Would The Last Person Leaving America Please Turn Out The Lights?

Thirty years ago, this guy and his sorry excuse for a beard showed up in front of the Senate Judiciary committee for his confirmation hearings to become a Supreme Court Judge. Before the hearings were over, his last name had officially become a...verb.

According to Webster’s, to BORK someone is to...“to attack or defeat (a nominee or candidate for public office) unfairly through an organized campaign of harsh public criticism or vilification.” Ever since then, Supreme Court confirmations have become high drama passion plays. If the nominee is from a Republican President, the Code Pink ladies can be counted on to show up for their fifteen minutes of theatrics, warning us all about the large scale slaughter of women about to befall the republic. If the nominee is from a Democrat president, we can count on the NRA to predict the wholesale seizure of guns from law abiding citizens which is just around the corner. Each senator on the committee tries to outdo the other with empassioned speeches, masquerading as questions. When the nominee is a conservative and the proceedings get out of control, Democrats call the chaotic dissent, the highest form of patriotism. When the nominee is a liberal, the chaos is nothing less than high treason! For someone like me who is so easily embarrassed by government, it is about as bad as it gets.

Well, yesterday I actually learned something new. I saw something I had never seen before. I was on a treadmill at the gym...you know, running in place, getting nowhere ( how deliciously ironic ). The hearings were on the screens in front of me with captions at the bottom. It was later in the afternoon, so I had missed the pink ladies and the temper tantrums from the morning sessions. I was watching The Senators making their opening statements. The camera would alternate between the preening Lindsey Graham and the solemn stone face of the nominee. After a while, it got really boring watching his blank expression so I started checking out the various people behind the nominee in the first row of the gallery. The only person of interest was a reasonably attractive woman just off the nominee’s left shoulder. I didn’t know who she was. She looked too young to be his wife and too old to be his daughter. And that was about all the thought I gave her...until this morning.

According to the left, I learn that this woman’s name is Zina Bash, and not only is she insufferably smug, but she spent the entirety of her time on camera signaling to America that Brett Kavanaugh is the approved candidate of White Nationalists. How do they know this? Because she was flashing what everyone in America knows is the white power hand sign.

I consider myself a reasonably informed citizen. I mean, I don’t watch C-Span 24 hours a day, but I read a lot more than the average bear and try to keep up with what’s going on in the world. Well, this was a new one on me. Apparently, the universal sign for A-Ok ...

..has somehow been transformed into some sort of secret handshake of the Neo-Nazi movement. Only, if you spend two minutes researching the thing, you discover that the Anti-Defamation League says it’s a hoax perpetrated by the notorious website 4chan. But, why let the facts get in the way of a great story? If you look carefully at this photograph, the position of her right hand as it rests on her left forearm looks awfully suspicious...

Ladies and gentlemen, it has come to this in my country. 

Here’s my interpretation of this new hand sign...

Actually, the reach of the white power movement might be so much worse than I thought...

Sunday Morning Puns

One day, the monks at the monastery decided they needed to raise money.

Friar Tuck decided to start a florist's shop. It was a success! All the villagers nearby loved to buy flowers from the men of God.

All except one, that is.

The local florist! He was getting run out of business by the monks. He went to the Friar and asked him to close their shop, but they refused.

A week later, he went back again, and begged the Friar to close down the shop - he was going bankrupt, and his family was hungry!

Again, they refused.

Another week still, the florists's mother went to the monastery and nagged them to close down to save her poor old son.

And yet again, they refused.

The local florist was fed up with the monks, and spent the last of his money to hire Hugh McTagart, the roughest thug in town, and well know for doing anything for money.

Hugh went to Friar Tuck, and told him that if he didn't close their florist shop, he'd have to 'persuade' them. Initially, Tuck refused-- but when McTagart began to smash up the shop and threaten the pacifist monks, he caved in and closed the shop.

Just goes to show you; Hugh, and only Hugh can prevent florist friars.

What kind of exercise do lazy people do?

....diddly-squats

I hear that Apple is working on building an electric car, but they’re having trouble...installing windows.

