A Pearl of Wisdom

Somehow I have gotten signed up for this daily quotations thing that gets emailed to me every morning. Some of them are from famous people, some from people I've never heard of, but all of them are short, one sentence pearls of wisdom. So, after reading at least 500 of them over the past couple of years, I've decided to fashion one of my own. As far as I know, I came up with this one myself, at least I don't recall ever reading it anywhere else. Of course, my more internet-friendly readers might be able to find someone, somewhere who said it first. If so, then I apologize for claiming sole authorship.

This one sentence pearl of wisdom has it's origin in the vitriol kicked up by the Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton tornado of 2016 and it's malignant aftermath and it is this:

"Anyone willing to lose a friend over politics has overvalued the importance of politics and undervalued the importance of friendship."

There you have it. It is my heartfelt opinion. You are free to disagree. I am free to pray for you if you do.

Lucy's Latest

It's probably time for me to update you all on the State of Lucy's mental health. Our girl has been a virtual walking, barking, encyclopedia of psychosis for all of her 2 plus years on this earth. Well, now she has developed a new quirk to add to her fear of bags, the wind, falling leaves, heavy rain, thunder, pillows, ceiling fans, garbage cans, and the color black.

Lately, Lucy refuses to come downstairs without A. An invitation from one of us, or B. One of us has to go to the door that leads to the deck and jiggle the bells that hang around the doorknob. We bought this thing when we first got Lucy to teach her to jiggle it whenever she needed to go outside to pee. It worked splendidly. But now she must hear the bells ring before she is willing to come downstairs.

For the life of us we cannot come up with a plausible explanation for this new strangeness. There has been no traumatic event that either of us can recall that may have precipitated this bizarre new behavior. But, we will be sitting in the den and one of us will hear her let out a soft whine while standing at the top of the stairs. We will implore her to come down. Sometimes she will obey, but other times one of us has to get up and go jiggle the bells or she will stand there whining all day! But, ring those bells and she comes flying down the stairs and greets us as if she is the happiest dog in the world.

Just another day in the life of the most neurotic dog since Scooby-do.

Inauguration Day

It's been a crazy week for The Tempest. Monday, I wrote a post about Meryl Streep's Golden Globe acceptance speech. At the time I didn't think it was anything special, just one of my routine pithy takes on an event of the day. Four mornings later that post just passed 10,000 page views. I'm not sure I ever believed I would write anything that would be read by that many people. Pretty cool.

But, as Bill Clinton used to say whenever he was asked about Juanita Broderick, "Time to move on!"

A week from today, Donald Trump will be inaugurated. I will not be watching. It's not necessarily a diss of him, since I can hardly remember the last time I watched any President take the oath of office. It's just that I don't want to watch what he might do to the ceremony. We are not a monarchy. We don't have the kinds of pomp and circumstance, the gilded ceremonies of state that other nations do, especially Great Britain. We fancy ourselves too democratic, too egalitarian for such things. But the Inauguration is the closest we come. My memories of the event are mostly of Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan, although the first one I ever watched was on a small black and white RCA Victor when LBJ took the oath. The thought of a guy like Trump standing in the exact same spot as those guys to take the oath jolts me a little. Maybe he will make some changes like. . .

1. Laying his left hand not on the Bible, but an autographed copy of The Art of the Deal.

2. Doing away with playing Hail to the Chief as his entrance music and replacing it with My Way.

3. Becoming the first President in history to wear a bright red baseball cap on the Inauguration stand.

I might set up an official betting line on how many times he uses the phrase, make America great again during his speech. I'm setting the over/under at five. Ditto with THIS, I can tell you.

I wonder if at any time during the proceedings he will reach for his smart phone and blast out one of his Tweets? Maybe something like this:

Just saw Nancy Pelosi at one of the balls. What a hag! So much plastic surgery. Sad.

Or...

Melanie is so much hotter than any of the cabinet wives. Winning....

Of course, there will be protesters. I assume that every Inauguration has had some, but normally the press refuses to cover them. Not this time. CNN will probably have Don Lemon doing live remotes from the Code Pink scrum. I'm sure there will be a gathering of pro-illegal immigration, gay rights demonstrators waving both Mexican, and Rainbow flags. Anderson Cooper will probably get that assignment.

So, no...I will not be watching. I'll read all about it the next day on The President's Twitter feed.

Let's Be Friends

I had a friend of mine tell me recently that he didn't think he could ever be friends with a leftist. When I pressed him he clarified that he meant someone from the hard left of the political divide in this country, which I took to mean someone who would vote for Bernie Sanders or someone who is an avowed Socialist. But, however you define hard left, the question remains, why exactly does someone's views on politics preclude the possibility of friendship? Is this a new thing or has it always been so in America?

