The Righteous Path Of The Righteous Party Of The Righteous Human Beings

 

I hold my friends to higher standards than I do others. That’s why I choose to be around certain people more than others, because I deem them to be more interested in doing the right thing. That’s why I might tell a friend he has had enough to drink and be less likely to tell a stranger at a bar the same thing. If I see a friend making bad choices, I want better for him and will weigh in on what he is doing. I also like to think he will appreciate my input even if he doesn’t agree with it. But even if he doesn’t immediately appreciate my advice, I still feel it is my obligation as a friend to give him my opinion.

I’ve always considered myself a Democrat. I cast my very first vote for Jesse Jackson in the primaries in 1984. I voted for Mondale in the general election that same year. I voted for Michael Dukakis in 1988 and Bill Clinton in 1992. In fact, I have NEVER voted for a Republican candidate for any office even once in my life.

So please take all of that to heart when I offer opinions that are directed at Democratic voters. I want what’s best for you. You and I mostly have the same goals, though we seem to be choosing increasingly different paths in how we pursue them. When I offer an opinion or ask you to explain your behavior, know that it is YOUR values I wish to defend. When I criticize your tactics, it is because they are failing to produce the results both you and I wish to achieve. And if we disagree as to how to achieve those results, well, that is a subject for conversation and not repudiation.

First, I would like to point out that you are currently supporting a candidate who has quite openly announced her intention to continue to support genocide in Gaza. I am going to presume that you and I find this less than ideal and would, in a perfect world, like to stop the indiscriminate killing of children, or at least lessen it. I think that there ARE things the Democratic Party could do to lessen the killing of children. Furthermore, I don’t think the uncritical support of what could legitimately argued to be a genocide is a choice the Democratic Party has to make in order to win the election. In fact, I would argue that the party’s support of genocide is going to cost them more votes than it is going to gain them.

I assume you are a supporter of the Democratic Party because you feel that they are the morally superior party. I also assume you feel yourself to be of a higher moral standard than others because you call yourself a Democrat. If both of my assumptions are true, then I would suggest that a moral party would do whatever it could to put a halt to genocide. That if said political party was not doing all in its power to stop a genocide, it wasn’t really all that moral of a party at all. Furthermore, if the preferred party of a morally righteous human being was not doing all it could to prevent young children from losing their limbs and lives due to an unrestrained bombing campaign, it is incumbent upon any morally righteous person to call them out on it.

I don’t hear people who plan to vote blue calling out the Harris campaign. Voters have the power to make her pay attention. I would go so far as to say you have not merely the power but the responsibility to use it. I would even go so far as to say that the blood of children is on your hands should you choose not to use the power you have to influence your chosen candidate to alter her stance on the ongoing slaughter of innocents. Again, this shouldn’t cost her the election, it would merely move her toward a more morally justifiable position on the Gaza problem and more in line with the general public. There is no downside to this, pragmatically or morally. We need not call those who disagree with you nonpragmatic purists.

You say Donald Trump would be even worse. That may be true, but that is hardly an argument against insisting your preferred candidate take a moral position that would not hurt her politically. Would it not be the pragmatic thing to do to push your candidate toward a position with which the majority of Americans agree? A Gallop poll from March of this year shows that 55% of Americans disagree with “the military action Israel has taken in Gaza.” Surely support for Israel has fallen further given all the atrocities we have witnessed since then, the murdered journalists, the incursion into Lebanon, the increased chances of a war with Iran. Furthermore, 75% of Democrats disagree with what Israel is doing. And yet they are planning on voting for a candidate that has shown no signs that she cares what Democratic voters think.

Or are they going to vote for her? Assuredly some of them are going to regard genocide as a red line. Some will choose not to vote for a Democratic candidate for President for the first time in their lives. How then, is it an effective strategy for Kamala Harris to support Israel without reservation?

