Dagger. The Bible has the story of a fellow who fashioned himself a dagger, fetched it hidden into the chambers of an unsuspecting portly man, and plunged it into the man’s belly so deep that it disappeared, unextractable. The King James remarks laconically that “the dirt came out.” Observationally spot on, no doubt; the dirt would be feces oozing from punctured intestine.
Cock fight. In Nathanael West’s Day of the Locust a character repeatedly puts a bloody rooster’s beak in his own mouth while tenderly stroking the bird, administering a kind of resuscitation therapy in order to motivate the creature to fight its losing battle to the bitter end.
Synthesis. The two narratives, leaking intestine and cock fight, intertwined in my head with the performative carnage staged at the White House on June 16th in which the old boy who “won” the melee screamed that a former first lady, accomplished wife of a living two-term ex-president, is a man.
Moral. Blood and soil: When you stab a country in the gut, the dirt comes out.
Note. The analogy of cage brawling to cock fights belongs to Senator John McCain, Solon-Warrior-Patriot. Rest in Honor, Sir.
(c) 2026 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved
EthicalDative 
Things seem to be heading in a terrible direction at the moment – the flailing of an aging emperor who is losing every battle (even the colour of a pool) but is pretending it’s all GREAT!
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Well captured, Sue. It’s remarkable how Trump’s fat-fingering of the reflecting pool, a storied national monument and historic icon, has become a metaphor for his corrupt incompetence. A sad fact is that it’s now fenced off from the public that owns it in order to protect Trump’s story. He reminds me of the hood ornament of a 1959 Cadillac, the one with the enormous fins. It’s kept shiny by the owners and “leads” the vehicle, but a coterie of thugs, his advisors, are the drivers.
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I like your Cadillac hood ornament metaphor – it hits the spot in every way. (And Cadillacs are outdated and out of place!) Ha ha!
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Thank you, Sue! You’re right, we’re a long way from the glory days of Cadillac.
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