Killing Bill , Abaaoud and Abdeslam

Terrorism consultants and military experts, interviewed about ISIS, have not shied away from using the word “kill.” Degrade, terminate with extreme prejudice, eliminate, contain, control and marginalize are some of the euphemisms that have previously been employed in discussing enemies. In fact when violence is being perpetrated against an enemy, even by those whose behavior is totally defensible, euphemism has, up until recently, been the favored figure of speech. Those who were rounded up after 9/11 underwent “extraordinary rendition,” which usually meant the use of techniques like waterboarding to gain access to information. Will the French employ their linguistic  equivalent of the term “extraordinary rendition" if Salah Abdeslam, one of the chief suspects in the Bataclan massacre, who is currently the subject of an international manhunt, is captured? It’s unlikely that anyone is gong to bother to mince words, but what are the extent of the powers enjoyed by the French police and army under the three month state of emergency that has been declared. The Napoleonic Code is not the American constitution, especially when it comes to the presumption of innocence and it's unlikely, considering the level of rage in France now, that cruel and unusual punishment will be too much of a concern when it comes to captured terrorists. The French have plainly had enough. Marcel Ophuls’ The Sorrow and The Pity gave a good picture of how collaborators were treated after the Vichy government had been defeated, though the punishments involving public humiliation (with collaborationist women’s heads being shaved) were quite a bit more benign than what’s likely to be dished out to suspected Jihadists. Still you do a double take when you hear an otherwise levelheaded sounding diplomat or news commentator using the word  “kill” when in a civilized democracy we usual try, sentence and then appeal to Justice with her two scales where those who break the social contract are concerned. Kill Bill was the title of the Quentin Tarantino movie. Now it’s just “Kill!” and God help all of us. “The horror! The horror?” were the final words uttered by Mr. Kurtz in Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Earlier Kurtz also writes, “Exterminate all the brutes!"

It’s Not a Rehearsal

Photograph: J.W. Taylor

Expressions like “sounds like a plan,” “I can’t complain” and “being on the same page” are the stuff of which small talk conventions are made of. But the expression “it’s not a rehearsal,” it being life,  though falling into the same category of taunting mediocrity seems, like cream, to rise to the top. We all have had our comeuppances with idiots who have used this against us, but it turns out to express a truth. One day you’ll come home, pay your bills and die. Now that’s the awareness that Heidegger was referring to when he talked about living an authentic existence. Even the most hopeless individual holds within him or her the faint dream of being discovered. Maybe he’ll become the subject of a reality TV series called “The Most Uninteresting Person Who Ever Lived.” Reality TV of course opens many possibilities to the extent that it functions like abstract painting does for people who say “my kid could do that" when they see a Pollock. At the very least he might make history by winning a big Powerball. Perhaps this is the Heart of Darkness Kurtz found--that there was no great come and get it day and that what you are is what you will be. If you’re disappointed then you might go against the advice of some recovery programs and give up before the miracle. Fitzgerald was being sociological in his over quoted “there are no second acts in American lives.”  “One door closes and another opens,” is the popular homily that is used to console those who have been fired from a job or rejected by a lover. But to quote the artist Hallie Cohen, isn’t it more accurate to say,  “one door closes and another closes”?

O Quebec I: The Northeast Kingdom

 Photo by Hallie Cohen

Travel up I-89 past White River Junction and Montpelier, Vermont’s capital city, and then off through well-heeled ski villages like Stowe up towards the Canadian border and you enter what is known as the Northeast Kingdom. The words conjure Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, or Disney’s Magic Kingdom, and you can’t help thinking of Heart of Darkness, as the supermarket chains are replaced by old general stores, followed by miles of houses that seem to have left the present behind, including some whose roofs have imploded. You become aware of the frequent “Moose Crossing” signs, and even think you might run into some extinct species of animal. The roads become more winding and mountainous and the population more intermittent. The world is quieter in the Northeast Kingdom. You don’t see too many Escalades or Mercedes, and you don’t hear too many loud sounds, besides those of birds. The lawn mowers and hedge cutters honing topiaries are not part of this sight and soundscape. The Northeast Kingdom is like the late work of an Ibsen or Shakespeare—there is something ethereal and almost refined about its heights. Like Solness in The Master Builder, you ascend to a “castle in the sky” that is somewhere between destitution and heaven.