sunshine. Apart several other occupations, Amando has been continuing his series of articles on the Spanish language for years now, interacting with the readers, amidst traditionally-considered more substantial matter. His work, his fruitful and fertile columns every two or three days, deserves praise. He is an amazingly prolific writer in secret, enough prove of a genuinely dedicated man.

I read Amando's last column this morning, which begins (I translate): "A general belief links summer to calmness. However, it turns out that all sorts of conflict, violence and disaster swirl around summer. In spite of it, all mails I received are cheerful and kind. It must be, perhaps, the law of compensation".

Precisely, I have been pondering about that the last two days. Although it is said that summer news are a sort of stuffing material -practical training for a sprawl of assistants during the holiday months-, nasty things happen in summer. The world keeps a-rolling. The invasion of Kuwait, for example, took place on a 3rd-4th of August and 2013 is certainly not an exception to the general rule of no truce: the perturbed developments in Egypt, the bombings in Tripoli and the mass killings in Damascus using chemical weapons, all happened this month. How lovely. Syria threatens, Iran threatens -oh, the green, green grafting of the Arab spring- and Obama and Cameron talks on the phone, the latter already in dry, comfortable swimming trunks.

**

It seems that the umpteenth disagreements in Gibraltar could be a product of such summery indolence, but maybe not. The rock is no more than a nest of illicit activity, that's for sure, but there is also little doubt in my mind that peoples of all nationalities put on weight in there, Spanish and the sons of the British Empire, of course, included. Little doubt: everybody knows.

Photo: Sterling pounds coined in Gibraltar seem not to be acceptable in the Island. The 10-p coin above (Gibraltar, 2005) was rejected in a UCL stationary store this summer. The texture and weight of this coin compared to a usual coin from the Bank of England is slight but noticeably different. The coin in the photograph is rare in London, as 5-pound paper money issued by the Bank of Scotland are. Although the latter is quite different from a common note, it is acceptable in the Island.

**

In Spain, there have been new symptoms this summer of tremendous moral degradation in the country. Last week, the Governmental Delegate in Madrid, Cristina Cifuentes, suffered a motorcycle accident in central Madrid. The diagnosis was (is) serious and was translated to La Paz (public) hospital. Cifuentes is well-known for coping with the exorbitant number of demonstrations in Madrid during this year -2933 as far as the 31st of July, 67 % more than the previous year! Her huge accomplishment has been in enforcing that such demonstrations were celebrated in accordance to the -sparse- existing regulations. As a matter of fact, the number of celebrated demonstrations has been about 11 % less than those initially communicated in 2013, while last year the trend was inverse: more than 300 were celebrated without authorization. During her tenure, Cifuentes has had to deal with all kinds of ultra-left, anti-system disturbances, plus a series of large out-lawful strikes in the Metro.

In my view, Cifuentes has done an excellent job of public management and is a good example of successful leadership. But, most of all, she has just been doing her duty -the job she swore to do when she step in.

Last Thursday, about one hundred workers (sanitary personnel) concentrated outside the hospital at noon shouting detestable messages: "Cifuentes! Go to a private hospital", "we don't want to pay your debt". And showing their hands -a betrayed symbol for the victims of terrorism: "These are the hands that look after you". Oh, boy!!

Such appalling demonstration of hatred joins the chorus of monsters that in twitter and face-book pretty much left little regard for Cifuentes' life. The bitter and disheartening episode was recently denounced by Jimenez Losantos under the claim "Hippocrates or Marx, pick up your choice". However, despite the fact that Cifuentes belongs to PP -the party will privatize the management of a few hospitals in Madrid, La Paz among them-, the bottom line here is not left or right, Liberalism or Socialism. Milton Friedman considered the "Hippocratic Oath" as one of the earliest manifest of corporatism and I believe that the motion and emotion of individuals in herds, ebbing and flowing in massive tides is part of the problem. This is a very sad case. It is about lack of morality, about the loss of basic empathy towards our fellow people. It is the perversion of our natural ability to discern right from wrong. Today we confirm the failure of civilization -mighty conquest of fellowship- against the tyranny of savage, selfish, blind animal instinct. Disgusting.

The abyss is profounder than Economy. Dark as pitch.

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A nice guy

It is kind of ironic that London tubers -e.g. Londoners who use the underground daily- commuted home last Thursday with the news of the affair of a Tube boss and a prostitute. The feeling must be like being stab by your own butler who was not even born when you bought the house. As usual, pre-cooked dish served by the Evening Standard. The story is typical to boredom -an important, public man has an affair with a escort for a few months, the mouth get wet, promises escape and when he tries to call it a day, the whole thing goes public. Oh! Ah! Uh! "Married Sir Peter, whose taxpayer-funded salary and bonus paid last year totalled 660,000 GBP...", recites the Standard in from page, second paragraph. The word "allegedly" afterwards hurts twice after such a neutral introduction.

Sir Peter Gerard Hendy, current Commissioner of Transport for London, 60, has collected significant recognition in 38 years of public service. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (2006) for his work during the bombings of London the previous year and has been knighted this very year after success facing the Olympics transport challenges. What has caught my eye mostly, though, is his mythological conception. Sir Peter is the son, I read, of a Communist electrician and the daughter of the 6th Baron Wynford (!). As a matter of fact, we are becoming so used to these apparently impossible pairings that we should reformulate our class-struggle schemes.

Anyhow, the only statement I believe is true out of the declarations spoken by Ms Rachael Grundy -the whore- is that Hendy is a nice guy. I truly believe so: only nice guys get themselves strangled so stupidly. From the shores of this humble blog I just would like to send a message in a bottle to drifters and sailors out there: prostitutes do not fell in love. Pretty Woman is the fairy tale of adulthood. Escorts, call girls are doomed, way passed recovery; especially if they are 40, they are fatally damaged. Look at them straight in the eye, look at Ms Rachael Grundy in the eye: a thin layer of sadness lies beyond the rimmel, like abrasive lunar dust. There is no shine coming out from them; her eyes are like embers with no fire. Only nice guys believe that they can tie up those two dying stars and bring them back to life... Oh! Mistake only nice guys make.

Ms Rachel Grundy is just a wasted woman exerting utmost cruelty. She is a solitary wicked wretch and the only consolation for her people -wherever they are- comes from a zombies movie: that is not Rachel anymore. I am guessing the normal thing to happen is that Peter will pay a high price, professional and personally. I don't care about his job and titles and such a fancy fuss, but I think he deserves an opportunity from his wife and sons. He is indeed a nice guy. The viper Grundy just gave him the option to definitely escape his particular inferno. It is not too late, Peter, this is your moment. You are not alone. Other men can also hear deaf thuds and screeches coming up from the doors of hell, and feel the weight of the devil's claw squeezing their chest, blinding their reason in high-demanding situations. It only happens to nice guys, high self-considered men that expect the best from themselves. Nice guys are terrible self-judges. Nice guys don't care of themselves.

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Breaking Bad (1)

About a year ago, G. talked to me about a TV series starred by a high-school Chemistry teacher who turned himself into a methamphetamine cook. I did not pay too much attention in general, but G. told me about a scene where this guy needs to dispose of a corpse. He put it in a bath tube and dissolved it using hydrofluoric acid -everything was completely dissolved by the acid: flesh, tissue, bones, even the tub and all materials of the floor underneath. "Is that possible?", he asked me... Of course, I had no idea.

**

For Christmas, G. gifted me with the first season of Breaking Bad. I took the present with me back to London and kept it stored under the mini TV set until one Sunday afternoon three months later, when idle, I switched the TV on and started watching. I did not go to bed that day until I finished the entire first season.

Breaking Bad is not a product that can be watched twice. At least, I could not (other than some memorable scenes). But it grabs the first-timer by the collar and keeps dragging him episode after episode. The ramifications of the story are plenty and largely unpredictable. That is the reason, perhaps. The project sounds to me like those games that you play with kids, when you start off a story and the kids, sitting in a circle, one by one, continue the story exactly at the point where the last one left it. A series demands disciplined development and continuity and, given the fact that there are few different writers in Breaking Bad, the role of maintaining the dough in one piece is a job for the royal baker. Sitcoms have always been written and directed by different people, I believe, but the talent of the creator -Vince Gilligan- in maintaining the race horse bridled in this series seems to me an unique accomplishment. The original contribution of Gilligan to the annals of television is to bring Walter from "protagonist to antagonist", from hero to villain, from good to utterly evil. Characters change in movies all the time, but does it hold in TV series? The exercise of keeping the story within these grooves, in crescendo and unpredictable is a fabulous work of creativity.

