Christmas Lights and Me

   

Today is the day I’ve been putting off. It has been lurking around my consciousness for weeks now like a suppressed middle school memory. But now Thanksgiving is over and my annoying neighbors are out there, shaming me into submission. Yes...it’s time to festoon the outside of my house with Christmas lights. The purpose of this ritual, as far as I can tell, is twofold. First, it contributes to the gaiety of the season, creating an appropriately festive milieu, spreading joy throughout not only the neighborhood, but in our individual hearts. Second, it offers proof to any roving bands of nationalists out there that we are not Jewish.

I will start this project with vigorous optimism. I clearly recall the extra care I took putting all of these lights away last year. I carefully wound each strand with delicate precision, as someone defusing a bomb, determined to avoid tangles. I placed each strand into the metal filing cabinets in my garage with the kind of precise care usually reserved for placing sleeping infants into cribs or taking soufflés out of the oven. I inventoried each extension chord and every wreath, even made mental notes about improvements that would enhance next year’s display. So, I have every reason for optimism that this year will be different.

But, hovering over each of my shoulders is a spirit. On my right is an adorable Christmas cherub humming White Christmas. On my left is the Grinch, before his heart grew three sizes. He is whispering in my ear, and he knows a thing or two about my historically faulty memory. His understanding of the procedures I followed in last year’s putting away of the lights is very different than mine and he’s letting me know about it no uncertain terms. He recalls a haphazard, frustration-filled frenzy of stuffing and forcing recalcitrant and already tangled strands every which way into those metal filing cabinets, with quite a bit of uncharacteristic profanity, especially so soon after a celebration of our savior’s birth. He reminds me of my incompetence in that annoying rhyme-y way of his.

Of course, he’s right. I will open the filing cabinet drawers with great trepidation, holding on to the faint hope that I really did take care last year. But, like every year that has preceded this one...it will be a hot mess. I will pull out one Gordian Knot after another and think to myself..What the hell? 

Eventually I will untangle the mess. Then I will plug in each strand to determine how many new strands I will need to buy. Some will spring to life merrily. Others will turn on, then flicker menacingly. Others will be thrown in the trash. I will then make the drive to Lowe’s to buy new lights only to discover that this year’s models are slightly different than last year’s. This is due to some knitwittery cooked up at some government agency charged with saving the planet from global warming or some such thing. This year LED lights are all the rage, which is great if you want the outside of your house to look like the Elvis wedding chapel in Vegas. Since I prefer the vintage 1950’s style lights, which I’m sure are real ozone hole killers, I find myself in a quandary. Do I bend with the times and make the transition to LED or do I stubbornly insist on bespoiling the planet and search all over town for my old school lights? 

            Or.....

I feel rather certain that regular readers of this blog know the answer to this question. Of course, it would help matters if I had a dog who would help me with this project like this good boy...

Instead, I’m stuck with this girl...

Who’s Next?

After a day which saw Matt Lauer and Garrison Keillor both brought low by the swift scythe of the sexual harassment reaper, a natural question is...Who’s Next? I mean seriously, if Garrison Keillor can go down, literally no one is safe. So as a public service, I have compiled a list of powerful men who might be and handicapped each of their chances. I present them here in alphabetical order:

Stephen Colbert.

- Comedian. Host of Late Night, and hater of all things Republican. Devout Catholic and devoted family man, married to only one woman and father of three kids. If he were to fall, would be an excellent candidate for swanky Beverly Hills rehab facility. Odds 100:1

Ted Cruz

-Senator. Former Presidential Candidate. Southern Baptist and devoted family man, married to only one woman and father of two kids. High creepiness factor and support of “traditional family values” would make his fall especially embarrassing for tradition families everywhere. Odds 50:1

Tom Hanks

- Actor. Beloved. This generation’s Jimmy Stewart. Married twice. Divorced once. Four kids. Please God, no. Odds 75:1

Rush Limbaugh

- Radio talk show host. Conservative. Currently on fourth wife. Hater of all things Democrat. Odds 25:1

Joel Osteen

- TV preacher. Prosperity Gospel Icon. Writer of vapid books. Possessed of very white teeth and a blond wife. If this guy goes down, comedy writers in Hollywood will give themselves hernias churning out jokes at his expense. Odds 50:1

Paul Ryan

- Speaker of the House. Allegedly conservative. Devout Catholic. Married to one woman and father of three kids. Passionate P90X devotee. Squeaky clean image. Uh-oh...Odds 30:1

Bernie Sanders

-Eewww...Gross!!

Jon Stewart

- Comedian. Former host of Daily Show. “Destroyer” of all things Republican. Tepid response to news of fellow comedian, Louis C.K.’s fall doesn’t look good right now. Odds 10:1

But, because this is 2017, I would be remiss for assuming that the next big name to fall will be a man. At some point, a powerful woman is going to find herself swept up in this tsunami. Who will she be? What powerful American woman will most likely be the trail blazer? Here are a few possibilities. I will leave it to you, the reader, to set the odds.

Ellen DeGeneres

Ann Coulter

Sarah Palin

Oprah Winfrey

Elizabeth Warren

Rosanne Barr

My Creeping Ambivalence

This man has been on the Today Show for twenty years. In that time he has endeared himself to millions of Americans, including my wife. So, we were both astonished to hear the news this morning that Matt Lauer was unceremoniously fired by the suits at NBC news. Samantha Guthrie, misty-eyed, announced the shocking news this morning, that one of the most popular and beloved morning news personalities had been fired because of an allegation of sexual misconduct by an employee of NBC. There would be no leave of absence, no investigation, no stint in rehab, and as of 8 am this morning...no details. My wife had only two things to say about this turn of events...I’m very disappointed. I thought Matt was one of the good guys. And then...This is how women are going to take over the world.

I might have added...Apparently due process is officially dead...but didn’t. Just a few minutes ago, I learned that reporters from the New York Times had been working on this story for weeks. Perhaps they presented the higher ups at NBC news with their findings last night. Maybe the story was so damning, so devastating, that they felt they had no choice but to fire the man. If so, I’m not looking forward to the details.

The Matt Lauer bombshell comes on the heels of the announcement that two especially obnoxious loudmouths, Keith Olberman and Joe Scarborough have decided to back away from Twitter, in Scarborough’s case, and retire from political punditry, in Olberman’s case. One can’t help but wonder what secrets reporters are busy uncovering in their cases. At the rate we are going, it might be wise to invest in sexual addiction therapy centers, since clearly the demand will soon outstrip the supply. 

I must here admit to a creeping ambivalence. My instincts, such as they are, favor the accusers here. This is the result of the fact that I’m a man and therefore know a thing or two about the piggishness of my fellowman. I also know that whenever there is an imbalance of power in a work environment, that imbalance is likely to be exploited. There is a reason that no female officers of corporations have come forward complaining that they were sexually harassed by some dude in the mail room. But, as the pace of allegations has quickened, to the point where it can now fairly be described as a frenzy, I’m starting to have some doubts. Although I have always held firm to the belief that you should never underestimate the human capacity for evil, and that nobody has ever gone broke betting against the bad faith of powerful men, my trick knee is starting to tell me to be careful here. Introduce some skepticism into each new allegation. While it’s true that abused women deserve to be believed, this is only true when they are telling the truth. This is where due process comes into the picture. An allegation is not the same thing as a conviction. The seriousness of the charge does not equal guilt. There is a reason our parents warned us not to rush to judgement. Justice requires deliberation, a testing of the facts. But, deliberation doesn’t sell papers, the wheels of justice grind too slowly to goose overnight ratings. 

