The Devil and the Deep Blue Pantsuit

Was yesterday Super Tuesday II or III? I can't keep up with all of the super stuff happening in this election. Nevertheless, the results yielded winners and losers:

LOSERS:

1. Marco Rubio. After getting clobbered in his home state of Florida by a man he clearly despises, the young Senator finally called it quits. I like him, voted for him when I had the chance. While I didn't agree on every position he took on the issues, I just liked him. He's smart, confident and positive. He's the kind of man who would as President imbue the office with youth and vigor. Maybe he was too young, maybe his resume too thin for 2016.

2. Ted Cruz. Even though he came close in Missouri and North Carolina, coming close isn't good enough when you're supposed to be the man who is going to overtake Trump. Losing in North Carolina was particularly disappointing, since it was a State that seemed well suited for his message. No matter how his campaign labors to spin the results, coming in second isn't how you become the nominee.

3. Bernie Sanders. Clearly, getting swept by Hillary Clinton last night put an end to the pipe dream that always was his candidacy. "FEEL THE BERN" was always a pretty cool slogan and all, but the heat is gone now. He put up a decent fight, and the fact that Hillary Clinton, with her war chest of dirty money and virtual lock on super delegates, had such a difficult time dispatching a 74 year old Socialist, says more about her than him. Although Bernie Sanders lives at the other end of the political universe from me, there was always something endearing about the man. For one thing, he was authentic. He didn't need an army of pollsters and confidence men to tell him how or what to think. He never once had to reinvent himself. He just walked up to the podium and said, "I'm Bernie Sanders. I'm a Red and proud of it. Vote for me." I'll miss him.

WINNERS:

1. Hillary Clinton. Barring an FBI indictment, a New York Times expose of a lesbian affair, or the discovery of a cancerous tumor in her lungs as the source of her incessant coughing, she is not only your Democratic nominee, but the next President of the United States. 

2. John Kasich. Finally...after 27 contests, the man wins something. Although, in all honesty, declaring a man with a 1-26 record in primaries a winner is sort of like declaring Bruce Jenner a lovely lady...sort of true, but not very convincing. What's next for the guy? Where can he possibly pull off another win? Nowhere. His big hope is to somehow become the compromise, consensus pick of a brokered convention. Good luck with that, John. 

3. Donald Trump. Anyone else who won four out of five contests last night on the Republican side would have been declared the clear winner. But every media outlet known to exist in the free world keeps grasping at the elusive straw of a deadlocked convention as a way of denying the man. In my lifetime, I have never seen a candidate so universally hated by practically every corner of the political establishment as Donald Trump...and yet, he keeps winning. It's actually funny hearing all of the wise men casting doubts..."Yes, but...he can't get above 45%!...Yes, but now that Rubio is out, conservatives will coalesce around Cruz!...Yes, but now that Kasich has won Ohio, he won't be able to get enough delegates before the convention!" When I was growing up, this kind of talk was called, whistling past the graveyard.

So, my takeaway from last night was this...the 2016 election will be a contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton...the Devil and the Deep Blue Pantsuit. Come November the 8th, all of us will be about ready to blow our brains out.

...And Now it Gets Ugly

"If we can make it through this election without someone getting shot, it will be a miracle."

 I wrote the above on March 2. After the events of this past weekend, the odds have gotten a lot longer. I spent the past few days in North Myrtle Beach relaxing and enjoying some truly beautiful weather. After one particularly spectacular day of lounging on the beach, we settled in front of the television in our pajamas. Both FOX and CNN were wall to wall with the Chicago ugliness. There were several hundred protesters marching on the floor of a Trump rally holding signs and locking arms. Some wore sombreros, one had wrapped himself in a Mexican flag, one held a sign that said, We Are Not Rapists. There were Bernie Sanders supporters, people from Black Lives Matters. Most were young, most seemed from one ethnic minority group or another. A black man appeared on the podium tearing up a piece of paper, trying to avoid being whisked away by a pair of security people. Then suddenly a white man and a black man were shown nose to nose in a heated argument. Soon, they were throwing punches. Trump supporters then started coming down from the crowd into the stew of chanters on the  floor of the hall, mostly middle aged men holding their own signs, thrusting pointed fingers angrily at the equally angry protesters. Meanwhile, outside the arena, Chicago police were trying to maintain order among the thousand of so protesters in the street. Arrests were being made, angry people, tightly packed together swayed back and forth, being jostled this way and that by the confused efforts of police batons. Faces contorted by angry shouts filled my television screen. Breathless announcers did their best to make a bad situation worse by piling on unhinged reactions to the images on screen.

