A Version of the “Wheat Field with Cypresses” by Vincent Van Gogh

In late 1889, Vincent van Gogh committed himself to an insane asylum, still commercially unrecognized one year from his death, and painted a version of "The Cypress and Flowering Tree." The painting entered a private collection and was not seen again for over a hundred years, until it appeared on loan at the Kunsthaus Zürich.

What follows is an account of standing alone in a nearly empty gallery when the painting caught me, and of what I have since learned about the year in which it was made. And how art comes from within when it must be without.

“The Cypress and Flowering Tree”^[1] displayed on the walls of the Kunsthaus art museum in downtown Zürich, not seen for over a century, shared lovingly from a private collection, oil on canvas, painted in late 1889, less than a year before Vincent’s death.

Vincent painted three versions of this scene. One is in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, one is in the London National Gallery, and one was lost to the public for over a century. The original attempt (hanging famously in New York) was painted in June. This version was painted in September when Vincent had committed himself to the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence after arguing with Gauguin about what art was and cutting off his ear to punish himself. He slashed out “Starry Night,” one of his most famous paintings, during this period. He covered canvas with broad profound perfect strokes of oil every day of the entire year he was an inmate in this insane asylum, producing over 143 masterpieces during his agonizing self-incarceration. 

I knew none of this when I first saw this soul wrenching canvas. The museum was completely empty and my footsteps echoed loudly as I peered at the work of his peers and some of his early attempts at his style. Then I entered the next room, unaware, and this beast stunned me^[2] . It grabbed the tears in my eyes and forced me to back off, out of the room, barely making it out before collapsing against the wall, afraid to turn around and feel it again. I still can’t remember the other paintings filling the room. When I dared sneak another look around the door, it was still there, silently attacking me, slyly glancing at me with fettered eyes, never leaving me ever since.

Every time I see this painting it breaks my heart. Arguably the most innovative artist to have ever walked this earth is pouring out his mastery of the human condition onto the canvas. He boldly injects his emotions into every stroke of his brush. I can feel the sorrow he is feeling. The futility he feels, the pain in his soul as he tries to exorcize his all encompassing emotions out of himself by painting. He knows his life is almost over. His career is a total failure. He hasn't sold a single painting to a single art collector^[3]. I feel deep in my blanched bones how he felt that year he spent in the asylum, painting masterpiece after masterpiece, day after day, while the world ignored him. 

I can’t help but break down and start to sob, unable to stop the tears drenching my face, shaking with anger, overwhelmed by feelings of sorrow and ache for this genius who painted on because he couldn’t stop; unknown and unrecognized by the world and ignored by his fellow inmates. He knew his painting would change the art world forever, so he must paint before he departs. He’s compelled to paint in a feverish explosion to fend off the world’s ignorance. He is driven to capture what was in his soul and proclaim it to the world. You can hear him shouting, “Look, look at this scene. See me. See us all. See the sorrow. See the sadness. See me.” 

He is lost in the unfathomable ignorance of this world. Why was he compelled to fill this inexhaustible abyss with his very self? And after painting all day, every day, he lies in his bed, night after night, falling fitfully asleep, trapped in an unending nightmare, where his only escape is to pour out his soul onto the canvas, fearing what the three crones of The Fates, who even Zeus must obey, decree him to paint before he dies, so the world can see, evermore.

Thanks for reading,

 -Dr. Mike

11 August 2026

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1. Le Cyprès et l'Arbre en fleurs (1889, private collection), shown at the Kunsthaus Zürich, Matthew Wong – Vincent van Gogh. ↩
2. Stendhal, Rome, Naples et Florence (1817); Graziella Magherini, La sindrome di Stendhal (Ponte alle Grazie, 1989). See Wikipedia — Stendhal syndrome. ↩
3. The only sale the record can confirm is The Red Vineyard, bought by Anna Boch at Les XX in Brussels for 400 francs in early 1890 — after this painting was made, but before Vincent's death that July. Wikipedia — The Red Vineyard. ↩

What Should We Do About the Filibuster?