Maybe Matt Lauer is guilty as sin and deserves to be fired. But, something about this feels hasty and wrong. Time will tell, I suppose.

Whatever happened to the face slap?

Between the Thanksgiving holiday, the installation of a new kitchen floor, work contingencies, an attempt to secure a lake house for our 2018 Maine vacation, the deluge of leaves in my yard, and the download of another Richard Russo novel...I have had little time and even less inclination to write anything over the past week. I will attempt to remedy that here.

Since we last visited, several more allegations of sexual misconduct have been brought against high profile men by newly empowered women, who have suddenly discovered the courage and fortitude necessary to speak up against their tormentors, five, ten, sometimes twenty years after the fact. The latest reprobate being Congressman John Conyers, described as an icon by Nancy Pelosi in a strange interview given by the fossilized former Speaker, who couldn’t seem to make up her mind whether Conyers was a saint or a sinner. Meanwhile, Senator Al Franken continues his apology tour by vowing to learn lessons from past gropings which he says he can’t remember. His latest tact seems to be his confession that... he’s a hugger. I get that. I’m a hugger too. But, I do my hugging with my arms, not my hands, and always take extra care to make sure that my hands don’t end up full of the butt cheeks of the person I’m hugging...but that’s just me. I’m no Senator. 

Still, it seems to me that that an accusation of ass grabbing isn’t the same thing as an accusation of rape, or even standing naked in front of a women who has not requested your nakedness. In other words, there are degrees of debauchery, and while all of these behaviors are deplorable, all are not equally so. Rape gets you jail time. Grabbing an ass should get you slapped across the face. (whatever happened to those women?) 

I listen to these reports and read the stories of these women. I believe most of them. Some seem overblown and even silly, but who knows, maybe their stories are true too. But the one thing they all have in common is this...none of them slapped the men across the face. Not only that, on the many occasions when they reported the assault to their boyfriends, not a single one of these alleged boyfriends tracked down the assaulter to punch his lights out. Not a single one. This is profoundly disturbing to me on many levels. I can assure you without equivocation that if someone grabbed my wife’s behind, that someone would get the s**t beaten out of him, not because she isn’t capable of defending herself, but because he would deserve said beating, and nothing short of a beating would assuage my wrath. If this makes me a knuckle-dragging misogynist, then so be it. Although the prospect of a sound thrashing  would in no way deter a rapist, it just might make the Al Franken’s of the world think twice about copping a feel. When as a society we have evolved past the physical confrontation of groping, bullying and other small time thuggery, the gropers, bullies and thugs are emboldened. There was a time when loutish behavior was often outed publically with a dramatic slap across the face, to the profound embarrassment of the lout. Many a fine 1940’s movie scene featured this device. I say, let’s bring it back.

The Hardest, Longest Wait

There are big, consequential days coming up. If your children all grew up and moved away, you know what I’m talking about. One of mine lives in Columbia, South Carolina, the other in Nashville, Tennessee. We vacation with them one week a year. They come to visit us, we go to visit them. But twice during the year, we get them here, under our roof at the same time together...Thanksgiving, and Christmas. So, this is a big deal. 

Kaitlin and Jon will breeze through this afternoon around 3 o’clock, drop off their lummux of a dog, Jackson, then continue on to Maryland to spend Thanksgiving with Jon’s family. They will come back Friday afternoon and stay until Sunday afternoon. Patrick and Sarah will get here sometime late tonight, probably after 10 o’clock. They will have to head back to Nashville sometime Saturday mid morning. So actually, we will have all of them here together for approximately 15 hours...which will feel like 15 minutes.

Today will be the hardest part. When my kids are on the nation’s highways at the same time, I am always a mess inside, but especially so today on the worst traffic day of the year. I have shut down the business for the week, so I will busy myself getting the leaves up from the yard. But, my mind will be elsewhere. Traveling mercies...

I have looked forward to this weekend for quite some time now, not just because I get to see them, but because Thanksgiving gives me an excuse to be officially grateful. Of course, I shouldn’t need an excuse, official or otherwise. Gratitude should be my default position. But, let’s be honest, for most of us, it isn’t. 2017 has contributed mightily to my ungrateful heart, creating, as it has, a bull market for bitchiness throughout the fruited plain. This blog has reflected this zeitgeist. From politics, to sports, and now to the runaway train that is sexual harassment allegations, our world has managed to gravely disappoint us all like no other time I can remember.

But then...Thanksgiving comes, and families gather. We see them climb out of their cars, run to them with hugs and smiles, help them drag their suitcases inside. You examine them carefully, while you smile and hug. Are they looking well? Have they lost weight?  Gained weight? Do they look worried? Tired? Do they look happy? What do they need? Do they need anything? Surely they need something...

Then you calm down and just enjoy them. On the big day the whole extended tribe will gather and the welcome scene will be repeated. Hugs all over the place. Kisses and hugs. The food will be incredible. There will be football. Rumor has it that there might be some sort of slipshod Beatle concert performed by several of the Dunnevant men. Pies will be eaten. Later on, while decorating the Christmas Tree, turkey sandwiches will be served. No one will want to go to bed. Who wants to waste time sleeping when the kids are all home? But we eventually have to because we are all exhausted. It’s the very best kind of exhaustion.

So, for the next several days, I’m going to let this dysfunctional year stew in its own juices. I’m not going to have time to whine about the latest crazy thing happening in the world. I’ll be busy being thankful for every good and perfect gift I have been given in this life. Every single one of them.

You do the same.

2017.

By any measure, 2017 has been a mind blower, an assumption destroying mass of hypocrisy, an unending reel of civilizational outtakes, patched together to resemble an actual year. I found a photograph and a Far Side cartoon the other day which did a nice job of summarizing this entire miserable failure of a year:

In the climate of 2017, the year of raging disappointment, I half expect Donald Trump to Tweet this out with a caption...What do you bet these guys are talking about what a bad guy Roy Moore is? Sad...

I read a quote the other day from some alleged pastor in Alabama, who while defending Roy Moore, made the following crucially important point, “Some of these 14 year old girls, the way they dress, could pass for 20.” This from a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So, out of some dark tribal place, a representative of the church suggests that if a teenager walks out of the house in tight jeans and a low neck sweater, 32 year old judges can’t be expected to restrain themselves. New Zealand has never looked more attractive.

I remember years ago there was a very famous television evangelist named Jimmy Swaggard, most famous for being a cousin of Jerry Lee Lewis and for weeping while singing. This dude was quite the headliner. He could deliver hour long empassioned sermons decrying the decadence and sexual debauchery of America, and somehow tie it all back to when they ripped the Bible out of the schoolhouse. The man built a media empire around this theme, his face filling cable television from Maine to California for nearly a decade. Then, it all fell to pieces when he was busted with a prostitute. My Dad was furious that such a man would bring such shame to the Gospel. I remember watching a 60 Minutes piece about Swaggard with him. He turned to me and said, Sometimes, the people who yell the loudest about something do so because they’ve got something to hide.