Newspaper headline about a tightrope walker who walked across the Han river in Korea...

Skywalker Crosses Han Solo 

Pragmatism. Are There Any Limits?

Pragmatism. It’s a word I hear a lot these days whenever the subject of Donald Trump comes up. It’s like a get-out-of-jail free card for my evangelical friends seeking cover for their support of a President who seems completely at odds with, well...Christianity. Webster’s defines a pragmatist as someone who is more concerned with the practical rather than the idealistic. In other words, pragmatism is centered around what works, what is utilitarian, not philosophical. In their telling, Trump was far superior to Hillary Clinton, and despite his clear character flaws, they are holding their noses while enjoying a booming economy and a more conservative Supreme Court.

Ok.

So, just so I’m clear...from now on in American politics, it no longer matters what kind of moral values politicians have, it doesn’t matter anymore how reprobate a politician’s private life has been...as long as they deliver the goods, meaning, they serve up your preferred governing philosophy, either conservative or liberal. All that matters now is...what works. Interesting.

Fidel Castro’s Cuba featured a drastic increase in the literacy rate for that island nation. In addition, everyone was given free health care. Are my evangelical/conservative friends ok with Castro? 

Mussolini, by all accounts, was the first and last Italian leader to make the trains run on time. We cool with Mussolini?

Adolf Hitler put the German people back to work, transforming the Weimar Republic’s moribund economy, and restored the pride of the German people. Are we to celebrate Hitler’s pragmatism?

Let me be clear...I am not suggesting that our President is on a par with these three tyrants. I am simply asking if there is a limit to pragmatism? Are we as Christians prepared to except any level of lying, any illegality, any sordid personal behavior, as long as we get a conservative Supreme Court judge? If the answer is yes, then, what happens when the lying, criminal, amoral President...is a Democrat? On what grounds will any conservative or any Christian be able to criticize him or her? 

Therapy Jokes

The results of yesterday’s blog are in and they remind me of the old advice given to first year law students...When interrogating a witness on the stand, never ask a question that you don’t already know the answer to.

Here I was thinking that I would use the power of this blog to sway public opinion in my favor in a private disagreement I was having with my wife. I would take advantage of my powers of persuasion, my reader’s natural affection for Lucy, and the overall wild popularity of dogs in general. When the overwhelming support of my position came pouring in via the comment section, I was planning on saying something like...Huh, wow...it seems like an awful lot of people think we should take Lucy to Maine...

Instead, my argument was unanimously rejected...not only online, but two guys at my office poked their heads in my office yesterday to say...Leave Lucy at home, moron. My defeat was so complete, so humiliating, that I spent much of last night searching the Internet for more horrible Dad Jokes to cheer myself up. If the reader is rolling their eyes right now, all I can say is...you should have thought of the possible consequences when you sided with Pam and threw me under the bus!!

Why can’t you take inventory in Afghanistan?

Because of the Tally Ban.

Why should you never trust a train?

Because they have loco motives.

Everyone should learn sign language.

It’s pretty handy.

What do you do with a dead chemist?

You barium.

Advertising slogan for an auto-body shop...

We come highly wreck-a-mended.

What do you call an owl who does magic tricks?

Hoooooodini.

Big Decision

This blog made a ghastly error recently by allowing National Dog Day to go by without comment. It was this past Sunday, August 26. What could I possibly have been thinking?

You all know of my love of dogs, in particular  Golden retrievers, and specifically...Miss Lucy...

   

You also know that of all of our Goldens, Lucy has been and remains the most...er, unique. She is a bundle of energy, athleticism, and beauty with more nervous ticks than a guy with Tourette’s after three cups of coffee. Therein lies a dilemma. Because she is so high maintenance and such a drama queen, my wife and I are at odds over whether or not to take her to Maine with us in two weeks. I am in favor of it. Pam is not. A decision must be made soon. Here are the entirely valid arguments Pam makes for her position:

1. When you have a dog with you for three weeks, it limits what kind of side trips you can take since you can’t leave Lucy in a strange house (or any house really) for longer than about five hours.

