Anticipation....

Thirty-three years ago today, I married the lovely and talented Miss Pamela Jean White. In doing so, I demonstrated legendary powers of salesmanship, punched way out of my weight class, got out over my skis, out-kicked my coverage, and any other sports analogy you can think of. Today, we will celebrate my "heist of the century" by driving 9 hours to Nashville to visit one of the two products of our union, our youngest, our only son, Patrick. Thirty-three years ago at about this time, I was playing full court basketball with my groomsmen, enduring epically offensive trash talk of the sort that isn't suitable for public airing. They were all so jealous of me, it wasn't even funny.

Of all the guys in the world, she picks YOU? She could have had anybody she wanted, and she picks YOU??

That's right, boys. She picked ME!!

Anyway, as the nine hour trip wears on, my back will start tightening up, my hamstrings will begin to throb. By the time we arrive at our hotel in East Nashville, I'll be so stiff and sore I might need assistance getting out of the car. However, I will be sustained during the journey by the thought of what will happen when we get there. As soon as we pull into that parking lot, my physical problems will vanish. I will have gazed at my adorable wife from across the console for over nine hours. The entire time, the anticipation will have been building, until finally, our hotel room awaits, and you know what that means...

Yep, we've got a reservation at Butchertown Hall, baby!!! Smoked meat and other delicious meats, is how Patrick described it. Driving nine hours for meat will be so worth it!!!

Getting Ready for Nashville

Today will be a day packed with trip preparation. I have a list of a dozen things that need to be done to get ready to leave for three days and nights in Nashville, Tennessee. We make a trip every spring to see our son, around the time of his birthday. It's such a fun city, with so many cool things to do and places to eat. But mostly, we get to hang out with him and his girlfriend, Sarah, who we love dearly. The highlight of the weekend will be a concert by a choir they are both in called the Portara Ensemble. We've heard them before and they are phenomenal, if you like that sort of thing...and by sort of thing I mean, gorgeous choral music performed by professionally trained musicians, who for no compensation rehearse for days in order to edify an entire room full of enraptured listeners free of charge. I rather think a love offering should be taken up at the end to give us freeloaders a chance to do the right thing, but that's just me.

So, a couple of days ago I texted my son and asked him to send us some ideas of what he wanted to do while we were in town. Part of the reason for this request is that our hotel is on one side of town, and his apartment is as far away from as it is possible to be while still being in Nashville. The reasons for this unhappy fact is a combination of several factors, primarily the fact that he lives in a weird part of town, and the hotels nearer to him are either sold out or three times as expensive as our Homewood Suites. Anyway, I thought it might make it easier to plan if we knew the locations of stuff, etc. etc... The next thing I know, he sends us a Google Doc, complete with web links to every activity and restaurant listed. He even had mapped out an itinerary...11:45-12:45 Saturday, lunch at any of the following six restaurants...

My son has slowly turned into his mother!

So, as a public service to any of you who might be interested in visiting Nashville anytime soon, here is a list of the restaurants which my soon to be 28 year old Millenial approves of, with the descriptors as they appear in the Google Doc:

Loveless Cafe (Southern breakfast)
The Pfunky Griddle (self-serve pancakes)
Hattie B's (hot chicken)
The Grilled Cheeserie (fancy grilled cheese)
Salt and Vine(lighter sandwiches and wine)
Taco Mamacita(fancy tacos)
The Harding House(at the Belle Meade Plantation)
Nomzilla (sushi)
Amerigo (Italian)
Adele's (seasonal, like Husk)
Butchertown Hall( smoked and other delicious meats) BING BING BING( we have a winner!!)
Virago (sushi)
Germantown Cafe( fine dining)

You're welcomed!

Trump News Update

Wonder what today will bring?

Yesterday was great. There was the Comey diaries and the tantalizing prospect that they might contain a smoking gun which might bring impeachment down on Trump's head. The entire Washington press corps let out a celebratory huzzah that could be heard all the way out in Arlington. But then, the wording of those diaries was weasley enough to call into question any definitive accusation, or was it???? Perhaps a congressional subpoena is in the offing. And how about that Mike Flynn nugget? Did Trump actually demand that Comey call off the dogs at the FBI, or did he simply ask, politely, that maybe he should consider it? Is there a difference between the two? Is this merely a distinction without a difference or is the actual language used important? Are there really tapes? Oh, and what about poor Seth Rich? Did he have contact with Wikileaks shortly before his mysterious murder? There's a laptop, apparently, and the D.C. Police have been asked to stand down on their investigation...by whom?, the curious observer must ask. But wait...now that Sean Hannity is all in on the story, it's starting to fall apart. There's a financial advisor from Dallas involved  now(always a bad sign), and the family of Mr. Rich is furious at what they call fake news. The most popular word making the rounds yesterday was impeachment. 

My Trump-loving friends still insist that everything is under control, that their guy is still playing ten moves ahead, Jedi master four dimensional chess and has his enemies exactly where he wants them. The few who will admit that things aren't going all that well lay the blame on the dishonest media and the deep state, shadow government, being run by Obama loyalists throughout the bowels of government. It is these fifth columnists who are responsible for all the leaks designed to undermine public confidence in the Trump presidency.( If true, mission accomplished).