In Breaking Bad, actors grow in time along with their characters. Like in Seinfeld, the scrip is at the service of the characters, not the opposite -what A says in form and content can only be said by A. Voices and accents, cadences, sentences are all fascinating. Hank, Saul, Skyler, Mike, even Gus -listen to their talk is a pleasure for the ears. The background noises, the creaks of the car doors, the rattling of the wind, great. I particularly like the motion of the camera when Walter runs to dismount the bomb from Gus car in the beginning of the last episode of season 4. Etc., etc.

There is deep stuff also. The scene of Jesse Pinkman and Jane Margolis in the car talking about the abstract painting exhibition they just watched is sensational. Also, the famous "what does a man do, Walter?", the reflection of Gus Fring; and the talk in the lab between Walter White and Gale Boetticher after their first successful batch of methamphetamine together. I will say something about this last scene later.

**

Can HF work like it is shown in Breaking Bad?... . Apparently, the Mythbusters denied and busted the story, which is not surprising. Chemistry is not only about chemicals, but mainly about conditions (temperature, pressure, design), quantities, concentration and time. Chemicals are constrained in the dimensions of the Universe and what they can do depends on time and space -just like what humans can do.

There are a number of comments in the web. Everybody seems to agree in:
1) that hydrochloric acid is a very nasty chemical;
2) that it is a weak acid that finds their way through wet membranes and tissues (like the skin) and has great affinity towards alkaline cations, like Ca(2+). The great danger after an accidental contact (in solution) is to the bones and the possibility that cations dissolved in the blood precipitate with the fluorine and lead to serious clinical complications. HF is used in the industry of semiconductors, for example, as an etching agent and the urgent treatment recommended in the dramatic case of contact is with calcium glyconate. Somebody shared a medical article where burns from exposure to HF were treated with intravenous Mg(2+) and Ca(2+) successfully;
3) that the fumes produce by the exothermic reaction between the HF and tissue or inorganic materials would be massive;
4) that it is difficult to believe that gallons of HF can be stored in a high-school lab.

People also discourse about alternatives to disposed of flesh. For example, it is claimed that lye (base) is cheaper and would go better, or that strong oxidants are needed. A mixture of concentrated sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxide was tested by the Mythbusters with pig meat much more successfully (although the container of fiber glass and the ground underneath did not suffer). Somebody pointed out that the combination was already used in Little Nikita (1988). Somebody else even did experiments with a hot dog sausage in a solution of Clorox, cold and pre-heated in the microwave... .

**

Among the -I guess- dozens of interviews to the highly-acclaimed creator and actors, did anyone actually ask where the idea of HF came from? What were the references used to all Chemistry claims?

My airplane

The Canadian goose is all over the cities of the United States. You can find it forming massive groups that comb the green universitary and technological campus uptown, wandering gravel pits and parking lots of shopping malls, swinging its broad bill. It crowds ponds and parks downtown gazing and picking seeds and little, tiny grass leaves. Despite its short legs, the fowl can move quite fast. When attracted to the peanut butter sandwich of your daughter or the chocolate once that your son holds mildly between his thumb and forefinger, the bird and its friends behind look menacing. They then make horrible noises, hissing and honking, showing their tongue out and vibrating their necks. I suppose millions of American families are familiar with this description.

N. told me a joke about geese one day in a park in Huntsville, Al. We were sitting in a bench, surrounded by dozens of Canadian geese. All of them were dark-beaked. "There are two types of geese: one kind has a dark beak; the other, orange. Why?", N. said. "Don't know", said I. "It is just that, as they fly in flocks, one type can stop better than the other".

The Canadian goose is a big, surly fowl, weighting up to 18 pounds and showing off a wingspan of 2 meters.

**

On January 15, 2009, shortly before 3.30 pm, an US Airways Air Bus A-320 was leaving La Guardia airport towards Charlotte, SC. 90 seconds after take-off, the plain struck a flock of Canadian geese flying in a V formation. As a result, both engines of the plain were ruined and irretrivable. Suddenly, the aircraft lost total thrust and became a glider. Unearthly sounds and vibrations from the destroyed engines filled the cockpit, plus smell of burned birds. Only a few seconds later, it came the destructive sound of the unfamiliar and freezing cold silence at an altitude close to 2,500 feet. Very soon, the plain started to fall down back to Earth, faster than usual, a cacophony of synthetic voices and alarms in the cockpit, all in a background of deathly silence. The captain took control of the aircraft and, with the invaluable and professional help of the first officer and the air controller, were able to ditch safely the plain in the Hudson river only 3 minutes and a half after the strike. All passengers and crew members, 155 total, saved their lives. The story will be remembered and studied for decades as an example of a great job done by everyone involved in a fatal emergency.

The book of Sully Sullenberger, Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters, is one of the few that has moved me as far as the point of letting me cry. Not only once, but quite a good few times my vision got blurred. It happened on a lazy morning in bed, amidst the rattle of the underground and even at a pub with a beer in front of my nose on Friday night -wherever I was reading, the story of Captain Sullenberger touched me. Human comradeship shines dazzling all over the story, from the experiences and influences of a single man that led him to be what he is to the response and solidarity of a whole lot of people. It was indeed a true miracle. As Sully points out several times, it served as a powerful hope-retriever to a distraught and somewhat strained American society. More important for me is the fact that -let me use a hackneyed term here- all the humanity in the story that brings me to tears does actually bring a lot more of people to tears. We all feel the same -the thank-you letters, the confidences, the personal interactions. The chapter in the book is quite revealing. You can find interviews in the Internet with different people -especially people who were not passengers in the US Airways Flight 1549 and were not related to the event in any way- expressing all the good this event did to them. It is in the same wave we are all transmitting. There is no doubt in my mind that this is a core shared by all human beings, a special core of good feelings, of individual sacredness and community realization that define us as humans. The rest is the background noise of evil.

**

Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger became a hero in a matter of hours. He and his wife have claimed repeatedly that the term "hero" is improper, though. A hero throws himself into adversity for a higher goal -it is a self-less choice that leads him to a self-giving, sacrificing action. Sulenberger and the other 154 in the plain did not have any choice.

I agree. As a matter of fact, the point of Sullenberger throughout the book is clear: be prepared. Un-intently, his whole life has been a preparation for that unique apex. In an interview, he summarized it in a way that is not reproduced in the book: "it is like my whole life, through studies, training and practice, I have been making small deposits so, when that moment came, I was able to make a sudden, large withdrawal". It is a story of integrity: it all started with passion for flying as a kid. Logically, the retrospective review of his life allows him to ponder and emphasize upon the importance of passion, mentoring and serious work day after day. "Be vigilant and diligent, because you don't know when or how", it is said in the Gospels. Your daily work can help saving lives when the time ripens up. Significantly, one of the letters that most impressed on Sullenberger in the aftermath is that of a old Austrian Jew who saw the water landing from the window of his flat. The man was a survivor from the Nazis and is alive thanks to his father's sacrifice. For him, "saving one life might mean saving the world".

Sully Sullenberger states clearly that he is not a hero, but a man of integrity who prepared, studied and worked towards the right thing every single day of his life.

**

This makes me shiver in worry. I have lost a lot of time, then. I can't remember what my childhood dreams were, I can't remember myself having any passions. I sense my life fragmented. It feels like having a simple bag full of pieces of the past without connection. Sometime ago I used to be pretty confident in the formula all counts. No matter how bad the pieces of your collage are glued together, your life will always count. Your past, your learnings, your failures and pains, your joys and happy moments, all will count. A few weeks ago, however, I had a sort of nightmare. Did not wake up sweating and panting; my nightmares are less physical. I saw my bag of little pieces losing its value, sinking down a river of dark green waters or fading away... This vision came probably right before I woke up.

So, what about all that is wasted? What about all who are being wasted? It happened before - it will happen again.

(I am hinting... It is time to say: "my airplane").

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Beyond the world's end

I think "The World's End" is a wonderful... name... for many... things.