It is the stated strategy of Democrats to get their candidate elected and then worry about getting that candidate to embrace the more progressive aspects of the left. This has been the strategy of Democrats for the past 30 years. It has been a spectacular failure. They have asked for nothing from those who claim they want to represent them, and have received exactly that. They have demanded nothing and gotten even worse than the bare minimum they expected. Of all the failed strategies that have ever been concocted, I can think of none that have been less unsuccessful. And yet Democratic voters persist, more avidly supportive of the strategy than ever before.

I am one of those whom establishment Democrat types often call a purist or an absolutist. And yet I cannot conceive of anyone more purist than one who adheres so utterly to such a failed strategy. Nor can I imagine anyone being more an absolutist than one who insists everyone else support a candidate who has never had popular support, and who is now neck deep in the blood of children whose only crime is inhabiting land which the Zionists want to possess for themselves. I cannot imagine a world in which someone who demands an end to such a situation is labelled a purist.

These are harsh words, I guess. Still, they are written by one who does not see you as an enemy but as a friend who has taken the wrong path. They are harsh words but they are spoken not in hatred but with concern. I get it, there are other issues to consider, but none that you will mention rise to the level of what is happening in Gaza right now. And I do not see it as realistic that a political party that is on the wrong side of genocide is going to be very interested in doing the right thing on the issues you’re most concerned about. Consider their fight to raise the minimum wage as but one example of their desire to fight for you.

Again, however harsh it may appear, my intent is communication, not condemnation. You need us as much as we need you. To consider us as your enemy rather than a concerned friend with whom you need to have a heart to heart chat would be, I feel, a mistake.

The Deeper Beauty Of My Lunch

 

The beauty of my lunch goes deep. Deep enough that I wanted to take a picture of it, to memorialize its ephemeral beauty. So that I may study and savor its richness long after it is gone.

I have had two compliments on it today, by coworkers expressing a desire for such a salad. I’m sure it looks quite unlike anything they are going to see all day. Excepting the wrapper of the Skittles package, it is way more colorful than anything to be found in the vending machine, which my coworkers jokingly refer to as the Wheel Of Death.

If I were to bring this salad to the art department of my local college I wouldn’t be surprised if some painter did not draw inspiration from it and ask if he might capture it on canvas for posterity’s sake . Perhaps I shall blow up the image, put it in a frame, and hang it upon my wall. I know just the spot.

They say that beauty is only skin deep but this goes deeper. It is a wonder for the eyes, but it is also an experience for the taste buds. Each bite a different texture of crunch. Each taste a subtle shift of flavor that blends with the rest. And when I have finished, I shall arise from the table not full, not sluggish, but energized and ready to return to work. The enjoyment of eating it is but a precursor to the joy of having it inside of me. It does not sit like a rock in my stomach but is already making its way through me, causing my body — not merely my tastebuds — to be awake and alert.

But it goes deeper. For it is a variety of natural foods, each packed with one or more of the vitamins and minerals which are essential for this soft machine which I inhabit. I have not filled myself with harmful food, like I once did in my childhood. I did not choose option C3 from the Wheel Of Death. All that I have ingested is of nature. All that which is consumed by me is what my body has evolved to find nourishment in. There is no falsity in it, no artificial coloring required. This, my friends, is lunch as it was intended by God, the Tao, the Mother Goddess, whatever spiritual reference resonates with you.

But it goes deeper. The food I eat was grown as a labor of love. Each vegetable was raised by those who choose to farm, who have a great love for it. It was not grown on some massive farm, not picked by exploited immigrants who do not have the same quality of life I do or the same career choices. It was grown by people very much like myself.

But it goes deeper. At the farmers market, these wonderful growers of food offer their wares for sale and I am able to meet and express my appreciation for their efforts. We talk, and in communicating we create the bonds with which our local community is knit. There is no automated checkout at the farmers market.

But it goes deeper. This salad’s importance has an impact upon the planet. Or rather, it doesn’t. Because there is nothing in it that has been shipped further than 30 miles. Most of it has not had to travel more than five. Some of it required no additional travel at all. While the grocery stores in town are filled with foods that have traveled across the country and from other continents, this food I eat has only a tiny footprint upon our tired and weary Mother. In eating this salad I am asking of Her as little as possible, and her gratitude for this is the gift of the freshest and most flavorful vegetables one can find. Bill Gates wishes he could eat produce as fresh as this.

