The lusty month of May

Today is the first Tuesday in May, the day in Georgia in which Sheriff's sales are cried out from the courthouse steps. This is that dark day of the month when people lose their houses and the weak-hearted and victims of circumstance lose their dreams. It is also May Day, the day in which we celebrate the flowing of our natural juices. In Anglo-American tradition, we erect a large pole and allow the pure of body and heart to dance around the pole in celebration. How ironic! In former communist countries, they parade their big missiles and cannons and tanks. It may be the same thing, just a different take on the same celebration.

Saturday is the first Saturday in May, the day in which we celebrate the running of the roses, the Kentucky Derby in Louisville, a city named after a French King, a city very different from its sister cities in Kentucky. More Catholic. More Northern. More industrial. But on this day, country comes to town, and the young thoroughbreds raised in green pastures in the countryside race each other for a blanket of roses. Everyone dresses up in their Spring finest; ladies wear hats for perhaps the second time all year, and we all drink an antique libation which no one would drink under normal circumstances. It all harkens back to a time of aristocracy and gentility (that probably didn't exist except in nostalgic memory).

But Saturday is also Cinco de Mayo, the day in which Mexicans celebrate victory over the European aristocrats who ruled Mexico due to the barest of claims, a family connection. It is the victory of the governed over the governors. It is as if the infield at Churchill Downs had crossed over the dirt track and taken control of the family boxes, booting out the drunken aristocrats whose claims to those boxes were based simply on family connections.

So is this the week of effete snobs, staking their claims to places of power and privilege? Or is this the week of upstart rebels, enjoying their new place in the sun? Some would say both.

Is the true test of intellectual capacity the ability to hold on to two competing truths? Or is the true end of study the inability to act due to too much information? Are we freed by truth or frozen by it? Does this whole question sniff of Hamlet's solliquoy?

Some of this country's greatest leaders seem to have been people who saw matters in black and white and were incapable of distinguishing shades of grey. Ronald Reagan comes to mind. Whereas, Jimmy Carter is a perfect example of someone who seems to have been crippled by his inability to make a decision due to his ability to see all of the choices. I personally think that both examples are inadequate.

Perhaps the difference lies in the times and the issues we face in the times we find ourselves. President Carter came to power at a time when our country tried to steady itself in the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate. The times were polarized and polarizing. Everyone had an opinion, but no consensus could be found. President Carter came in and aimed at universal peace and prosperity. But the downturn in the economy and troubles in Iran brought him to heel. His inability to rise above economic troubles and extricate us from Iran overshadowed the peace he brokered in the Middle East.

President Reagan, on the other hand, came in fighting governmental controls, trying to loosen up and allow the people to prosper on their own. And prosperity and a sense of freedom was the immediate result. Of course, the ultimate end was the failure of savings and loans in California, Texas and elsewhere, the criminal prosecution of investment bankers and loan officers and the ultimate loss of the ability of middle class and poor people to secure a loan or to afford a piece of the American Dream.

Unfortunately and despite the common perception, President Clinton continued the economic free for all which led us to the present situation where foreclosures and bankruptcies are up all over the country. Then there was the end of any meaningful industrial presence in small towns and cities all over the country which resulted from NAFTA. Drive through little towns all over the South and see the empty textile buildings. What about Newt's theory? Where are the new technologies which were supposed to supplant the old industrial base? Now the banks won't make loans to middle and lower class people who don't have jobs because all of the textile manufacturing is being done in China and other places.

And isn't it fun to get phone calls from people in India and other countries where they can't pronounce your name and you can't understand what they are asking you?

I guess I should put on my straw boater and seersucker suit and drink a mint julep to the past. The future looks so rosey!