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[ by Charles Cameron — surrealism in electoral candidates’ declarations ]
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I’m glad I was up and alert at 4.30 am Pacific time today, and could catch these two screen-grabs of candidates for the Presidency in 2020 — a wonderful DoubleQuote in chyron confusion:

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Who’s this?

Okay, then who’s this?

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Both screen-grabs are from Morning Joe on MSNBC.

It may be hard for the electorate to tell some of the 2020 candidates apart.

[ by Charles Cameron — chyrons as news haiku, and various news and docu screengrabs ]
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I’ve described chyrons — those verbal banners in the bottom third or fifth of a TV news screen — as the newsperson’s haiku. Headlines have long served a similar purpose, with their writers, seldom the authors credited with the articles in question, preferring puns to emphasis — puns, the “lowest form of wit” as they are sometimes mistakenly termed, James Joyce qv.

Chyrons, now — shorter than most headlines, and therefore tighter in their demands — are an art-form that sometimes calls forth subtlety and wit. I love them, not least because they’re visual verbals.. combining the eye-catching quality of the visual with the point-making clarity of the verbal — a double hit.

Here, then, from today’s haul of yesterday’s chyrons:

That’s the killer — a major war. Here are two more for context:

And let’s not forget ISIS:

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Here’s a sporting metaphor — I suppose I should say, both literal and figurative?

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Two versions of Roger Stone‘s fight:

And Dems fighting words, with flying without a pilot as a bonus:

CNN for a change, and the tax returns — so many, many fights!

Back to MSNBC:

Comic strip!

And an MRI instance, medicin aat its most inquisitive:

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Okay, a screengrab from the documentary on the Oslo and Otoya terrorist actions by Anders Breivik, 22 July — Breivik as network cog and Knight Templar:

Oh hell, let’s close with two grabs from another docu, Evil Genius, first episode, the first grab noting the way a scavenger hunt was part of the bank-heist murder:

And the second demonstrating the route the scavenger hunt was designed to take, marked on the map in red — note the arrow at the end of the trail landing up where it had started — a clear and fascinating image of ouroboros:

Too good to miss! And that’s it for now..

[ by Charles Cameron — Richard Nixon, Roger Stone, defeat signaling itself as victory — and then there’s Sir Winston Churchill ]
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Back then or recently, we’ve all seen the victory sign that President Nixon gave before climbing into the presidential helicopter for his final departure from the White House and the presidency:

By now, we’ve all been shown Roger Stone‘s back, with Nixon‘s portrait tattooed on it, and know that Nixon was Stone’s hero, and that Stone played what Snopes calls a “consequential role” — though not enough to qualify him as an “advisor” — in Nixon’s re-election campaign, 1972.

And we’ve seen Roger Stone, just the other day, emerging from court and giving an exultant copy of that Nixon victory sign. It would be all too easy to juxtapose the two, and claim a DoubleQuote — while it also seems just a little strange not to note it..

Maybe this version of Stone‘s salute — surrounded and indeed haloed by Nixon memorabilia — is sufficiently different to cause some measure of surprise or delight.

I can’t hope for an in-drawn breath on this one — but a quiet chuckle from some of you, perhaps?

Or..

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Or how about the great original, Winston Churchill?

Howzzat for a DoubleQuote with Richard Nixon. Nixon’s sign is victory in defeat — Churchill’s is victory en route to Victory!

[ by Charles Cameron — going all diagnostic on you! ]
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Roberta R. Greene in her Social Work with the Aged and Their Families (p. 100) lists questions nurses routinely asked by physician using Kahn’s Mental Status Questionnaire. I’m only too aware of these, having been subjected to these questions regularly over the past year..

5. What year is it?
6. How old are you?
7. What is your birthday?
8. What year were you born?
9. Who is President of the United States?

They are going to ask President Trump these questions, I immagine, as part of his overall medical evaluation. But that last one:

Who is President of the United States?

That’s an ouroboric question right there — what will he say?

If he says, President Trump, then he’s third-personalizing himself, and that’s diagnostically called illeism: Julius Caesar uses the third person in describing his French campaigns in De Bello Gallico.

But if he avoids that third person usage —

Me! It’s me!

That would suggest he may be uncertain of his victory over Secretary Clinton back when — after all, she won the popular vote!

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Oh the ouroboros! Oh the dilemma!

I had one of those medical questionnaires this morning. My conclusion: the questionnaire or routinized test has not yet been devised that doesn’t seem faintly ridiculous..

Please note that Roberta Greene’s work currently costs $100 as a book book. Urgh. Kindle $45.95 us a little better.

[ by Charless Cameron — frankly, waiting for a return to wisdom, or at least something closer to it ]
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In the White House there’s an inscription over the mantel of the State Dining Room which reads:

I Pray Heaven To Bestow The Best Of Blessings On This House And All that shall hereafter Inhabit it. May none but Honest and Wise Men ever rule under This Roof.

That’s from our first president, John Adams, in his letter to his wife, Abigail, but it resonates down to our day.

How do we recognize wisdom?

I don’t believe we can legislate that only the honest and wise can attain the presidency, though we might do well to have Robert Bolt‘s Thomas More in A Man for all Seasons at the head of the Justice department — Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor of England who famously said, answering Roper who said he’d cut down all the laws to offer the Devil no protection:

Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man’s laws, not God’s — and if you cut them down — and you’re just the man to do it — d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.

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Thomas More was, no doubt a man with his own flaws, and the flaws of his times. Flaws, okay.

Where is a true sense of justice? Of honor? Of integrity? Where is a man for all seasons?