For God’s sake…grow up!

I find it difficult to understand why Senate Democrats would block Neil Gorsuch’s nomination when they all know that it will just lead to the ‘nuclear option’ that will allow the man to be confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice. This is just the child-like behavior that Republicans showed over the past eight years of the Obama administration. It seems to me that the two-party system in America has degenerated into a bunch of name-calling, infantile, assholedness that we often attribute to police state countries in other parts of the world. Perhaps the part that bothers me most is that the American public appears to be content to tolerate this behavior on the part of our national law makers…and that my friends is no less than absolutely frightening.

Are the Democrats so fearful the Justice Gorsuch will sway the balance of power that they have to use anything they have to prevent his nomination from passage? Yes, of course it’s true that he will be a voice of conservatism on the Court, just as Merrick Garland’s appointment would have made the Court one that would lean more to the liberal side of the aisle. However, I have to assume that the successful block of Garland’s nomination was nothing more than a cry-baby attempt by conservatives to further their agenda of diluting any kind of legacy that would be left by Obama. Certainly, Trump’s executive orders and the House’s idiotic attempt to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act seem to be designed to ensure that there is no Obama legacy to be undone.

Call me naïve or dumb or whatever you wish, but I find it absolutely ridiculous that 435 men and women, sent to Washington to do the very best for this country by composing, comparing, and enacting legislation that will benefit this nation as a whole, cannot do so. Sure, I understand that what the people in Maine want, the people in Mississippi want, and the people in Montana, Minnesota, and Massachusetts may want, but goddammit, somewhere along the line, there should be things that people in our 50 states can say, “Well, yeah, I’m not crazy about it, but I can live with it.” This is not the case today in the Houses of Congress. It’s “my way or the highway, and fuck you very much!” and that does not serve the best interests of anyone in any part of the country. Congress has become too self-absorbed with what it considers to be its own importance. To top it off, we now have a person in the White House who encourages this type of discord, although for what reasons, it’s hard to imagine. Congress can censure its own members, but the only way that America can benefit is if we throw some of these people out of office and let some new folks attempt to understand the word, “compromise.”

I can hear the politicians now…”Oh, you don’t understand how government works. You don’t realize the pressure we’re under from our constituents to stand our ground.” Perhaps not, but what I do realize is this: Too many of you have been in office too long, and you have turned government into your own political play thing, that does nothing for the nation, but that lines your pockets in ways that are unimaginable to the vast majority of your constituents. Do you think I’m joking? Time Magazine, in a January, 2014 story, wrote, “The Center for Responsive Politics analyzed the personal financial disclosure data from 2012 of the 534 current members of Congress and found that, for the first time, more than half had an average net worth of $1 million or more: 268 to be exact, up from 257 the year earlier. The median for congressional Democrats was $1.04 million and, for Republicans, $1 million even.” In that same year, the median income of Americans was $51,939. Doesn’t that make you stop and think that perhaps members of Congress cannot possibly understand what it’s like to be an average American citizen? They listen and nod their heads and commiserate with their folks back in East Bumfuck or wherever, and then they return to Washington, dining at Fiola Ware, Bourbon’s, Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, or The Source, usually at the expense of some lobbyist or other who will get them to vote for a bill that is actually at odds with what the interests of their constituents happen to be…but they tried…they were just overwhelmed by their fellow Congressional leaders or members of their party…and it’s all a bunch of bullshit…just so they can pocket a few more bucks or increase their portfolios.

Am I a cynic? No, that’s not cynicism, it’s realism. I’ve been on this earth for over eight decades, and in that time, I’ve learned one or two things about political leaders. The first of these things is that they are overly impressed with their own self-importance. A second thing is that they may have begun their political careers hoping to change things for the better, but that they soon become corrupted by those who were in office before them and took them under their wing, and if they refused to be taken “under a wing,” they were soon out of office and never even saw the bus that they had been thrown under by their ‘friends.’ Remember what Mark Twain said, “We have the best government that money can buy,” and by God, he was absolutely right.

My political ambition never carried me farther than being vice president of a Little League, and seeing the back-biting and chicanery that happened in something as low-level as that was enough to convince me that getting into the real political arena was somewhat akin to shoveling shit against the oncoming tide…you just won’t win.

I love America with all my heart and soul. It is the greatest country on earth. It’s a land where people are free to pursue their dreams, and whether they succeed or fall flat on their collective faces, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because they are free to get up and start their pursuit all over again. Yes, I love my country, but sometimes I wonder just how we ever came to this sorry impasse that we call the United States Congress.

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Show us some leadership

In the “as if we needed to hear any more bullshit from you,” category, Donny Trump tweeted that “ObamaCare will explode and we will all get together and piece together a great healthcare plan for THE PEOPLE. Do not worry!”

This is just another indication of why Trump is not a leader, just a thin-skinned child who, when he doesn’t get his way, takes his ball and goes crying home…in this case, to his daughter, not his wife…hmm. It was the perfect opportunity to admit that ‘his’ congressional leaders were unable to develop a plan to replace the Affordable Care Act {ACA}. He could have followed it up with, “Now is the ideal time for Republican and Democratic leaders to reach across the aisle and, together, develop a plan that will replace the flaws in ObamaCare and that will ensure that all Americans receive appropriate health coverage.” That is something that a leader would have done.

Consider the number of times that Republicans attempted to repeal the ACA over the eight-year term of Barack Obama. The number, by the way, is sixty. It seems to me that rather than spending all of that time attempting to repeal a law, they could have more productively spent their time developing a plan to replace the Act. If you, as a member of Congress, felt that ObamaCare was such a terrible piece of legislation, wouldn’t you first come up with a better, stronger, more viable plan rather than behaving like a bunch of spoiled children? I’m sorry, am I being too logical here? Was it, perhaps, a case of, “We don’t want anything that the ‘foreign-born,’ n-word, SOB got past us to ever show up as part of his legacy! Oh, naw, that could never be the case…or could it? Was it that this first national health plan, for all its flaws, managed to get enacted by Congress?

