“Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends!
We’re so glad you could attend- Come inside, come inside!”
Emerson, Lake, and Palmer
“Karn Evil 9”
On display in The Farmer’s Museum in Cooperstown New York is an oddity that before the most recent Presidential election was considered to be the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American public. The “Cardiff Giant” is a ten foot tall stone figure supposedly discovered buried on a farm in upstate New York. Its twisted history gives us some insights into the gullibility of the public at large, and the ease with which people lie to acquire that which they most desire.
George Hull, an atheist, had an argument with a Methodist minister over whether the Bible should be taken literally, in particular the portion of the Old Testament that speaks of the existence of giants. The argument spawned the seeds of a scheme in Hull’s mind of carving a giant out of soft limestone, anatomically correct, and passing it off as a petrified man. This he did, and buried it on the farm of his accomplice, Stub Newell, in Cardiff. Months later, while Stub and his men were digging a well, the planted giant was “discovered”.
Thousands of people came to see the colossus, paying fifty cents a head to do so. Arguments arose as to whether it was actually a petrified Biblical giant or an ancient statue, possibly carved by a Jesuit missionary to impress the local indians. Having invested just a few thousand dollars in the venture, which was soon recouped with admission fees, Hull was more than willing to sell the statue to a group of businessmen headed by banker David Hannum, who moved it to Syracuse. There it came under closer scrutiny and was declared by a Yale paleontologist to be a fake, and a poor one at that. Hull confessed to his hoax… but kept the money. Interestingly people kept coming to see the Giant; they didn’t seem to care that it was fake, and even began referring to it affectionately as ‘Old Hoaxey’!
Showman P.T. Barnum offered $60,000 for a three month lease of the statue, and, when his offer was refused, commissioned an exact replica of the Giant, displaying it in his museum in New York City. Soon the replica was drawing larger crowds than the original, and this prompted a lawsuit. The judge refused to hear a case unless the original could be proven to be authentic, which it was not; a fake of a fake is apparently not actionable. Barnum insisted that his fake was the real one, and many newspapers supported him. Barnum’s counterfeit continued to draw crowds and dollars. This led the owner of the original fake, David Hannum, to angrily remark, “There’s a sucker born every minute”, a quote wrongly attributed to P.T. Barnum himself.
People have always been willing to suspend disbelief for the sake of entertainment; never more so, though, than the present. Actors portray caricatures on “reality” shows; staged wrestling melodramas are more popular than many genuine sporting events; fake news garners more interest than actual news broadcasts, and the internet is replete with outlandish stories of dubious content that the public all too willingly swallows simply because it fits the template of what they wish to believe. Increasingly, there are broad sections of the population whose naivete and simplemindedness eliminate the need for the suspension of disbelief. Unfortunately, these people now vote.
We have sitting in the Oval Office for four more years our own version of the Cardiff Giant. Sadly, many have been duped, as they stood in line for hours to pay the price of admission, their vote. Even sadder were the ones who understood the hoax, yet for their own partisanship or questionable motives “suspended disbelief”, and ignored the evidence set before them, choosing the lie because it was more palatable than the truth; loving the fake because it is their own.
In the days following the election it seemed that we were all cast in some epic Greek tragedy, but how quickly the clouds are clearing; morning light reveals an unexpected response… laughter. The soap opera of the ever unfolding Petraeus scandal; the Benghazi fiasco finally coming to light; the suggestion of Susan Rice for Secretary of State, and John Kerry for Secretary of Defense; the long overdue press conference by the President who behaved himself more like a blustering WWE celebrity, complete with the blushing groupie pretending to be a journalist; the obviously disingenuous pretense of compromise in the face of the impending fiscal cliff… Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Holder, Rice, Wasserman-Schultz… these who are running this circus are not giants, but clowns; tragic frightening clowns, but clowns all the same. Like watching a live version of the Keystone Cops, the next four years promises to provide an ample amount of entertainment due to the utter incompetence of the players. Their ineptitude should fortunately mitigate their ability to completely promote their agenda, and four years pass quickly. These are indeed “the times that try men’s souls”, yet we ought not view them as a hopeless tragedy, but a dark comedy… send in the clowns.
IMHO: Despair is a short lived emotion, you either conquer it, or it conquers you. Anger is possibly a more useful one, but not when expressed through rage or bitterness. Hope and faith are required if we are to see beyond the darkness; confidence is the evidence of our faith, and laughter the evidence of our confidence. If we don’t laugh we will cry, and if we only cry we will fail. In the darkest of times, joy survives; particularly for those whose life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness are not contingent on the whims of temporal government. We hold these truths to be self-evident. We can no longer control the outcome of the election, or even many of the consequences of that election, but we can control our response to the events by demonstrating the belief that our destiny is greater than our circumstances. Erase the despair, control the anger, temper your tears with laughter. Humor is far more effective than shrill invective. The years ahead and the cast of characters promise rich entertainment in the theater of the absurd. Sit down, put your feet up… enjoy the show!
