Tears for the Polar Sea - DTJ

Cimarron Cemetery
January 2017 
Just finished watching the documentary The Polar Sea. I have been watching a lot of documentaries lately. When I am not watching the news. The news, my sister informs me, just makes me depressed. And I find that my love for who done its has waned unless they are British or Canadian. I am just so tired of the killing in US films. No, it is not the killing. I think I have become immune to that. Tharned out to the body counts whether it is real or make believe. 

 It is the meanness of spirit which seems to pervade fiction. And sadly reality.  It is not just the people who do not care but those who must blame others; make it someone else's fault. Abuse others for what they have done themselves. It is a waste of time to play chicken vs. egg. I find it creeping into me. And so I avoid the question by watching documentaries. 

 This morning I finished the series The Polar Sea which is available on Netflix streaming. The photography is awesome. But I cried through lots of it because the Northwest passage is something only possible without an ice breaker because all the ice is melting. The plight of the Inuit peoples and the animals of the Arctic touches my heart. It is for them I cry. Maybe watching the news is better. The news where our current president has denied climate change and left the Paris Accord?

 I have written in the past about compassion fatigue but this is more. It is the Watership Down rabbit frozen in the middle of the road tharned out by the huge mechanical machine racing to mow it down. I no longer yell at the TV screen, "Move, damn it, move." We are all that rabbit. Or the woman in the dark house walking down the stairs in high heel mules toward the noise that went bump in the night. 

 "Don't do that." 

 "At least take off those heels and run, stupid."

 And you know in the audience somewhere men are laughing because they just decided being raped is a pre-existing condition and they get a bigger tax break.

 Once, I seem to remember, when politicians did something awful they apologized for it. "What can we do?"

 Now they go to the Rose garden and through a beer party. And the other house decides to seal our fate in secret. Even those who vote to pass it won't know what is in it until the idiot in the Oval Office signs it with a Scripto with a signature which defies translation. I long for the days of John Hancock. I used to try to sign my name like he did the Declaration of Independence. Just in case I needed it after Nixon left the White House because of Watergate.

 And even that memory of youthful aspirations brings tears to my eyes. 

 I was kicking off those damn heels with the feathers and making a run for it. A run to save our planet and our democracy. But I woke up this morning and knew that was all a dream. So I watched the last episode of The Polar Seas and cried for the Inuit.

I know the mean spirited are laughing in the Senate Chamber meeting room.

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