You see, I’m rather a cynic when it comes to killing something just for the sake of killing it. I don’t hunt, but I used to enjoy deep sea fishing enormously. We kept the bluefish and stripers that we caught because people would eat them. If we were having a better than average day, it was catch and release. The Republican Party had seven years to put together a better health plan. They-didn’t-do-that. They-wanted-to-kill-a-program-that-had-been-legally-enacted-without-having-the-faintest-fucking-idea-of-what-to-replace-it-with. Now, I don’t know about you, but I might just have wanted to ask my Republican Congress person what he or she was doing to develop a plan to replace ObamaCare during those seven years, and if they didn’t have an answer, I might just have voted his/her ass right out of that Congressional seat. Am I being too harsh for you here?

Now, unable to come up with something to replace the Affordable Care Act, instead of uniting Congress, this idiot at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the “Greatest Deal Maker of All Time,” whines and moans and blames everyone without even considering the tremendous opportunity put before him, starts his surrender talk with, “Well, no Democrats were going to vote for anything the Congress came up with.” Note that please. It wasn’t “…anything we came up with,” it was, “…anything Congress came up with.” In other words, “It wasn’t my fault; it was the fault of those assholes in Congress.” It’s this lack of leadership qualities or even understanding the qualities of leadership that terrifies me about this man. He was a little king in a small village when he had his businesses that were being run by others. He was a television celebrity who could do as he damn well pleased when he was on air. He is now in a position that requires skills and qualities that he has never and probably will never possess, but because of his celebrity status and the bombast with which he conducted his campaign, he was the chosen one.

There is a need for our nation to have a health plan. There is a need for a health plan that covers the rich, middle, poor, and elderly classes. It can be done. Mitt Romney showed that it could be done in Massachusetts. Was his plan perfect? No, it, too, was flawed, but care was taken to correct many of those flaws. No plan, whoever, drafts it, is going to ever be 100 percent guaranteed to work for everyone. We are not a one-size-fits-all nation. Hell, we weren’t even a one-size-fits-all-state. From the hills of Holland to the tip of Provincetown and from Florida to Dracut and beyond, Massachusetts residents have different needs, but by God, Romney tried and did something no other governor had done. Now is the time for Ryan and McConnell, Schumer and Pelosi to sit down, shake hands, look at one another, and simultaneously ask one another, “How do we pull ourselves out of this deep shit,” for that’s what it is. Trump and his hooligans will do everything in their power to ensure that the ACA implodes, just to get back at Obama. It’s time for the adults in the room – those from both sides of the aisle – to come together and determine what is best for the country, for all 326,474,013 members of this country. Forget ‘Hairspray’ and his band of brothers, for he will attempt to sabotage your efforts. While sub rosa may be a term we don’t care to hear, it may be the only way that the nation will be able to make health care for all a reality. Demonstrate that you are true leaders even though we don’t have one sitting in the White House.

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Millionaires, Militants, and Madmen

Our President-elect is now, formally, our President of these…, even though the transfer of power will not take place for about another month. Despite his nearly three million popular vote loss to Hillary Clinton, Trump says that his is a landslide victory…interesting, scary, but interesting. His “victory tour” of the United States once again highlighted his narcissistic tendencies, in that the way things are going would lead one to believe that he did the entire thing all by himself, even though, as he said, “The election was rigged.” Oh, wait a minute, that’s what he said before the election. I guess that means he was in close touch with James Comey and his buddy, Vlad, the Impaler.

What has really caused me some concern has been Trump’s choices for Cabinet positions. While I was somewhat irked by his choice of white supremacist, Steve Bannon. His “win at all costs” attitude is frightening and that’s being very mild about it. As the former head of Breitbart News, Bannon has not been above planting phony stories about ‘leftist’ Democrats and any others with whom he has a grievance. This is in keeping with the manner in which Mr. Trump tweets out half-truths and outright lies, as he did about the recent “swamping” of The Apprentice hosted by Arnold Schwarzenegger. He failed to mention that the show was up against some pretty stiff competition in bowl games, nor did he mention that people are probably so fed up with him that anything to which his name is even vaguely attached – he’s still listed as an executive producer – is a turnoff for the majority of Americans.

Naming Rex Tillerson to be the next Secretary of State is dangerous on at least two fronts. The first is that Tillerson has absolutely nothing to bring to the table. Granted, he has been at Exxon for 41 years and risen to the top of his company by effectively making deals which have given the company a notable position of achievement in the U.S. business world. I’m sorry, but the rest of the world (a) doesn’t give a damn about the manner in which U.S. companies are recognized on their own turf; (b) plays by an entirely different set of rules peculiar to their own country; and, (c) will be perfectly willing to lead this unwitting lamb to slaughter by deceit, lies, and unfulfillable promises. It’s just another example of letting one more of Mr. Trump’s millionaire buddies into the big boy’s playground.

Jeff Sessions is a wonderful choice for Attorney General. He’s been denied a federal judgeship because of his racist comments. He has twice voted against laws that would include sexual orientation as a hate crime, and he was a proponent of a Constitutional Amendment and would define marriage as being between one man and one woman. The Senate, in response to the outrage of the VA treatment of servicemen and women, voted on a bill to allocate resources for 26 new VA facilities in 18 states and $500 million to hire additional doctors and nurses. Sessions was one of only three senators to vote against the bill, citing excessive government spending as his reason. Sorry, Senator, that’s a wimp-out!

It seems to me that in any confirmation hearing any candidate can say anything that he or she wishes. Words are just that, words. Billionaire Tillerson, can ‘say’ that he has no greater interest in Russia than anyone else. He can ‘say’ whatever he has to say to be confirmed. The same is true of Jeff Sessions when it comes to his record on Civil Rights, Immigration, and LGBT issues. Betsy DeVos can deny that she is in favor of Common Core, but that doesn’t mean a damned thing if she is confirmed.

