Ruler (September)

September presents the latest performance to which we play Greek Chorus. The flooding of America’s fourth largest city is photo opportunity for its ruler. He exclaims at large crowds come to see him, those not drowned, or busy saving their homes. In Australia, a ruler who says he’s Yes capitulates to the Noes. Coleridge (1798): “History has taught me that rulers are much the same in all ages, and under all forms of government; they are as bad as they dare to be. The vanity of ruin and the curse of blindness have clung to them like an hereditary leprosy.”