Tainted Landmarks

I was recently reminded of a part of Helsinki with a very colorful name. It's one very small part of South Harbor, where the big ferries from Sweden dock, a mostly enclosed "basin" not much bigger than an Olympic swimming pool, with only a narrow passage out. Next to the busy Kauppatori open-air market square, and the site of the yearly Baltic Herring Market, it is at the epicenter of Helsinki tourism, despite a very un-touristy name -- the Cholera Basin. 

For these 30-odd years I have vaguely known the place's name without really knowing the genesis of that name. Wikipedia to the rescue! As the story goes, a ship master from Nauvo in the Turku archipelago died from cholera while in Helsinki for the Baltic Herring Market of 1893. Rather unadvisedly, his bodily fluids (use your imagination) were dumped overboard into the basin. Obviously, this was quickly recognized as not a good thing to do. As a precaution, all the herring boats were towed out of the harbor and guards were posted on the quayside to prevent anyone from helping themselves to the basin's disease-ridden water. 

As far as I'm aware, it worked and no one contracted cholera from the cholera basin. At least, I hope so. Yet the basin was forever tainted with the name, which might say something about the dark humor of the Finnish people and their willingness to embrace an unpleasant episode from the past. Or, at least not gloss over it. 

It's impossible to think about the Cholera Basin incident now without being reminded of current events, the spread of the new coronavirus (seven confirmed case in Finland at the moment) and the actions different nations are taking to control it. From police on the quayside to self-quarantines and entire cities locked down in China, people's lives will always be disrupted now and then by tiny life forms (or in the case of viruses, barely life forms), even if only mercifully few people suffer from the horrible illness those pathogens cause. 

Let's hope the final impact of the COVID-19 disease on life in Finland -- and the world --  is minimal and not long-lasting. Somehow I don't see anyone commemorating it by naming some place in Helsinki "COVID-19 Square" or "Coronavirus Corner". But there is this bar...

The Cholera Basin in a serene mood.
Photo by Matti Paavonen

The Art of Retail Gaslighting

Trump boasts that this year’s 3.4% increase in holiday retail sales is the highest in US history, somehow ignoring the fact that only last year those sales increased 5.1%. You would think a very stable genius would understand that 5.1 is a bigger number than 3.4. You would think a president would have advisors who could explain this to him. Apparently not.

The 3.4% number comes from a report on holiday shopping published by Mastercard, which also revealed that online sales make up a record high share (almost 15%) of overall sales.  Trump likely latched onto the word “record” in media reports, like the one from Reuters whose headline read “Record online sales give U.S. holiday shopping season a boost.” Maybe Trump fixated on the word “record” and completely missed “online”. You can’t expect him to read every word, after all.  (A very plausible alternative theory is that Trump knows exactly what he's doing and willfully ignored the finer points of the report to suit his purposes.) 

So, perhaps without knowing it, Trump touts a record holiday season for e-commerce -- which, let's face it, ain’t nothing, and is obviously the undisputed and unstoppable trend in the retail business. Good for the likes of Amazon (which pays no sales tax, and incidentally is run by Jeff Bezos, whom Trump hates). Good for those communities where e-commerce firms operate (for example, just seven locations in Georgia, in the case of Amazon).  

Meanwhile, sales in brick-and-mortar stores, located in every community in America, didn’t look nearly as rosy, rising only 1.2%. But Trump doesn’t brag about that. Actually, it’s nothing to brag about.

Vindication Denied?

I suspect that many Trump followers are not well served by their preferred media, which have led them to believe wholeheartedly in various scandals that haven't panned out, even after much investigation, like Benghazi, while not believing in other scandals that are real and unfolding before our eyes. 

A steady diet of Fox News leaves these MAGA folks ill-prepared when the "scandal" of the moment turns out to be a nothingburger. Of course, they will never admit to this.

One of the scandals that may not pan out in the way the Trump cult hopes is the origins (or "oranges", as POTUS might say) of the FBI investigation into Russian election interference in 2016.  

For months, Sean Hannity has been touting that the FBI  Inspector General's internal investigation into the matter will deliver earthshaking revelations into the Bureau's corrupt role in the Russian "hoax", breathlessly promising proof that the investigation was illegitimate from the beginning. Sweet, sweet vindication of a sweet, benevolent prince.  As if anyone not on the Fox payroll could imagine Trump that way. 

