Bumper Stuck

I remember having only two bumper stickers ever on my cars. One was 

IF YOU CAN READ THIS,

THANK A TEACHER.

The other was

POETIC LICENSE.

*

The second best bumper sticker I ever saw was

NEVER RE-ELECT ANYBODY.

I have always relished that bit of political advice. It seems to be the cure for sclerotic government—new ideas entering the public arena with each election. However, I have been unable to act on this advice. It has been that the opponents to the incumbents in my neck of the woods are worse than useless, troglodytes who have barely made it out of their caves. 

*

The other day I saw the stupidest ever bumper sticker on an SUV in the parking lot of my bank. (Actually, to be completely accurate, it wasn’t on the bumper but on the tailgate of the vehicle—making it even stupider because it will mar the paint.) It read:

EQUAL RIGHTS FOR BABIES IN THE WOMB.

Now, of course, the geniuses behind the sticker are still chortling over their stealing  the equal rights slogan from the supporters of the Equal Rights Amendment, who, I guess, will not be inviting the bumper stickerers to any party soon. 

On January 27th, Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, which thereby has achieved the necessary ratification by three-fourths of the states.

Advocates say the amendment would provide an explicit guarantee of protection against discrimination on the basis of sex that is as strong as the protections that exist against discrimination based on race or national origin.*

Outlawed would be discrimination in hiring, promotion, compensation, lending, housing, voting, etc.

The proposal on the bumper sticker has led me to wonder how fetuses** would avail themselves of their new rights. (Oh, and at what age—minutes, days, weeks, months—would they be eligible?) I can’t imagine them applying for any jobs (what credentials do they have?). Housing is not a problem for them; it’s already provided. It’s equal access to the ballot box I wonder about. Would there be enough certified electoral obstetricians to provide the fetuses with voting machines?

So until that last problem is overcome, I will continue to believe that that was the stupidest bumper sticker I’ve ever seen. 

*

Oh, the best bumper sticker I have seen seen?

PASS WITH CARE

DRIVER CHEWS TOBACCO.

Something for the fetuses to remember, when they get their driver’s licenses.

***

• https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/01/15/virginia-passes-era-38th-state-amendment-women/4477813002/

      ** I don’t recognize a baby as a baby until it’s born.

Safe--or Sorry?

Today we have a thought experiment:

Imagine a community of any size you want—town, city, state, whatever. There is no poison—no arsenic, no cyanide, etc.— within its boundaries. 

One day, a single vial of poison is introduced into the community. 

Would you say that the community was as safe as it was before? Or more safe? Or less safe?

Shortly thereafter a second vial of poison enters the community. 

Again I ask: As safe? More safe? Less safe?

What if a hundred vials of poison appear? Or a thousand?

As safe? More safe? Less safe?

*

Let’s begin again. You have your community, but this is a community with no swords within its boundaries.

A sword is introduced. 

Is your community as safe as before? Or more safe? Or less safe?

Then a second sword appears.

Are you as safe as before? More safe? Less safe?

OK. Let’s up the number of swords to ten or a hundred or a thousand.

The question again: As safe? More safe? Less safe?

*

Of course, this isn’t really about poison or swords but about guns.

I invite you to work out the analogy yourself.

Rudy the Rebbe

We are in a rather parlous state. Nothing seems certain anymore. Why, last night Santa passed by my house without delivering either a stocking filled with coal or a new Mercedes. Obviously, even he can’t tell nowadays who’s naughty or nice. 

There is one hope for us, however. There is Rudolph Giuliani. There is a man who knows black from white, up from down, and, more importantly, Jew from Goy. “[George] Soros is hardly a Jew. I'm more of a Jew than Soros is,” Rudy proclaimed last week in an interview in New York magazine, probably just before heading off to the mall to purchase a new menorah. 

As most news articles pointed out, Giuliani was raised a Catholic. Now working on his third divorce, does Rudy offer the same certainty to the Pope about who the true Catholics might be? 

New York magazine ran a stock photograph of Rudy to accompany its interview with him.

As you can see, the once-ballyhooed “America’s Mayor” is wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap and flaunting a Yankee World Series championship ring.

Giuliani’s expertise in religious matters was as hard earned as his baseball loot. How many innings of shutout ball did he pitch?

William Butler Yeats in his poem “Among School Children” famously asked, “How can we know the dancer from the dance?”

About Giuliani, we need ask, “How can we know the screwball from the screwball?”