I’ve thought of those words a lot lately...

Maybe these liberal icons who are constantly touting their feminist bonifides...are overcompensating for something.

Maybe these pastors complaining about how 14 year olds too closely resemble 20 year olds know this from personal experience.

Maybe Charlie Rose can arrange to moderate a debate between Al Franken and Roy Moore on the subject...Too Young To Grope?

Or maybe, just maybe...we all should just give up on 2017, and promise to do better next year.

Lucy’s Scary Day...Part Two

Lucy: Seriously? You’re calling me weird? You’re a spaniel. You have a three inch tail which is like physically impossible to catch, yet you chase it anyway!

Facilitator: Lucy, we’ve talked about this...no body-shaming!

Howls of dog laughter...

Doberman: SILENCE!!! Lucy, continue.

Lucy: My humans are just a little bit off, that’s all. I mean, their hearts are in the right place and all, they feed me and give good scratches and everything, but I don’t know, I’m worried about them.

Facilitator: Can you be more specific? Maybe someone else in the group has had a similar experience with their humans. Let’s turn this into a growing opportunity!

Lucy: Ok, like I said earlier, I really love them. They let me climb up on the sofa with them when I’m downstairs and, they even let me sleep with them in their king sized bed every night!

...lots of enthusiastic yapping and a simultaneous shout out of KING SIZED BED!!!!!

Lucy: But, the thing is, my humans aren’t exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer...

Pug: Oh puhleeze, we all have dumb humans!

Black Lab: Spoken by a runny-nosed imbecile who doesn’t even know how to shake!

Facilitator: I must say, I’m sensing an awful lot of hostility in here today, and frankly, I’m ashamed of all of you! Now, let Lucy finish without these triggering interruptions.

Lucy: Here’s one thing...every day around 5 o’clock this scary man driving a weird car without any doors drives up like way too close to my human’s Street box. Then, he never fails to stuff things, god only knows what, into the box. Of course, I warn my humans of this clear and present danger, every single day...and then, without fail...my human pats me on the head and walks right out there into harm’s way, and without hesitation, sticks his hand right in the box and pulls out whatever the man jammed in there. It’s like he has no fear, and like he can’t even hear my warnings. Seriously, one day it’s gonna be like a bomb and it’s going to blow his hands off. When that happens, he better not come running to me.

Border Collie: Wait...Lucy, that’s a mail box... And the man in the doorless truck is the guy who delivers the mail. Chill out.

German Shepherd: Lies!! The man in the doorless truck is the avowed enemy of all dogs on earth!!

Beagle: Don’t fall for that Collie’s lies! Next he’s gonna tell us that cats are our friends!

...wails of protests...

Border Collie: Idiots....I’m surrounded by idiots.

Lucy: But, it’s not just the doorless car man. Sometimes my humans like totally forget my name. Most of the time, of course, they butcher the heck out of it...instead of Lucy, it ends up being Lucy the Goosey or some such thing. But, here’s the thing...at least once a day, one of them will look me straight in the face and ask me “Who is my good girl?? I’m like, come on people. You guys know this one!!

Affirmative groaning....

Lucy: But, the worst thing is my Dad. He has this round thing called a frisbee which he LOVES SO MUCH. Seriously guys, every time he takes me out into the yard he brings that thing with him...but then he does the oddest thing. He throws it away!! It starts flying up in the air and I’m sure it’s going to escape, so I run like the wind and catch it before it disappears forever. I mean, he’s lucky I’m kinda fast and am really good at retrieving things. Of course, instead of being grateful, as soon as I give it back to him he DOES IT AGAIN!! So, 

like eventually I just stop giving it back to him, if that’s how he’s going to be. And what does he do? He gets mad at me!! Its like he doesn’t even understand how close he is to losing his frisbee forever. 

Facilitator: I can certainly understand your frustration, Lucy. But remember the first rule of being a dog...No dog gets to pick their humans. We just have to learn to be thankful for who we end up with. I’m sure they’ll come around. You’re only what...3? 4?

Lucy: I’m 3.

Poodle: I’ve got news for you Lucy, if you haven’t whipped them into shape by now, it’s never going to happen. I knew your humans were slow the minute you walked in here. Look at you...who lets a dog wear an orange collar after Labor Day??

Pit Bull: Hey Pal...you ever get tired of putting up with them, look me up. Let’s just say...I know a guy.

A Scary Day For Lucy

This morning, Thanksgiving week gets started off right here at the Dunnevant house. In approximately 45 minutes, a crew of skilled carpenters will descend on the place to rip out the hard wood floors from our kitchen and breakfast nook. Then they will bring in a pallet load of new flooring and dump it in the breakfast nook where our kitchen table used to be. I’m not sure about this next part, but I think they will then reinstall the kitchen cabinets which they had removed over a month ago when this whole mess started. After Thanksgiving is over, they will come back and install the new flooring. At that point, everything will be placed on hold until the first of the year, since neither Pam, Lucy nor I care to spend a week in a hotel right before Christmas while our entire downstairs floors get resanded and stained. Speaking of Lucy, the Psycho-Dog....

It’s going to be interesting to see how she handles today’s proceedings. I’m sure the sounds of wood being ripped up from the downstairs will be a delight. Of course, after the crew leaves is when it will really get interesting. Then, when Lucy goes into the breakfast nook to eat her dinner she will find subfloor where her hardwood floor used to be. That means that her dinner dishes will be sitting on a scary new surface. The old surface was bad enough, what with its terrifying tendency to randomly startle the bajesus out of her while she was trying to eat.(don’t ask) Now, she will have to deal with not only this rough new sunken floor but also the horrifying pile of wood over in the corner. 

Sometimes I try to imagine what it would be like if Lucy could talk. Suppose she attended an encounter group for troubled dogs once a week at the Canine Wellness Center and Spa...

Facilitator: Thank you all for coming today. As we all know, Thanksgiving is this week, and our humans have been known to lose their minds a little during the holidays. Is there anything any of you would like to share with the group? Anyone?

Silence....with occasional scratching

Facilitator: Lucy? You look particularly troubled today. Anything strange going on at your house?

Lucy: You don’t know the half of it. My humans have decided to start tearing the house down. They’ve started with the floors downstairs, but I have a feeling that eventually they will be gunning for the bedrooms upstairs too. They're just crazy enough to do it, I swear!

...the sound of sympathy whines break out around the circle...

Lucy: It all started when we got back from Maine. One minute I’m asleep on the sofa, and the next thing I know, my humans have opened the dishwasher and let water everywhere into the kitchen. The next day they went out and bought three of the most hideous machines you can imagine and put them in the kitchen for three weeks where these machines screamed out 24 hours a day. I mean, what were they thinking?? I mean, I love my humans, but sometimes they seem so confused. Then, then...they let these very loud and smelly men come into our house and steal the kitchen cabinets!! It was like one minute they were there and the next minute...GONE! The worst part is...I think my humans actually paid these smelly people to do this thing!