But it goes deeper. This produce was not raised in a cage. The tomato never had its offspring torn from it at the moment of its birth. There was no animal suffering involved in the meal. No milk taken from a suckling’s lips to be given instead to an adult human. This salad did not require the repetitive motions of manual laborers performing on living creatures some of the most inhumane actions imaginable with a sharpened blade. Neither man nor beast was traumatized in the picking of these radishes.

But it goes deeper. This food was grown in accord with nature. It did not require unnatural chemicals or fertilizers. It is sustainable. Its creation does not unduly tax the ecosystem. It does not create massive manure ponds. The streams that acquire the runoff from the area where these vegetables were farmed do not carry algae to nearby rivers and lakes, killing off the fish and other creatures.

But it goes deeper. This salad may feed me, but it does little to feed the corporations that control so much of our food supply. That control so much of our economy. That influence our government, buy our elected officials, create commercials that induce our children to eat unnatural and unhealthy diets. That feed our children such unhealthy foods that they are unable to perform at school. That feed them such unnatural foods that our children require medications simply to function as normal children should.

That’s pretty deep. Way deeper than a Happy Meal. Way deeper than a Kit Kat commercial. Even deeper than the bottomless salad bowl at Olive Garden. Plus — and this is the best part — it makes my coworkers envious. Taste The Revolution.

It’s Red They Win, Blue You Lose (voting is a sucker’s game)

When the system makes winning impossible, it becomes foolish to play the game. This may sound like an excuse for quitting to many, but it is not. It may sound like nihilism to those who dare not stare directly at the truth, but they are wrong. It is starting over. It is letting go of what does not work in order to try something else. It is abandoning illusion in order to find the truth. It is leaving the comfort that conformity and obedience provide in order to find some solid ground on which to make a stand.

 People wedded to a dysfunctional system will accuse you of refusing to use the impotent instruments of change provided to you by those who would be your masters. In truth, you are coming to the realization that it is time to take charge.

I look at what others point to as a collection of victories and all I see does not amount to a pile of crumbs. Those who are swayed by such scraps are like gambling addicts, remembering every time they left the casino up for the night while ignoring their impending bankruptcy. They are blinded by the blinking lights of the machine that robs them. One more pull of the lever and everything will all be right. One more pull of the lever and all will be right. One more pull…

 This is not cowardice to refuse to go along, it is courage. It is not resignation, it is determination. Determination to take the reins of power from those who shake the nuclear dice. To take the microphone from the propagandists and paid spokespersons and speak the truth and not the party line.

 It is the unavoidable acceptance of facts, knowing that to think otherwise is to engage in self-deception and the abandonment of our responsibilities.

I assure you that once freed from the box they do all their power to keep you in, you will laugh at the idea that you once considered voting for Trump or Harris. You will howl with laughter thinking of how you once put your faith in those who already failed you so many times. That you gave your power to those least qualified to wield it responsibly.

 You will one day look upon such behavior as you now look upon the games you once played as a child. You will one day cringe at the decisions you make now as you cringe at the reckless and irresponsible behavior of your adolescence, grateful that you have survived it. Knowing that it was mere luck that you made it through those days before you realized just how precious life really is. And you will ask yourself “What the hell was I thinking?” And you won’t be able to answer, because you will no longer recognize the foolish person you are now. And you will gaze upon those people you once looked up to and realize just how badly they betrayed you, and what a fool you were to let them get away with it.

There will come a time when you will grow disgusted with playing children’s games, in being led by children. In playing grown up instead of acting like a grown up. There will come a time when you realize it is not a game, and even if it was, no one else has the right to write the rules for you. On that day you will feel good, even with the burden of responsibility resting firmly on your shoulders.