I've been bound for the last couple of weeks to do something around Golders Green early in the morning. The 102 bus leaves me at Golders Green station and, from there, I walk a good 15 minutes up Finchley Road. On my way back, I walk down and see this bus with a catchy destination up front: "The world's end". Off Finsbury Park there is a pub with the same name, I've been told and then, of course, you have The World's End, the new movie of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg.

The commercial plot is lay out very easily: a group of grown-ups get together to finish off the golden mile of drinking 12 pints in 12 pubs, the last being name "The World's End". The guys did not accomplish the task 20 years ago and now, pushed by one of them, are out for that in the little village where they did their High School, although not very confidently, let say. Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, the bourne Paddy Considine and a little bit of Pierce Brosnan. The comedy is served! My friend M. just passed me the first seasons of Spaced. Got to watch it once I finish Breaking Bad.

However, The World's End goes beyond that very sappy plot. I am becoming very sensitive these days against the tyranny and despotism of the network. If there is one city in the world wrapped in the bullshit of the network, that is the city of London. Paradoxically, if there is one place where being oneself is most difficult and that leg of the brain in charge of expressing critical and personal thinking violently stamped out, that is London. An insultingly young town, sacrificed to the homogeneity of the network. I grow hand hair and fangs to this very feeling.

Anyhow, The World's End lays its message against the network of homogeneous robots. Men and women, is said, have a right to be rogues, bums, utter failures, as long as they are themselves. This is the message. The spectator is offered over 60 minutes of a fight against the impending danger of becoming a robot. In the scene at The World's End pub the survivals, prey to a set-up, are lured towards the option of giving in by the promises of the bullshit. What else could it be more real! The end of the movie might result a little off for some, but it pounds the head of the nail: Gary, the brawler, against humans with a bunch of robots; Andrew is a sort of boy-scout and Oliver keeps selling real estate with half his head mended in half a soccer ball. It's crazy, but they are free and self-sufficient.

I am getting used to feel alone in London. Alone and against everything, everyone. The World's End helped me embrace myself. The dictatorship of the network is, maybe, just a form of modern and unsung alienation. As I write this, I am listening to a Spanish news radio show on the Internet and a recognizable tune came a few moments ago. It was one of the Chopin's nocturnes, the 9th or the 20th, for sure, not the 27th. Well... Not sure. It reminded me of those few early summer mornings in Madrid when I used to get up early before work to read. It lasted no more than a couple of weeks. Chopin, Debussy, Liszt in the background. Between my hands, Penelope Fitzgerald's The Bookshop - the titanic but quiet fight of a tiny old lady to open a small library against the tyranny of the village social network.

There is life out there. I guess I am not mad... Not yet.

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As an example, take this

All crooks and madmen in the Art of the 20th century find inspiration in classical music. The examples in films and movies are countless. Real characters are no exception -Hitler was an extraordinary whistler (although a vulgar and failed painter) and Stalin frequented the Bolshoi. But still, classical music is presented as the music of order, the kind of music the fetus must listen to in order to better develop its internal organism. The order of a symphonic orchestra is reflected and somehow transposed to the order within the baby to be born. Such argument is heard over and over again.

But Classical music calls for something evil in the human nature. It is in the spinal chord of the doomed poets of the Beat Generation, the monsters of Kubrick and the singers of the masculine devils: Bukowski, Bellow and Vonegut. There is nothing instructive in it. Evil is a substance compatible with virtue. In the back-cover note of my cheap edition of Charles Bukowski's Tales of Ordinary Madness, I can read: "In this tales (...), Charles (...) mixes high and low culture, from prostitutes and the philosophy of Kant to despair and classical music, to create his modern dystopia". The murderer was listening to Brahms in Philadelphia in 1942 when the FBI knocked at the door and arrested him. Joseph, the Dangling Man and Bellow's journal keeper, lost control of himself in the house of his brother Amos on the Christmas Day of the same year while listening to Haydn's Divertimento for Cello. There is always a different reading of a well-known composer, full of pain, violence, passion or some other unspeakable human emotion, from Rachmaninoff to Tchaikovsky.

And the madmen and doomed seem to be the only ones to grasp it... . That Evil takes hold of remarkable souls is a uneasy fact and, as an example, you can take this above.

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The big and the small

The lyrics of Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changing are no gentle, but rude and somehow cruel. They are changing the times and that means that nothing from the Ancien Regime must survive, not a chance: "the waters around you have grown", "you'll sink like a stone", "for he that gets hurt", "there is a battle outside and it's ragin'", "it'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls", "don't criticize what you can't understand", "your sons (...) are beyond your command", "your old road is rapidly agin'", "please get out of the new one (...)", "the line it is drawn", "and the curse it is cast"... What can I say?... Lovely kid.

The air is Marxist, right? At a certain point, the lyrics mention: "don't speak too soon / for the wheel is still in spin". The moment is yet to come. Paul Johnson described Marx as "an eschatological writer from start to finish". As a youngster, Marx was a poet of "savagery", with lively images of a world at the edge of hell and on the verge of collapse. Its features, Johnson says: "intense pessimism about the human condition, hatred, fascination with corruption and violence, suicide pacts and pacts with the devil". Marx wrote, the historian reports: "We are chained, shattered, empty, frightened / Eternally chained to this marble block of being". And, more: "I shall howl gigantic curses at mankind". The current course of events carries the seed of destruction and eradication.

However, again: the soul and purpose of Dylan's song do not match the scenes of domestic peace in the BBC documentary I mentioned in the previous post. The chaos of the sound does not hold the order of the images. So here it is my vision: a small, genuine, personal choice against the smashing wheel of universal disaster; the anonymous life at one's own risk against the super big, universal tragedy impose to everyone. What a massive virus born from a small jewel of tenderness and liberty!

***

It is nevertheless surprising to realize how readily some accomplished people fail to recognize this important difference. Or how easily they are ready to ignore it.

A couple of weeks ago, the founder of the charity Emergency, Gino Strada, and the dear British journalist, Giles Duley (http://gilesduley.com), met the audience in the Baptist Church at the top of Shaftesbury Avenue in London. I have to say that my admiration for both Gino and Giles is enormous. During their intervention, it immediately stroke my understanding that their work, testimony and spirit are only possible and admirable because of their personal sacrifice. For sure these two gentlemen have given in a few comforts and followed and irresistible something, Giles' case being clamorous -he lost both legs and one arm in the course of his work. It is precisely their personal choice what led them to change the lives of individuals, being children or adults. The pictures that Giles showed shone with smiles of girls and boys alive because of Gino's work devotion. Girls and boys smiling, touched in their wounds and heart. A pure blessing.

However, the questions of the audience were centered in politics, the military and the always viscous substance of the moral. Gino's main concerns, indeed, seemed to be more the elucidation of the stand and responsibility of Westerners and, further in the horizon, the eradication of war. The tone was lugubrious, certainly, but it is this tone that we tend to relish in this kind of gatherings, isn't it? Once, again, "the pessimism about the human condition" is set surrounding a titanic and impractical effort to wash off the current world... .

Again, my admiration goes to the tenacity of people like Gino and Giles who, after seeing the most atrocious corners of our condition, keep yearning to their original utopias, maturing and aging and fading towards them. However, all I am saying is this: they should focus their vision -the best they can do and the best they do is making people smile... What is Paradise but an ocean of flourished smiles? A Paradise aware of every one of them, one by one -the livestock farmer knows all his sheep. A dump will always nest disease, but daisies can grow beyond consent, multiply and overflow color.

And do it -the smile creation- giving in oneself... . To me, this small heaven is Heaven.

Drop city

This week, The Barbican hosted the UK premier of Joan Grossman's new documentary, Drop City (2013) -the story of the so-called primeval hippie colony outside Trinidad, CO and, especially, the inner experience lived by their builders. http://www.dropcitydoc.com. The history of the city is short (1965 - 1973), but the effect that the first years had on the lives of the original inhabitants is mystic and endurable, expanding down into their senescence. At the very end of the doc, Gene Bernofsky, one of the original founders and now a handsome gram-pa with deep voice, oracles the sacred nature of the place: "For me, visiting now this land is like entering the time machine - that was one of the best experiences of my life".  One can nevertheless grasp the emotion of those truth-seekers, genuine explorers now annealed by the un-extinguishable fire of time. It is the same feeling of the up-rooted that comes back home, that of the old football player in the abandoned field where he learned to play. It is a mark of humane religion.