...barking and growling...

Facilitator: That sounds unsettling Lucy. But, remember what we have talked about...what coping mechanism have we been working on?

All dogs in unison: When all else fails, chase your tail!

Lucy: Yeah well, that’s easier said than done at my house. You try having delirious fun in a house filled with dark shapes and random scary bags everywhere.

Spaniel: Dude, you’re weird.

My Philosopher-Mother Strikes Again

For much of human history, the world’s best and brightest minds believed that a person’s fate was largely predetermined by outside forces. Men and women were essentially wandering around this life fully controlled by cosmic puppet masters, whose motives and inclinations were unknowable. But, somewhere around 500 B.C. a Greek philosopher named Heraclitus came along with a three word theory...Character is Destiny, the idea being that instead of the winds of fate or dumb, blind luck, a human being’s destiny was actually closely correlated to his or her inner character. 

My father was no Greek philosopher, in fact, I would wager that he never heard of Heraclitus. But his highly refined sense of right and wrong, good and evil, led him to conclude that what’s down in the well eventually comes up in the bucket. My mother’s formal education stopped upon her graduation from Buckingham Central High School, but that didn’t stop her from formulating her own philosophy of human behavior which was, who you are when nobody’s looking is who you really are.

My parents have been on my mind a lot lately as I’ve watched the growing list of famous and powerful men being brought low by allegations of sexual impropriety, from inappropriate flirting all the way to rape. Some of the men on the growing list should come as a surprise to absolutely no one, but others have been deeply disappointing. There will no doubt be more to come. Part of me is glad to see lecherous men get what is coming to them, another part of me senses an opportunistic feeding frenzy of accusation, women perhaps using the cover of the moment to settle old scores. But, how to tell the difference? It’s all a horrible mess that makes me glad I’m not a judge.

I’ve often wondered what my Mom and Dad would think of it all. Honestly, I’m glad they aren’t here to see it.

Yesterday, when I read the Sylvester Stallone story, another memory came back to me from my philosopher-Mother. I was in some sort of trouble back in the day. Mom suspected that I was guilty of something and was trying to persuade me to come clean and confess. I remember she looked me straight in the eye and said, Douglas, you listen to your mother...be sure your sins will find you out.

Never have those words felt more true than they feel right now.

A Silver Lining at the DMV

As many of you know, I enjoyed a one hour and fifty eight minute stay at the lovely Hotel DMV yesterday afternoon with 50 plus of my fellow citizens. It was everything anyone could expect from an encounter with the bureaucratic state...maddening, and infuriating . However, all was not hopeless despair. No matter how bad things get in life, there is always a ray of sunshine somewhere in the mess if you look hard enough. At the DMV yesterday afternoon, there were actually two.

The list of things contributing to my bowel stewing frustration yesterday was long and impressive. Despite a nearly full house of customers, only 5 of the 11 customer service windows were open. The little slips of paper we all were handed upon arrival assigning us a queue number were intentionally random, a devious plot hatched by some tenured functionary to keep all of us totally in the dark as to where we stood in the order. When the creepy robot voiced woman came on the loudspeaker to announce who was now being served and at which window, it was always a number which had zero relationship to any of the other numbers recently called. What possible relationship does B-67 have to F-145? Well, about as much as C-16 has to M-297. Whenever a new number was called, half of the customers could be seen shaking their heads from side to side in resigned agitation. But then, out of nowhere something genius happened. The sound system at the DMV started playing this:

When I heard Love Me Do, I thought it was just a random Beatle song slipped in the mix of otherwise horrible elevator music. But when it was followed by From Me To You, then She Loves You, we were on to something. I am here to tell you that the entire mood of the building changed. Customers who had just minutes earlier been on the edge of a nervous breakdown, men and women who were starting to get the attention of the security cop in the corner because of their muted but profane outbursts, were suddenly now humming along to Ticket To Ride. Don’t misunderstand, none of us wanted to be there, and we were all still mightily annoyed, but now suddenly, there was a song on our lips. It was a genius crowd control move.

The second surprise came when my number was finally called. From the vantage point of where I was sitting, I could only see the faces of four of the five customer service technicians, and the view wasn’t pretty. These three women and one man looked like the most miserable people on earth, like they were the only people alive who wanted to be at the DMV less than we all did. The word hemorrhoidal agony came to mind. But when I made my way over to window 3, I was in for a pleasant surprise. My attendant greeted me with a beaming smile and a How are you? What can I help you with today?? I was taken aback and temporarily rattled by this brazen display of kindness, forgetting for a moment why I was there. I quickly recovered and began spilling out my tail of woe, trying to explain the three month ordeal I had been through to obtain a clear title of my son’s vehicle. When I was finished, this woman looked my directly in the eye and said, Mr. Dunnevant, that sounds horrible and I am so sorry for what you have been through, but we are going to get this fixed for you today, ok love?

Again, don’t misunderstand, this woman was no miracle worker. I was still in for another 45 minutes of bureaucratic bungling, but now I was in the hands of a caring, diligent, and strangely happy woman. And I am here to tell you...it made all the difference in the world. I saw first hand how even the most impossible situation can be redeemed by a kind, caring human being. Let this be a lesson to everyone of us who is trying to run a business, all of us who find ourselves in difficult, stressful situations in life, this wonderful woman at the DMV illustrated for me the eternal truth of Proverbs 15:1...A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

An Observation on the 1%

On more than one occasion recently I have run across news stories claiming that the richest 1% of people alive today control something like 50% of the world’s wealth. This story has come in several forms, sometimes expressed as the richest 20 people in the world have more wealth than the 200 million poorest people, or some such thing. I am not here to dispute the truth of these assertions. Matter of fact, I’m absolutely sure that it’s true. What I highly doubt, however, is the contention that this is something new in human history. I’m very suspicious. Unfortunately, since world wide wealth statistics are a relatively new science, getting a grasp of how much wealth there was in the world in say, the 1600’s, is a dicey proposition, that features a lot of guessing. But, here’s what my trick knee tells me...throughout all of recorded history, there have always been and there always will be a small, elite subset of human beings who rise to the top of the heap and consequently gobble up a disproportionate share of the world’s wealth. To “prove” the accuracy of my trick knee, I’ve been doing some digging. Here’s what I’ve found.

Scholars have published lists of the richest men in the history of the world based on available data and best estimates using inflation adjusted numbers. They have not included heads of state since their wealth would have been considered public. (so, Genghis Khan and Joseph Stalin didn’t make the list) No, these are the 20 wealthiest private citizens of all time. The list contains 11 Americans. Only three of the men on this list are alive today. ( Warren Buffett, Carlos Slim, and Bill Gates ) 12 of the 20 lived prior to the Industrial Revolution, 2 of them during the Middle Ages (Rufus the Red, William the Conqueror ). 

But, I decided to drill deeper on this question of wealth concentration at the top of the pyramid. The assumption is that today with the advent of powerful technologies and the dot.com explosion, that mega wealth is somehow newly unprecedented. So, I decided to look at  this a different way. How do the modern high tech billionaires compare to their old school predecessors? Ok, here’s what I found...