The IG's report comes out tomorrow, and already there are signs that Hannity's flock will be disappointed in the report's main findings. I'm crossing my fingers that their expectations will be dashed. Sean has even been hinting at such in his recent radio broadcasts. Guess we'll see. 

Anyway, the lucky thing about having a conspiracy-minded mentality is you always have a ready excuse when things don't turn out like you expected -- namely that the oh-so-deep-state is at it again. If your main source of news is the likes of Sean Hannity, you can hardly think any other way. 

This is a Cult

Okay, the level of crazy during the Trump presidency has always been high, but boy in the last week or so, it’s been upped a couple of notches. Some of the highlights:

Lindsey Graham claimed that the witches of Salem were treated better than Donald Trump has been during the impeachment investigation. He’s talking about women accused, imprisoned and sometimes hung because some of their neighbors acted hysterically. Until I see Donald Trump on a scaffold with a noose around his neck (which for the record I do NOT for a moment wish to see happen), I’m going to say it’s Lindsay Graham who’s acting hysterically. And ahistorical. Graham belongs to a cult.

Tucker Carlson admitted that Trump did indeed lie about how many people attended his inauguration. The president lied to the American people on Day One. But, Carlson basically says, this is okay because Trump is a “salesman” and, as we all know, salesmen lie all the time. My take-away from this is that we should never trust anything Trump says. Of course, this has been my conclusion for years already, but now Carlson has given his Fox News audience permission not to believe anything Trump says. In fact, they would be foolish to do so. Carlson belongs to a cult. Or else Carlson is just cynically playing to his most devoted fans, who do belong to a cult.

A recent poll shows that 53% of Republicans think that Trump is a better president than Abraham Lincoln, the man who led America through a civil war. This is mind blowing. This is mass delusion. Next, they’ll want to put Trump on Mount Rushmore. These people belong to a cult.

Donald Trump retweeted a picture of his head photoshopped onto the muscular body of a boxer (Sylvester Stallone from the movie “Rocky”). Juvenile and not exactly presidential, if you ask me. What’s worse, when the Washington Post -- stating the obvious -- mentions that the photo was “doctored”, the Trump reelection campaign hits back, accusing the Post of having no “evidence” the photo was doctored. As if, without some proof to the contrary, we are expected to believe the body of a 73-year-old obese man looks just like that of a 30-year-old champion boxer. This is a cult.

Tony Channels Donald Trump

Listening to Donald Trump's "on the nose" denials of a quid pro quo in his phone call with Gordon Sondland the other day, I couldn't help imagining a similar kind of exchange...

A phone rings. Tony Soprano picks up.

“Hey Tony, it’s Paulie. Listen, you were talking about Lefty Caputo the other day.”

“You mean my long-time friend Johnny Caputo, who, out of a no doubt sincere, but badly misguided sense of civic duty decided to tell the FBI some very exaggerated stories about our past dealings, completely out of context I might add. And thereby misled the dedicated public servants at the Bureau into wasting tax payer money on unfounded, not to mention unfair, investigations of my business and personal life.”

“Yeah, that guy. What do you want to do with him?”

Tony sighs heavily. “Nothing. I don’t want to have nothing to do with him. In light of his unexpected recent actions, causing me considerable unnecessary legal expense and harm to my reputation, I feel our friendship has ended. I have decided to put him completely out of my mind.”

“So he’s dead to you?”

“I didn’t say that. I did not say that. No. Look, what I’m saying is...though I wish we could have parted on, ah, better terms and I am saddened by this, ah, turn of events, I wish nothing but the best for Lefty and hope he will have a long and prosperous life.”

“Okay, I understand. Like you always say, a peaceful life is the least anyone deserves.”

“That’s right, Paulie. And, as you know, it is a sick indictment of the society we live in that not everyone enjoys that luxury. Even the most innocent citizens are sometimes the victims of senseless, horrific violence. For no reason. A real shame. Needless to say, despite our differences, I would never wish anything of the kind for Lefty. Or his family. Not even his dog.”

“Got it. Yes, and I agree. I too hope the best for Lefty in his future endeavors, and I wish him a prosperous and long life. A long life.”

“Yes. And peaceful. Very peaceful. Okay, Paulie, I gotta go. See you on Sunday...in church.”

“Church? Oh, yeah, yeah, church. Got it. Bye, Tony.”