Soon, Donald Trump was on the phone informing us that he had cancelled the event because of his concern for everyone's safety. For the next fifteen minutes, he skillfully played the victim, once again live and in prime time, via television time that he didn't have to pay for. 

As I watched this unfold in front of me, this thought came to me...Donald Trump just won the Republican nomination.

An argument can be made that Trump had this coming. His rallies have featured several ugly incidents of protesters being roughed up, with his vocal encouragement. But, like my mother used to say, "It's all fun and games until somebody puts an eye out!" Some may say that it's poetic justice that a Trump rally would be cancelled because of a thousand immigrant protesters. Others might point out that it's the height of irony for Trump to present himself as having had his First Amendment rights violated...when it has been Donald Trump who has championed an opening up of libel laws that would make it easier for him to lock up people who write bad things about him! But, as I watched the events unfold, all I could see was how a majority of people in my country would see it...an unruly mob trying to silence speech. Whatever the purpose of this protest was, if it was designed to rally people against Trump, it was a miserable failure. I would have felt exactly the same if a thousand Trump supporters had shown up at a Bernie Sanders of Hillary Clinton rally and forced its cancellation. My sympathies would have been squarely with Sanders and Clinton, not the screamers.

Now, a new chapter to the 2016 election story is opened, the part where we try to shout each other down, the part where protesters attempt to silence speech they would prefer not to hear. Each new event will feature louder and angrier denunciations. The blowback will be strong and equally angry. 

 

Somewhere, an unbalanced man or woman is contemplating martyrdom.

Breakfast With No Regrets

I've been eating breakfast at this place for literally decades. The Golden Griddle in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It's run by a handful of the nicest women in the world and is only opened for breakfast. Show up here for lunch or dinner and you're out of luck. It's a no fuss sort of place, where they unapologetically offer paper placemats with a map of South Carolina. The decor?...plastic golfer kitsch.

But, then they bring you your food...

When a meal like this is placed in front of you, immediately your health obsessed, calorie counting  alter ego starts barking at you, "This is a mistake! You're gonna regret this all day!" Perhaps. But the other part of you, the real you, the one that hasn't changed his habits since middle school is thrilled. This entire feast is mine for $12.99, every caveman morsel will be eaten.

There's their world famous short stack of buttermilk pancakes. I like the term short stack because it suggests that I exercised restraint by not ordering the tall stack,(much better value). When my waitress, the beautiful and talented Daisy suggested I try the sausage special of the day...spicy kielbasa, I figured I better go with the short stack. Incidentally, any eating establishment that features a daily sausage special wins at life. The special was as advertised...spicy, to the point that I had to ask for a refill on ice water. Daisy did so cheerfully adding a sincere, "bless your heart." As she walked away I noticed her t-shirt...I'm a hot mess.

The three plates are empty. I have left no evidence that any food was ever, in fact, served to me. I feel full...in a dangerous way. The plan now is to pay for my sins with a long run on the beach while I wait for Pam and Kaitlin to get here. I came down yesterday to meet with my two Pawley's Island clients and decided to make a weekend of it. It's 75 and sunny. I may even swing a golf club for the first time in 6 months. But this meal, this place will be one of the highlights.

Robots Writing Poetry?