There is a list out there of the 20 richest Americans of all time, inflation adjusted to 2015 dollars since that was the year that the list was complied. Exactly one of them made his fortune in tech...Bill Gates, with a net worth of 86 billion, which places him at number 4. The other three living American Billionaires on this list? Warren Buffet at number 10, the dreaded Koch bothers at numbers 17 and 18.

Now, how about the top three richest Americans of all time? 

#3. Cornelius Vanderbilt. Died in 1877, after making a boat load of money in the shipping and railroad business. His fortune comes in at 185 billion dollars.

#2. Andrew Carnegie. Passed away in 1919 after amassing a fortune of a staggering 310 billion dollars in the steel business. To his great credit, he gave virtually all of it away at or near his death, endowing an endless list of public libraries, etc...

#1. John D. Rockefeller. When this dude finally kicked the bucket, it was made out of solid gold. His dominance of the oil business resulted in a fortune that makes modern day tech titans look like pikers. 340 billion dollars...that’s billion with a “B”.

In other words, the top three guys on this list, all long dead, were worth more than the next 12 guys on this list...combined.

All of us, every single one of us suffer from recency bias, that is, whatever we actually experience and know always feels like the best, worst of all time. The most dominating idea in our heads most of the time is simply the most recent idea we have been exposed to. I try to fight this instinct all the time with varying degrees of success. In the arena of income inequality, do I believe that policy makers should try to come up with initiatives that increase incomes at the lowest end of the economic ladder? Of course. Minimum wage laws have sought to effect changes in this area. Discussions of a living wage seek to address this issue as well. Death taxes and estate levies, and the progressive income tax have been enacted to chip away at the other end of the ladder with very limited success, since generally speaking, rich people got rich because they are smarter and more resourceful than policy makers. Still, I am in favor of any remedy that will actually work to narrow the income gap. But, we better disabuse ourselves of the notion that we have the power to do away with the accumulation of wealth at the very top of the pyramid by a small cadre of thieves and achievers. Until we can figure out a way to alter human nature, it’s never going to happen.

There is nothing new under the sun....

A Dream and a Story

A month ago today I started writing a story. I’m still writing it. 

When I was in Maine, on one of the first couple of nights there, I had a rather disturbing dream. It was one of those dreams where the  central action was very graphic and clear, while all of the ancillary stuff leading up to the central action was blurry. It was such a surprising dream to have at such a peaceful and happy place and time. Usually people have dreams like this one when they are dealing with some heavy burden, or under unrelenting stress. The only stress I was under in Maine was having to make the agonizing decision between bacon and eggs or blueberry pancakes for breakfast. Even though I was busy reading five novels during my three weeks in Maine, the dream was always in the back of my mind. I would sit out on the dock and think about it while fishing, thinking that it might make a decent short story. But, as soon as I began writing, the germ of the idea provided by the dream has morphed into a full blown universe of characters with a host of conflict all over the place. I have no idea how it’s going to end, how any of it will ever be resolved. That’s really half the fun of writing. 

I’m probably doing it all wrong. I’m sure that real writers have a story outline already formed before they begin writing. People who actually know what their doing in the writing world would probably laugh at my technique, which basically involves sitting down at my desk, staring off into space for fifteen minutes ruminating, then opening my Word document and typing away in short, intense bursts of clarity, then...nothing for a couple of days. Before I can resume the narrative, I have to go back and read the last five pages to recall where I was in the story. It’s all pretty random and unorganized....but amazing fun.

The weird part is that despite how fun it is, it is mentally exhausting. I can only devote an hour or so at a time to the thing before I just have to stop. It wears you out. What a wimp!

Working title...Saving Jack

Sex Clams, Lizzards, and Roy Moore

Yesterday, I found this photograph of the front page of the Times Daily from none other than Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Soon, like the sun rising in the east and setting in the west, the sarcastic, punny comments started rolling in, some of them outstanding!

My wife: Looks like the people in Muscle Shoals have a thing for mollusks.

Facebook Friend: What a world...even the promiscuity of shellfish is divisive nowadays.

Facebook Friend: Actually, Sex Clams sounds like a great name for a band.

Me: I’m relieved there were no accompanying photographs...

Me: What’s so divisive about this? I’m thinking that whatever two consenting clams do in the privacy of their own riverbed is their business.

Family Member: What happens in the ocean, stays in the ocean.

This whole spelling error thing brought to mind this classic from a couple of winters ago:

I don’t know about you, but this hilarious failure of copy editing turned a sordid story into something light hearted and funny, and for that, I am eternally grateful to whoever was responsible for it. Poor guy is probably freshly unemployed, but he did America a great service. Otherwise, I would be forced to comment about yet another high profile man accused of confoundingly stupid and creepy behavior. Thankfully, most reasonable people from both sides of the political aisle have spoken out against the idea of a 32 year old man stripping down to his tighty whiteies in front of a fourteen year old girl for purposes of sexual gratification. But, predictably, many partisans are out there making the exact opposite argument that partisans made when it was Bill Clinton in the cross hairs of women making accusations of sexual misconduct. Back then, these folks claimed that the women must be believed. Their claims needed to be taken seriously, for it had taken great courage to speak up against so powerful a man. Now, these charges are all manufactured by an agenda driven newspaper determined to bring down a Godly man. The excusers have offered up several conflicting explanations for Mr. Moore’s actions:

He didn’t do it, and couldn’t be expected to remember if he did.

What the heck is wrong with a 30 year old man dating teenagers?

Even if he did, he never had sex with them, and whenever they asked him to stop and take them home, he did.

He never got like completely naked, ok? 

I’ve heard rumors that those WaPo reporters paid these woman $1,000!!

Look, he eventually wound up falling in love with a teenage girl and married her and they’ve been married for over 30 years now!

It’s exactly like Mary and Joseph in the Bible. You remember where it says in Matthew that Joseph plied Mary with wine, then stripped down to his tunic? It’s the exact same thing here, and Mary and Joseph turned out just fine!

At this hour, Roy Moore is still a candidate for United States Senate. Meanwhile, one of his future colleagues, Bob Menendez, accused among other things, of cavorting with underage prostitutes in the company of a lobbyist...and on his dime, is probably about to be acquitted. So maybe if Moore wins, he can be seated next to Menendez...so they can talk shop.

Softly and Tenderly

About an hour before the beginning of the CMA awards show last night, my son sent me a picture of a group of protesters outside the Bridgestone Arena carrying a sign warning of the eternal consequences of rejecting the King James Version of the Bible. I thought, Seriously?? That’s what you’re going with on a cold night in Nashville? Then I texted him back...This might be the most embarrassing time in history to be a Christian. That statement probably needs an explanation.