 The story of our time is being written by idiots. By psychopaths drunk with power and terrified of all they cannot dominate. By the morally bankrupt and by emotionally crippled children. Their narrative weaves the thinnest of veils so that you see only half of their evil mixed with illusory good. Their illusions and puppetry can only ever deceive those who wish to be deceived. Those with a critical and honest eye will pierce the wispy thin veil, and an illusion once pierced can never again be mistaken for reality.

 This will be your future. You will be made to see the truth for what it is, whether you desire it or not. Your only choice is whether to gaze upon it as a helpless child or as a grown up ready to act upon what can no longer be denied.

 

It Doesn’t Take A Whole Lot Of Fascists To Spoil A Movement (But The U.S. State Department Is Okay With That)

 

I just watched the opening minutes of the film Winter On Fire, a movie made in response to Oliver Stone’s movie Ukraine On Fire. As opposed to Oliver Stone’s movie which explained how the U.S. supported a coup in Ukraine and was willing to work with the worst kind of fascists and neo-Nazis to do it, Winter On Fire took the official U.S. line on the events of 2013–4. In case you were wondering, it was WAY easier to find than Oliver Stone’s film. In fact I wasn’t even looking for it, I just stumbled upon it while looking for a good documentary to watch.

The movie opens with an interview of a pro-revolution protestor speaking about the leadup to the protests. The camera pans out to reveal he is wearing a scarf with the image of Stepan Bandera on it. Within a moment or two, the red and black flag of UNSO (the military arm of UNA) can be seen in the background. This flag is ubiquitous in the background (or foreground) of almost all the footage I watched (I only watched the first twenty minutes or so). The fact that the creators of the documentary found it either impossible or unnecessary to avoid overt Nazi imagery is telling.

There are those who will say that Bandera wasn’t really that bad a guy, and that even if he was, the people with pictures of him on their wall or with tattoos of him on their bodies are really just inspired by the fact that he fought for Ukrainian independence. Let’s do a quick dive into the history of Stepan Bandera, courtesy of Wikipedia:

An Image Of Stepan Bandera Against An OUN Flag

Bandera was a key member of OUN, a group of Ukrainian nationalists who used terrorism and assassination against the Polish government. The OUN employed “bomb-throwing at Polish exhibitions and murders of policemen,” among other tactics. Bandera was arrested and sentenced to death for his involvement in terrorism, a sentence that was later commuted to life in prison. The OUN worked closely with NAZI intelligence to aid their invasion of Poland, and later helped to form the Waffen-SS Galizien division, perhaps the most vicious of all the SS groups.

Much revisionist history has taken place in the last decade to minimize the crimes of Bandera and the OUN, a necessity since their images, flags, and tattoos seem to be ever-present amongst the propaganda images and video of the west. Not just in this documentary but in many interviews of various Ukrainians on mainstream media. So let me cite a source that predated the events of the last two decades in order to get a more fairly balanced view of the symbology that is so prevalent in Ukraine.

The book Fascism: Past, Present and Future was written by Walter Laqueur and published in 1996. No wacko rightwing or leftwing nutjob, Laqueur was for 25 years the director of one of the world’s leading institutes for the study of fascism, London’s Wiener Holocaust Library. According to Laqueur, the red and black flags that are so prevalent among the protests belong to the UNSO, which is the paramilitary arm of the UNA, a successor group of OUN. To summarize, those red and black flags belong to a paramilitary group that considers itself the successor to the Ukrainian SS division, a group that even the German SS found especially reprehensible. The slogans of the UNSO are “War is our future” and “Provocation, revolt, revolution” (p. 213).

One might wonder why in 2014, with Ukraine being ostensibly a democracy, they felt revolution was necessary, until one recalls that the Weimar Republic was also a democracy.