I look at Steven Mnuchin’s confirmation as putting the fox in the henhouse. Anyone who believes that he will do anything to straighten out Wall Street is a dreamer. He appears to me to be one of these multi-millionaire idlers who is supportive of whomever gets the top dog sea, and he has given money to both Republicans and Democrats alike. His trustworthiness meter registers just above zero for this writer. In addition, my only other experience with a former Goldman Sachs executive led me to take an early retirement rather than try to work with the son-of-a-bitch!

Wilbur Ross, the candidate for Secretary of Commerce, was quoted as saying, “I think the reason why the Trump phenomenon has become so important … is because middle-class and lower-middle-class America has not really benefited by the last 10 to 15 years of economic activity and they’re sick and tired of it and they want something different,” Excuse me, but I don’t believe billionaire Ross gives two hoots in hell about the American middle- or lower-middle classes. Keep a close eye on this one, folks, and see how he benefits those who are ‘below’ him in this economic class.

When it comes time to talk about General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, you have but to listen to one of his quotes: “You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway,” said Mattis. “So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them. Actually, it’s a lot of fun to fight. You know, it’s a hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right up front with you — I like brawling.” Those are the words of our proposed next Secretary of Defense. While he later admitted that he should have chosen his words more carefully, the remarks give you some insight into the mind of a true militant who, I fear, would have no compunction about sending military wherever he thought that might “have some fun shooting some bad guys!” While he might stand on the tarmac at Andrews and salute, it wouldn’t do a hell of lot of good for those people in the caskets.

Granted, I have only touched on a few potential Trump Cabinet nominees. Hopefully, we’ll get around to more as the confirmation hearings move along. Just remember one thing…what is said in the hearings and what will actually take place if these people are confirmed and very well be two different things. After all, that’s the Washington way.

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The worst of the worst

I must be going blind. This is not a literal statement, but in a figurative sense, there is no question that my vision has taken a bad turn somewhere. I cannot see why anyone in their right mind or with corrected vision would ever consider Donald J. Trump to be Presidential. Custodial perhaps, but Presidential? It’s not difficult to see why many Americans believe Trump to be a Messiah of some ilk. He boasts; he brags; he puts forth plans that, on the surface, appeal to those with little or no knowledge of how the plans would actually work. He’s a showman; a carnie man, a television personality, a failed businessman who bends the truth to meet his personal requirements.

Trump states that he inherited one million dollars from his family. History shows and Forbes Magazine confirms that the amount was closer to $40 million. With that money, he has amassed an enormous net worth of, according to him, $10 billion. Again, going back to Forbes, that net worth is closer to $4.7 billion. It’s still a lot of money but how it’s been garnered is open to question. In the 1980s, when Trump Plaza was being constructed, a sub-contract when to S&A Concrete, a company partially owned by the mafia. “Trump World Tower, supported by the Quadrozzi Concrete Company, is also tangentially related to La Cosa Nostra. The head of the company, John Quadrozzi Sr., was tied to the Lucchese crime family and indicted for making illegal payoffs to the mob in 1992.”¹ The list goes on and on about Trump’s nefarious dealings with the mob. If one of the qualities of a President is assumed to be “A person of strong character,” Trump fails to meet the standard.

Let’s take a moment to look at some of Trump’s business failures: The Eastern Airlines Shuttle from Boston to New York and Washington ran for 27 years. Many was the time that I would hop a 6:30 am shuttle to head to either destination. It was a great convenience (plus free parking). In 1988, Trump purchased the service for a reported $365 million. He improved the look of the service by adding maple-wood veneer to the floors, chrome-plated seat belt clasps and gold bathroom fixtures. It didn’t work and the Trump Shuttle never turned a profit. The high debt accrued forced Trump to default on his loans, and the shuttle ceased to exist in 1992. In 2006, Trump introduced Trump Vodka, designed to compete with Grey Goose. If you happen to own a bottle of Trump’s vodka, hold onto it because it’s highly doubtful you’ll find it on liquor store shelves today…but you will find Grey Goose.

Claire Sudduth of Time Magazine noted in an article about Trump’s bankruptcies, “”I don’t like the B word,” Donald Trump said in 2010 while testifying in a New Jersey bankruptcy courtroom about his gambling company, Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc., which had filed for bankruptcy for the third time. Given the number of times Trump has flirted with bankruptcy, you’d think he’d be used to that word by now.

“In 1990, the banking institutions that backed his real estate investments had to bail him out with a $65 million “rescue package” that contained new loans and credit. But it wasn’t enough, and nine months later the famous developer was nearly $4 billion in debt. He didn’t declare personal bankruptcy, although his famous Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, N.J., did have to file for it  Trump’s economic troubles continued through the early ’90s, while he was personally leveraged to nearly $1 billion. In 2004, Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts also filed for bankruptcy. The company was only a small portion of Trump’s real estate empire, but he did still have to personally cough up $72 million to keep it afloat. In 2009, the same company filed for bankruptcy again. Yet during all of this, no one ever told Trump, “You’re fired!” Probably because no one could.² In case you weren’t counting, Trump has gone bankrupt four times. He later claimed that those were not his failures as a businessman but strategic decisions to help him make more money. In other words, he manipulated the system for personal gain. Gee, isn’t Bernie Madoff doing time for that, along with several other sleazebags?

Much more could be said about Mr. Trump and his potential candidacy for President of the United States. In truth, he’s a bully, a bigot, a racist, a sexist, a liar, and perhaps the worst individual ever to be considered for the highest office in the land. I never cared much for Mitt Romney when he was Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, but you can bet your boots that should he run as a third party candidate, I will be checking his name off in the voting booth.