It seems that more and more lately, my faith takes turns getting hijacked by any number of people and movements who claim Jesus Christ as a major inspiration. Slick, telegenic preachers dressed in $3,000 Italian suits claim him as the inspiration for a teaching that promises nothing but wealth and victory. “You can have your best you...today!” People marching under the banner of white nationalism, who bemoan the presence of way too many of them and nowhere near enough of us, claim a middle eastern Jew as theirs. Many on the far left seem to think that Jesus Christ and Che Guevara were separated at birth somehow since Jesus was clearly a committed Marxist. Many on the far right have contorted themselves in theological pretzels trying to justify their devotion to a President famously fond of grabbing women by the pu***, a man who wouldn’t know the difference between Second Corinthians and the second act of Hamilton if his life depended on it. But, they all claim Christianity as their loadstar, their inspiration. For a man who had virtually nothing whatsoever to say about politics and government, he is claimed by practically every crackpot in America with a half baked agenda of hatred and contempt for others. Just about the time I begin to question my own faith, just about the time I’m about to give up...this woman stands up in front of a packed house in Nashville and millions on television and begins singing a hymn from my childhood...

I almost missed it. I had been in the other room writing. I got up to go ask Pam something at the beginning of the song. I couldn’t look away. First of all, Carrie Underwood can flat out sing, no autotune required. But, it had been years since I had heard the song, and I knew every word. It’s not even one of my favorites. In fact, back in the day, it was this sort of song that inspired people to write new stuff. It was usually performed like a funeral dirge, slow and uninspired. But last night it was the lyrics that grabbed me, their simple distillation of the message of Christ, artfully and beautifully rendered...

...Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, calling for you and for me.

        See, on the portals, He’s waiting and watching;

                Watching for you and for me.

...Come home, come home, Ye who are weary come home;

        Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling;

                 Calling, “O sinner, come home!”

Here, finally, an accurate portrayal of my faith, one that reaches out with love and compassion to a fallen world. Softly. Tenderly. Waiting. Watching. You don’t need to be a member of the right political party. Nobody cares about your money. If you’re weary, come home...

...O for the wonderful love he has promised, promised for you and for me.

        Though we have sinned He has mercy and pardon;

                Pardon for you and for me.

...Come home, come home, Ye who are weary come home;

         Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling;

                Calling, “O sinner, come home!”

It’s love he has promised, not wealth. He brings mercy and pardon, not national renewal. Jesus isn’t a founding father, he’s the Son of God. Jesus isn’t someone we co-opt and his teachings aren’t something we get to shoehorn into the latest political theory. He stands on those portals, waiting, watching and calling to us... come home. 

It took a transcendent performance from a country music star to remind me of this truth.

Thanks, Carrie Underwood.

       

This is What Winning Looks Like

The Democrats had a bigly night in Virginia. Not only did they sweep the big three races, but they picked up over a dozen seats in the House of Delegates. Reliably, President Trump assigned blame on his Twitter account:

...Ed Gillespie worked hard but did not embrace me or what I stand for. Don’t forget, Republicans won 4 out of 4 House seats, and with the economy doing record numbers, we will continue to win, even bigger than before.

All of this winning. So much winning. At some point I may tire of all the winning. 

With this Tweet, Trump is asking his devoted followers one question...Who are you going to believe? Me, or your lying eyes?

His followers will read about the thrashing the Republican Party took last night in the Commonwealth of Virginia and say, Fake News.

His followers will look at the returns and wonder what might have been if only the voter rolls were purged of illegal immigrants.

His followers will believe that a candidate more enthusiastically committed to the President would have carried the day, Ed Gillespie being far too moderate in his praise of Trump... 

But, make no mistake, Donald Trump will keep on winning. One win after another. He will be the irresistible force of winning, the Babe Ruth of winning. He will be to winning what the 1927 Yankees were to the American League, what the Black Death was to 14th century Europe, what Stevie Ray Vaughan was to a Stratocaster...total domination.

Decision ‘17

Election day is here in the Commonwealth of Virginia. I know this because of an avalanche of mail in my mailbox and a torrent of radio, television, and social media ads that have followed me around like a Russian spy for weeks now. Here’s what I know as decision time has arrived:

I must decide among Republican and Democratic Party candidates, (and the always random Libertarian/Green Party odd-ball) for the three statewide offices, Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General. Prior to this campaign season, I had never heard of most of them, but apparently they are each men and women of great accomplishment and skill...at climbing the ladder of their Party’s hierarchy. In addition to these statewide races, I will also be asked to select a Delegate to the Virginia House of Delegates from among two other candidates, one of whom is the only candidate on the ballot this year who actually personally showed up at my door to ask for my vote.

The Attorney General race comes down to a choice between a guy named Mark. R. Herring and another guy named John D. Adams. Advantage Adams. I mean, come on, the dude has an all American, iconic name, bringing to mind our second President and an excellent HBO miniseries. What are we to make of the other guy’s name? What’s the R stand for Mark...Red???

The Lt. Governor’s contest is a tough choice, as it asks the voter to make a decision between a white woman and a black man, clearly a no-win situation. Vote for the woman and it’s because you’re a closet racist and can’t handle a powerful black man in higher office. Vote for the black man and you have latent misogynistic issues, the same sort that contributed so mightily to Hillary Clinton’s upset loss in 2016...according to Hillary Clinton. So, this one is a toss up. Luckily, it doesn’t really matter who wins since the office of Lt. Governor is a toothless, utterly meaningless job with no real world consequence to any Virginian, living or dead. From best I can tell, the actual job of the Lt. Governor is to begin running for Governor as soon as he finishes taking his/her oath. So, whoever wins won’t be able to raise any mischief since he or she will be busy raising money.

The Governor’s contest has been a nasty one, especially these past couple of weeks. As the campaign reached the homestretch, accusations have begun to fly all over the place. If all I knew about either of these guys was what I have heard in commercials for the last two weeks, my choice would boil down to this:

I can vote for a greedy, money grubbing lobbyist who’s supporters are out there tormenting young children with pickup trucks, forcing their parents to comfort them after they wake up from their nightmares to assure them that mean old Candidate X will NOT be the next Governor!! Or, I can vote for the guy who isn’t even a politician, but merely a pediatrician who loves kids, would never, ever run them down with a Confederate flag draped pick up and who has lived his entire life by the VMI Keydet Code of conduct. I mean, seriously...is there even a choice here? How could I possibly bring myself to choose a lobbyist over a pediatrician??

On the other hand, there are troubling issues with regards to the boring doctor. Apparently he disdains ordinary Virginians, (probably because he’s spent half his life trying to collect fees from his cheap, reprobate Virginia patients), preferring the company of effete Northern Virginians and gang members from Central America. That doesn’t sound good. Search through his opponent’s bio and you won’t find a single gang member. What you will find is a series of wholesome waiter jobs he had while working himself through college and then a series of successful businesses he started and ran as an adult, no career politician he. Since he has experience starting companies, who better to create jobs as Governor? And, if we ever need help backing our car into the garage, he’s our guy!

Well, there you have it...Decision ‘17. I honestly haven’t kept up with the polling on any of these races. I have no idea who’s ahead or behind. I would think that the Democrat candidates would be favored since my State has turned bluer with each passing year, it seems. But, if 2016 taught us anything it’s that when it comes to politics and elections, anything is possible. So, I will head over to Short Pump Elementary and do my civic duty. You probably should too.