Besides saying that Bandera and the UON we’re not that bad, western media is also fond of saying that the far-right elements involved in Ukrainian politics is a small minority. That is true, but the question is what percentage of ethnocentric nationalists, who take as their inspiration a truly genocidal movement, is acceptable. In United Sates politics according to liberal media, that would be zero percent. A single Confederate flag at a MAGA rally, or a Nazi flag — even if it is used to call the other side Nazis — instantly brands everyone there a racist and a fascist. I don’t necessarily think this is fair, whether we are discussing Ukrainian protests or Trump supporters, but if I were a supporter of either Trump or Ukraine, I would be careful whom I allowed in my protests.

Yevgeny Karas, the leader of the far-right group C14, was asked to comment on the fact that the extreme right only accounted for ten percent of the protestors involved in the Maidan Revolution. He replied that it was perhaps only eight percent of the crowd, but if it were not for them “the protests would have turned into a gay pride parade”. It doesn’t take a lot of violence-prone racists to change the course of a protest or a revolution.

Photo by Marko Djurica

To see the extent of the violence employed during the Maidan protests, it is recommended that you view Oliver Stone’s Ukraine On Fire (if you can find it). Compared to the documented violence that occurred in Kiev, January 6th looks as non-violent as a gay pride parade.

There is a moment in the movie Battleship Potemkin where the people gather together and decide the government must be brought down. In the midst of the excitement, one member of the crowd shouts: “Down with the Jews!” The crowd turns towards to where the voice came from, and the man who spoke the words realizes the crowd is not with him. The man pulls up his collar, pulls down his hat, and tries to slip away unseen. But the crowd is onto him. They surround him, and begin to pummel him.

This is what the protestors at Maidan should have done to the people overtly proclaiming their affinity for genocidal fascists. This happens in U.S. protests all the time. I’ve seen video of MAGA protestors chasing away provocateurs trying to incite violence. I’ve seen BLM protestors do the same. If you have a legitimate cause you are fighting for, it is essential that you do not allow such people to worm their way into your movement.

The fact that the peaceful protestors did shows either their ignorance of their own history or a fear of confronting the far right. If they were ignorant of their history, it is likely because of an undue influence of Western intelligence in their culture. Russia or the Soviet Union never would have permitted them to forget history when it came to Nazis. If it is because they feared groups such as C-14, The Svoboda party, and Right Sector, then clearly these groups had a greater influence on the protests than what western “experts” claim.

Among the protestors, non-violent and otherwise, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland handed out cookies. Despite being Jewish, Nuland to my knowledge never uttered a word of concern about far-right groups that espoused violent and antisemitic sentiments. This would be shocking, if anything the U.S. did in foreign politics had any shock value anymore. From Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden, MEK to ISIS, there is no one the U.S. will not supply weapons to or urge to violence.

Like the protestors in Ukraine, we are to blame for permitting such promotors of violence to exist among us. If we continue to tolerate them, they will soon employ violence, coercion and lies to co-opt our society and government. Oh, wait, that happened a long time ago.

Revolution Through Embracing Simplicity

 

 

 

In the last few years’ I’ve become more aware of how wonderful a thing it is to breathe. It’s not like I’ve recovered from a pulmonary disease or a near-drowning experience or anything, I’ve just come to appreciate the pleasant sensation that accompanies air moving in and out of my lungs. I feel it now, a slight tickle in what I imagine might be my capillaries.

It’s odd that I never really seemed to be aware of this before. God knows my lungs are not what they once were, having smoked cigarettes for decades. You’d think in my youth I would have occasionally marveled at this feeling, seeing as how all physical sensation seems heightened in youth.

Perhaps this awareness started to evolve a dozen or more years ago when I finally kicked the nicotine addiction, choosing fresh air over poisonous smoke. Sometimes getting a second chance at life makes us appreciate it more.

I’ve also noticed of late how good it feels to move. Again, I cannot move as I once did in my twenties or in childhood. But when I allow my body to move at its own speed, to exert itself with an appropriate force, I am reminded that bodies are meant to move, are happiest in motion. If I only meet it on its terms and do not try to force it to be what I want it to be, but allow it to be what it is, it will not merely respond but do so joyfully. I am not just some lump of clay but the energy that moves through it. I may be dependent upon my limited frame, but it is not all that I am.