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1. Politifact…a division of the Tampa Bay Times
2. Claire Sudduth, Time Magazine, April 29, 2011

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A bane to sartorial splendor

I’m boorish. There, I’ve finally admitted to being a bore…or boor…or whatever you wish to call one who really doesn’t care all that much about convention. Sorry, Google and Yahoo don’t help much. Growing up, my knickers – not the British kind – had to be positioned just so; my shirt had to be tucked correctly, and my little clip-on necktie had to be worn correctly. Fortunately, the sixties brought a bit of sense to fashion and we could relax a bit. By the time college came along, sweaters and khakis found their niche but only until one graduated.

It seems to me that the only time I was without a necktie and coat jacket for the next forty years was either late on Saturday afternoon or when I changed into my pajamas at night. Obviously, my memory must be failing on that point, for in hindsight, I cannot conceive of wearing a potential noose around my neck six days a week nor of wearing some kind of suit or sport coat for any more than five or six hours a day. In the ‘office,’ the first thing to find its way to the back of my chair was my ‘uniform’ coat, except in the service where, for some strange reason, you had to wear the goddamn thing as part of the uniform…even on the parade ground. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I don’t like neckties…never have, never will. I don’t know if some women feel the same way about girdles as I feel about neckties, but anything that constrains me…and in the case of neckties, has the chance of killing me…does not rate at the top of my fashion scale. In addition, they’re a scam. ”Why?” you ask. Well, they go from wide to slim and back again, depending on the foibles of this year’s fashionistas and sartorialists. In addition, as time has passed, the old two dollar neckties has become the $150-designer special that one must own to be fashionable. What a bunch of baloney.

Would I have felt better about neckties if I was allowed to wear the clip-ons? No, of course not, because the top button of the shirt would still have to be fastened to the choking point. Should I have worn shirts with the collar a bit larger? Have you ever seen what that looks like? One’s neck appears to be sitting in a hole that’s too big and the Adam’s apple movement is much more apparent. I went from wearing a fourteen and a half shirt collar to wear a seventeen and a half by the time I retired. It was terrible.

What few people realize, I guess, is that the tie was originally a scarf worn by Croatian mercenaries hired by French King Louis XIII. The scarf was not only part of their uniform, but was also used as protection from the cold and as a handkerchief. I don’t know about other men my age or any age who would be caught dead blowing their collective noses into their neckties…just gauche!

For the first few years following retirement, an evening dinner with my spouse required a suit, collared shirt, and noose necktie. I find it idiotic that some restaurants actually require gentlemen to wear neckties and keep an ample supply on hand for those foolish enough to enter looking ‘unclothed.’ It would appear that you are not properly attired unless you are wearing a snot rag around your neck. One of the best things to happen in business was casual Friday, but then some idiots had to screw it up, and many businesses abandoned the idea. I really enjoy watching some of those Silicon Valley workers in their jeans and T’s doing wonderful things without the encumbrance of a suit jacket or necktie.

By the way, it is said that King Louis so like the scarves of his mercenaries that he insisted that neckwear be a part of all formal events at court. Things went downhill or around the neck from there. Yes, it’s true that neckties have gone through more than the width debate. Their popularity has ebbed and flowed with the various decades. Today, the necktie is still certainly a part of the uniform for the military; for many wait staff, and for businesses founded in the 18^th and 19^th Centuries. Hopefully, cultural changes will occur and the necktie will finally be recognized as the most dangerous item of clothing in a man’s wardrobe. After all, what did old time cowboys call a hanging? You got it…a necktie party!

My necktie days are over. Since my plans call for direct cremation, I won’t even have to wear one to the crematorium. Just take me as I am…T-shirt, sweatshirt, and sweatpants. With luck, I won’t even be wearing my sneakers!

Hallelujah!

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I don’t have the answer

They tell me that America is angry. “At what,” I ask, but they won’t answer.

They tell me that they’re going to make America great again. “How,” I ask, and they give me bullshit platitudes that don’t answer my question.

They tell me that they will make Wall Street pay their fair share of taxes. I didn’t realize that streets paid taxes, and if they’re talking about the people on Wall Street who have made money by making wise investments, I have to ask, “Just because those people may be more intelligent than the rest of us, why are you going to penalize them? Will you go after everyone who has made millions because they created something or invested wisely? Or are you saying that everyone who works on Wall Street is a criminal?”

They say they will “stand up to Wall Street.” Okay, stand up…then what are you going to do? After all, Wall Street has made significant contributions to a number of campaigns.

They say that they will break up the big banks, and again, I ask, “How will you do that?” but no one seems to hear my question.

They say that they will ensure that everyone has health care, but don’t we already have an Affordable Health Care Act that needs just a bit of tweaking? Are they saying that they will throw out one plan and bring in another? Hell, it took seven Presidents attempts before we even got the one we have now.

They say that we will build a wall all along our southern border to prevent illegal aliens and drugs from coming into the country, but that border is nearly 2,000 miles long. Although the Great Wall of China is nearly twice that length, it took thousands of years to build. What if the next President doesn’t see the necessity of such a wall? Second, it seems to me that alien and drug smuggling is done more by tunnels now. How deep will the foundation be for this wall…pyramid deep?

They say, “We will take care of the veterans?” What does that mean?

They say, “We will take care of our service men? Same question.

In other words, politicians, whether in office or merely running to become a party candidate for the top job in the nation are nothing more than preying on the gullible American public. Are people in America angry? Of course, they are. I can walk into the gym on any morning during the week and find half a dozen people who are pissed off about something. Blacks are angry because they get shot by white police officers. If a black police officer kills anyone, black or white, there won’t be a hue and cry…not unless someone happens to catch the police in the act as in the case of Freddie Gray. Whites are angry because they don’t have the education to get anything but shit jobs, and they want a minimum wage that will help to make a living wage, and I can’t argue with that. Employers are angry because if they have to increase the wages, they’ll have to increase the prices. That means two things: (1) they won’t net as much money for themselves; and, (2) they will lose customers to some place that won’t raise wages.