First of all, I need to admit that there probably exist people with whom it would be impossible to forge a friendship. For example, I can't ever imagine being buddies with a pedophile. I don't think I'm ever going to be caught dead getting chummy with someone who tortures dogs. Rapists probably aren't getting Christmas cards from the Dunnevant's, etc. But, we're talking politics here. How can someone's political views make it impossible to be friends?

In fairness, most of my friends are generally more conservative than liberal. To a certain extent, human beings feel more comfortable with those to whom we have the most in common, and there's certainly nothing wrong with that. But I have plenty of liberal friends. Heck, both of my kids are more liberal than I am, and I love both of them to the moon and back. So what's the deal with all of the hostility? Here's my theory.

My objection to the hard left is that I believe their ideas about government to be wrong on the merits. I believe that overly empowered government is dangerous to the health and wealth of mankind. That's  my view of the historical record. So, why would I want to be a friend to someone who I believe supports such an unhappy outcome? Here's why...because, I am convinced that THEY don't believe that empowered government is a bad thing! I don't assume bad motives in those with whom I disagree. I believe that most people from the left side of the divide honestly believe that their vision of government would be a great benefit to the country. They look at the arc of history differently than I do. While I believe they are mistaken about their views, I don't think they are malicious, deliberately trying to enslave the country and turn us into a gulag. We just simply look at the world's problems and have come to different conclusions about how to remedy them.

Are there exceptions to this? Certainly. I believe that the far right and the far left contain people with truly dangerous ideas and attitudes. But generally speaking, most everyone else starts off with genuinely different ideas about things. But, all of us developed those ideas from a place of good will, honestly trying to grapple with finding ways to better mankind.

Some of you will read this and think, "Poor Doug, he is sooo naive!" Maybe. But I'm thinking that if all of us would try giving each other the assumption of good will, we would all get along better. Our parties would be more fun too because it takes all kinds to make a world. And, how awesome would it be if Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama walked through my door together and I got the chance to have a beer with them both. I bet the two of them would hit it off alraight. If they could do it, why not the rest of us?

Protest is BACK!!

As most of you know, I'm not a fan of our President-Elect. I'm fully prepared to be in permanent cringe-mode these next four years every time he opens his mouth or cranks up Twitter. However, and life is always about the "howevers", his election has had one positive effect on the country, namely, the reemergence of dissent to its rightful place as the "highest form of patriotism." During Barack Obama's presidency dissent had become synonymous with racism and therefore been slung back into the dustbend of history, especially in Hollywood. Now, with Trump's ascendency, it has made an uproarious comeback. Good.

Protest has now become the obligation of all citizens. We must all be shaken from our complacency, aroused from our moral slumber to combat the dangerous man in the White House. The Reverend Al Sharpton has called for "100 days of civil disobedience." A series of protests are planned for the Innauguration. Yesterday's confirmation hearings for Sen. Jeff Sessions were interrupted several times by Code Pink folks dressed in Klan robes. Meanwhile, in Tinseltown, political acceptance speeches will be taken to new heights at the upcoming Oscars as our nation's finest actors and directors will try to outdo Ms. Streep's performance at the Golden Globes. Resistance to the Washington establishment is about to enter its golden era, and I for one couldn't be happier.

In the spirit of this new season of speaking truth to power, I have stumbled upon the ultimate protest for the artistic community in our country since they seem to be the ones most troubled by Donald Trump, and for good reason. Perhaps no one who has ever occupied the White House has been a bigger artistic Phillistine than the Trumpster. I mean, seriously, have you seen how he decorates his house?? Well, here's my idea. How about the entire artistic community in America refuse, absolutely REFUSE to accept any endowment money from Washington while Trump is President? No grants, no subsidies, nothing! This is the time for grand gestures, not small measures. To accept money from such a corrupt government headed by such a dangerous racist, homophobic, misogynistic President would be to elevate financial expedience over principle and that would be unthinkable, would it not? Now is the time to cut the chord of dependency on taxpayer handouts. For artists, I can think of nothing more powerful, nothing that would send a clearer message to Mr. Trump that he is not OUR President, and we can not be bought! 

Just an idea from a humble blogger...

The Crazy Reaction to Yesterday's Blog

I'll never understand this blogging business if I live to be a hundred. Yesterday, I simply responded to something in the news that I thought was interesting for irony purposes. A Hollywood Goddess claiming victimhood status practically is begging to be written about, after all. So, I pounded out a few paragraphs, pressed publish, and went on with my day.