Maybe the Children Will Save Us

The Worst News Story of the Week

The students in a fifth-grade class at Deerfield Elementary School in Cedar Hills, Utah were asked to tell what they were thankful for this Thanksgiving. Most of the responses were typical of 11-year olds:

Some of the kids . . . said turkey and mashed potatoes. One girl mentioned her dog. Another student joked about not having to go to school over the holiday.*

One student, however, had a very different answer:

“I’m thankful that I’m finally going to be adopted by my two dads.”

This student, identified only by his initials, D. M., indeed had reason to be thankful, for after two failed adoptions, it seemed that he was finally going to have a family to call his own.

What D. M., and his classmates, did not anticipate was the reaction of the class’ substitute teacher:

“Why on earth would you be happy about that?”
For the next 10 minutes she lectured the 30 kids in the class about her own views, how “homosexuality is wrong” and “two men living together is a sin.” She looked at the boy, too, and told him: “That’s nothing to be thankful for.”

The news reports did not provide any further quotes from the 10-minute rant, but one can imagine that the teacher perhaps asserted that sinners would be cast down to hell to suffer eternal torments for their transgressions. 

How interesting it is that those who claim to follow a loving God are so delighted to anticipate the sufferings of their fellow creatures.

*

The Best News Story of the Week

The teacher was kicked out of the school.

As she was ranting against homosexuality, students asked her to stop. When she refused, three girls left the classroom and went to report the incident to the school principal. As we know from the national scene, being a whistleblower can cause one to face a backlash. Imagine, though, these girls leaving the classroom without permission. Surely there was the possibility of punishment. But the girls did what they knew they had to do. As the mother of one of the girls later said,

“I am so glad that I raised my daughter in a way where she would stand up for what’s right.”

*

So just maybe in this country, where hatred, bigotry, and discrimination have been given a green light by the adults in charge,** the children will save us. 

***

  * https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2019/11/29/utah-substitute-told-th/

  ** "In a reversal from the Obama administration, the Trump administration has repeatedly taken the position that laws and regulations that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex do not cover a person discriminated against for being gay or transgender. The administration has also pushed for religious exemptions to civil rights laws, which experts say will make it easier to discriminate against LGBTQ individuals. The administration has taken particular aim at transgender people, barring them from joining the military."

http://www.louisianaweekly.com/under-trump-lgbtq-progress-is-being-reversed/

The Relevance of the Irrelevant

Please excuse me as I start off this post on the irrelevant by asking an irrelevant question.

Political tensions over an intensifying impeachment inquiry reached fever pitch on Wednesday [Oct.23] as Republicans “stormed” a closed-door committee hearing on Capitol Hill disrupting a crucial deposition related to the Ukraine controversy – a day after devastating testimony from a key diplomat.

A group of Republican members of the House of Representatives, chanting “Let us in”, barged into a secure office suite in the bowels of the US capitol where Laura Cooper, a top Pentagon official who oversees Ukraine policy, was preparing to testify.(1)

Question:  

Now that the impeachment hearings are in public session, how many of the storming Republicans have attended the proceedings? 

***

Throughout the public sessions, there have been repeated attempts by Republican committee members, Foxites, right-wing trolls, and Trump himself to divert attention from the substantive revelations by sworn witnesses by lobbing mostly irrelevant goofball observations, questions, and complaints about said witnesses. 

Probably the goofiest of the goofy was the tsk-tsking about George Kent’s water bottle:

“Fish are not this hydrated,” [Fox] network contributor Raymond Arroyo told “Ingraham Angle” host Laura Ingraham. “It was like a medical sized water silo.”(2)

The leader of the Loony Tunes brigade attempted several diversionary ploys, one of which was to attempt to undermine an expert witness on Ukraine by ranting about her service in Somalia:

In an extraordinary step, Trump attacked Yovanovitch during her testimony. “Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go?” he wrote on Twitter.(3) 

In another swipe at a witness, Mr. Bar Mitzvah suit elbowed his way into fashion etiquette by complaining about Lt. Col Alexander Vindman’s testifying before the impeachment panel in his military uniform:

The implication from the president and congressional Republicans is seemingly that Vindman, an Iraq War combat veteran and active duty Army officer, has used his dress uniform as a prop as part of a partisan performance. 