The world is one vicious cycle after another. There is no Utopia. What there is cannot be cured by campaign slogans or vague promises. It does not matter who says what. Americans are among the most impatient people in the world. “Now” is not soon enough. Well, let me tell you something my fellow citizens; in the two-hundred and twenty-eight years since we banished the British from our shores, we have done pretty goddamned well compared to a number of other nations, and just because you can’t afford to buy an Apple watch or a Tesla motor car or send your kid to an Ivy League college, that’s your problem. It is not a problem for the nation. Own it, you dumb son-of-a-bitch. Take a little bit of responsibility for your own shortcomings.

When I coached Little League Baseball, not everyone who tried out made a team. Kids learned to live with disappointment. Today, everyone must play on a team, even if it’s the parents and not the children who wish to play. Today, kid’s lives are so programmed that if they were told, “Go out in the backyard and play until dinner is ready,” they wouldn’t have a clue about what they should do. “Here, this is called a doll; play with it.” You’d shatter their world. “What does it do? Where’s the on switch for the computer in it?” Does it walk, talk, and crawl on its belly like a reptile?” It’s a friggin’ doll, kid. Do what your grandmother did with hers. You’d expect to see the kid’s hair go up in smoke and the top of its head pop off.

Yes, of course America has problems; of course there will always be anger. We are not a perfect country, thank God. I say that because for all of our imperfections, there are always people in our country who are trying to make things better. They are not the politicians. They are the citizens of Flint, Michigan who said, “Enough is enough. We’re not going to let our kids drink water that will kill them,” and they have made enough of a stink that something is being done. They are the ranchers who have taken over the Oregon wild life refuge compound in defense of others and who claim that the government is unfairly taking their land. They are the blacks in Chicago who saw a child get shot 16 times and who refused to allow a police cover-up.  But…and that is a huge “but,” these are the same people who will listen to bullshit politicians and keep electing them to office because of their vague promises to make changes that just never seem to happen. They don’t happen and the bullshit politicians won’t accept responsibility. Oh, they blame others, but they never blame themselves…and no one holds them accountable for not delivering on their vague promises.

When a politician makes a promise, ask him or her how they will accomplish change? Ask that question five times. Each time they try to say exactly how, ask again…and again….and again…and again. Don’t allow them to get away with dismissing you or not answering. When they do that, their true character comes out, and that character says, “You are a pain in the ass and I really don’t care about you. Go away because you’re too intelligent for me, and I don’t have the answer!”

And the truth is, that is the best answer they could give.

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We will survive

It’s difficult to understand why law enforcement, city, state, and federal, as well as the President of the United States, took so long to state the obvious about San Bernadino. I just don’t comprehend what is so difficult about seeing this couple, dressed as they were, not being immediately identified as ‘terrorists.’ However you wish to slice it, this was a terrorist act. It certainly terrified the crap out of the people who were being shot and those ducking for cover. With the discovery of the ammunition and pipe bombs in the house occupied by that couple and their baby would indicate preparation for a ‘terrorist’ attack. So we’re at war. Is there anyone in the USA who doesn’t understand that? Are there actually people whose heads are stuck so far up…in the sand that they aren’t aware that Americans are considered by some people who actually live and work here, as the enemy. Take a look at Dylan Roof who thought that blacks were taking over America. Can you understand why an ignoramus like that would think such a thing? Who does he see on television when the President speaks? Who does he see when the Director of Homeland Security speaks? Granted, the kid is probably not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he’s probably just a wee bit prejudiced against black folks in the first place. Someone said to me the other day, “I saw a family of Muslims in traditional dress coming in the store and I didn’t panic,” as though that was a major friggin’ achievement. It’s clue time…this country is filled with all sorts of people; some came here to escape terrorism and want to live peaceful lives. Others are here but are nothing but crazy fucking assholes who are influenced by other crazy fucking assholes and who will go out and kill anybody they see who is not dressed or look exactly as they do. They do have sufficient smarts to make certain they kill at a gathering…just walking up and down the street is not going to give one maximum exposure nor maximize your kill rate…riiiight!

To top off our understanding that we are at war, we have public panic purveyors like Donald “I-can-fix-everything-but-I-won’t-tell-you-how-because-I don’t-really-know-what-to-do” Trump. I find it truly difficult to understand how this man became a billionaire. The only thing I can think of is that he bullied his way to riches; he was the loudest shouter in the room; his face got so red, his opponents thought he was going to literally explode and shit would be flying everywhere since he was so full of it, so they gave in. It’s all I can think of. He speaks such ridiculous bullshit that no one in their right minds could possibly believe what he says. And yet, what is he doing? He’s appealing to the frightened, the uninformed, people who don’t know, or care to know, understand or care to understand other cultures. These are the folks who believe that blacks eat only fried chicken and watermelon; they may see hummus in the store so that’s what “they’ eat; Asians eat only fish and seaweed or some other shit like that. They don’t know, and one who preys on their fears such as Trump becomes their hero. The media is proving to be just as gullible. Trump speaks; it’s a sound byte they have to get on the air before the competition. Don’t react; don’t cover, and see how long Trump stays in this race. The media are “feeding Seymour” and he continues to grow. If the media ignore him, Trump will be within his rights to demand an equal amount of time as is given to other candidates; that is his right. However, the minute his talk becomes inflammatory, as it has been through most of his campaign, cut off the microphone; he has overstepped his bounds.

On November 8, 2016, America will go to the polls to elect a new President. That is eleven months from this very day. Should this country, in its ultimate stupidity, elect Donald Trump, I will make every effort to move to Nova Scotia and to renounce my American citizenship. I have little doubt that the world will become a nuclear wasteland before his term of office has ended.

Lone wolf terrorists on American streets will become more identifiable and stopped as we move along in our war. At some point, they will be identified before they enter the country. ISIS or some offspring of it will continue to function in the Middle East. It is only when America says, “Enough, solve your own problems,” that we will be able to breathe easily again. If “secure the homeland” is a dirty turn of phrase, forgive me. However, I don’t want to see more gold star flags hanging in more windows than are already there. We can “preserve, protect, and defend” the United States of America by putting our own nation first and let other nations solve their own problems.

