. . . and Maggie and Roz

the story begins here

 Axel and me, and Maggie and Roz 

At this point [here, bottom of the page], while I was trying to find Axel and me on my map, in come Roz and a woman she works with at the college . . . Maggie Something; and she (Maggie) points and waves, and they walk over to our table; and Maggie asks if they can join us.

     And they do.

     “I like the looks of that,” she says (Maggie), pointing at my egg-salad sandwich and Pepsi.

     Roz makes introductions, “This is Axel Sundstrøm, you remember Ted,” and orders a salad and water.

“What are you guys talking about?” Maggie asks.

     “Axel’s brother,” I say without thinking.

     “Nils, right?” Maggie says. Axel nods and starts to say something. “I read his letter in yesterday’s paper,” Maggie goes right on. “That’s what came to mind when I heard ‘Sundstrøm’ - not a common name around here for sure.

     “He’s written a few, hasn’t he, in the last couple of months, letters? - not a friend of our president,” she says.

     “No,” Axel manages to get in.

     “No!” Maggie says: “‘a sociopath’s regard for the truth wrapped up in a psychopath’s relationship with reality,’ he said yesterday, I think.”

That, it turns out, is what Axel wanted to talk to me about, Nils’ letters.

     “I can’t very well ask him not to write,” he tells Roz and Maggie. “On the other hand, his council president isn’t calling him at 6:30 in the morning growling what is his brother thinking about?

     “And my council president has a point. He says, ‘You don’t have to like the president, but all your brother does is call him names, and what good does that do?’ And he's right, as far as it goes. Nils isn't saying: ‘This is what he’s doing, the president, and this is why it’s a bad idea.’ It’s: ‘This whatever-he’s-doing can’t be a good idea because he’s a “fucking moron.”’” He actually said that - Axel; that’s why I am writing it out. I don't think he meant to say it. Then, he put air quotes around it, but he'd already said it. Then, he says,

     “He is probably. A moron, at least a moral moron. The president. But that doesn’t make name calling a sufficient argument. I mean, does it Ted? This is your area of expertise, logical fallacy.” I couldn’t tell if he meant that in practice or in theory - if it was something I knew something about or something I was always doing; but I said, “No. Argumentum ad hominem. Calling somebody an idiot doesn’t mean they’re wrong. It can’t make them wrong any more than calling them a . . .” - I started to say the eff-with-ing word myself, but I couldn't -
“. . . calling them a genius can make them right.”

     “So, what do I tell my council president?” Axel looks around the table.

“Tell him you’re not your brother’s keeper,” Maggie says.

     Roz looks at Axel, who is raising his hands to his head; and she says, reaching over and taking the hand closest to her, “Of course, you can’t say that. We know that.

Trump’s policies on the Middle East, trade, and tax cuts by m ball.

       “Say you’re not your brother’s censor. But also say - I think this is right, see if you don't agree. Say something about how hard it is to argue with someone’s ideas if they don’t have any ideas, or at least none that are clear enough to argue with, or if the quote-ideas are always changing so you don’t know that they will be the same tonight they were this afternoon - and they’re liable to lie tonight about what they said this morning. Ask what someone does when it’s clear something is wrong but they can’t point it out because it isn't there or it's always moving - they have to point at something, don’t they? That’s why people attack the president, or his character: it may be erratic, but it’s consistent in the way his policies are not.

     “Does that make sense?” Roz says.

04.15.18