President Trump’s ‘Wishing Well’

Athena of Portland by photographer Dave Killen.

By Colleen O’Connor

What a day yesterday. Earthquakes everywhere.

No, not the 7.8 quake in Alaska. That is in the range of “normal.”

Not the confrontation between Florida Rep., Ted Yoho and New York Rep., Alexandra Ocasio Cortez. There, on the Capitol steps, the GOP congressman called AOC “disgusting,” “out of her freaking mind,” and a “f***ing b**tch.”

That, too, seems to be the new “normal.”

Yoho, in typical Trumpian fashion denied it happened, fudged some empty words, “apologized” on the House floor, where he accepted no responsibility, and instead defended his “passion,” and lassoed his wife and daughters into the mix.

All of which prompted AOC to righteously refuse to accept the non-apology apology.

Trump’s promise to send more masked, unidentified, camouflaged troops into cities beyond Portland, into Oakland and Chicago doesn’t rank as an earthquake.

None of the above even measured on the Richter scale of tsunami-force tremors.

That came with a White House coronavirus press briefing, that went off the charts with these words, “I wish her well.”

That sentiment did not apply to AOC, or to Angela Merkel (who, in a marathon summit, just saved the EU from disintegration) or to RBG just released from the hospital, or to the “Wall of Moms” locked arm in arm, protecting protestors in Portland.

And especially not to the lone naked woman (save hat and mask) who faced the unidentified troops, who shot rubber balls at her while she sat and then began a few ballet moves.

Nicknamed “Athena, the goddess of war,” this woman’s photograph has now joined the ranks of iconic images.  From the flower in the rifle (D.C. anti-war, 1967); the tank man (Tiananmen Square, 1989); and the two doctors with scrubs, arms akimbo, in the middle of street, who protected their hospital from a caravan of anti-shut down protestors (Colorado, 2020).

None of these were remembered or even wished “well” by the President of the United States.

Indeed, yesterday’s biggest earthquake occurred during a revival of the White House press briefing by Coronavirus Task Force— with only Trump at the podium.

When a reporter asked about the arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell, friend and alleged recruiter for notorious sex trafficker, pedophile, and accused rapist, Jeffrey Epstein, Trump went off script.

These are the words the President of the United States uttered when asked about the woman, now sitting in jail, charged with helping Epstein recruit young girls for sexual liaisons with older men. Trump, a friend of the pair in New York, feigned nonchalance and ignorance.

“I haven’t really been following it too much. I just wish her well, frankly. I’ve met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach, and I guess they lived in Palm Beach, but I wish her well whatever it is.”

Reads like a conditional pardon, commutation and/or hint thereof. “I just wish her well.”

This to a woman who bragged that she had so much damning info on powerful men that she would never be taken down.

The other real earthquake is visible and felt every day in San Diego.

Yesterday, a heavy-set homeless woman sat amid a pile of her own trash, under the overpass abutting Pacific Coast Highway.  Her back is propped up against a graffitied wall mural of U.S. troops in uniform.

A man walks past.  Both sputtered a word or two.  He walks quickly away.

She proceeds, with difficulty, to turn over on her side and pull down her pants to her knees to relieve herself. The discharges collect in her pants, pass through her clothes, and some trickles onto the heavily trafficked sidewalk. She reaches amid a filthy pile of trash for a wipe.

How has this happened?  The woman was directly across the street from the County Mental Health building — obviously, in serious need.

Somehow, this, too, has become “normal.” Homeless San Diego women and men, relieving themselves in bushes, on walls in other neighborhoods, on the streets downtown (which necessitated power washing all those Hep-A infected sidewalks in time for that year’s Comic Con convention).  Drunk, drugged, or just desperate and destitute.

Perhaps Trump might “wish them well,” too.  Earthquakes do happen.

who is naked athena?