Taking a Break

This year started with such promise. During the first week of the year I wrote seven straight posts which made no mention of politics. No Trump, no Obama, no Clinton, nothing. But since then, it's been basically all-politics, all the time. I have been guilty of the very thing I complain about on social media, the unhealthy and ultimately boring obsession with politics. Doing so has brought never before seen levels of popularity for this blog. The last 30 days or so has seen it's readership quadruple. But honestly, there is something vaguely disturbing about it all. I can't really put my finger on it. Every writer in the world wants and enjoys being read, and I am no exception to that rule. But this feels different. This feels like suddenly I have become a partisan, writing about deathly serious things about which people are deeply invested heart and soul...when all I really want to do is have fun and make people laugh.

So here's the deal. I'm taking the rest of this month off, something I haven't done since I started this blog six years ago. When I return on February 1, I will attempt to go the entire month without making mention of any politician, living or dead, or any political party. It will be difficult to resist since I loathe them so and delight in humiliating them at every turn. My son doesn't believe I can do it, make it an entire month without writing about Trump, and he might be right. But I intend to make the effort. I have always maintained that there is far more to life than politics. Well, I need to write like I believe it.

Thanks for reading, and I will see you all again in February.

The Death of Humor?

What a horrible weekend. While misty clouds hung low overhead, my wife came down with her second bad cold in a month. Accordingly, I hung around the house making meals for her and consequently was forced to observe the world through social media for two days, there being little else to do. I have come to the conclusion that it is no longer any fun being an American. If the first two days of the Era of Trump is any indication, I will need to make some drastic life changes to survive the next four years.

This was the weekend when postmodern critical theory, once the domain of the cloistered tenured radicals of academia came back to bite liberals in the ass. Now that Trump occupies the Oval Office, his spokesmen introduced America to the concept of alternative facts. You can have your facts, and I can have my facts, objective truth being simply a social construct since objective reality doesn't really exist. Checkmate.

Case in point. Yesterday, I saw what I thought was a perfectly hilarious picture on Twitter of a protest placard which proclaimed, "Make them pay for razors if we pay for tampons." I posted it on my Facebook wall with the pithy comment, "Seriously y'all, anyone know where I can score some of these free razors?" I thought that the joke was fairly straight forward, and would require no in depth analysis. Wrong.

I was soon introduced to the fact-checking wrath of humorless, Google-powered progressive millennials. I learned of the scourge of gender bias in the field of personal hygiene products not only here in the United States but all around the world. Apparently, in France there was a 20% luxury tax on tampons but no luxury tax whatsoever on men's razors. Thank God, it was recently repealed. Surely, this was what the protester had in mind when she/he constructed her/his sign. But wait. Isn't the background architecture suspiciously European? And what about the blue sky in the background? Surely, this sign was not from the Women's March in Washington?! Just about the time I was becoming convinced that humor was no longer available to me as a communication tool, I learned of the fascinating field of white balance. No, this is not a racial analysis of athleticism, but rather a photography technique whereby one can take a cell phone picture on a cloudy day and make the sky appear blue using a tungsten something or other. Oh, and the sign in the background is in English...or is it French? Needless to say, I was completely out of my depth and retreated under the assault. That will teach me to try to inject humor into an otherwise humorless weekend.

So, what to do? I have zero confidence that anyone in the Trump administration can be relied upon to tell me the truth about anything. Yet, the vanguard of the resistance, the unhinged, f-bomb spewing left who think the comparative price points of tampons and razors are a thing, leave me totally cold. But this is how life is going to be for the next four years. Maybe I'll call it the Revenge of the Postmodernists. 

vero, Quid est veritas?

My Opinion on the Women's March

Yesterday, all around the world, millions of liberal women marched. I'm sure that many of you have been eagerly awaiting my take on the matter. Well, maybe not many of you, and maybe eagerly is a stretch. Be that as it may, my sainted mother, a powerful and influential woman in her own right, did not raise any fools. My opinion on a mass demonstration of liberal women in cities all over the world is this...I have no opinion. As a man, any opinion I might have is best kept to myself. This is the first and most essential rule of happy coexistence with womenkind. There are times when it is necessary to look and listen, and keep one's mouth shut.

This is one of those times.

The Speech.

I walked into the house like I do most days around noon to fix my lunch. Into this empty house I spoke the words, "Alexa, play WRVA." I haven't yet gotten over the strangeness of speaking out loud to an electronic device. It makes me feel weird and a bit lazy. But nonetheless, it is what it is. Alexa obeyed and the first words I heard were Donald Trump's so help me God. WRVA was carrying the Inauguration live. As I warmed up my soup on the stove, I listened. By the time I finished my soup, it was over. 16 minutes, brevity being the soul of the halfwit.

Actually, I'll give him credit for giving a short speech, since such a thing is rare among the political class who never seem to tire of the sound of their own voices. I'll also give him credit for only referring to himself a couple of times, a clear departure from the annoying habit of his predecessor. But the substance of the speech was essentially a few undeniable truths surrounded by a dump truck full of bullshit.

 He's right when he says that Washington has enriched itself at the expense of the rest of the nation. But many of the most egregious enrichers were on the podium behind him, many of whom have their home in the Republican Party. When he talked about the wealth of the middle class being stolen from them and redistributed all around the world, he left the clear impression that world trade is a zero sum game, if other countries get rich it must mean that we are getting poorer. What he conveniently left out was any reference to the thousands of American enterprises and thus American workers who have been enriched by free trade.