It was a full day, jammed with the boring but technical work of entering client data into a risk management computer software program which I am attempting to learn. Add to that several phone calls with clients, and some bill paying and there isn't much time to check back in to The Tempest. Around noon I managed to do just that and was shocked to see what had happened while I was away.

Before yesterday, the most traffic this blog has ever seen in one day that wasn't artificially aided by the sneaky French was about 400 page views. Further, the most popular single post I had ever written had roughly 950 views. Then, Meryl Streep happened. Yesterday, 2900 souls came to my blog, 2700 hundred of whom read about the peerless actress. When I woke up this morning, that number had climbed to 4600. Ok, this is about as close to going viral as this blog will ever get, and for the life of me I don't understand it. Listen, I have written way better stuff than this Streep thing and lots of it didn't even get a sniff!

I'm certainly not complaining, so thanks for sharing. As you can imagine, my Facebook page attracted a lot of comments, the majority of them respectful and courteous. But then some guy I didn't know chimes in with some gratuitous slap at African Americans complete with a couple of strange memes which I didn't fully understand but could tell they weren't very nice. A lot of back and forth ensued and finally, I did my best Big Brother imitation and wiped out the entire thread. I did so with no regret. Yeah, yeah, I know. The First Amendment. But my blog belongs to me, and I can be a real jerk at times when it comes to free expression, especially when that free expression starts getting ugly. I'm just not going to tolerate overtly racist remarks. I don't want my name associated with it. So I reserve the right to edit racists memes. Sorry. There are plenty of places you can go to post that sort of thing. Not at The Tempest.

Meryl Streep

This morning the internet is abuzz with talk of Meryl Streep and her acceptance speech for a lifetime achievement award from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association last night at the Golden Globes. It has been decades since last I endured a Hollywood awards show, So I had to find a video of it to get up to speed. I did. Wow.

Let me begin by admitting to a fondness for Streep the actor. I have seen her in many roles and she has always been excellent. I have never concerned myself with her views on politics. Why should I? She is an actor. She emotes for a living. Why would I care about who she votes for or what her views happen to be on immigration or the minimum wage? That makes about as much sense as me asking my plumber what he thinks about French poetry. But, there she was last night boldly expressing the only opinion anyone who knows what's best for them in Hollywood is allowed to have. . . Trump is a very bad man!!

Actually, there was a kernel of truth to some of her thoughts. It wasn't moonbeam crazy or particularly unhinged. But one line was truly astonishing to me:

"You and all of us in this room really belong to the most vilified segments of society right now. Think about it: Hollywood, foreigners and the press."

Ahh yes, the horrible vilification of Hollywood actors has got to stop! When I think of the savage way we treat our thespians I can hardly sleep at night. Why, just look at the way we force them to dress up in $100,000 designer gowns and fawn their beauty in front of the nation on those red carpets this time of year. Not to mention how we throw money at them in such obscene amounts that they are practically forced to purchase multiple estates all over the world. Then we have the gall to give them bad reviews when they appear in Fast and Furious IX. We disrespect our Hollywood folks so much, we only devote 70 billion dollars a year to their care and feeding through the purchase of movie tickets. At some point these poor, disrespected people are going to say, "enough" and move to China or France or anywhere they might be able to live their lives without being the targets of such oppression. Then, what will we all do? Ms. Streep offered a glimpse into such an artless existence when she suggested that we would be left with nothing to watch but "football and mixed marshal arts...which are NOT the arts!"

I watch this sort of thing and marvel at the astonishing lack of self awareness. She insults half of the citizens of her own country, who incidentally, just changed the channel from a football game to watch her speech, and then wonders why a guy like Trump is in the White House. I suppose it makes her feel good, makes the people in that ballroom feel good to cast all of themselves in the roll of the good guys and everyone who voted for Trump as the bad guys. But, I feel pretty sure that nobody in that hall has to worry about losing their manufacturing job to cheap foreign labor. Nobody drinking Dom and eating gluten free caviar has to worry much about illegal immigration. For most Americans, illegals aren't the ones mowing our lawns or cleaning our toilets. Those guys all work for the people in the $100,000 gowns.

So, by all means Hollywood, use every chance you get over these next four years to denigrate the 60 million people who voted for Trump. Keep referring to yourselves as a vilified, put upon minority. Keep making fun of all those knuckle-dragging, football loving morons out there in fly over country. Let's see if that helps in 2020.