I've Got a Little List

Amartuvshin Enkhbat. Peixen Chen. Adela Zaharia. J’Nai Bridges. Yongzhao Yu. Eun Sun Kim. 

 

Omar Sosa. Meshel Ndegeocello. Alfredo Rodriguez. Paquito D’Rivera. Carminho. Hiromi. Yilian Cañizares. Aki Kumar. 

 

Kristaps Porzingis. Thanasis Antetokounmpo. Furkan Korkmaz. Nikola Jokic. Luka Doncic. Victor Wembanyama. Joel Embiid.

 

Looking over these names, you might imagine that these are on ICE’s list to swoop in and deport from our country, to get out the riff-raff that are polluting our noble lineage of White Anglo-Saxon Protestants so America can be great again. 

 

But the first list are the singers from yesterday’s Opera in the Park. The second from the line-up at SF Jazz Center’s concerts scheduled this year. The third some of the NBA’s star basketball players. Just some of the many people who are refreshing American arts and sports and lifting us up with their artistry and talent. There are similar lists of writers, scientists, doctors, teachers, restaurant owners and workers, corner store owners, Silicon Valley workers— in fact, in every corner of every American profession doing their part—and often more— to contribute to the quality of life in the United States. 

 

And yet. The current shameless regime has a little list and if they can’t spell your name as easily as John Smith, you might be on it. Where all the people above and thousands/ millions more are keeping the waters of culture flowing, ICE is freezing them in their tracks, holding them in their little ice trays and putting them away at the back of the freezer. And we’re funding it all with our tax dollars. Well, not the billionaires, who are excused from paying taxes.

 

In the Gilbert and Sullivan play The Mikado, the Lord High Executioner has a little list of expendable people who will not be missed. The satirical song begins: 

 

As some day it may happen that a victim must be found
I've got a little list — I've got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground
And who never would be missed — who never would be missed!
There's the pestilential nuisances who write for autographs —
All people who have flabby hands and irritating laughs —

All children who are up in date and floor you with ‘em flat—
All persons who in shaking hands, shake hands with you like that —
And all third persons who on spoiling tête-á-têtes insist —
They'd none of 'em be missed — they'd none of 'em be missed!

[Chorus]
He's got 'em on the list — he's got 'em on the list;
And they'll none of 'em be missed — they'll none of 'em be missed.

But the people listed at the beginning of this post and again, thousands/millions more, would most certainly be missed. 

But I've got my own little list of more easily spellable names. And I’m quite certain that NONE of them would be missed. Trump, Vance, Kennedy, Musk, Bezos, Greene, Graham, Johnson and hundreds more. That’s the real list. 

 

Sigh. So happy to go to Opera in the Park yesterday, so discouraged to be back in the land of intolerance and ignorance. To console myself, I’ll listen to Amartuvshin Enkhbat sing, Meshel Ndegeocello play and watch Thanasis Antetokounmpo play basketball.