I sit here on a Tuesday evening waiting for the election results, wondering if the Trump-Train gets derailed, or if we continue our slouch towards Gomorrah. Will Hillary's joyless forced march to the nomination continue, or will the old man steal one in Michigan?

While I wait, I'll share with you all an extrordinarily depressing text conversation I had with my son this afternoon. In the course of an otherwise harmless exchange, he informed me that there now exist robots who have been programmed to write music for the purposes of background music for commercials, movies etc. and apparently, they aren't half bad! Oh, and software exists that can extend the Bot-music for as long as the sequence demands. In other words, human musicians need not apply.

Since nobody on earth could accuse me of keeping up with technology, I was flabbergasted that such a thing was possible. Aghast, I shot back:

"What!? I wonder when we will see our first robot-written novel?? Or poetry???"

To which, without so much as a moment's hesitation, he delivered the news that it's already happened on the poetry side. He then provided me a link where I could go and read a collection of poetry and try and decide whether a poem was written by a human or a robot! I informed him that if I lived to be a hundred years old, I would never visit such a website!! 

Our conversation ended on a happier note, but it stills haunts me. Robots writing novels? Bot-music?? I'm sorry, art simply isn't art unless it proceeds from the imagination of human being. Art can't be produced by soulless things. Otherwise, it's just a commodity, a mass-produced blob of a thing that is spit out of a giant, faceless machine! The very idea that a programmed device is thought  capable of the creative impulse neccesary to conceive and then construct art is...is...I don't know what it is. But I'm pretty sure it's despicable!

All of my life I've been told by all the smart people how the technological revolution was great news for the human race. Indeed, I enjoy it's fruit every single day, and am right this minute, writing this blog on my iPad. But when I see the rise of drones and the rapidly advancing army of robots out there...yes, making our work easier, but also making us easier to do without, I'm starting to fear this brave new world. I'm no Luddite, just a little concerned about just where we human beings fit into the plans of the geniuses in Silicon Valley. Will my as yet unborn grandchildren have enough skill to do anything better and cheaper than the machines that will be coming online 20 years from now? If not, what on earth will they do with themselves?

Goodbye, Downton Abbey

Pam and I watched the very last episode of Downton Abbey last night. The fact that someone like me would have watched even one episode of such a show is astonishing now that I think about it. Generally speaking, I've never been particularly fond of the British, with the notable exceptions of Winston Churchill, William Shakespeare, and The Beatles. When I think of England, I think of General Bernard Montgomery of WWII fame, a pompous gasbag who couldn't fight his way out of a wet paper bag, but looked splendid in a uniform having his afternoon tea while George Patton was busy kicking Germany's ass. But, I digress.

Despite my misgivings, this show got it's hooks into me from the very start six years ago. I have spent those six years trying to figure out why. Was it the house? Might it have been the great writing? The richly drawn characters? The fascinating interaction of the classes? The grand sweep of the story?

Yes.

 Although last night's two hour finale wasn't the show's finest hour...everything got wrapped up with too tidy a bow for my taste...it left me sad that it was over. It felt like my one hour a week of civilization has died. Now we can all go back to the sewer of the Presidential election 24/7. Great. But, all good things must come to an end, I'm told. 

So, goodbye to a drama about characters who you cared about. Goodbye to intelligent conversation. Goodbye to that beautiful estate, and that majestic countryside. Goodbye to Carson's prodigious eyebrows, Mrs. Hughes' charming Scottish accent. Goodbye to Daisy's insufferable whining, and Mr. Bates' perpetually tilted head and slumped shoulders. Goodbye to sweet, sweet Anna, the lovably bumbling Mosley, and the constantly harried Mrs. Patmore. But most of all...and I can hardly make myself write it...goodbye to the splendid, unstoppable Dowager Countess, without whom the show would have failed miserably. Watching her for six years on Sunday nights has forced me to add Maggie Smith to my list of most admired Englishmen. What a beauty she was, with her caustic observations, withering one-liners and truly hysterical facial expressions. The woman carried the show, and above all others will be missed, even mourned the most.

