WORK SONGS: Achilles was singing his favorite songs!

FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 2025

So was Campos-Duffy: On page A1 of today's print editions, Elisabeth Bumiller gets it right in the New York Times.

Bumiller is reporting President Trump's demented behavior at yesterday morning's press event. His madness has never been more apparent. Her news report starts as shown:

What Caused the Crash Into the Potomac? For Trump, It Was Diversity.

On the morning after a devastating midair collision of an American Airlines plane and an Army helicopter that sent 67 people, not one of whom survived, into the icy waters of the Potomac River, President Trump stood behind the White House lectern and for a brief moment did what presidents do.

He called it “a tragedy of terrible proportions.” He said “we grieve for every precious soul that has been taken from us so suddenly.” He took solace along with the nation, he said, that the journey of the 67 souls ended “in the warm embrace of a loving God.”

But then, as Navy divers continued their search for bodies in the Potomac, the president transitioned into some of the most extraordinary public statements he has ever made...

Was "transitioned" a puckish choice of words? 

We can't tell you that. But as she continued, Bumiller did a surprisingly good job reporting the madness of this Lear-adjacent king. And make no mistake:

As of this morning, the madness is general over the culture—and the madness is undisguised. It was there yesterday as the president droned insipidly on and on, but also as Kash Patel staged his astonishing, dimwitted performance before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In fairness, the madness is general, around the clock, on the corporate messaging entity known as the Fox News Channel. As we've been noting this week, it was present last Sunday morning as Rachel Campos-Duffy sicced the hounds of hell on "Fauci," who she said is responsible for "millions of deaths."

"Fauci" has had his protection pulled by the commander. Campos-Duffy was playing with a ring of fire as she littered the countryside with an array of extremely stupid remarks, all of them in support of her attacks on the man who "deliberately" took all those lives. 

Blue America's journalistic and academic elites have never come to terms with the existence of this moral / intellectual / journalistic madness. They've never found the way to describe this moral / intellectual / journalistic disorder—this cultural madness—as it actually is.

That said, the madness is active around the clock—and this is the nighttime assault on our own sacred Troy, the nighttime assault Professor Knox described in 1990.

Professor Knox described the scene on the evening when "sacred Troy" finally fell. Our American society, vastly imperfect as it has been, is currently being sacked in a broadly similar manner.

The sheer stupidity is everywhere within this angry assault. Angry flyweights are storming the gates. So it was when the Achaeans finally broke through sacred Troy's towering walls. 

That brings us to one of our favorite scenes in literature.

Full disclosure—at this site, we aren't "well read!" But for today, let's recall the time when Achilles was singing his favorite songs, as the various employees do on the Fox News Channel.

At a time of cultural destruction, a person might seek the consolations of literature. Below, you see the favorite passage to which we refer. We'll set the scene in this manner:

After ten years of war, mighty Achilles, the fast runner, has retreated to his tents in a fit of pique.

He's been refused his choice of the young women who have been stolen from neighboring towns. And so he's now refusing to fight—and without his greatness as a "warfighter," the Achaeans will never be able to conquer sacred Troy.

(For the record, what has occasioned this braindead war? Helen ran off with Paris, the feckless son of King Priam. She has been living with Paris as his wife. The Achaeans have spent ten years dying in the dust outside Troy over this perceived insult to their gender politics.)

Achilles is sulking in his tents. Eventually, Agamemnon, lord of men dispatches Odysseus, the wily tactician, to persuade him to set his anger aside and return to the wars.

It's at that point that the scene in question occurs. The scene could have been drawn from our own current headlines.

Odysseus trembles as he approaches Achilles' tents. Upon arrival, he finds the mighty warrior singing his favorite songs.

Homer never wrote in English. This translation of the Iliad is by Professor Fagles:

Book 9: The Embassy to Achilles

[...]

So Ajax and Odysseus made their way at once 
where the battle lines of breakers crash and drag, 
praying hard to the god who moves and shakes the earth 
that they might bring the proud heart of Achilles 
round with speed and ease.
Reaching the Myrmidon shelters and their ships,
they found him there, delighting his heart now, 
plucking strong and clear on the fine lyre— 
beautifully carved, its silver bridge set firm— 
he won from the spoils when he razed Eetion's city. 

Achilles was lifting his spirits with it now, 
singing the famous deeds of fighting heroes.
Across from him Patroclus sat alone, in silence, 
waiting for Aeacus' son to finish with his song.
And on they came, with good Odysseus in the lead,
and the envoys stood before him. Achilles, startled, 
sprang to his feet, the lyre still in his hands, 
leaving the seat where he had sat in peace. 