I can feel this way in a factory, where the air is not sweet and the sounds are not that of nature. Do not get me wrong, I prefer nature, but I can transcend my surroundings. Sometimes I lie awake at night and feel my breathing, and think of how wonderful it is to be alive. And while I appreciate it that my wife is next to me and our dog is between us, if I were alone, I would still be aware of how pleasant a thing it is to breathe.

I lie in bed and breathe, thankful for the modest but comforting blanket on top of me. I enjoy the coolness of the air mixed with the blanket’s ability to moderate it. If I inhale deeply, I might get a whiff of the simple but extremely enriching meal that my wife made earlier. Such wonderful smells tend to pervade the household and hang around. There are leftovers in the refrigerator and we will have the opportunity to dine on it again tomorrow.

Life is simple. Happiness is simple. The true joys of life do not require fighting over. There is more than enough for all. I sometimes ask myself, late at night when the air is brisk but the blanket is comforting, why we must fight so bitterly for the things that do not make us happy. Why do we focus on other things when simply acknowledging the beauty of the moment has the power to bring us contentment? Sometimes I feel that we as a species are throwing everything away, everything, for things that do not matter at all, for things that do not bring joy but only distract us from it.

I think of such things, and I open myself up to an immense sadness for what we have to lose. The world is dominated by those who fear and crave and hate but who clearly do not appreciate the simple joy of breathing. Such people are leading our society, our species, our entire planet to ruin. Like others, I have tasted despair and quiet desperation in my life, and I know they still call to me, not as a solution but as a resignation.

But then I become aware of my breathing. I hear my dog’s inhalations next to me, free from all the concerns we humans have. I could lose myself to despair, but that would help nobody, least of all myself. I accept the simple comforts the universe has provided me. With gratitude. With joy. Perhaps, if I can appreciate fully such simple things, others might come to ask me what it is that makes me so at peace, so contented, so joyful. I can think of no other way to get people to cease their pursuit of useless acquisitions, to choose a path of peace rather than a path of violence and domination.

I’ve tried other ways, and they did nothing to change the world, they only made me forget how wonderful it is to breathe, how wonderful it is to be alive. I feel it now.

Most Welcome Squatters On My Property

 

There is a loud rustling on my front porch, so I arise to see if the chipmunk has returned to the bird feeder. As I look out the window a large squirrel lands with a crash on the porch railing, no more than a yard from where I stand inside the house. This frightens the feeding birds to flight and, truth be known, gives me a bit of a start as well. But the squirrel is not there for the bird food, at least not immediately. He is there to slake his thirst, which he does by climbing entirely into the water bowl my wife has set out and diligently fills. Sensing my presence, he jumps out before I am able to snap a picture, but he soon leans back into the water bowl to drink his fill.

As I watch the squirrel on the porch, I notice the chipmunk moving below on the ground. No doubt he has designs on climbing up to the little basket that sits below the bird feeder to catch what the birds so messily drop. I have no idea how he manages to get up there, but I admire his determination. He for his part seems to have little fear of us, and when I come back from a walk to find him in the basket, instead of fleeing for his life, he simply engages me in a staring contest. Even the 90 pound Great Pyrenees that accompanies me on my walks holds little concern for the chipmunk.

A rabbit hops in my backyard, but I am too slow and he is too wary for me to take a good picture. I am amazed that a rabbit is willing to enter the boundaries of my property at all, seeing as it must contain within it evidence of a large though admittedly not so fierce dog. Surely it must know that no dog other than Snoopy is a friend to bunnies. But perhaps it is because he smells the scent of other animals here that he feels safe. Perhaps dog urine is less offensive to his senses than the sort of chemicals people use on their lawns in order to kill the clover that keeps the honey bees alive. Or perhaps it is the vegetables my wife grows which make the rabbits willing to risk being chased by a canine.