The United Nations appears to be a useless group of foreign representatives suckling at the American teat and little else. Let us move their headquarters to someplace like Belgium, Luxemburg, or Lichtenstein, and see how quickly they dissolve or get their collective acts together to solve the world’s problems. America is too rich and too developed a nation to be playing host to a bunch of spies and neer-do-wells. Is this laissez-faire attitude going to work? No, because it will never receive bi-partisan support, nor will Wall Street allow it to happen. It would be nice to give it an honest try; to attempt to make other nations wholly responsible for their actions. We can’t; we’re America. We’re the supposed 800-pound gorilla in the room. That’s why poor families raise cannon fodder and we cry crocodile tears when they’re blown to pieces. If we really cared about our young men and women, we’d be expanding our efforts to keep them out of harm’s way rather than putting them directly in its path.

We have a great many problems in our own country that are in dire need of solutions. We need solutions to our problem of poverty. We need solutions to our problem of racial injustice and profiling. We need a unified, national police force that is fully trained and fairly paid. We need to stop teaching our children to pass some damned standardized test and teach them what it means to be a citizen of this country. We need more, better trained, and again, fairly paid, teachers. We need term limits for members of Congress to weed out the do-nothings, hangers-on, and radical assholes who somehow find their way into Congressional seats every now and then. We don’t need equalization of wealth, because if you’ve got the brains and ideas, God Bless You for making the money you’ve made, but we do need workers who are paid above a poverty level to build what you’ve designed or to sell what you have made. We need equal pay for equal work. We need to stop treating women like second-class citizens by telling them what they can and cannot do with their bodies. Our problems are tremendous; they’re hard to solve and they will continue to get harder until and unless we take some positive steps to address them. However, remember this: Over half of the Pilgrims who made the voyage on the Mayflower died before a year had passed – OVER HALF – yet the rest didn’t just lay down and die. Seventy-five thousand colonists died in the Revolutionary War; that’s 1 in 20 what we now call Americans. Yet, the men who signed the Constitution didn’t give up and say, “Screw this; take it back England.” No, the problems of their day were no more or less complex than the problems we face today. Sure, the world’s a smaller place, and the problems are terrifying. Problems of the magnitude facing the Pilgrims and the colonials and that guy who lives down the street from you today are daunting, but they can be solved. That’s our job – yours and mine – to chip in and ask what we can do to help solve those problems. No, I won’t give you the Jack Kennedy tag line; you can do that for yourself. I will say a couple of things: “If you see something, say something,” and “Don’t listen to fear-mongers and loud mouthed know-nothings like Donald Trump, because he’s not worth your time.”

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Paying the price

There is no way to write this piece without sounding like a racist and a hater. Those who really know me, however, will understand that nothing could be further from the truth. Should I use that old cliché that says, “I have a number of black friends,” or some other baloney like that? No, my friends are of almost all colors. I’m not so certain that any of my friends are true Native Americans although my companion maintains that there is some Cherokee blood in her family tree. As a consequence, I won’t apologize to anyone for what I’m about to put down on paper.

For seventeen years I toiled in the vineyards of higher education at Northeastern University in Boston. The school bordered on what was considered at one time to be home to “the blacks.” It was called Roxbury and that’s exactly how a lot of people referred to it. A friend of mine, Reuben Margolin, was attacked one day by four black youths from one of the projects. While Reuby didn’t look like much, the mistake these young men made was in not recognizing that (a) he’d been a Golden Gloves champion, (b) he’d grown up in a rather tough section of New York and was also a street fighter, and (c) that he wouldn’t take shit from anyone, especially four teenage punks who thought they had a chance. He left them all on the ground without suffering any injury to himself…and he was 54 at the time. It was that kind of neighborhood. On another occasion, I watched with a couple of colleagues as a pair of men threw another off the roof of a four-story apartment building. On yet another occasion, I was denied entrance to the “Afro-American Institute” building because of my skin color. I tell you these things because to me, racism is a two-way street.  However, the very second that one cites something that cries black racism, you become labeled as a ‘hater’ or a ‘racist’ or worse; it is just so much bullshit.

When I left Northeastern, things had improved to some degree. Today, the ‘black community’ or what is left of it in Roxbury…gentrification, you know…works closely with faculty and administrators at Northeastern to make community relations as pleasant as possible. There are still pockets of trouble but the real trouble has moved further away and is now more concentrated in another area of Boston known as Mattapan.

My career following Northeastern was spent in what I called a “Lilly-white community with a bunch of white bread kids and colleagues.” That too is a nasty thing to say but the truth of the matter is that there sure weren’t many black students when I arrived. The college later hired a minority student coordinator and Eddie did a wonderful job with the young men and women who sought her guidance. Funny story about that is that I was with her one day when several freshmen came in asking where they could get a good haircut. Stupid me says, “Oh, there’s a great barber right in town.” Eddie or Edwina as most people knew her, gave me a dirty look and told the kids where they should go in Boston. After they left, I expressed further ignorance by asking, “Why not the barber in town?” She then told me that the hair of black people and the hair of white people required different treatment, a fact I have retained to this day…it was humbling to say the least.

“Where is this all going?” you might ask. Welllll, it’s going straight to the University of Missouri and a bunch of stupid white folk, stupid black folk, and stupid folk in general. Let us take it from the very top: It would appear that President Tim Wolfe and Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin, along with the director of Greek life on campus were walking around with their eyes shut and their ears plugged long before black and white students on campus called for the resignations of all three. Racial epithets and incidents and those relating to anyone of certain religious beliefs don’t occur overnight and turn the institution into a disgruntled campus. One event is too many, but when that single event occurs, it demands that a course of action be instituted and incorporate the education of the entire institution, e.g., the University of Missouri System; not just a main or adjunct campus but the entire system. Whether a residence hall director or monitor, someone in the dean of students office or wherever decided it wasn’t important enough to bring to the attention of the university leadership or whether that leadership pretended it wasn’t all that important is immaterial, I neither know nor care. At some point, somewhere on that campus, something happened and nothing was done to nip it in the bud. As a consequence, a wound, real or imagined, began to fester, ultimately exploding at a homecoming parade, with that particular event being handled clumsily by the president of the university.