The Gun Control Act of 1968

The Gun Control Act of 1968 states, among other things, that it is illegal for a dishonorably discharged veteran to possess a firearm. The specifics are as follows:

"d) It shall be unlawful for any person to sell or otherwise dispose of any firearm or ammunition to any person knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that such person— 

(6) who [2] has been discharged from the Armed Forces under dishonorable conditions" 

"g) It shall be unlawful for any person— 

(6) who has been discharged from the Armed Forces under dishonorable conditions; 

to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce" 

Here’s a suggestion. How about all of these investigative bodies descending on Texas find out who sold Devin Patrick Kelley this:

He was quite proud of his purchase, sharing this photo of it on his Facebook page a mere week ago. She’s a bad bitch, he crowed. So, apparently, despite the clear, unambiguous intent of the Gun Control Act of 1968, Mr. Kelley was able to get his hands on this weapon. The natural human plea when something like this happens is, We have to pass a law that would prevent this sort of insanity. Well, we already did...in 1968. It either didn’t work, or was not followed in the case of this particular purchase. If it is discovered that Mr. Kelley purchased this gun from a registered dealer who simply didn’t obey the law prohibiting this purchase, the dealer would be thrown in jail for the rest of his life since his negligence makes him complicit in this heinous crime. If, on the other hand, the killer got his hands on the rifle via the black market, or some other criminal...then we’re screwed. Short of government confiscation of 300 million firearms from the homes of Americans, I see no remedy. Perhaps instead of passing new laws, we devote more energy and attention to enforcing the ones already on the books...like the Gun Control Act of 1968.

With each new mass shooting, I see more and more people coming out in favor of full confiscation. The ironic thing is, many of those who are the most likely to accuse Donald Trump of being a fascist authoritarian, are the same people who are willing to empower the government with the authority to confiscate 300 million guns from the American people. I suppose “authoritarian” is in the eye of the beholder. But, most people I know who are in favor of more gun control legislation are not proposing confiscation. Frankly, most of them consider themselves supporters of the 2nd Amendment. They just look at what has happened with gun violence in their country over the past ten years or so and, in exasperation, search for some new legal remedy. I have great sympathy for that view. I too am frustrated. I simply don’t see how any new law will work any better than existing law. Even if a complete ban of gun purchases could be passed and even enforced...what of the 300 million guns in the system? And what about the fact that people with ill intent and no respect for our laws will still have access to all the guns in the world, while the rest of us will not? Maybe we could prohibit the manufacture of ammunition. Then once all the available ammo was exhausted all those guns would be useless. Or, we could mandate that every box of ammo contain one exploding bullet that will kill the shooter making the use of a firearm a Russian Roulette sort of thing?

I’m not trying to be flippant about so serious a subject. I’m just trying to point out that this is a deadly serious problem for which there is no easy remedy. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to fashion some solution, but we need to be realistic and clear eyed about what is possible.

...Again

I woke up from my Sunday nap and opened my iPad. A news flash scrolled across the screen...27 Dead, 30 Wounded in Church Shooting in Texas.

At that point I didn’t know any of the specifics, just the broad outlines of a familiar story in my country. Someone had walked into a church, and started killing people. Before I clicked on the headline to hear the details I began to wonder...

I wondered if it was a black church, a white church, a synagogue, mosque or temple.

I wondered if the shooter was a black man, a white man, or a Muslim.

The reason why I wondered these things is because it would make a difference in how my fellow Americans would react.

If the shooter were a Muslim man shouting Allahu Akbar!, we would more or less be united in our outrage. 

If the shooter were a white man and the victims black, a different kind of outrage.

If the shooter were a black man and the victims white, different still.

No matter who the shooter is and who the dead are, all of us will do the national gun control dance, charges flying around like so many stray bullets.

Then I clicked on the story. At this point all that is known is, some guy dressed in combat regalia, walked into a small Baptist church attended by less than a hundred people, began shooting and when it was over, nearly everyone in the congregation was either dead or injured, including one five year old child. In the ensuing chase, the shooter was either killed or killed himself. The victims and the shooter are white. At this hour, no claims of terrorism, no claims by ISIS that this shooter was their’s. 

For me, the only thing that matters is that 27 souls have perished at the hands of an evil person, bringing the total number of such deaths to over 350 so far this year. That’s over 350 people who have been killed in a “mass shooting” event in America in 2017, a mass shooting event being here described as a single incident where 4 or more people are killed by a single gunman. No other country in the western world comes close to that number. In this regard, we are in a class by ourselves.

What the hell is wrong with us?

My Mother’s Voice

My niece, Christina Garland, posted a very special video on her Facebook wall yesterday. It was filmed on October 31, 2010. It featured my mother, holding Christina’s infant son Ezra in her arms, singing to him in her beautiful alto voice, a song of unknown origin. Part of it was vaguely familiar, but most of it was my Mother playing fast and loose with the original lyrics, and making stuff up as she went along. At one point, whoever was filming moved closer to Mom, and this new angle revealed my Dad sitting next to my sister Linda, the proud grandmother of the infant child. They were talking and laughing with each other. Dad looked happy and healthy. So did Mom. She had less than three years to live.

There’s another one of these videos around somewhere, one of Mom and Dad sitting on the sofa in our old house holding Kaitlin in exactly the same way, Mom singing some diddy claiming that Kaitlin was the most beautiful girl in the world. In that video they were both younger, less gray in their hair, thinner, more robust. I searched for it, but couldn’t find it, so I settled in and listened to Mom serenade Ezra...over and over again.

It’s funny what the sound of the human voice does to a person. Shortly after Mom passed away, Pam and I found a message that she had  left on our old land line. She needed for one of us to take her to a doctor’s appointment. Her voice was filled with sorrow and frustration. There were times towards the end when she would fall into despair, and this was one of those times. After listening to the message, I immediately regretted doing so. I didn’t want to remember her voice this way. The day I had listened to it, I had left for a four day business meeting in Chicago. It had only been a month or two since her death, and I hadn’t up to that point shed a single tear. Two days later, while on a treadmill in the gym of the Marriot Hotel, overlooking Michigan Avenue, the sound of her defeated voice from that phone message came back to me, and I immediately began to cry.

But, yesterday, thanks to Christina, I finally have a new voice from my mother to remember, a generous, loving, melodious alto spent doting on one of her great grandchildren. Much better.

Thanks, Chrissy...

Build Your McMansion With Your Own Money

Yesterday, Republican lawmakers rolled out their tax reform plan. It’s a complicated, multi-faceted bill with many moving parts, about which I haven’t yet formed an opinion. But there was one particular item that caught my attention, the limitation of the home interest deduction to $500,000. 

Question: How many people do you know who have a mortgage in excess of $500,000? Not very many, I bet. Someone with a mortgage that big would be someone quite wealthy. The payment on a mortgage of say, $750,000 would run somewhere around $3500 a month. I say, more power to ‘em. If someone has done well enough to want to build a big old house in the country somewhere and borrow that kind of money to do it, God Bless. This is America. Building big old houses is kinda what we do! 

But, let me ask you another question...why should the tax payer be forced to subsidize someone’s multi-million dollar McMansion? Why is Uncle Sam in the business of helping someone build their ten bedroom dream house? Why does someone wealthy and successful enough to build that ten bedroom house need the government’s help in the first place? These questions answer themselves. No reasonable person can justify this sort of tax giveaway with a straight face...but brace yourselves, the justifications are about to begin, and they will be loud, long and bipartisan.