And seeing the men, Patroclus rose up too 
as the famous runner called and waved them on: 
“Welcome! Look, dear friends have come our way—
I must be sorely needed now—my dearest friends 
in all the Achaean armies, even in my anger.”

We love various elements of that passage. Quickly, let's tick them off.

Where the breakers crash and drag: As he walks along the shore, Odysseus trembles at the thought of confronting the angry Achilles. 

In the present day, so it has gone for many people assigned to talk sense to the current deranged commander. We think, for example, of Attorney General William Barr, trying to convince the crazy sitting president that he actually did lose the 2020 election to Candidate Biden.

According to a wide range of reports, many others have suffered in the minutes and hours before they tried to talk sense to this craziest man. Also, in the long span of time in which he made them listen to his endless list of memorized grievances.

Achilles was lifting his spirits: When he arrives at Achilles' tents, Odysseus finds the mighty warrior lifting his spirits in song. 

More specifically, he's "singing the famous deeds of fighting heroes," an assignment Campos-Duffy and her corporate friends perform on a regular basis. 

Achilles is "plucking strong and clear" on a lyre he has stolen from an earlier city he overran and plundered. When you see the stupid (and dangerous) statements advanced by tribunes like Campos-Duffy, these Fox employees are also, in effect, singing their favorite songs of war.

Quite often, their songs make no earthly sense. But all the friends know the words to the songs, and they endlessly sing them together.

Across from him, Patroclus: Across from Achilles sits Patroclus, with whom he is irretrievably locked in an early bromance. The same towel-snapping occurs today when the dual flyweights, Gutfeld and Watters, break in on the imitations of discourse being staged on the Fox News Channel messaging vehicle, The Five.

Such braindead example of human bromance have never died. Suzanne Scott assembles the flyweights best equipped to perform them.

Achilles, startled, sprang to his feet: Now for the comic relief! Has anyone ever been so startled by some other person's sudden appearance that he literally "sprang to his feet?" 

We would assume that the answer is no. But there the picture sits, right there in the western world's first poem of war. It has remained a staple of Saturday morning cartoon shows from that day right up to this.

He must be sorely needed: Odysseus is widely respected within the ranks of the Achaeans. He's one of the trusted elders who intercedes when Agamemnon, lord of men suffers his recurrent emotional meltdowns, just as the commander does in the present day.

As Odysseus appears on the scene, the brooding Achilles expresses joy at the idea that he's "sorely needed." The furious warrior is finally getting some respect. 

According to many reports, this is the embassy Donald J. Trump has been waiting to receive ever since his youth in Queens, where he and father were looked down on by Manhattan's elites. He's currently performing the final act of his revenge on these elements, much as a clinically disordered person might be inclined to do.

We love the remarkably modern portrait of Odysseus trembling as he approaches Achilles' tents. We're amused by the picture of Achilles pleasuring himself with the songs which celebrate earlier violent behavior.

We especially love the language Fagle fashioned, in which "the breakers crash and drag." And remember, Achilles remains a wonderfully manly man:

This entire act of lunacy has been created by his rage—his rage at being denied the sexual services of the kidnapped young woman of his choice. So our imperfect human culture stood at the dawn of the West.

Starting Monday, we'll be examining the "madmen" (and madwomen) of the current firmament. They crawl all over the Fox News Channel. We think the time has come to say their names and to report their behavior.

Last Sunday morning, there sat Campos-Duffy—a genial presence, though only among her own. But who on earth is Campos-Duffy?

Setting aside the consolations of literature, we'll try to tell such tales.

Achilles was singing his favorite songs. Last Sunday, so was Campos-Duffy, as two flyweights looked on. 

This same thing is happening now: In 1990, Professor Knox described the nighttime assault which occasioned the fall of Troy.

The same thing is happening now. Our timid, unimpressive Blue elites haven't come close to finding a way to describe what's happening.

This was Knox's account of what happened then. The same thing is happening now:

PROFESSOR KNOX (1990): The whole poem [known as the Iliad] has been moving toward this duel between the two champions, but there has never been any doubt about the outcome...And the death of Hector seals the fate of Troy; it will fall to the Achaeans, to become the pattern for all time of the death of a city. 

The images of that night assault—the blazing palaces, the blood running in the streets, old [King] Priam butchered at the altar, Cassandra raped in the temple, Hector's baby son thrown from the battlements, his wife Andromache dragged off to slavery—all this, foreshadowed in the Iliad, will be stamped indelibly on the consciousness of the Greeks throughout their history....

Those are the things which happened back then. Our Blue elites lack the language, but the same thing is happening now.

Achilles was singing his silly war songs. That's what they do on Fox.