If part of the blame for the explosion of problems at the University of Missouri lies with the administration, there is also an element of stupidity among some of the black students. Saying that “…the University remained silent after Mike Brown was killed,” is about as dumb as dumb can be. What the hell did Michael Brown have to do with the University of Missouri in the first place? The fact that this thug was killed in the same state as the University makes no sense. Why should the University administration have had anything to say about the death of Mike Brown? UM is not an all-black school like a Harris-Stowe or Lincoln University or any number of other all-black institutions. Black students make up seven percent of the student population at the University of Missouri, yet they are the ones who screamed the loudest for the ouster of the president and the chancellor. Terribly sorry, chaps, but you get no sympathy from me on that one.

The other stupid people in this situation are the Jewish students who complained that they had also been singled out for insults from others. Don’t they have a Hillel chapter? Where do they worship? Who is their rabbi? Did they complain to him and ask that he speak to either the president or chancellor? Or did they, like the members of the black community allow some insults to fester, turn gangrenous, and blow up when the other situation arose? We will never know.

Is the University of Missouri an unusual situation? No, not at all. I don’t believe there is a college or university campus in the country where there isn’t some form of racial or ethnic injustice being perpetrated or has been perpetrated. It’s what happens when it occurs that is important because what is done at the outset can set the tone for the institution for decades to come. Diversity is not just a word to which we should pay lip service; diversity means understanding that there are people out there who are different from you…different in the food they eat, the clothes they wear; the manner in which they worship, and a ton of other differences. However, they are Americans. You and I may not always agree with them and that’s fine; let’s have a discussion. But this is the 21^st Century and everyone, all of us, should be above calling blacks the ‘n’ word or worse. We should be above posting swastikas anywhere; it’s a symbol of absolute terror to many members of the Jewish community, and if we can’t understand that, it’s our problem and our responsibility to learn why.

The University of Missouri turned a deaf ear and is now paying the price. They will continue to pay that price for years to come; in applications; in donations; in faculty disgruntlement, and in a number of other areas. How many other colleges and universities are in similar situations but have not yet faced that one back-breaking incident that will find them paying the same price as Missouri? It’s time to look inward, you collegiate geniuses, before all hell breaks loose and you suffer the consequences.

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I want to be color blind again

There was a time when I was color blind. It’s only taken me something over 80 years to learn that perhaps I was mistaken. Perhaps I wasn’t color blind all those years after all. Black people seem to have a greater propensity to commit criminal acts than other races. Jeff, Beshama, Jimmy, Ernie, Joe, Sandra,and so many more black friends can feel free to call me out on this, but I’m sorry folks, check the Department of Justice figures. I don’t believe they have been skewed or fiddled with or offset in any way just to make the members of our black population look bad.

I watched the news recently as a disgruntled V. Lester Flanigan shot a white reporter and cameraman on a local television station. No, admittedly, I didn’t see the actual shooting; I just heard one gunshot. The camera was then dropped as V. Lester continued his rampage. Now, I don’t happen to be gay and I don’t happen to be black, but I do know what it’s like to be fired without cause and without recourse. Disgruntled? You bet your sweet patootie I was disgruntled. I guess knowing where the next university president was having his affair, with whom and on what day was just cause to him, but it certainly didn’t appear that way to me. What the hell, I’d known for a few years what he was doing. If I hadn’t told anyone before, what kind of a fool would I have been to tell others now. Therefore, yes, I was somewhat more than irritated when I was informed that my job was being abolished (can you say “bullcrap”?). However, I didn’t publish a manifesto and I didn’t go out and shoot people. I consider that my regard for human life is just a little higher than that.

On that same television newscast, another black man was fighting with police as they attempted to bring him into court for arraignment on a second murder charge.  When they read the charges against him, I wondered how one human being could do that to another. There are times when I wonder just how my black friends must feel when one after the other of their own race gets paraded before the television cameras for some heinous deed. Hopefully, they just let it bounce off in much the same way I do when I see a crime televised that has been committed by a white idiot. That’s what I consider all of these people to be, idiots. Nothing, nothing in this world with the exception of war, justifies the killing of one human being by another…nothing. Losing a job does not; racial slurs do not; nasty comments about one’s sexuality do not; a perceived insult is not a cause for killing. You want to kill someone? Kill yourself, but what others say and do, while somewhat painful, is no cause for ending their lives.

I’ve searched and searched and searched for accurate statistics regarding violent crime by race in the United States. One study claims that,  “… during the 2012/2013 period, blacks committed an average of 560,600 violent crimes against whites, whereas whites committed only 99,403 such crimes against blacks. This means blacks were the attackers in 84.9 percent of the violent crimes involving blacks and whites. Interestingly, we find that violent interracial crime involving blacks and Hispanics occurs in almost exactly the same proportions as black/white crime: Blacks are the attackers 82.5 percent of the time, while Hispanics are attackers only 17.5 percent of the time.

“Some observers argue that what causes the overwhelming preponderance of black-on-white over white-on-black violence is “chance of encounter,” due to the fact that there are five times as many whites as blacks in the American population. However, there are only about 30 percent more Hispanics than blacks, yet black-on-Hispanic violence is almost as lopsided as black-on-white violence. This suggests blacks may be deliberately targeting both whites and Hispanics.”

This is all well and good except that the organization releasing this data is a conservative think tank, known for its right-wing thinking. I’m not saying that the data is wrong or right; what I am saying is that I’ve seen too many occasions when statistics have been twisted and skewed. Nonetheless, just looking at the raw data presents a frightening picture of black crime in the United States. And it’s as frightening to members of the black community as it is to other ethnic groups. Civil rights advocate, Van Jones, wrote in a 2005 article, ‘Are Blacks a Criminal Race?’ “African American youth represent 32% of all weapons arrests [and] were arrested for aggravated assault at a rate nearly three times that of whites. A 2012 study by the Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention revealed that in 2010 black youths committed six times more murders, three times more rapes, 10 times more robberies and three times more assaults than did their white counterparts.