But Army regulations state that "when an invitation calls for business attire, the appropriate Army uniform is the service or dress uniform." The regulations further state: "All personnel will wear an Army uniform when on duty, unless granted an exception by the commander to wear civilian clothes. "

In short, Vindman has been following US military protocol, and it would be a violation of Army regulations for him to show up to congressional hearings out of uniform.(4)

*

But all of the above irrelevancies are molehills of diversion next to the Everest of slanderous innuendo directed at Lt. Col Vindman because he just happened to have made the mistake of choosing to be born in Ukraine instead of Amurrica. That, to the GOPers, Foxites, and other purebloods set off sirens warning of treason:

Alexander Vindman, the lieutenant colonel who testified before impeachment investigators in Congress on Tuesday, introduced himself in his prepared statement as an immigrant. For some of Donald Trump’s prominent supporters, this fact was enough to begin painting Vindman as a double agent, a traitor, or a spy. On “Fox & Friends,” perhaps Trump’s favorite program, Brian Kilmeade said, ominously, that Vindman “tends to feel simpatico with the Ukraine.” Fox’s Laura Ingraham suggested that Vindman was working on behalf of Ukraine from within the White House, leading her guest, John Yoo (most well known for his co-authorship of the so-called Torture Memo), to question whether these conversations amounted to “espionage.” The CNN commentator Sean Duffy, who  also expressed alarm about Vindman’s loyalties, opined that Vindman “is incredibly concerned about Ukrainian defense . . . We all have an affinity to our homeland where we came from. Like me, I’m sure that Vindman has that same affinity.”(5)

Vindman’s family emigrated to the US when he was three years old. He is now 44. One marvels at the idea that for 41 years, Vindman has harbored such a Rosebud longing for the national dishes of his birth land—borscht, holubtsi, and varenyky—that he would undertake treasonous acts against the country whose flag he has served under in combat.

The implication by the Trumpites that naturalized American citizens are possible traitors, fifth-columnists, or spies—by virtue of their being born outside the borders of the US—is abhorrent. 

But the horror of the implication is even worse when one considers that Alexander Vindman is Jewish. It is no stretch of the imagination to see operating here the age-old anti-Semitic trope that Jews are a rootless people with no allegiance to the country they dwell in and, thus, dangerous aliens who must at best be kept under scrutiny and at worst be imprisoned, expelled, or exterminated.

*

It has been my experience over the years that in a discussion or debate it is important to pay more attention to the irrelevancies that are dragged in than the actual on-point arguments. Call it: “The Relevance of the Irrelevant.” That is where the truth will be discovered. 

***

(1) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/oct/23/chaos-erupts-as-republicans-barge-into-trump-impeachment-inquiry-hearing

(2) https://www.huffpost.com/entry/george-kent-water-impeachment-hearing_n_5dcce471e4b0a794d1fa8282

(3) https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-impeachment-hearings-the-presidents-attempt-to-intimidate-marie-yovanovitch-backfires

(4) https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-gop-slam-vindman-wearing-army-uniform-impeachment-hearing-2019-11

(5) https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-trumps-supporters-distort-alexander-vindmans-very-american-origin-story

A New York Moment

The Department of Justice insists that sitting presidents cannot be indicted. It is for that reason that Robert S. Mueller III did not charge Donald Trump with the crime of obstruction of justice. He got very close though: 

On obstruction of justice, the report "does not conclude that the President committed a crime, [and] it also does not exonerate him". Since the special counsel's office had decided "not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment", they "did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President's conduct.”(1)                                                                                                   

In the opening minutes of the Judiciary Committee hearing, Chairman Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, asked about Trump’s multiple claims of vindication by the investigation.

“And what about total exoneration? Did you actually totally exonerate the president?” Nadler asked.

“No,” Mueller replied.(2)

*

Donald Trump once bragged, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters.”(3)

I have a few questions.

SCENARIO 1:

Trump does indeed shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue.

Trump supporters: Are you really OK with that?

SCENARIO 2:

Trump shoots Jesus in the middle of Fifth Ave.

Evangelicals: You do believe there will be a Second Coming; so why not on a sunny day on Fifth Avenue? 

Are you good with this?

SCENARIO 3:

Trump shoots the Pope. Or maybe, Trump shoots the Pope and the Dalai Lama.

Still cool?

SCENARIO 4:

Trump goes to any or all of St. Patrick’s Cathedral (Fifth Ave. & 51st St.), St. Thomas (Episcopal) Church (Fifth Ave. & 53rd. St.), and the Fifth Avenue Synagogue (Fifth Ave. & 62nd St.). He unwraps an AK15 and shoots the hell out of the place(s). Blood and guts cover the floors and walls.

Way cool, right?

SCENARIO 5:

Trump exits his tower, grabs a baby from a passing carriage, and, with a long knife, slices it from head to toe.

Are you calling the cops?

*

MEANWHILE:

What are the Secret Service men doing?

A—Nothing, except looking cool behind their Ray-Bans—since there’s been no danger to Trump.

B—Racing to Trump, jumping on top of him, wrenching the weapon from his hands (breaking a few fingers while doing so), smashing his face into the ground, twisting his arms behind him, and handcuffing him. (Do those dudes carry handcuffs?) Drag him along the ground to a nearby police car.

