The Daily Escape:
Dubrovnik, Croatia
Things that are seen cannot be unseen, and so it is with OJ Simpson. Wrongo and Ms. Right watched the white Bronco chase across Southern California in June 1994 when we lived in Boston. Wrongo watched the verdict live in October 1995 in Northern Virginia. At that time, Wrongo’s outsourcing career included having DirecTV as a client, so our tech support call center had a TV monitor in each row of seats, all tuned to the OJ verdict. The demographics of the call center skewed very heavily black and Hispanic, while the supervisory team was predominantly white. The emotional disconnect at the “not guilty” verdict was palpable, with the call center staff cheering, while the supervisors were silently stunned.
OJ remains a lightning rod in our society and in our media. Guilty of armed robbery, but not guilty of murder. His parole this week caused many Americans to again debate OJ’s guilt in the Nicole Simpson murder.
No one knows how OJ will conduct himself over the remaining years he has left.
John McCain is also someone who cannot ever be unseen. From war hero and POW to Senator, presidential candidate and his enduring role as the maverick we love to hate, McCain is never far from a TV camera. And we are never far from an eye roll or two about the things he says about domestic and foreign affairs. He is after all, the guy who made Sarah Palin a household name, and that will forever be a stain on his credibility.
His diagnosis of an aggressive form of brain cancer has made even his enemies stop to offer good wishes for his immediate future. When McCain leaves Congress, we will cross a generational bridge: Politicians who thought about the country ahead of their state or district, are leaving the stage, replaced by ideologues who have no interest in country, or their state, first.
We will be the worst for the passing of that generation.
It is Saturday and we need something soothing to get us through the end of another week of Trump theatrics.
Let’s listen to music from Henry Eccles, an English composer who died in 1742. He did not feel appreciated in England, and moved to France, where he became one of Louis XIV’s musicians. In France, he published 12 sonatas of which the Sonata in G Minor is his most famous. Here is the Sonata in G Minor for Violoncello and Continuo played by Simca Heled,on violoncello, and Edward Brewer on harpsichord. Wrongo and Ms. Right heard this on Friday night with the wonderful Samuel Magill on Violoncello at the Washington CT Meeting House’s Summer Baroque Concert:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI5NYRz7EQw
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