Goodbye Downton, and here's hoping that your lasting legacy might prove to be a return to....good manners.

Pat Conroy. Oct. 1945 - Mar. 2016

Pat Conroy died yesterday. He was only 70. He had pancreatic cancer. I wasn't even aware that he was sick. Still, it surprised me that he would have died by means other than suicide. Pat Conroy was and remains my favorite American writer of the 20th century. No one else is even close.

I was introduced to him the year before the birth of my first child, 1986. The book was The Prince of Tides. I was mesmerized by the lushness of his prose, its beauty and power, and the dark, disturbing story. Like all of Conroy's work, Prince was thinly veiled autobiography. To say that he had a rough childhood somehow sounds flippant. His childhood was brutal and horrifying, and the fictionalized version of it made for spellbinding reading. I was hooked. 

From there I began devouring everything else from this modern day Faulkner. First it was The Great Santini, then The River is Wide and The Lords of Discipline. All were set in the low country of South Carolina, with its brooding marshes, succulent shrimp dishes and humid briny breezes. Each novel was a new chapter from the author's tortured life; Santini, the story of his animalistic marine corps father, River, the story of his short, unhappy year as a teacher of poor kids on Daufuskie Island, and Lords, the deeply disturbing account of his four years at South Carolina's Citadel. I would read his work in much the same way as a motorist stares at a four car pile up on the interstate, half expecting to see a severed head rolling along the road. But despite the bleak darkness of his life, there were moments of beauty made more compelling by the darkness. There was a tenderness about his heroes that survived  the evil. Even though you knew there wouldn't be a happy ending, you plowed on because the beauty of his writing was worth it. He had the southerner's gift for story telling, the kind of stories that just couldn't possibly be true. As you read, you were convinced that it was all outlandish fiction right up to the very second when you discovered it wasn't, an artful turn of phrase that betrayed the autobiographers hand. It was then that you would shudder, and recoil a bit. Great writing will do that.

I became something of a Pat Conroy evangelist back in 1986. I gave the book to my sister, raving that I had discovered the greatest southern novelist since Thomas Wolfe. She hated it. Claimed it was too disturbing. She was right, of course. I soon discovered that Conroy wasn't for everyone.

His later novels, Beach Music and South of Broad werent as good as his earlier work, but still very good. In an interview he gave a few years ago he had said that growing up in a dysfunctional family had been the greatest gift any writer could have been given. His brother Tom committed suicide, his sister spent time in a mental hospital, and the author had two nervous breakdowns while writing, or at least two that his publicist will admit to. And now he has succumbed to cancer.

To read a Conroy book is like grieving for something. To become emersed in such a nightmarish life is to appreciate all the more the normality of your own. To imagine the Great Santini striding over his family like a simmering, hulking beast is to nearly cry at the gentle goodness of your own father. When I finished Santini I remember thinking, this is what life could have been like if I had belonged to someone else.

So, today I thank the great writer for making me love my parents even more.

Rest in Peace, Pat Conroy.

The Perfect President

It's a whole lot easier to identify bad Presidential candidates than it is to recognize good ones. In this particular race the truly horrendous ones stand out like sore thumbs...again with the hands!! But the better candidates all have flaws as well. Besides, just being associated with this WWF-style campaign has stained them all. So, what if you could go into a lab somewhere and build the perfect Presidential candidate? What if you could create the perfect candidate out of spare parts from the basement over at the Smithsonian? Of course, the candidate who I would build wouldn't necessarily be perfect for my liberal friends. My conservative friends wouldn't be totally thrilled either, I suspect, but...here goes.

Presidential candidate prototype

Physical characteristics:

Female, 5'6" 135 pounds. Blond hair, blue eyes. Not stunningly beautiful, but fairly attractive. No obvious scars or tattoos. No annoying facial tics. 55 years old.