The evolution of the colony was not steady, being the rise and splendor swift and thrilling and the fall long and painful, exactly alienating, starting in 1967 after the debauchery of the Joy's festival. In the beginning there was a clear element of exclusivity in it. The city was art, talent, knowledge, inspiration, spirit, heart; secrecy, confidentiality, tenderness, everything that is called humanity, etc. Not everyone is capable of that much! Those founders were special... Once the door was opened to all, myth and mediocrity popped in, like water filling the available space. Touristic visits, excessive parties, drugs, justifications and abandonment, everything that was not in the beginning and that the builders did not look for came in. Bans and manifestos were born, catchy sentences and monolithic consensus were drawn. The spirit, gone; the idea, deceased. Just another giant crystal-lie for the world, untouchable and phony... . I was sitting in the theater, looking left and right and whispering to myself that the show itself was the umpteenth perversion of the original idea: all those genuine hippies making themselves naked to the voraciousness of such a gregarious audience... Yes, modern, stylish Londoners, but tribal and fashionable, feeding the prejudiced concept of hippie with all its false and adapted bullet points...

As a matter of fact, the work of Joan Grossman says a lot against the topic. I was not expecting that and I was pleased to find something to really think about. From "I was not ready for that level of communal stuff" to the countless images of the women putting the children to sleep or doing domestic chores. Nothing wrong with that! As a matter of fact, the sequence of Towards Tomorrow: Utopia, showed prior to Drop City, showing domestic life with Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changing is tender and beautiful, albeit traditional. But, alas! They don't change the times! They perhaps can aspire to change themselves and that is a good start. Reminds me of that Sufi story of the youngster than prays to God to get strength and change the world, but ends up his life as an old man asking humbly for strength to change himself!... Watch the scenes here (minute 3' on) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb-DbSGg4Qg.

The founders dropped the world and looked for a renewed and better universe constructed from the disposed and wasted droppings of the old. This is very much in the Christian tradition -in my view, the greatest relief for the wronged: "I will build my Church with the stone disposed by the master mason", says the Christ. The thinking of those years is tidy, the symbolism, neat.  The books of the time, in all the attractiveness of the aesthetics of the 60s talk of "living and non-living forces of nature" with exquisite delicacy. The radical choice of life of the founders of Drop City is as much radical as their search - those hippies took part for something and rejected something else,
took a modern choice, exhibited clear, sharp, exclusive ideas: this is better than that... The contradiction with our postmodern lives is flagrant - flows with the gaudiness of iodine tincture down the skin.

The original hippies of Drop City persevered also in finding new perspectives, new ways of looking at reality and its connection with something beyond. The filming we have today of Drop City were recorded in 16 mm. The presence of cameras those days is typical: you used it in the hope of finding a secret angle and then shared it with the rest. There were something religious in it!

The fall and end of the community came in with fights, the socking death of a 23 year-old girl and appalling stampede. The whole sweet castle of dreams crumbles down like made of cane sugar. The Beach chronicles the disaster in a faithful way. One can ask: The builders looked for everything that is human and that the alienating society had taken away, did they get it at least? Did they get something at last? The answer is no, and here the failure becomes irredeemable: it is the people of Trinidad and surroundings who is terrible concerned with the wretched lives of the adults and the precarious conditions of the children, while the hippies steadily dropped and flew away. Dropping droppers, how ironic!There was a moment when the cooking of outsiders was more valuable that any painting or any art. The moment when the search for humanity has stopped and the evil grass has occupied the darkest corners of the heart.

Poner en valor

I've heard today that John Hennessy, President of Stanford's University, has a clear vision for any and all of the students of his institution: to get rich through creativity. Rooted in the image is the idea of avoiding established modes, trodden paths and major streams. There is no written course for the human mind and resilience. The belief in excellence and independence of the mind opens the door to countless ways of arranging one's life and intellectual production. But, the whole enterprise would be ill-founded if no satisfactory reward were to come out of the sacrifice. Being creative and useful to others mean to make money -with permission of the interventionist Government-, and that is a tremendous accomplishment for the individual. Happiness awaits round the corner. You see? A well-found passion turned into reality with no other judges than free individuals. The iron of one's ideas and work is tested in the forgery of the market. In a country like a Spain -generally opposed to this angle of view-, such test of fire is called "poner en valor". A beautiful as much as rusty expression.

***

These days more than ever it is in fashion to be told what is good and what is not. The beauty of a miss, the dancing of a teenager group of the singing of a young girl is decided in panels, and the verdict of the committee is heard like the utterances of the Oracle. Most surprising, people seek such consultation and believe it, whether it is a former football-player judging a contest of jumps from a springboard, or a group of Academics marking a PhD thesis they ignore all about. It is not only that the so-called experts often fail (Seix Barral turned down Cien Anios de Soledad, as he considered it non-commercial), but that the philosophy is barren. The activity of the human is restricted significantly and framed within the well-known limits. It is the dictatorship of the consensus. Progress and change are admitted as developments of a social network in given directions. Of course, such network or collectivism is blind and lack any individual responsibility.

The personal sky of possible satisfaction, usefulness and happiness fells down to a couple of feet above ground. It chokes.

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The great deed of Benedict XVI

It was reading The Evening Standard in the tube about a month ago that my friend A. and I learned of Benedict's renounce. A. noted how interesting was the fact that we had not know from TV. We both were surprised as everybody else and, as anybody else, without much opinion. The interpretations of Benedict's unique decision and its consequences have been presented in a political tone: the Pope, as the leader; his act, as a resignation; and the challenges faced, as scandals that could cause the follower numbers drop. Nothing farther away from the truth. It was only a month ago when Benedict, in strict observance of the Canonical law, communicated freely his renounce; today, there is already a new Pope with a new name who, as it seems, is already liked. In the midst of a tremendous economical and institutional crisis, Spanish politicians took three months to take power after winning elections by landslide. First difference: Church is not politics.

It is in my view that none of this conclave is fortuitous. The countenance and self-assurance that Francis displayed yesterday minutes after his election and, above all, his words: "this stage we begin...", leads the way to suspect that this outcome was indeed sought. He did not look surprised and no one could be surprised when he says: "the stage we begin today...".

Few days after my friend A. and I learned of Benedict's renounce, I started speaking my mind and I could not help but feeling awe and admiration for the Emeritus Bishop. Unlike politicians, he rejected power. He said he felt weak and powerless. As if he was a vulgar politician, the media began speculating on the true reasons behind his decision. So much we are use to the lies of politics! Conspiracy, secret reports, unknown scandals were brandished by the Church haters, who likely would love to watch the end of it live on TV, in Reality format. Nothing of this is relevant at all in my opinion. Benedict knows himself at the door of death and he is going to prepare for it. Probably he did not wanted to be a Pope; probably that is the profound, intimate meaning of his Encyclical Letter Caritas in Veritate: everyone must love from Truth, in his own sacred place and vocation, as the Holy Ghost arranges. "I am a pilgrim at the final stage of his voyage", he said. This sentence is the first of three that makes the act of Benedict an utter deed. "I examined my conscience before God", is the second, oozing responsibility, freedom and individual relationship with Him. "The Church belongs to Christ and He would take care of It", is the third. These three statements are the statements of the true believer, of someone who, before being a Pope, Bishop or Priest, is a disciple of Christ. Again, nothing farther from a politician.

If any change is to come from this (excitement and renew expectations are themselves a form of change already), it seems to me that Benedict XVI purposely looked and prepared for it. The reformation of the proceedings to find agreement in the Pope election and the speed up of the process are two concrete but decisive details. But, even more. If one listens to Francis' Homily today (beautiful and moving), the same elements that drove the decision of Benedict are in the new Pope: " (approx.) if we do not walk or do not build as Church, or do walk and do build but do not proclaim the Christ, we can be Popes, Bishops or Priests, but we are not disciples of Christ".

Benedict can be an excellent theologian or "one of the best in the history of Church", as the elites (i.e. Opus Dei) like claiming, but his contribution goes beyond and is infinitely more important: he is a man of great Faith and has return the Church of Christ to the believers. It seems safe to say in 24 hours that Francis is one of them. It is a great day for the faithful man.