2. Although Lucy loves the lake and delights in swimming and retrieving all sorts of things, she cannot be trusted to not take off into the deep woods or a neighbor’s cabin on a whim...unleashed dogs being a huge no-no in our rental agreement. 

3. It’s one thing when Lucy gets freaked out during a thunder storm and pees on a rug here at home...another thing entirely when she does it in an expensive rental home.

4. Despite the fact that Lucy is an awesome traveler, more well behaved, in fact, than I am on long trips...traveling with her makes finding a hotel mid-trip much more difficult. There aren’t as many dog friendly hotels as you might think.

5. Leaving her alone in a strange house for even short trips into town makes Pam nervous. What if there’s a loud sound and she goes crazy? What if she starts barking and disturbing others?

All of these are valid arguments.

My counter arguments are mostly emotional.

1. I miss her too much if we are apart for three weeks.

2. SHE LOVES THE LAKE...

  

3. She’s a great snuggle buddy...

So, as you can see, my wife has the better argument. What shall we do? I welcome your input.

Just A Thought...

Here’s a thought for your consideration this morning.

Back in the days before the internet, if you were of a mind to attack someone’s character you had essentially two options...gossip or the U.S. Postal Service. I am speaking here of normal people trying to bring down a neighbor, not celebrities and politicians who have always had the media at their disposal. If you really had grown to despise Joe down the street, you could start talking him down behind his back with the well chosen phrase or half truth...gossip being as ancient a tool for this purpose as is known to man. But, if you wanted to step up your game you could type a poison pen letter and make copies of it, stuff them in envelopes, take them to the post office and send them to everyone in the neighborhood with no return address. Back in the day, someone actually did this to my Dad when he was the pastor of Winn’s Baptist Church. We never found out who sent them, but they did a lot of damage. But, each of these methods take time and planning. They take a certain meticulousness and premeditation.

Not so anymore.

Now, with one careless and casual click of the mouse, you can destroy a reputation. Facebook, Twitter, online chat rooms and the like offer everyone an anonymous microphone.

I don’t know about you, but I much prefer the days when character assassination was a retail business.

One Less Patriot

I don’t remember an awful lot about my high school years. But I do remember one assembly like it was yesterday. We had all gathered in the gym to hear a man speak. He was a navy pilot from Virginia who had been shot down in Vietnam and spent years in a POW camp being tortured by his barbaric captors. His name was Paul Galanti. I listened to him tell a sanitized version of what must have been a hellish nightmare. He spoke of what it means to devote yourself to something greater than comfort. As a seventeen year old kid, I’m not sure I understood it all. How could I? 

I thought of Paul Galanti when the news came yesterday of John McCain’s passing. Few of us are ever asked to make such a sacrifice for our country. Every man wonders whether or not he would hold up under similar pressures. Would I have the courage? Or, would I break and grovel for mercy? I am supremely grateful that I never had to find out.

I bought John McCain’s memoir, Faith of Our Father’s, practically the day it went on sale. It took me barely three days to finish it. It was horrible. It forced the reader to confront the absolute worst of human character, man’s inhumanity to man. Anyone who survived such an ordeal would be forgiven for becoming bitter and angry, for spending the rest of their lives in a mad rage at the world. But, John McCain spent the rest of his life serving his country in the best way he knew how. To listen to his colleagues from both sides of the aisle testify to his character is a rare and beautiful thing.

I was never a huge McCain fan politically. I found his maverick schtick a bit tiring at times. But the one thing about the Senator that I always respected was this...the man was hard wired to put his country first. I may have disagreed with some of his conclusions, but I never doubted that he came to those conclusions out of a sincere desire to do what was best for his country...not himself. And really...in politics, what more can we ask of our leaders? We are never going to agree on everything, but is it too much to ask that our political class endeavor to advance what is best for America rather than what is best for the Democrat or Republican Party? In other words, I’m looking for...patriots.

In 2018 it has come to this...I only want one thing from politicians...devotion to the country instead of themselves or their party. With the passing of John McCain, there is one less such politician.