When people like me spoke of the importance of temperament back during the campaign, this is what we meant. It is possible for people with wildly different personality types to be successful in a great variety of efforts. Indeed, Donald Trump's skill set worked very well in the ego-driven world of real estate developement, and the creation of a dynamic brand. But those sorts of skills get dilluted in high profile, high pressure, heavily protocol-restrictive lines of work like...the Presidency. The problem for Trump is not that the job is changing him, the problem is that it hasn't changed him at all! He is going about his business exactly the same way he has for 70 years, seeking out headlines, reveling in controversy and chaos, and keeping even his closest advisors in the dark. His is the first ever ad hoc presidency, and we are about to discover if ad hoc works at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

If I were a bookmaker in Vegas, where would I place the over and under on how long Trump makes it before an impeachment attempt...a year? Two? Or maybe, one day he wakes up and decides that he's had it with being President and just quits. Knowing Trump's style, who among us actually thinks that a drama-filled resignation is at least a possibility with this guy? I do. Can you imagine the advance he would score from the tell-all book he would ghost write about it? It would make the Obama's 60 million look like chump change!

So, what will today bring? With Trump, literally anything is possible.

A Silver Lining

This morning, I ask for your forbearance as I hash out a new idea, a new revelation, a possible silver lining to the terrifying black cloud hanging over my country...

Ok, now we've got a new "gate." You know...that nauseating suffix that the press always attaches to every new tempest in a teapot that happens in Washington, illustrating perfectly the fact that the press hasn't done its job since the 1970's. This one has been dubbed, blabbergate, and it concerns the allegation that Trump might have spilled some classified beans to the Russian foreign minister about some covert anti-terror operation. I say "might have" simply because I don't trust the objectivity of the Washington Post, or any other media organization when it comes to Trump. Their hatred of him is so visceral, so laid bare, their reporting is rendered suspect. However, does anyone who has been paying attention this past year, find this allegation hard to believe?? Actually, this is exactly the sort of thing I can imagine Trump doing, not out of malice or menace but out of his blustering, sand pounding narcissism. I have the best intelligence, I get the best intelligence every morning, it's incredible how much intelligence I get from the best spies in the world, frankly. I mean, just the other day they told me....

I read the news every morning. Occasionally, when I'm in a self-loathing mood, I'll watch cable news. I see a level of dysfunction that plows new ground every single day. Never in my lifetime has this country been governed at its highest level by such a collection of halfwits. The degree of incompetence on display, not just in the White House but in every other branch of this government, is staggering. And yet....

Almost every economic indicator is trending in a positive direction. The stock market is booming. Inflation is still MIA. Unemployment is down. These things have happened not because of Trump or anyone else in Washington, but in spite of them!! Herein lies the seed of a silver lining.

Suppose, just suppose for a minute, that despite the woeful inadequacy of our infantile leadership, the country prospers anyway? What would happen if after a couple of years of peace and prosperity under Donald Trump and the Seven Dwarfs, people suddenly realized that Washington DC isn't the fount of all blessings after all, that maybe, just maybe our Republic can thrive and prosper even with idiots at the helm? Finally, the cult of personality that has become the Presidency, the myth that has grown up around the notion of the professional politician, will be revealed in all of its emptiness. The power of the political class might be destroyed altogether, their ability to scare us into voting for them and against the other forever vanquished. Can you imagine how freeing that would be? The next time some politician says, "this country cannot afford four more years of ------!! The stakes are too high, the dangers too grave!!" ...we can all reply, "Oh yeah? Well, I got eight raises, took three European vacations, and bought a robot who cleans my house while Donald Trump was President and Paul Ryan was Speaker of the House. Shut up!!"

Once disabused of the idea of the supremacy of politics, people would be freed up to take care of their own problems, fix their own neighborhoods, their own schools. As long as the really smart creative people keep going into business and science, their brain power would sustain us. Sure, we would still have politicians, but they would be quarantined in Washington where they couldn't do any harm to anyone. And sure, there are flaws in this idea of a politician-free world. But who among us can't see the benefit to bringing the lot of them back down to Earth in the area of their towering self regard?

Donald Trump was President and the economy grew by 5% a year. That outcome is simply loaded with redemptive possibilities!!!

A Road Trip Anniversary

Shortened week ahead. The last of our spring travels will find us driving to Nashville this Friday to visit our son. This Friday happens to be our 33rd wedding anniversary. The fact that we will be spending 9 and a half hours of the day in a car is instructive, in that it tells the story of how marriage works...sometimes romance takes a back seat to the love you have for your kids. Would I love to be spending that day holed up in some mountain getaway somewhere, snuggled up with this girl??

Absolutely. But, we haven't seen Patrick in several months now, and that just won't do. So, we will spend nine and a half hours of alone time in the car weaving in and out of the herd of long haul truckers who call highway 81 home. While we flirt with death in a fiery crash of twisted metal, we'll  reminisce about all of the amazing years of our marriage. We'll remember the poverty of 1989-1992, after we decided that Pam needed to be a stay-at-home Mom. I can still taste the beans and franks Friday night dinners. We'll remember the exotic trips I started to win once some success arrived, and how strange and wonderful it felt to be frolicking in the Cayman Islands without children. But eventually, for reasons that still remain unclear, we started bringing them along. Scottsdale, Arizona. Monterey, California. Hawaii. Carribean cruises. Disney World.