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Heroes

A hundred feet across my door there is this small place serving fast-food (chicken) to go. I've never come in but I walk by every day on my way to the tube, another hundred feet further. Running parallel to the exterior window it is the counter and, on one of the perpendicular walls, one can see through the window the picture of 20 or 25 famous maladies, portrait-size. The images are framed and arranged neatly in a 6 x 4 matrix, or something of the sort: Marylin Monroe, Nelson Mandela, Maradona, Michael Jackson, Vito Corleone, El Che, Elvis, Jimmy Hendrix, etc. The heroes of our time!

I am tempting of suggesting the addition of Oscar Pistorius to the collection of illustrious brutes. The criminal fits well in the standards of modern heroes. In the days following his arrest and hearing it seems that some people in the UK wondered bewildered, their whole concept of the hero scattered to pieces: "what shall we say to our kids who loved him?". In the Spanish language there is a proverb: "el hábito no hace al monje". Perhaps, it is a good starting point. The Beauty falls in love with the Beast because, before you can emit any judgement, you need to go beyond appearances and seek the heart. Mobs often fail.

However, perhaps that proverb is not a good starting point. After all, from the information we have so far, the lifestyle of Pistorius has been, at least lately, suspicious. His profile is one of the book: typical rich guy, overprotected (and, thus, insecure and violent), surrounded always by friends of the like ("dime con quién andas y te diré quién eres", is another Spanish proverb) and tasting over and over the nectar of gods. And by this I mean drugs and something else, of course: the rapturous feeling of having the world looking at you with the eyes of the submissive dog. In my mind, Oscar Pistorius makes a murderer, a perjurer and, possibly, a briber. The worst kind. You have to be an unbridled animal to kill a woman -his relationship with Reeva seems nothing special, just a normal now-for-a-while type of thing- shooting her through the door out of jealousy or spite. Alas! The mighty hero turns out to be the vulgar murderer of a woman in a domestic scene, notwithstanding the brutality of the story, overwhelmed by the lowest instincts. He can always say that it was in a rage, that he never knew he would kill her through the door. That might be a little more difficult to challenge by the prosecution and, I guess, will smooth the sentence. But I suspect that Pistorius knew also what he was doing; knew that shooting through the door, he would kill her. Otherwise he would have never made that nonsensical alibi the first day.

Poor devil! The strong fighter, the admired athlete, devastated by the worst of his weaknesses: fear. I was thinking that the verses in Cohen's Hallelujah would go well: "Maybe there is a God above/ but everything I've learned from love/ is how to shoot someone who overdrew ya". But there is no love in Pistorius deed: it is a barren blow of blind destruction.

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Against power

London is a micro-cosmos of power. Every corner exudes power and everyone seeks it. Beyond the line of the city, power is the only reason to move under the light of sun. Above everything, above friendship or love, there is power. Power is the key, speaks and is spoken to. The whirlpool of power sucks mind and body altogether and demands something in return: total servitude. The system works neatly like a Swiss watch, but produces waste. Un-digested by-products of the machinery of power lay aside: people who did not get enough momentum to swirl around; or never wanted; or never could; or never knew how. Time is unmerciful on them.

Oh, bless, bless be the Lord who built His Church on the stone disposed of by the mason! If I ever am to understand the meaning of the term "waste", it must be now. I can see them around us, like ghost of sad spirits in the limbo, unnoticed and forgotten. They are men and women without achievements, who strive daily against their own self and are at the service of their own ruthless minds. They pull their lives purposelessly beyond their prime. I can see them with my eyes of flesh _solitary men, sat next to a pint at the bar, men carrying bags and shuffling their feet in the tube. Unappealing and ungraceful. Their good hearts buried on tangles of dead leaves. You could become one of them. You are not better than they were _perhaps, not better than who they still are.

In the middle of the hot and stifling desert, I feel the words of the Christ quieting my spirit: "I will built my Church on discarded stone", he says. And I imagine a castle of sandstone; its walls and chambers devoid of power, brimming with detachment and generosity. The spiral of power, broken down in pieces, scattered and lost. There is no much need for understanding: the pain of this world is cast in precious prayer. After all breathlessness and embarrassment I can see people awaken on the terrace at the sunset. They all look further west. The sky is water-colored in horizons of multiple red, and the breeze finally shows up. They feel its gentle touch in their temples, foreheads and sprinkling torsos... Come unto Him all of you! _ barren pieces of dust, who are tired and through and utterly fed up; "brushed and battered"; wasted and squandered; all of you who matured without blossoming: beyond the Red Sea, it is tomorrow.

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The alcoholics of Jim Thompson

Like a symphony without instruments or a movie with no actors: that is the sort of feeling one gets after reading The Alcoholics of Jim Thompson (1953). The inexorable truth behind any alcoholic lies in a small bundle of pages, but will remain veiled and ignored for being too crude, raw and brutal. The characters crawl their way out day after day with no more hope that the fate awaiting irretrievable men (and, to a less extend, women). It is true that Thompson does not sound that hopeless. The end, with Love and Friendship and Care showing timidly up, is tender and uplifting.  However, the fate of Thompson's characters is just a peregrination in a vale of tears. The diagnosis is too real. No music is allowed: even sad songs will sweeten up the drama.

If I read The Alcoholics is because I heard a valuable critic that claimed that Thomson had the key to explain the curse: alcoholic addition is based on fear. I longed to explore that. In an age of confusion and polymorphism, it sounds relivable to hold the key of something. What kind, what sort of fear?, I wondered. Now I know that is the Fear with capital letters Thompson talks about, the supreme Fear that makes any other fear small and unaccountable... The fear to the things alcohol can do to yourself included. "It is impossible to scare the shit out of an alcoholic", it is said abundantly clear throughout the pages.

The door opened to alcoholism is that of Fear: the Fear to yourself. The Fear that lies within yourself. The Fear that the Batman of Christopher Nolan fights against while being utterly transform by it. The ways this terrible evil operates are described at some point in the novel and the most scary part of all is that, as far as I can see, this Fear is way too common and extended and can drive anyone to any other kind of addition or hell, anytime. Listen to this:

"There's only one reason any alcoholic ever drinks" -says the Doc to Jeff Sloan. "Because he's afraid (...). Whatever you're considered_ iron-nerved, a pinch-hitter, a guy who knocks'em cold and wraps 'em up_ it isn't enough for you. You're afraid. You've got to keep showing people. The more you show 'em the more you have to. And when you can't...". This is in my view a too familiar experience: people with something to prove or, better, with nothing to prove but condemned to do it. Even more frightening is the following recognizable experience: "The alcoholic's depressed mood pulls him two ways. While it insists that great deeds must be done by way of proving himself, it insidiously resists his doing them. It tells him simultaneously that he must -and can't. That he is certain to fail -but must succeed".

**

Thompson keeps telling us the ways of Jeff Sloan. The following paragraph is quite explicit and allows us hypothesize and explore more: "He sipped at the whiskey until the glass was approximately two-thirds full. Then, he dripped water into it until the level reached the top again. He took another sip, held it in his mouth a moment, savoring it judiciously. He nodded with satisfaction... Very shrewd, he though, congratulating himself on the 'discovery'; unaware that the trick was the older in the alcoholic's repertoire".

First, notice that the alcoholic is by no means a scatterbrain; it is probably a being holding a somewhat high recognition for himself, which, in turn, tears him apart. For such phenomenon to happen, a certain intellectual activity is due. The alcoholic does not seem a man full of himself or holding an err or deceitful opinion of himself with no regard for "higher" values. As a matter of fact, it looks the opposite: the alcoholic does care, sees beyond, seeks truth. There is something that push him to expect more of himself. It is an obligation turned into a moral urgency. Later on, while in the grip of alcohol, he knows himself trapped. And, most important, he suffers. Hopelessness keeps biting and the taste is bitter and painful. Any small battle won counts and satisfies.

I tried to reproduce Sloan's trick by doing a simple calculation. Below it is the plot of how much liquid he drinks for a given number of times that he performs the re-fill with water, n. Further below, it is the plot of the actual amount of alcohol he gulps down each time. Notice that it takes now 3 operations to drink the volume of a whole glass, whereas the alcohol swallowed is only about 70 %. After 9 or 10 repetitions, there is virtually no more alcohol left in the glass. (If we take whiskey as 40% v/v and ethanol as the alcohol, there is about 89 mg of alcohol per quarter-of-liter glass).