We will cover the following core questions:

1. What is the practical consequences of the filibuster?
2. Why are people hesitant?
3. Why would we want to get rid of it?
4. What should we do about it?

Practically, the filibuster is a tool that allows a minority (typically the Confederate states, less than 37% of the population) to prevent any legislation they don't like: Civil Rights, Voting Rights, Health Care, Taxes, etc. Bills go to the Senate to die. The goal has been to disregard federal laws, to do whatever they wish and not be compelled to cooperate. This is the motivation for most state's rights claims: they wish to discriminate and they don't want to provide for public infrastructure and common welfare. They want to be selfish, deny the morality of empathy and try to deny the fundamental rights of all human beings. They want to enable and enact an illiberal democracy where some people are more equal than others. This is why they gerrymander, why they want to take power from the House, which is more representative of the voters and why they want more power in the Senate, which is highly skewed to give them more power per voter.

We are hesitant, because without the filibuster, the Republican's would have to be responsible and not pass outrageous legislation, such as The 'SAVE' act, Nationwide Abortion Ban, Outlawing Gays and Trans Rights, Eliminating Social Security and Medicare, which they would be unable to resist because they can no longer blame the filibuster. That would be dangerous. However, anything they really want to do, they have eliminated the filibuster for (tax scams, judges, presidential appointees, etc.)  The Democrats should take the same tack. Anything they want, they can defilibuster, but deny they are eliminating the filibuster by doing so. Effectively gutting it as the Republicans have, but allowing them to continue to cowardly hide behind it to save their sanity. So I oppose a complete filibuster revocation until they come to their senses.

The history of refusal to enforce civil rights and the attempt to institute illiberal democracy in these United States.

To bring our country into existence, to unionize the states together, the Confederate states refused to join unless slavery (the ultimate illiberal democracy) was enshrined in the constitution for 40 years. These states would only join the Union if no laws were allowed to stop their illiberal democracy. This was the agreement they made to give up absolute state's rights (in the Articles of Confederation) to move to the Federal Constitution. And this motivation hasn't changed since, they have fought, by any means possible, legal or illegal, and continue to fight, to subvert the fundamental promises of the Declaration of Independence. America fundamentally disagrees and we must bring this fight to a permanent close.

America changed the Constitution to prevent illiberal democracy after the civil war: abolishing slavery, forcing states to enforce the bill of rights and outlawing discrimination of who could vote.

• 13th Amendment (1865): Abolished slavery and involuntary servitude nationwide, except as a punishment for a convicted crime (A peculiar American travesty, insisted upon by the Confederacy, so they have some excuse for their behavior.)

• 14th Amendment (1868): Established birthright citizenship, ensuring that all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. are citizens. Crucially, it prohibits states from denying any person "due process of law" or "equal protection of the laws".

• 15th Amendment (1870):  Prohibited the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude".

The 17th, 19th, 24th and 26th amendment continued this thread: Senators are elected by the people, women's suffrage, no poll taxes and the voting age is set to 18. Extending citizenship and its inherent right to vote to all Americans.

The Confederate states have always objected to this deal. They first attempted nullification [1], the idea that state laws superseded federal laws. That was antithetical to the entire point of the Constitution, that states give up certain rights to the federal government (and the Confederacy knew this.) It's been a sticking point ever since. Not only for the Confederacy, for liberal states too. (Marijuana laws, immigration enforcement.) The conservatives have had a problem with federal laws for abortion and other health care and have worked hard to give this power back to the states.

The next tactic to prevent any new laws from being passed, such as the 1837 Civil Rights Act, the 1857  Civil Rights [2], the integration of the armed forces, and the 1950's civil rights law was to blatantly allow filibustering by partisan machinations. The senate debate was unending if the Confederates didn't want a law, and cut off if they did. When the partisanship went they other way, they decided to change the rule.

Aaron Burr (traitor) proposed the changes to allow filibustering by eliminating a simple majority vote to allow the 'previous question' rule, which forced a simple majority vote to stop the debate and delay and force a vote on a bill (the infamous Rule 22.) In my opinion, this was not an accident. It was purposeful to allow minority rule and block the enforcement of the law of the land.

