WE ARE NOT BETTER THAN DOGS BARKING AT EACH OTHER

We are not better than dogs barking at one another. Back in the sixties, when I was angry, returned to college after Vietnam and neck deep in the anti-war movement, I was in the Tucson Airport flying somewhere. There was a woman loaded with jewels, rings on her fingers, necklaces, bracelets--real jewels. Nowadays she might need an armed escort. She turned around and saw me and looked suddenly afraid. I must have been staring at her with such rage it scared her. She was a pure capitalist icon. She probably loved the war.

A couple of years ago I was at the Clark Museum and I looked up to see a middle-aged woman staring at me with absolute loathing. I was shocked. I thought about it a lot that day. I was a little scruffy looking--untrimmed beard, needed a haircut, was wearing jeans and had a big camera hanging around my neck. I saw more of these reactions during the Trump years, and even now. We're squared off against each other. Judgment is immediate, projections are flying. We growl, sniff, bark.