The trick would certainly prevent his death by shock or episodes of coma, but the trouble is that it would sink him down in a world of drowsiness. Senses would become vaporous as the cognition functions of his brain. Jim Thompson knew it well: it is rare to find an alcoholic who actually die directly from alcohol. They might get into brawls, be driven over trucks or beaten by teenagers or the unmerciful cold instead.

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The heights of Emily (III)

The literary quality of Wuthering Heights is remarkable. The use of English language is in top standards in every sense: narration, action, description, portrait. The novel even contents the experiment of Joseph's jargon. His gibberish is hardly decipherable: "Aw wonder how yah can faishion to stand thear i' idleness un war, when all on 'em's goan out!". All and all, I think that Emily could have been sensitive at the incapability of humble people of her time to speak, read and write properly, if not at all. And, precisely because of her dedication to study, along with her preference for a rural and quite life, Brontë's story was rather unique. She started as a teacher in the law school at Halifax and wrote poetry. She had to feel veneration for the English language. I don't think that the mockery of Cathy (both mother and daughter) towards the uneducated and ill-bred Heathcliff and, later, Hareton is gratuitous. The latter can hardly read the inscription at the entrance of the premises of Wuthering Heights and Cathy's taunts were about to re-write the wretched story of her mother. The fact that, dead Heathcliff, Cathy and Hareton chirp in love next to the hearth of fire while she teaches and he learns is a foremost expression of the power of love in the eyes of the romantic Emily Brontë. This detail must be important, because it is what allows re-editing the whole story in the right way.

My dear M. put name for me to a second literary resort: "media res". The novel starts at some point in the middle of the story. As a matter of fact, Wuthering Heights starts in 1801, twenty years ahead of the beginning of Ellen Dean's tale, and finishes about two years later. The tool seems not to be completely original, though, as we find it applied in Frankenstein. There, Shelley starts when Victor is saved from the Arctic ice where he was persecuting the monster. The story is written by a sailor (Victor dies finally) and also spred many years backwards and only a small time forward.

The multiple narrators is also an important feature of both novels. In Frankenstein the book is written by a sailor; in Wuthering, Mr Lockwood, Heathcliff's tenant in Thrushcross Grange. The writer, though, gives way to a second character in the course of the story to tell parts of the action: the all-efficient housekeeper Ellen Dean takes the job in Wuthering Heights, while Victor does the job in Frankenstein.

Now, although both novels share these elements, do not take for it that are comparable in quality. Wuthering Heights is far, far more brilliant, delicate, thoughtful, rich. Powerful. It is the work of an exquisite English scholar. The novel's characters are deep and profound and the land so real. You can almost smell the grass of the moor in summer, stumble across its undulations, feel the snow and the hail, to be revive next to the reviving fire. You can kneel mesmerized to the red and sunset of the spring. Feel the breeze, feel the rain. And birds, and insects and the trot of the horse. Everything is so real, so true. And all the real passions of humans within such a real environment. I wrote countless notes on the margins of my edition as I read through: "It is so, it is so". "Oh...". That was all I could say.

Furthermore, in Wuthering Heights there is not only a second narrator, but many. It is amazingly good: sometimes, in two contiguous pages there are several "I" (how many "I" are written? Thousand?), all of them referring to different narrators and, still, it made sense! I got myself to jot down all narrators and circumstances of Wuthering Heights:

1.- Mr Lockwood pays a visit to his landlord, Heathcliff. The night breeds terrible and, much dis-comfortably, he had to spend the night in Wuthering Heights. Mr. Lockwood introduces the characters. The atmosphere is hostile and gloomy.

2.- The tenant, as anyone of us might, feel the next days in "low spirits and solitude" and, seeks the conversation of nice Ellen Dean, the wonderful housekeeper. She goes back twenty years ago and starts the story.

3.- The night Heathcliff returned alone to the house after the incident of Cathy and the dog in Grange he, the boy, tells what happened.

4.- During Mr. Lockwood's convalescence, Nelly Dean continues with the story.

5.- The miserable and unhappy Isabella, unfortunately married to Heathcliff, finally escaped from the house. She sends a letter to Nelly and we know what happened from the letter... It is stunning to read Isabella confessing she was giving Heathcliff a hard time on purpose -so unhappy she was-and that she had to leave to spare her life.

6.- Then, Nelly pays a visit to Wuthering Heights.

7.- With Mr. Lockwood in convalescence, Ellen continues.

8.- Proceeds Isabella, when came to the Grange after Catherine's death. I've just realized that Cathy mother died almost immediately after Cathy daughter was born. The scene of Heathcliff under the rain in the yard, howling like a beast with sorrow, on one side; Ellen is left with a baby girl no-one cares about, on another.

9.- Ellen continues.

10.- Then it comes the story of Catherine escaping Wuthering Heights to run to the Grange and meeting Heathcliff's son, Linton and Hareton. She tells the story to a crossed and disappointed Nelly. Sooner of later, the dangers of the world that every mother -or tutor- fears for her daughter break through.

11.- Here it comes the episode of Linton's death, Cathy's father. It grips your heart. Ellen is kidnapped during four or five days, so Heathcliff can do and undo as he pleases with Cathy. The story of the developments of those days is told by Zillah. Ellen run into her in the moor sometime after. Zillah is the counter-ego of Ellen, the housekeeper of Heathcliff, but "narrow-minded and selfish". The story is in current time already.

12.- Mr Lockwood acts as a messenger-boy for Ellen, who is forbidden to see Cathy. Here it comes the scene of the letter.

12.- Mr Lockwood finishes the story. He is in business around the area and visits Wuthering Heights, about a year later. Meets Ellen: Heathcliff is dead and she tells him his final days. The final comments are Mr. Lockwood's.

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The heights of Emily (II)

In a sense, the transformation of the villain into the true hero in Wuthering Heights -namely, the wicked Heathcliff- is not original, nor the final unraveling of the story for the romantic period. From what we read of Emily Brontë's life, she was a diligent student. A scholar, I would say. In a moment when Romanticism had already yielded its most important creations, Emily must have known and been aware of its main trends and tricks as a well-read and studied woman. I mean: Emily Brontë fits well in the Romantic tradition. The ending of Wuthering Heights is, in my opinion, a classic one borrowed from Romanticism out of necessity, in the trail of the Frankenstein's ending. Naturally, when attention is concentrated on single individuals who step away from the crowd, it is a question of time that someone will perform a more serious exploration of personalities and individual actions, and that is, I think, the first characteristic of Emily's cutting-edge production. Camus says in The Rebel: "Much more than the cult of the individual, Romanticism inaugurates the cult of 'character'".

We can talk about the Romantic element of Wuthering Heights. Let us start from the beginning and highlight the previous point in Stabilo Boss yellow. The centrality of Wuthering Heights, its core, is the story of Heathcliff: the novel is all about his crusade as a rebel against the human's world who humiliated and despised him.

Of course, there is Love in it. Heathcliff loved Catherine in health and sickness. He had many reasons to forget about her, but he would not do it, just in the same way the boy who loves his indolent sweetheart would not do it and is bound to be miserable. On the other side, Catherine was just too real to us as a woman then. She treated Heathcliff with harshness; as a matter of fact, Catherine turned her back on him at least twice, but in two vital moments. And she did it in most harmful way for a man: by changing. Oh! How sorrowful and poisonous is for a man the experience of not recognizing the woman who has been, hitherto, his. The change, inevitably, distilled indifference  Cathy and Heathcliff were flesh and bone in the beginning; it was so until the night when they both run from the house under the rain and ended up in Thrushcross Grange. Catherine was attacked by a dog and had to stay at the Lintons, who took her in their care until her ankle healed. That night, however, Heathcliff had to return alone to Wuthering Heights, soaking wet. When Cathy came back five weeks later, she had changed: she was no longer an accomplice nor the partner of his games. And, worse, she was different.

At the time, Catherine was growing an impossible beauty. Heathcliff's pain magnifies here: first, the distance derived from someone who changes and, second, the realization of a utter impossibility to revert the situation. Catherine has learned to lie in order to have her will done, even if that means to get herself deceived. This was her perdition.