*

When all is said and done, can the NYPD at least issue Trump a summons for obstructing traffic?

***

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mueller_Report#Obstruction_of_justice

(2) https://apnews.com/f109a539220b41218860fa68176a9c98

(3) https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/23/464129029/donald-trump-i-could-shoot-somebody-and-i-wouldnt-lose-any-voters'

Trump’s lawyers recently made the argument in a New York City courtroom that he couldn’t be prosecuted for any crime (not just a federal one) until he leaves office.

(4) https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/23/trump-lawyer-prosecuted-shooting-someone-055648

For the Present

I

You are offered a trip back in time. To what period would you like the time machine to take you?

I suppose a bunch of would-be Athenians are tucking up their togas in anticipation of a dialogue with Socrates or a sit-down with Plato at the Academy. Meanwhile, neo-Elizabethans are dusting off their doublets as they look forward to quaffing some sack at the Mermaid tavern alongside Will Shakespeare and buddies. Dreams of Versailles float through the heads of others longing to be set down in France during the reign of Louis XIV. Still other times and climes for other folks.

However, would-be retro-travelers who who take the bait and answer the question all do so with a false assumption in the back of their minds. They believe that the time machine, besides giving them calendrical freedom, will also give them a desirable social and economic status as well. In other 
words, one cannot assume that once back in ancient Athens, one will have entree into Plato’s orbit. What if one’s role in life turns out to be that of a low-or-no-status person at the time, like a woman or a slave? 

And if your travel ticket is for Elizabethan London, you may indeed find yourself in the Mermaid tavern, but not as a patron, but as the potboy.

PRINCE HENRY

Come hither, Francis.

FRANCIS

My lord?

PRINCE HENRY

How long hast thou to serve, Francis?

FRANCIS

Forsooth, five years, and as much as to--

POINS

[Within] Francis!

FRANCIS

Anon, anon, sir.

PRINCE HENRY

Five year! by'r lady, a long lease for the clinking
of pewter. But, Francis, darest thou be so valiant
as to play the coward with thy indenture and show it
a fair pair of heels and run from it?

FRANCIS

O Lord, sir, I'll be sworn upon all the books in
England, I could find in my heart.

POINS

[Within] Francis!

FRANCIS

Anon, sir.

PRINCE HENRY

How old art thou, Francis?

FRANCIS

Let me see--about Michaelmas next I shall be--

POINS

[Within] Francis!

FRANCIS

Anon, sir. Pray stay a little, my lord.

PRINCE HENRY

Nay, but hark you, Francis: for the sugar thou
gavest me,'twas a pennyworth, wast't not?

FRANCIS

O Lord, I would it had been two!

PRINCE HENRY

I will give thee for it a thousand pound: ask me
when thou wilt, and thou shalt have it.

POINS

[Within] Francis!

FRANCIS

Anon, anon.

PRINCE HENRY

Anon, Francis? No, Francis; but to-morrow, Francis;
or, Francis, o' Thursday; or indeed, Francis, when
thou wilt. But, Francis!

FRANCIS

My lord?

PRINCE HENRY

Wilt thou rob this leathern jerkin, crystal-button,
not-pated, agate-ring, puke-stocking, caddis-garter,
smooth-tongue, Spanish-pouch,--

FRANCIS

O Lord, sir, who do you mean?

PRINCE HENRY

Why, then, your brown bastard is your only drink;
for look you, Francis, your white canvas doublet
will sully: in Barbary, sir, it cannot come to so much.

FRANCIS

What, sir?

POINS

[Within] Francis!

PRINCE HENRY

Away, you rogue! dost thou not hear them call?

Here they both call him; the drawer stands amazed, not knowing which way to go

Henry IV, Part 1

II

If you could live your life over, what would you change?

I have a confession to make: When I summon up remembrance of things past, I almost always stir up from the depths of my mind bad memories. Memories of my errors, crassness, rudeness, pettiness, and on and on (though I wouldn’t go as far as a friend of mine who, after many years, went to confession and told the priest, “I have broken all the commandments except 'Thou shalt not kill'”). 

I wish that I had been a nicer person—politer, more caring, less self-centered. But would I opt to change my past? No. I do not wish to go back to any fork in the road of life and choose the path not taken. Sure, I might have found more happy days, though I might have found more misery instead. Then again, I might not even be around to write this. 

But most important, a wish to change the past, means a wish to eliminate all that happened in the first place. And in my case it would mean that I would erase from existence my daughter and grandchildren. 

What selfishness it would be—even greater than the selfishness in my past—to deny them life in exchange for the possibility that I could have had a bit more pleasure in my life.

So, it is not out of complacency or smugness that I say, “Let the past be.”