First of all, the Home Builders and Realtor lobby groups will be apoplectic that this particular form of corporate welfare might disappear, for reasons that should be obvious. When the tax code provides subsidies to anyone and everyone who buys your product, with no limits, that’s a pretty sweet gig. But what is going to be hilarious will be the howls of protests coming from the Uber-wealthy status-home owners...from both ends of the political spectrum...who will be impacted by the loss of this freebie. All of those California Progressives who constantly lecture the rest of us for our opposition to out of control government spending, will scream like stuck pigs if they can no longer divert millions of tax payer funds away from poverty programs in order to provide them with their mortgage interest subsidy. Millionaire conservatives who ordinarily spend all their time extolling the virtues of self reliance, will wail like spoiled children if it looks like their mortgage interest free ride might end.

Listen, anyone who reads this blog knows my views on our tax code. What the Republican Party rolled out yesterday doesn’t even come close to my preferred reforms. Still,  I can understand the basic idea for the mortgage interest deduction..in theory. Originally, the notion was...home ownership is a net positive for people and the economy for a whole host of reasons. If the government can encourage home ownership by providing tax incentives, that would also be a net positive. Fine. But, somewhere along the line, like so many other government attempts at dogoodery, it went off the rails. A tax incentive designed to encourage first time home buyers and others for whom the purchase of a home was a colossal undertaking is one thing, allowing the likes of Barbara Streisand to stick the tax payers with the bill for her California dream home and the 10 million dollar mortgage that comes with it...is something else altogether.

Far be it from me to criticize anyone’s desire to build a mansion. But, if you’re wealthy enough to do so...do it with your own money.

Hollywood’s Comeuppance

First, it was the news media. Fox News titans Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly, seemingly overnight brought low by women coming forward with charges of sexual harassment. The left coast elites were publically apoplectic with outrage, and privately overjoyed that these two high profile conservative stars were getting exposed for being scumbags. But, over the past couple of weeks, the worm has turned. Now, high profile liberal stars are are being ratted out by suddenly emboldened female accusers. Mark Halperin, of NBC News, Hamilton Fish from the New Republic, Lockhart Steele from Vox, and even Michael Oreskes from the sainted NPR, find themselves under a cloud of suspicion. Apparently, piggish sexual perverts are a bipartisan lot.

Then, Hollywood found itself in the embarrassing position of having one of its premier kingmakers, exposed as a serial rapist. Harvey Weinstein went from literally being referred to as God from the stage at the Academy Awards more times than the ...actual God, to being banned for Life in less time than it normally takes for a George Clooney movie to bomb. Speaking of Clooney, his name now appears on a growing list of hot shot Hollywood A-listers being accused of sexual harassment or worse. Along with Clooney, there’s Ben Affleck, Dustin Hoffman, and Kevin Spacey. Andy Dick, and Casey Affleck are on the list too, although describing them as A-listers might be a stretch. When I say that this list is growing what I mean is that it’s growing like a wild fire in the hills of Santa Monica. Now that it suddenly appears that public opinion is squarely in the corner of the accuser in the sexual harassment business, it’s become a seller’s market. Next week this time, I’d be willing to lay odds that the list will have doubled in size. Practically since I sat down to write this, two more big wig Hollywood producer types have been forced to hire a crack team of lawyers. Chris Savino of Nickelodeon fame, along with Amazon Studios head honcho, Roy Price are now in the sexual harassment crosshairs. What in the name of Cecil B Demille is going on here??

I don’t know. I’m not sure why now, of all times, the scumbags that have always ruled Hollywood are being exposed. Make no mistake, men behaving badly isn’t exactly a news flash. Hollywood men behaving badly is practically a proverb, something that has always been. The fact that suddenly it’s all blowing up in their faces is a mystery. But, frankly, it couldn’t possibly have happened to a better group of guys! Honestly, there’s nothing in this world quite so satisfying as watching a pompous, arrogant, elitist, entitled Hollywood gasbag get their comeuppance. These stars presume to lecture the hicks out in flyover country every chance they get about everything from global warming to tax policy, from foreign policy to the 2nd amendment. To them, we are all a bunch of provincial rubes, hopelessly clinging to our guns and the square, outdated morality we inherited from our even more square and outdated parents and grandparents. They look down their perfectly sculpted, libertine noses at our quaint little monogamous lifestyles and think, Oh, how perfectly adorable. And now the empty husk of their squalid existence is being laid bare by the women they oppressed on their way up the mountain. This is the very definition of poetic justice. Pass the popcorn.

Will there ultimately be some liars among the female accusers? Absolutely. Are some of these accusers simply jumping on the bandwagon for attention? Maybe. But my trick knee tells me that most of these women are telling the truth. Men hold the power, especially in Hollywood. The sort of men who have risen to prominence in the long history of that town suggests that these accusers are probably not even telling the half of it. I say, believe the woman, no matter how many men they take down. 

I can’t wait until the Academy Awards show next year. I can’t wait for the self righteous speeches, and the political lectures. But mostly, I can’t wait to see how many men will be left to hand out Awards or even to receive any. Maybe we will have all female winners. How cool would that be?

Halloween, Then and Now

Tonight is Halloween. I hate Halloween. I hate it because it makes me feel old. It reminds me of what my Halloween nights used to be like, when Pam and I took turns walking these adorable pups around the neighborhood. Now, we sit on the front steps trying to keep Lucy contained behind us, while a parade of other people's adorable kids troop by. Most of them are the sweetest things you've ever seen, but there's always a few knuckleheads, kids who cant be bothered with actually saying, Trick or Treat!! They just stand there, with bags thrust towards us making their silent little demands. Then there's always the older teenagers, shameless leaches, who throw some lame excuse for a costume on at the last minute to horn in on the free candy action. Some dork will come up wearing a t-shirt with a giant vegetable on the front and when you ask this interloper what they're dressed as, they'll say, I'm supposed to be, like...irony. Then you smile and say, Well, ironically enough,....no candy for you, moron!

It's not really that I hate Halloween. It's more accurate to say that I miss it. I miss the days when the little ones were my little ones. Reason number 117 why I need grandchildren!!

But, there's one other thing about Halloween that gets in my craw a bit. When I was a kid, and even when my children were kids, Halloween was exclusively a kids thing. But, like so many other great things in this world that were made for kids, grownups have appeared out of nowhere to ruin everything. It seems like all of a sudden everywhere I look there are fully grown men and women running around dressed in extravagant costumes, throwing their own adult-themed Halloween parties. Men caked up with makeup and glitter, dressed like their favorite Star Wars character, women dressed as slutty versions of otherwise innocuous characters. Oh, look...its Jill from accounting dressed like what Hillary Clinton would look like if she were a hooker! Its one thing when college kids do stuff like this. That's to be expected, I suppose. But when you see some 50 year old suburbanite walking down the street, dressed like Donald Trump with an inflatable likeness of Sean Hannity with his lips attached to Trump's ample backside, well...(actually, that's a bad example since that would be hysterical).

...wait a minute, I wonder if I've got time to throw something together....