We'll recall the scrambled chaos of the youth group years, the roughly ten year run I spent teaching and volunteering in the youth ministry at Grove Avenue. Our weekends became overrun with hormone-ravaged teenagers descending upon our house like a plague of locusts, devouring everything in their path. There were lock-ins, retreats, and summer camps. It was exhausting...and a non-stop thrill. For Pam it was like being room mother to a hundred kids. For me, it was more like being a part time Dad, part time social worker, and full time Crazy uncle, all rolled up in one. I loved every one of those kids, even helped a few along the way. But, even though, technically speaking, I was the one in the youth group ministry, it would have been impossible without Pam. All the girls wanted to grow up to be like her, all of the boys wanted to marry someone like her. Like everything else worthwhile that's happened over the past 33 years, it was very much a team effort.

Then, suddenly, the kids grew up, went away to college, then became adults in the far off lands of South Carolina and Tennessee. We don't see them for long stretches of the year. We found ourselves alone in a house which just a few days before was teaming with adolescents. Now it was just us. The transition took about a month. After being sad and lonely for a bit, we suddenly realized that having survived 25 years of raising children, we had been rewarded with...freedom.

Part of that freedom is being free to forego a romantic anniversary getaway in favor of a weekend in Nashville with our youngest. Can't wait.

Trump at Liberty...and other news.

President Trump will give the commencement address today to the 2017 graduating class at Liberty University. That's Donald J. Trump, builder of casinos, owner of strip clubs, grabber of pu**ies, and serial divorcée, giving a commencement speech at the school established by the founder of the Moral Majority, Jerry Falwell.

In other news...

Former President Barack Obama will give the keynote address at the sesquicentennial gala of the Daughters of the Confederacy, where he will lay a wreath at the tomb of the unknown Confederate.

Hillary Clinton has agreed to be the headline speaker at the Jefferson county Ruritan Club pancake breakfast fundraiser, where she has waived her normal $250,000 speaking fee in exchange for a promised love offering to reimburse her bus fair from Chappaqua.

Former President Bill Clinton has been chosen to give the opening speech at the Focus on the Family Marraige Vow Renewal conference in Colorado Springs.

Ken Hamm announced today that to mark the first anniversary of the grand opening of his Creationist Theme Park, Ark Encounter, he has issued an invitation to Bill Nye-The Science Guy , to be the master of ceremonies.

Elizabeth Warren's office today confirmed the news that the Senator from Massachusetts has agreed to be the headliner speaker at the upcoming annual meeting of the National Rifle Association in Lubbock, Texas.

And finally, Senator Bernie Sanders has agreed to make an address at the Hattiesburg, Mississippi Chamber of Commerce at their annual Horatio Alger fundraiser dinner.

Agitprop

Back during the salad days of my misspent youth, during the era of Soviet Communism, there was an arm of the Central Committee of the Communist party actually called...The Department of Agitation and Propoganda, which if nothing else, will be remembered as the most honest name for any political organization in history. It's where we get the modern term, agitprop, which can be defined as the widespread dissemination of political messages, especially through art and literature. For the old Soviets, everything was about politics, and the idea was to flood the zone with the gospel of communism 24/7, even if the subject at hand was no more political than a ham sandwich.

In modern America we have our own Department of Agitation and Propaganda. It's called, Hollywood. If you are a person of the left, and by that I mean a dedicated progressive, committed to the laundry list of liberal projects, your views on the political issues of the day are constantly validated and celebrated in the public realm. Television shows, movies, books, and especially late night television cheerleads your team and belittles the other side virtually 24/7. It must be a heady feeling, to always be on the same side as all of the good-looking celebrities who our culture worships. It must be an incredible comfort to always be reassured, consistently affirmed in your core beliefs. The spokespersons for your beliefs tend to all be popular and beloved, and unnaturally attractive. The spokespersons for my beliefs tend to be mostly dead guys. Surely, if all of the beautiful people agree with you, that's what really matters, right?

As a libertarian, small government guy, I must say...yes, I am jealous, and that jealousy does me no good whatsoever. Long ago, I became aware that my views on state power and the liberty of the individual were never going to have nearly the appeal of the nanny state handouts sold by the left. Those guys were pitching unlimited unemployment benefits, and handing out free cell phones at about the same time as I was preaching self-reliance and freedom from government, always a tough sale.

Am I bitter? Do I feel resentment every time I get lectured by a sit-com, beat over the head with the glories of the collective in movies, or routinely portrayed as an anti-science racist, misogynistic homophobe by the media if I'm unwilling to turn over the sovereignty of my country to the United Nations so we can better combat Global Warming? Well...yes, I suppose I am.

But, I'll get over it. No matter how long I live, Hollywood will always and forever be the Department of Agitation and Propaganda. The sooner I accept it and move on, the better.