But at this point Heathcliff changed. And improved and gave her another opportunity. Exactly in the same way, Frankenstein, the monster, hidden away in a cave, learns the language of the humans and read the classics. At the same time, Heathcliff continued loving Cathy. This Love is even proclaimed at the central pages of the novel: the scene of a handsome Heathcliff and a dying Catherine Linton, both in tears, recognizing the mistake at a non-return point is told, precisely, about half-way through the novel. He is not allowed to see her and both know that Catherine will die from the encounter. I am looking now at the watercolor including in my edition of the novel, which portraits this moment. Below it it is written: "'How can I bear it', he murmured?". That is terrible; Camus says: "For the dandy [romantic rebel], to be alone is not to exist". How could Frankenstein resist without the bride he asked Victor and that he denied?

All the Romantic tradition explodes here. That was too much for them. Efforts have been done in vain and the victim is left faithless. Heathcliff could have been something, but now there is only a could-have-been. The monster of Victor Frankenstein was also good-willing until a collection of repeatable episodes of denial turned him into it. The world has been just too bad for them. The uttermost Romantic verse of Milton's Paradise Lost blasts in fury: "Evil, be Thy my Good". As Camus says, Heathcliff was willing to "put his love above God and (...) go to Hell in order to be reunited  with the woman he loves". He also says: "The romantic hero considers himself compelled to do evil by his nostalgia for impracticable good". Heathcliff destroys everyone who had hurt him, devastating everything and using everyone in his way to the most atrocious consequences, starting from his son Linton. Once Heathcliff's will is fulfilled -he is the only heir of both houses and the last man standing- the evil fire that prompted his transformation ceases and his life stops making sense. In the same way, the beast of Frankenstein burns himself in the ice of the Arctic once Victor passes away; in the same way, the Terminator terminates himself in melted metal after O'Connor is safe. And so, Heathcliff abandons himself to die. This is a powerful element of Romanticism: once the labor is done, the hero has no more reason to exist.

But, of course, after the tempest, the sea rests... . And from the most devastating land and grayish sky new forms of life emerge and the sun comes to shine again.


Wuthering Heights finishes so tenderly:

"I sought, and soon discovered, the three head-stones on the slope next the moor: the middle one grey, and half-buried in heath; Edgar Linton's only harmonized by the turf and the moss creeping up its foot; Heathcliff's still bare.

I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath and hare-bells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth".


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The heights of Emily (I)

Wuthering Heights is probably one of the best novels I've read so far. The way it is written, all its originality, its literary excellence and its rich and deep exhibition of human experiences _all makes Emily Brontë's only novel a master piece. I enjoyed its reading a lot, in form and content: a worn edition with red hard-covers that my dear M. and I found in a thrift's market in Camden Town for a little more than the price of one half-pint.

Emily was only 28 when she wrote the novel. Soon afterwards, she died from tuberculosis, "the romantic disease par excellence", as my friend A. commented last week. It leaves me in awe the fact that an extremely shy girl from Yorkshire could have had such knowledge on the human passions, sorrows and desires, particularly the evil ones. We read of her interests and hobbies, her little travels with her sister and her reduced circle of acquaintances and, certainly: it is not like the old rock start, partner of all imaginable sins, recently rehabilitated and telling the world the secrets that Itself (us) does covet but fear.

It is amazing: the depth of Wuthering Height's characters, the detailed accounts of their feelings and reactions, the very pace of the narration _all this work is absolutely unique for a woman of Emily's age, an indisputable gift to the woman she must have been. Really: is there anyone who could say where and how she got all this knowledge from? It is not only a question of material knowledge, we know. Life is an experiential journey; that is why people wish to travel and socialize and make new friends and meet people: they don't want to miss out anything. There is no more peace for the trouble soul these days that the advice from an old and battered poor devil, who has lived and is coming back home. However, Emily wrote like someone who already knew, who already has been there. Again: how could she know that much?

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Top performer

It is 5 pm. I need to leave in ten minutes if I want to be on time. The library is crowded, packed with brain-washed, selfish but gregarious students drinking from the vanity waters of London. I am in a rush, and I tend to be edgy and grumpy when I am in a rush. Sometimes do not. Sometimes do. I mean... You know... . I need to print large documents and, although there are four printers, the area is ground zero for jumpiness. Of course, the main tray runs out of paper just in my turn. It sucks paper from another, but goes slowly. The guy behind me has already sent his job and becomes nervous. I become nervous. "It is going to take a while... Let me see... How do you open the tray door?"; "I've already sent the job"; "Perhaps you can use this other printer (I point out)"; "I've already sent the job; just one page... How long is it gonna take?"; "(hotter) It is going to take a while; it is a long document and there is no paper in the main try... How do you open the... tray?"; "(hot sigh) I've already sent the job".

The guy suddenly jerks away. In a minute, he shows up back and walks toward the machine opposite to mine. "Excuse me...". The girl printing her work there (it takes just 60 heart-beats to have an available machine occupied again) reluctantly moves back a quarter of an inch and the guy sends his job again in the second machine... But the girl is taking longer than I. Her machine is going slower, desperately slower. Suddenly, students start coming out from the corners of the ground, from underneath tables, chairs and the borrow/renew placards,  I swear I saw them diffusing through the walls from outside. The population soars up to a million. Noise, noise, noise. Something goes wrong with the second machine. The maintenance guy shows up. My heart pounds fast, "c'mon, c'mon, relax, there is no need...". I am really scare of myself in panicking situations. How would have I behaved if I had been on board the Titanic? Oh, horror! I am just another George Constanza pushing away children and old aunties struggling in baby-walkers while screaming: "Fire! Fire!".

I finish. I finish! The chaos is considerable. I haven't seen something like that since the time I visited the Spanish Consulate in London to renew my passport. How is it possible people can feel any pinch of comfort in such gregarious atmosphere? It is the point where the entire social network, from the Zulu Islands to Azerbaijan, has become flesh!

I check that my documents are complete and notice that the last page is not mine. Of course, it is the guy's just-one-page. I sigh in relieve. At least... . I look around but I cannot find the guy. Does he have left? I would understand if he got crossed and said "f***, s***, f*** them, come back later". Would it he? I look down to the last sheet of paper. A circle mark is on the top, centered: "FIND YOUR DREAM JOB". And below: "The Top Performer's Agreement: I ______________ accept the challenge of becoming a top performer by committing to the following six key tenets:". "What is this?" I say: "what...?". I fly off my eyes down to the bottom: "Please print and sign this agreement and fax it back to me at XXX-XXX-XXXX or email it to me at XXXXX@XXXXX.XXX with the subject line, "Top Performers Agreement". Oh... . I feel curious now, surprised. This was something I have never come across with and started to wonder what purpose someone could have by offering this idea out and, conversely, taking it. I still don't know. All one can get when popping in the web page displayed in the mail is this: http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/dreamjob/. Pffff!... No comment.

"Where is this guy? Where has he gone?". The guy is gone, gone, gone. I eye then at the key rules to become a top performer. A total of six simple rules. The sixth: "I will honor the 5 hours a week I committed to complete this strategically-designed course and (...)". The fifth: "I will not quit when things get challenged (...)"... LOL... Well, the guy is gone, is he not? I wouldn't honor much something that did not operate any change on me: the first little challenge, and I did give up.

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A pair of trainers

On the verge of me coming to London, there was a period of a couple of months -maybe less- when I could not stop watching Carly Simon singing Nobody Does it Better. Summer -had to be summer- of 87, off the cost of Massachusetts, in Martha's Vineyard. Happy and exciting days. The woman cast a spell on me -her slim figure, her long, long hair, "bright hair flapping free" and the enormous contour of her lips giving birth to an all-welcoming smile. Imperfection was doubtless blessed and blessing. Simon's body and motions wrote in the book of innocence. It was the very same innocence that overcomes some people's eyes when looking at a new, to-be-discovered stage of life. The same innocence twinkling in mine.

There was something sensational in a fragile-looking woman wearing unaffected trainers. As a kid, such footwear was the humble attribute of fruiterers and fishmongers and, for the same, you had to oppose it and wear the more sophisticated brand of All Star Converse. It was the clear distinction of the past against the future, the youth against the old, success against failure.

There is nothing like having to travel long distances in the tube constantly (I think I could say which line I am with blind eyes just from the way the seats feel in my buttocks) to see now young people, beautiful women and fashionable guys wearing the base-line trainers... Ahhh... The river is the same, I guess... Touching and rubbing, wetting and flowing around a different skin, I guess.