Similar statistics were released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the “Uniform Crime Reports.” They determined, “In the year 2008, black youths, who make up 16% of the youth population, accounted for 52% of juvenile violent crime arrests, including 58% for homicide and 67% for robbery.” By contrast, the only categories where white youths surpassed blacks were in liquor law violations and driving under the influence.

I don’t know the people who make up these statistics. I know plenty of black people. They don’t fall into any categories in this statistical data. So where are all these black criminals? People like Al Sharpton and other ‘injustice collectors’ will find every reason in the book not to blame crime of any kind on blacks but on the white society in which they live. To me, that’s just plain wrong. Is there greater poverty among members of the black community in the United States? Yeah, possibly. The bigger question is why? Although he’s no longer the hero he once was, Bill Cosby has made some good points. Black fathers should be assuming more responsibility for the children they create. Black mothers should be saying, “No,” and meaning it when more sex is going to lead to more kids and they can’t afford to properly raise the ones they already have. I think there is an innate fear on the part of white people in this country to confront the social ills that affect the black community. Black gangs form because there is safety in numbers; well, screw that. Let’s cut down the numbers so that black kids won’t have to worry about walking down the streets in their own neighborhoods. If more police are required, let’s get them; if more prisons are required, let’s build them; if stricter enforcement of laws are necessary, let’s enforce them. At the same time, however, let us not paint every black person we see with the same damned brush that says, “You’re black, therefore, you’re a criminal to be feared;” that, too, is bullcrap. Let us eliminate the United Negro College Fund and make it the United American College Fund with just as much money going all ethnic groups. Let’s eliminate Black Entertainment Network and Miss Black America contests, and let’s begin to unite, integrate, and truly integrate all races into one giant community. I’m not proposing that we gather in the circle and sing Kumbaya; that’s nonsense. But whatever we’ve been trying so far sure hasn’t worked. The black community and the white community are still miles apart in this country. Let’s stop talking about why we can’t do something better and let’s start talking about how we can do something better. Please, before I die, I want to be color blind once more.

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Learning not to hate

I have come to the conclusion that hatred really isn’t worth my effort. Oh, certainly, it’s a good thing to do every once in a while I suppose, but it takes more out of me to hate, and the person or thing – thing is the worst – doesn’t even know that I’m hating him, her, or it; how dumb is that? And what do we really mean when we say that we “hate” someone or something? Is hate the correct word to be using. In the case of these terrorists all over the world and the horrific acts they are doing, well, yeah, they are worth hating. A better way of putting it is that we shouldn’t really hate them; we should cancel them. It sounds so much nicer, and it eases the pressure on us. We don’t have to use all of our energy hating them…we just cancel them and not have to be concerned any more.

While I’m certain that psychologists and psychiatrists would disagree with me, I can think of only two reasons for hating. The first is if you suffered humiliation or harm at the hands of another, then you might develop a hatred for that individual or group. The second form that I define is learned hatred. Your parents, for example, might hate something for some reason, and they pass that hatred on to you. There is a song in the musical, South Pacific, You Have to Be Carefully Taught; its lyrics are absolutely frightening when thought of in the context of today’s world. This is not to say that they weren’t a bit scary back when the show originally appeared, but just read the lyrics:

 “You’ve got to be taught To hate and fear, You’ve got to be taught From year to year, It’s got to be drummed In your dear little ear You’ve got to be carefully taught. You’ve got to be taught to be afraid Of people whose eyes are oddly made, And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade, You’ve got to be carefully taught. You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late, Before you are six or seven or eight, To hate all the people your relatives hate, You’ve got to be carefully taught!”

 The song was first sung in 1949. It was considered too controversial for the stage at that time. We lived in a different world then. For Rogers and Hammerstein, two Jewish song writers who had just seen the atrocities of WWII, it must have been a painful song to compose. For the show’s first audiences, it must have been difficult to accept.

The truth of the matter has become all too obvious; hatred abounds in the world today. Much of it is born out of fear. We all have our fears, whether it’s of spiders, of terrorists, of making it to the end of the month with food on the table; of the crazy neighbor across the street who manicures his lawn with cuticle scissors; or, perhaps, it’s of that other neighbor with a differently colored skin or eyes that don’t look like ours, or whose cooking gives off different smells than our cooking. We don’t know who or what they really are so we develop a fear that easily – too damned easily – turns into a dislike that turns into an avoidance that turns into hatred. Sorry, folks, but it’s a fact of life.

The time has come for us to stand up, as a multiracial group in Chattanooga, Tennessee has done and learn from and about one another. If you haven’t seen the story, don’t worry, it’s somewhere on line. Briefly, an elderly man was tired of people not talking to one another so he invited a multiracial group to his house for dinner. Blacks talked about what it was like to grow up black; whites talked about how they felt different. The first few dinners, held at different houses….well, let’s just say everyone was happy the elderly man was there because they all respected him and he kept the discussions on track. As he said, “I never knew what it was like to wheel my carriage down an aisle in a supermarket and be followed by the manager because he thought I’d try to steal something…just because of my skin color. I just never knew.”

The point is that until we understand and respect one another in this country, we can’t possibly expect to goes through the minds of people we “hate” from other countries. Change is a bitch, especially such a radical change as learning to accept the beliefs of others. But then, change has never been easy; just ask the first settlers; the men and women who put their lives on the line so that America could become an independent nation, etcetera, etcetera. Yes, black and red and yellow and gay and straight and transgender people all have different lives. So do the traditional “white” people who inhabit this world. We have done a piss poor job – all of us – of reaching out to one another to learn our differences; to respect our differences; and to stop hating one another out of fear.

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