The practical consequences of this rule where not used until many years later when the confederates insisted on blocking civil rights laws. First, the delay was entirely partisan based.  Then, when they couldn't prevent it in the Congress, even with the filibuster, they started the Civil War rather than give up slavery. They insisted on the endless debate in the Senate exactly because it could negate any bill, but used it almost exclusively to stop civil rights laws. The filibuster was put into place, formally, by the excuse that 'debate must be attended to', but in actuality, it is not there to induce persuasion, it is only there to negate legislation, it has nothing to do with debate at all, it's entirely a minority veto.

This tool of minority negation must end. The majority, who support liberal democracy as stated in the Declaration of Independence: All men are created equal; must win the battle or we will be ruled by a minority that claim the rights of royalty to do anything they wish, regardless of voice of the people and their legislation. There is a reason they wish to diminish the power of the House of Representatives: it reflects the votes of the people every two years and is a danger to their agenda. They have the Courts packed, which take lifetimes to unpack if everything continues as today. And they are willing to trade the Presidency and gut agencies' enforcement of the law, instituting a new spoils system (created by the confederate Andrew Jackson in 1828 and outlawed in 1883 by Chester Arthur) if, in return, they can stop legislation and enforcement of Civil Rights by the filibuster in the senate.

There is a reason they hate the agencies that Congress has created. This was the way FDR attempted to stop the executive from ignoring the law: by building agencies that were empowered to enforce the law. To insist on human rights over property rights. This is why they have invented the "major question" doctrine, which just says that the courts can take any power away from the agencies if they decide they don't like the way Congress specified it. From forbidding FDR to appoint new agencies' heads without cause, to allowing Reagan's EPA to reinterpret the law in any way they chose, to allowing Trump to appoint agency's head without cause, to instituting the "major question" requirement, a conservative SCOTUS has relentlessly pushed a partisan agenda for illiberal democracy for over a century. It is time to put a stop to this travesty.

Why were agencies protected from removal of their appointed head and presidential control? In FDR's time, SCOTUS ruled that he could not replace agency heads except for cause as they wished their agency heads would continue and stifle the attempt of the president to institute and enforce the laws pertaining to Social Security, banking and other New Deal ideas. Later, the conservatives were insistent that when under Reagan's appointee the EPA must be respected, even when it defies the actual laws Congress passed. Now that a Republican wishes to ignore them, they have flipped the rules and insisted that the Judiciary has the power to decide all "major questions" and not the agencies themselves. It's got nothing to do with what the Constitution says, it's a raw power move and it's been ongoing since the founding of our country.

The argument that the laws passed by Congress overwhelmingly to enforce the civil rights laws were 'just not needed' so they were declared unconstitutional is the most blatant act of white supremacy since the Dred-Scot decision which declared blacks could never be citizens. (This is the gutting of the Voting Rights Laws by fiat led by our chief justice John Roberts in several decisions.) [3] And even after the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments were passed, to specifically overturn this odious intention, the Confederacy has resisted every way they could, forcing progressives to pass the 24th amendment outlawing poll taxes. Could the intent of the Confederate state's be any clearer?

The filibuster is just one method to prevent liberal democracy and allow illiberal democracy where only a certain set of people actually have civil rights, protection of law and due process. We passed the amendments outlawing illiberal democracy, it's in the Constitution, there is no denying, in good faith, that it is the law of the land. How do we enforce it and how do we change the laws? How do we force unfettered voting and the requirement to treat all men as created equal, without endangering our republic and pushing it to imperial presidencies and authoritarianism? 

The filibuster must be changed, but it should be changed so that the least amount of mischief can be done to our quest for liberal democracy. The Democrats should revoke the filibuster for any signature legislation., allowing the Republicans to hide behind it as much as they want to. So, eliminate it? No. Actively ignore it? Yes.

Thanks for reading,

 -Dr. Mike

4 July 2026