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The in-out inter-flow theory

I don't really know the history. Whether Stanislavsky's method was a reaction to something or a new creation; whether its concept was original or a follow-up I don't know. I am not familiar with the school, either. Got to read. I only recall what the gossip -boisterously, perhaps- has propagated: that it is a mode of interpretation based on the recollection by the actor of emotions previously experienced. The actor, thus, must dig deep down his memories and tribulations in life in order to find and rescue the suitable guts for the role in the play and bring them to the surface for display on the stage. If such experiences cannot be found in the past, the actor must -what else if not- live them up in the present, somehow. The mythical stories of actors or writers incarnating a second personality are countless and the percentage of those who become nuts is not negligible. So they say. The actor on the stage, consequently, abandons himself -his flesh, bones, character and spirit are truly put on a loan. The character is born from the inside and takes the actor's body almost in hostage.

As a opposed, the classical conception of the character -again, my judgement is based on hearsay- is built on the idea that everything that happens in the core of a human being is reflected on his outer crust and, thus, a credible impersonation of the character can be achieved by emulating his body language, facial expressions or overall externalization of emotions without sharing at all the causes and inner discourse that are at the root of such expressions. The actor is, certainly, himself, never forgets he is Paul or John or Ellie playing the game at being a different person. As a matter of fact, the origins of the word "persona" are in the masks the old Greek comedians used on the stage to play different characters. We see here that the classical conception implies that an actor is simply a professional doing his work, as a carpenter fixes furniture or a mechanic repairs cars. At the end of the show, the actor undresses and leave the skin of Richard the Third or Julius Caesar in the hanger of the dressing room. The character is a mere outflow recreation.

I don't think that any of both conceptions (the inner and the outer representations) excludes the other. I would only say at this point, though, that the classic one makes some more sense to me in most cases. Actors are definitely not the saviors of the world, nor the pundits of the human nature, holding any substantial or reserve piece of knowledge that makes them any bit special. That you have to be somewhat sick to be an actor or different is pure crap. You got to have some skills to be an actor, that is true, skills that would make you a poor air-traffic controller or a poor methodical researcher, for example, but that does not imply that the actor is anything more than the rest of mortals.

So, lets' just say it makes sense: you study the rules, you practice and follow them and you play a game on the stage.

**

I have mentioned some time before that it seems to be in fashion the idea that to be an efficient communicator -whatever that means- or, even, a successful teacher, you have to rely on certain acting skills. In other words, there is a significant number of advocates of the classic, superficial theory for communication purposes. As such, presentations, lessons or negotiations are -not only, but significantly- a matter of appearance, a shiny and well-maintained facade. Well, I disagree. Don't you? What this world is suffering from is an excess of cretinism; what it is missing, a good load of genuine hearts. We are in darkness and we miss the light that only a human touch can provide. Being touch and flipped by another! Being transformed by another! What a wondrous vital experience. For that, only the in-to-out theory works: a new beast must break through our pitiful and pretentious selves. Those were the old fathers of the ancient times; those, the couple of masters that we all had at school and that we dearly remember.

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Lincoln knocks thrice

Those old were different times, but if there is one stunning quality in the Presidency of Abraham Lincoln to me was his being a people's man. And this is not an old gift to pray for. 

The last Lincoln's movie -what can I say?- could have been done in a different manner under the same style: this is my opinion. The period at the end of the Civil War had to be frentic and vibrating, so why not some action? Why not to take the audience to a roller coaster of giddy transition of scenes: one after another, get them out of breath!; why not a punch of brilliant eloquence in a shower of nerve, wrath and treason in the battlefield, the halls of power of in the slippery reality of one's own home?

Anyway, the movie is detailed around Lincoln. He seems to have being untidy -a terrible sin from which geniuses are forgiven-. Crumbs of cigar stub falling carelessly on to his lap or two slippers abandoned in the middle of the living room, next to the hearth, to randomness are two examples. Paul Johnson says, quoting Mary Todd, that Lincoln could do nothing at home whatsoever, other than reading and musing. In turn, Lincoln would comment on his second wife: "God had enough with one "d"; but in the Todd family, they need two". Naturally, Lincoln muses a lot in the film, but Mary Todd does not seem comparable to God in character: I did imagine her differently.

As my Argentinian friend would say, people "looked like cow dung" in those times: most powerful men, writing in most distinct pages of history, looking like shit. Those old were different times, of course, but one can guess that the curse of public image as a concept encoded in a 2-D screen was only an unforeseeable ghost in the long, long distance. Let's make here a first knock on the door.

And, because it might have been a timid knock, being the first one and all, let's knock a second time forthwith: Lincoln was a man void of power. 

Now this needs some explanation. It was not that he, as the President, was not a powerful man. I guess he was. In the film once, only once, when anxious to convince voters to go for the 13th Amendment and put an end to slavery, he shouted to a dubious man: "I am the President of the United States of America: you will provide me with those votes". But the truth is that Lincoln never seemed to exert power that way. Instead, he sanctified the individual conscience of anyone. He never coaxed people like children, never bullshitted, never lied. One example is the lovely scene when, in the middle of the night, Lincoln went himself, alone apart from the driver, to the house of one of the Senators to ask for his vote. Lincoln listened, reasoned and left the issue for him to decide. (As a matter of fact, the Senator would vote against the Amendment later on). A second example is the argument with Mary about the enrollment of their 16 year-old son, Robert. It was a bitter moment for both, but Lincoln acknowledged the importance of his wife's position (did not void or overwhelmed it). Lincoln was void of power, as opposed as those pitiful bodies full of power that crawl on today's surface of Earth.

Lincoln was a people's man because he took his relationships to a confidential, intimate level. Took them to his heart. It is a gift, no doubt, a very powerful one. It has taken me a couple of decades to realize the true meaning of Giovanni Bosco's "whispering word". The saint, close to death (was about 70 years of age), said to another old and powerful Cardinal, barely murmuring: "You who are a poet and I, who am a musician, are going to change the world"... Ah! Now that I remember: when Marco Aurelio, close to death as well, put in Maximus' hands the Roman Empire, he asked him in Gladiator: "Maximus, let us whisper: talk to me about your home".

Lincoln talked personally un-boisterously to all, regardless their social position: politicians, Senators, telegraphists, his black house-keeper, young soldiers, etc. This is a third knock on the door, a ponderous and vigorous door if it is British! In the movie there are a few examples: his talk with Thaddeus Stevens in the kitchen of his residency is nice and reveals a determined and pragmatic mind; but the story he tells to two young telegraphists before dawn in the empty communications room is savage. After much consideration and with many doubts, Lincoln sent the wire to General Grant to retain Jefferson Davis and the other Southerns in Richmond and asked not to proceed to Washington before the Amendment was voted. (In fact, this movement proved to be fundamental to actually win the Bill). The three of them are there, alone. The President alone in a communications room with two boys! Before the story, before the wire, he was asking to one of them: "And you, what do you think?"... Ha, ha, ha. Compare to Captain Bligh! Compare to the captains of our times: "we are always available to listen to my subordinates", they crow... Knock, knock, knock.

Lincoln's story to the boys highlights another of his great virtues: a clear capacity to reason logically. His thinking was as crystalline as that of Euclides: "If two things are equal to the same thing, then are equal to themselves"... (The statement that we all are God's sons finally makes sense to me).

Lincoln was, therefore, a genuine man and, as all genuine man -and this is acknowledged in Wuthering Heights-, grieved. He really had a bad time. Paul Johnson recalls the words of his wife the night he was assassinated: the Amendment was passed and he was unusually joyful. As a summary: Lincoln was a man's people, genuine, intimate, logic, had a practical mind and was able to withstand annealing solitude... What a marvelous example during the voting session in Congress! Lincoln, the man who splashed the waters so badly, who was driven by a consuming desire to pass the Amendment, waited alone at home, with his little son and let the representatives of the men of America to finally decide. Alea jacta est! 

Of course, clouds were seen in the horizon. Paul Johnson says that, even in G. Washington's times, it was already recognized that the true problem with slavery was what to do after it. Our hero seemed to have a much more ambiguous position about it. Johnson also says that in the ten years following the war, the fracture between the Congress and the President deepened. Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson lacked the president's gifts, I guess, because the situation went out of hands towards the extremist positions, which somehow set the preponderance of the winners over the South. What I see as the first example of "positive discrimination" followed, brooded corruption and, one thing leading to another, America enter in its Modern Times.

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