My wife does all the work of making our property more hospitable to plants and animals. She grows milkweed, cone flowers and black-eyed Susans for the butterflies and lemon balm and bee balm for the bees. I do my part by being too lazy to use chemicals or pesticides. I only participate in no-mow May because it gets me out of having to cut the grass. But my laziness has enabled the flowering weeds to grow, much to the delight of the bees.

Recently I managed to muster up the energy (or perhaps it was shame) to rake up a patch of Creeping Charlie, inconveniencing a bee intent on sucking nectar from its tiny blooms. I informed him that we would be planting clover on the space where I was now removing the weeds, but he merely buzzed his disapproval. I informed him that I had let some dandelions standing in the backyard for him, but he was rather unwilling to let go of the little purple flowers.

A week later, on a hot day, I was out watering the same area in hopes of summoning forth clover from the seeds we had scattered. A robin alighted nearby, and I couldn’t help getting the impression that she was hoping I would turn the hose on her. Using the mist option, I allowed the fine drops to fall upon her and she did not move away. In fact, I have to believe she appreciated and understood I was replying to a request she had made.

I have come to suspect that the little property that surrounds our houses have some purpose beyond impressing our human neighbors. That our responsibility is not to maintain human standards of aesthetics so much as make them little havens for the plants and creatures we evicted from the neighborhood when we decided to tear up trees in order to build homes and pave streets. Furthermore, I don’t think we do all the lawn work we do just to impress the neighbors but also because we feel we are being judged by them. As for me, I don’t care if the neighbors judge me on the quantity of dandelions in my yard. Ask any chipmunk, squirrel, or robin, and they’ll likely say “Ah, he’s kind of lazy, and he’s not much of a picture taker, but I guess he’s all right.”

Beneath The Surface (An Allegory)

 

There was once a large pier from which, in the before time, sail boats used to sail to all parts of the world. But now the giant metal behemoths rule the waves and the sail boats are seen there no longer.

Bereft of its former purpose, families now use it to launch their personal water craft, fish from, and picnic on. On a warm summer day, water craft roil the waters as children play upon the still sturdy beams of the dock.

But early in the morning, before the visitors and vacationers arrived, an old sailor could often be seen sitting at the end of the pier. He had no fishing pole nor water craft: he was content to look out upon and listen to the waves. For the sea was in his veins, and though he was no longer a sailor, he still heard the sea’s call. He visited her to watch the sun rise and stayed with her until the crowds began to arrive.

Often, he would simply gaze for long periods of time deep into her depths, communing with some spirit that only those intimate with the sea would know. For the same unknown longing called to him even now as it once called to him as a young man. Where once he traveled the world in hopes that he might find an answer to this longing, as an old man he became content to experience the mystery without the need for answers.

One day, as he stared into the depths that the waves were always trying to conceal and distort, he saw a motion deep within. It was but the briefest of glimpses but it set the hair on the back of his neck at end. It was one of those mysteries of the deep that sometimes rise from the dark and give hints of all that was submerged.

It was big. Of that there was no doubt. He had seen enough in his days to not be mistaken. A glimpse of white that would terrify him if he were in a boat. Would have terrified if he had been a younger man. Terrified him now.

He thought he knew what it was but stared transfixed at the water, looking for confirmation. Again he saw something — just a hint, but it turned the blood within his veins cold. He scanned the waters, his trained eyes fixed to look beneath the surface and the dancing waves that reflected the sky rather than reveal what was within.

And then he saw it again. This time, there was no doubt in his mind. It confirmed the fear that filled his body. A shark. A great shark, its body larger than a life raft, and just as white. He was safe where he crouched as he peered over the edge of the wooden dock, but still fear gripped him. There are some fears men do not outgrow, some fears that reason cannot tame. It swam about, and the old sailor believed he could feel an aura of malevolence around it. Superstition clings tight to those who have long looked into the depths of the sea.

He stared for a while, waiting for the beast to appear once more. He knew it was lurking, knew it was a hunter that sensed prey. He could almost feel its hunger. And while such a thing frightened him, it was this sort of peril which perhaps urged people such as himself to the sea in the first place. Life lived fully is spent in defiance of the jaws of predators.

