Of Sound in Mounds and Walking Evil

I've been doing this over a decade now so I should maybe explain the Mound of Sound business and my tenuous connection with evil.

In a previous life I indulged in journalism of sorts. I began in private radio in the early 70s.  Ottawa, for Canada that was "big time." I wasn't a bad reporter but it also helped to be able to cultivate a "Gordon Goodvoice" delivery. Yeah, I pulled that off really well.

That voice training and my dulcet natural pipes stood me in good stead when I later forayed into litigation. That's where "mound" came from. There wasn't a corner of the courtroom where anybody still conscious couldn't hear me. And sometimes that can make quite a difference.  If I could deliver 100% of my argument in readily absorbable "press" prose to a decision maker and the other fellow got less of his argument across in a form that was difficult to digest, my client had a clear advantage. (Court reporters used to love it because it was, to them, almost effortless to transcribe)

But that wasn't the name that stuck. That was "Leo." It took me almost a year to catch on. Often, while I was working my way to my office, I would hear the law students chortle and mutter "Leo." Never figured that had anything to do with me. Later I was to learn it had everything to do with me. Like prairie dogs chirping at spotting a falcon overhead, the students warned each other of my presence by chirping "Leo."

Leo, it turns out, was an acronym for L-arge E-vil O-ne. I could never quite fault them for that. At 6'2" plus I did tend to intimidate, especially with that studio-honed baritone. One of those kids told me it had become like one of those stories only told at campfires. I think there was some affection there but, shit, I couldn't swear to it.

I was lucky to come from two amazingly staunch families that were as steeped in values as they were Canadian politics. We have a long, rich and faithful military tradition although I cannot claim we didn't sit out the Boer War. I take that back, we probably did give that a pass.

I'm not explaining all this to somehow bond with you. It's not to brag. I have this phobic thing about praise so the last thing I want is adulation. It's just that my crew did invest in this country - too much to let it be subsumed by terminal stage neoliberalism.

It's just that I'm having a really tough time with everything that's underway now. Trump is sucking all the oxygen out of the room. I'm as guilty as anyone. Yes, Trump is a threat, possibly an existential threat but pure science shows that he's the least of these threats.

Trump can be neutralized. He can be removed for fitness (25th amendment) or for "high crimes and misdemeanors" (on which he's astonishingly culpable).

Or Trump can be "normalized." America could become the Land of Trump. America and the world could succumb to something insanely horrible. Unless we stop it. It's a struggle that we either win or accept something really lousy for our future.

I found this tonight and it made me feel just a bit better.