Musitorial n mashup of music, musings and editorials; music and song that evokes thought and commentary.
Musitorial, February 5, 2025
Today’s inspired song is “Waiting for the Miracle,” by Leonard Cohen (1934-2016). The below lyric excerpt came to mind while musing over the news this past weekend. The excerpt may say it all for you – the song, indeed the whole album (The Future) is a masterpiece. Cohen is a master, of course, and I’d expect nothing less. A tad depressing at times, but a master of thought and emotion.
There could be any number of things that sparked my ephemeral playback, and surely the same goes for many, many folks who are watching in amazement (not amusement) as political mandarins attempt to dismantle Western ideals of egalitarianism in our capitalist world. We watch and wait.
Of particular interest to me these days are the activities of the United States Department of Government Efficiency (acronym: DOGE). It’s sometimes fascinating ironic acronyms can be. DOGE, for instance.
According to dictionary.com, ‘doge’ is/was the chief magistrate in the former republics of Venice and Genoa. ‘Doge’ is also, apparently, “an internet fad or meme typified by an image of a dog of the Shiba Inu breed[1] accompanied by very short phrases that humorously represent the dog's imagined thoughts and use the wrong modifiers or shortened word forms....”[2]
My only connection with Genoa is via The Merchant of Venice, “a play by William Shakespeare that tells the story of a merchant called Antonio and a moneylender called Shylock. Antonio takes out a loan from Shylock on the condition that, if he cannot pay him back, he has to give him a pound of his flesh.”[3]
History has known many “Shylocks,” but few with so blatant an agenda as is evident in the world today. While I am not just referring to the unfolding situation in the U.S., for that cast of characters has provided me with yet another excuse for a brief musitorial, the point of which is the choice of the acronym DOGE for Trump-Musk’s oligarchs.[4]
In a previous musitorial, I made a point of pointing out the irony of Mr. Musk’s choice of “X” as the name and symbol for the reshaped uncensored social media platform formerly known as Twitter. I noted in that musitorial how often ‘X’ is used to denote ‘close,’ as in: close a computer program. So, to click on ‘X’ is to close it, to make it nothing. Wishful thinking on my part, I guess. Waiting for the Miracle.
I think the propensity to use DOGE is along the same lines: The Doge of Venice can be likened to the Trump-era oligarchs who will demand their pound of flesh (well, OUR pounds of flesh).
In the meantime, we wait.
Here’s an excerpt from “Waiting for the Miracle.”
Nothing
left to do
When you know that you've been taken
Nothing left to do
When you're begging for a crumb
Nothing left to do
When you've got to go on waiting
Waiting for the miracle to come
=30=
Link here to the lyrics of “Waiting for the Miracle,” and scroll down for a YouTube recording: https://tinyurl.com/yekdfabr
Link here to the Wikipedia entry for Leonard Cohen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_(Leonard_Cohen_album)
[1] Link to info about the Shiba Inu breed: https://tinyurl.com/29havrtm
[2] For a definition of Doge: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/doge
[3] For The Mercahnt of Venice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merchant_of_Venice
[4] oligarchy, “a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few.” (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/oligarchy)
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