He would not have noticed the arrival of others were it not for the fact that his every sense was strained in anticipation of spotting the thing again. They were at a distance yet, not on the pier, but they were readying their toys and their tackle, and would soon be headed his way. Another vehicle pulled up as he looked, and another turned around to back a trailer full of water craft into the water. The old sailor walked toward them, waving to them in warning of what he had seen.

The people were familiar with the old sailor who kept mainly to himself and to the water. They thought him odd but harmless. But as he approached them on this day, he looked — as they may have thought to themselves — off his meds. His behavior was wild and in his eyes was a look of danger. “Do not go in the water!” he cried. “There is a shark in it.”

“Show me,” cried a father, entrusting the children to their mother while he walked toward the end of the pier with the old man. The old man, hesitant to lead him too far out, nevertheless did as he was asked.

But when they got to the end of the pier, the father said, “Is that what you see? Why, it’s only a duck.”

And sure enough, there was a duck bobbing gently upon gentle waves, quite unconcerned with the people on the pier and quite unaware of the danger that lurked beneath.

“Not the duck!” said the old sailor, exasperated and angered. “I have lived my life on the sea, surely I know a shark from a duck. Look.” And he pointed down into the depths, because for a brief moment the shark again raised close enough to the surface to be seen by one who knew where to look and what to look for.

“I only see a duck,” said the father, the patronizing tone in his voice thinly veiled.

“You have to look deeper,” cried the old tar. “Anyone can see a duck!”

“And yet I only see a duck,” said the younger man self-assuredly as he slowly turned away from the older man. He waved his wife and children forward. One who has lived his life successfully without ever encountering a shark may grow foolishly confident that he knows best, and feel he need not worry about what has never bothered him before.

As the man walked towards his family, the old sailor observed that the man with the water craft had released them from the trailer into the water. He stood thigh deep in the water, still close enough to shore to be safe but assuredly headed toward danger. Still more people came, heading toward a day of carefree enjoyment. The old sailor went from one party to another, trying to find someone who might heed his warning. Some seemed concerned initially, but with a nod from the father he had first talked to, they seemed to take the warning less seriously. And so they went about their business, heedless of the old man who seemed increasingly emotional and irrational as he went from one person to another.

At last, he despaired of warning anyone at all. He thought of the duck who bobbed among the waves and thought that at the very least he might be able to save him. And so he grabbed a rock and walked back toward the edge of the pier. People had already fired up their water craft and were speeding off from shore towards deeper regions. As they accelerated, they created huge waves behind them which roiled waters, making it impossible for the old sailor — or anyone else — to see what lay within the depths.

The old man neared the edge of the pier and saw the duck bobbing quite comfortably. He changed his grip upon the rock, getting ready to throw it in the duck’s direction, hoping to scare it away from the danger that awaited it. But even as he loosed the rock a violent eruption happened beneath the duck, and in an instant huge white teeth closed over the duck as it was dragged forever more into the darkness of the water and the darkness of the shark’s belly.

The father who the old sailor had spoken to had seen him throw the rock and came forward to see what had happened. Looking out at the water and seeing the duck was gone, the younger man asked, “What did you do to the duck?”

“It was the shark!” the sailor cried.

“It wasn’t a shark,” said the father, disgust in his voice. “It was just a duck. A poor, innocent duck. And you killed it.”

“I didn’t,” cried the old man. But the younger man was done listening. He walked back to his family and the others who were with them, and soon he pulled out his cell phone and could be seen talking to someone. The people on the shore — the crowd continuing to grow — stared out at the old man, who tried to tell whoever might listen of the danger he had seen.

Soon, a squad car arrived. Two police officers walked out onto the pier, spoke briefly with the old sailor, placed handcuffs on his wrists and led him to their car, where they placed him in the back and drove away.

“Is the bad man gone, mommy?” a young boy asked

“Yes, son,” said his loving mom. “It’s safe to go in the water now.”