Background:

Born in Kansas. Graduated from Kansas State University with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Obtained her Masters degree in History from the University of Virginia. Met and married her husband after grad school and settled in Charlottesville, Virginia where she began teaching high school history. After having two children and in only her fifth year as an educator, she wins national teacher of the year honors in a ceremony at the White House. It is while touring that great house that she decides she might like to be President one day. To better prepare herself for the job, she decides to retire from teaching and join the military. Consequently, she spends the next eight years serving her country in the United States Navy. Upon completion of her tour of duty, she returns to Charlottesville and wins a seat on the local school board, then as a delegate to the Virginia General Assembly, then two terms as a Congresswoman in Washington, DC.

Religion:

Presbyterian who actually attends church every Sunday, but never, ever talks about her faith in the course of her professional duties. When asked by the media about her faith she always responds, "I am a Christian who attends a Presbyterian church."

Hobbies:

Avid reader. Loves the classics, but also indulges in espionage novels, sci-fi thrillers, and the occasional murder mystery. Enjoys dogs, fishing, golf and brewing her own beer.

Policy Positions:

Wants to figure out a way to preserve Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid for future generations while reversing the actuarial trend lines of those entitlements. Is committed to looking at all options available to get this done, including but not limited to, tax increases, benefit cuts, raising the retirement age, means testing and partial privatization. She sees all of these programs on a path to bankruptcy in the not too distant future and will not under any circumstances continue to do absolutely nothing about it. This is the central plank in her platform and primary motivation for her candidacy.

Is committed to achieving a balanced federal budget within ten years. Is willing to cut spending and raise taxes to get it done. No federal program will be exempt from cuts, including and especially the defense budget. 

Her foreign policy platform is based on a very old school of thought which she traces back to the founding fathers who believed in avoiding all "entangling alliances." She believes that if America doesn't want to get involved in another war in the Middle East, we should get the hell out of the Middle East. As a veteran, she is proud of the capabilities and virtue of the United States military, but is keenly aware of its limitations. It is not a nation building enterprise, it is a force to protect the American people from those who would do us harm, not a plaything of politicians who seem addicted to projecting power all over the world.

On the subject of immigration, she believes that our national borders can and should be secured. Any nation that loses control of its borders loses control of itself. However, building a giant wall to accomplish this is about as dumb an idea that has come along since the creation of the helium reserve. As far as the millions of undocumented aliens currently in the country, she believes that some pathway to becoming citizens would work better than rounding up millions of people for deportation.

She believes in a philosophy of honest government doing the things that it does best and only doing those things which the Constitution has given it the authority to do. Therefore, under her administration, all departments and bureaus of the federal government will be reviewed by a large and distinguished panel of scholars to determine their constitutionality. Then a recommendation will be submitted to Congress to determine the future of the Commerse Department, Department of Education, HUD etc...Any savings that may come from shuttered agencies will be put towards repaying the National debt.

She believes that abortion should only be an option if the life of the mother is at risk. She views the issue as one of protecting the defenseless child. However, she also views the issue as settled law that as President she has no power to change by fiat. Instead, she prefers promoting adoption as a more humane alternative. On the issue of gay marriage, she believes in the definition of marriage that had survived for four thousand years, but doesn't believe that the institution of marriage is something that is very much of the government's business in the first place.

She believes in tort law reform and criminal justice reform, especially in the area of sentencing. She believes that Americans should be discouraged from suing each other at the drop of a hat. She also believes that employers should not be allowed to deny job applicants consideration solely because of a criminal conviction. This needed reform would go a long way towards reversing the unacceptable unemployment rate among minorities.

She believes in tax reform which would feature the elimination of corporate tax loopholes that allow for the off-shoring of profits and the on-shoring of deductions. She prefers a combination of a flat tax with a minimum income requirement which would protect lower income families. She is flexible as to what rate the tax would settle on and is willing to listen to all suggestions. However, the end result must be the abolition of the IRS, and the end of tax accountants making a fortune courtesy of our 700,000 page tax code.

Ok, there you have it...my perfect Presidential candidate. If I left out your pet issue, feel free to complain. Or, even better...build your own candidate.