Although I must confess I found it refreshing to hear an American President publicly proclaim that he will always put American interest first, his throw away line about his two simple rules...Buy American and Hire American, amount to protectionism, an economic philosophy shot through with failure, about which the historical record is crystal clear. Listen, I'm all for buying American products first IF the product in question happens to be the best. I'm all for hiring American workers IF they are the most qualified. But I'm not interested in subsidizing inferior products for the sake of saving some overpaid union hack's job.

He talked about the need to rebuild our depleted military and I thought, what the heck is he talking about? Our military is the most powerful on the face of the earth. Don't believe me? Ask any American general! Sure, they always want more weapons, more troops etc.. but where is this hollowed out military he was referring too??

For much of his speech he sounded like a big government Democrat. Our crumbling infrastructure was going to become the beneficiary of another huge tax-payer funded stimulus program, which means, a bribery and malfeasance-laden cash infusion to his favorite construction companies which will waste a couple more trillion dollars. When his predecessor proposed his stimulus package, Republicans were aghast at the price tag and warned of the effect it would have on the national debt. So far...crickets. At least Trump didn't promise shovel-ready jobs.

My takeaway is this. Trump is a Statist. Only, his variety of statism is more Nationalist and Populist, less Socialist and Collectivist. But the bottom line will be the same. Despite his rhetoric about returning power to the people, Trump will turn over to his successor, a more powerful, more indebted government than he has inherited.

He packed a whole lot of promises into his 16 minutes. The absence of flowering language didn't leave him much room to wiggle. He laid out what he intends to do in clear, plain language. So it will be easy to determine how successful he is at delivering on his promises. It will also be easy to rip him if he doesn't deliver. Good luck, America.

A Word About Heros

On this Inauguration Day, a word about heros.

I read an interview that Mr. Trump gave to a London reporter in which he was asked who his heros were. His answer was a convoluted mess but essentially boiled down to..."I don't like the idea of heros and so I've never had any, maybe my Dad." My response to this was a one word Trumpian expression....sad.

How insular, small a life must he have led without heros? I've had heros at literally every stage of my life, and they have all had a hand in making my life better, richer and more hopeful. Heros are those people who we hold in high esteem, the people who we look to for inspiration. We marvel at their strengths and are encouraged to be stronger ourselves. We see them do great things, despite huge obstacles and we find the will to strive for greatness ourselves despite our obstacles.

My list of heros is long and varied. When I was young they were mostly athletes and mostly men. My first hero was John Glenn, the astronaut. Then came Mickey Mantle, then Joe Namath. Glenn ended up becoming a Democrat, and Mickey and Joe ended up being pretty horrible people, but at the time, all three served me well. I became a lifelong baseball fan because of The Mick, I still love how Namath guaranteed that win against the Colts, and John Glenn, despite his politics was still the bravest man in the world.

As I got a bit older, my heros began to change. Although I wasn't a big Hank Aaron fan as a kid, when he was chasing down Babe Ruth's home run record and I learned of the daily death threats, the thousands of hateful letters he received at the time, I turned into one. Never has an athlete under the glare of such a spotlight handled themselves with more grace and class than Henry "Hank" Aaron. Another one of my early heros was Art Buchwald, the Pulitzer Prize winning columnist/humorist for the Washington Post. Although for the most part Art was a leftist through and through, he was a great writer. If you want to know who has influenced my writing style more than anyone else, you wouldn't have to look any further than Buchwald.

Then came different types of heros, men and women of history and faith, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, C.S. Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, Winston Churchill, Robert E. Lee, Amelia Earhart and William F. Buckley . Then came a string of writers...Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Pat Conroy, Peggy Noonan, and Earnest Hemingway. Then there were the occasional musician, artist, actor who obtained hero status, Jimmy Stewart, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Tom Hanks, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, The Beatles, ZZ Top, Chuck Berry.

None of this ever descended into hero-worship. I was and am aware of their many flaws. But having great people to look up to, admire and respect is part of the maturation process of a human being. It asks us to look outside of ourselves for inspiration. Sure, if we are lucky enough to have a strong family, we have built in heros at the ready. Every one of my brother and sisters have taken their turn as a hero to me along with both of my parents. But, to go through 70 years of life without any heros seems something close to a tragedy for me. For the first time ever, I actually felt sorry for Donald Trump, reading that interview. No heros? Man-o-man.

Sad.

Is This the Golden Age of Facebook?

I feel like I am entering an entirely new world of hyper-politics, where everything, and I mean everything is about whatever is happening in Washington. Part of it is a natural byproduct of the Inauguration of a new President, especially this new President. So, I'm tempted to believe that it will soon pass. But with each passing day, that temptation gets weaker.

This morning, my Facebook wall is chocked full of politics. Sure, there is the occasional, "cut and paste this to your wall if you love your sister," sort of thing sprinkled into the mix, along with a few videos of someone mixing up the ingredients for a killer meatloaf, but mostly, its politics. Of course, when I put it that way, politics seems like a superior option! But, if I had fallen asleep for a few years and suddenly woke up this week and turned on Facebook I would be convinced of the following:

Donald Trump is about to destroy the world.

Betsy DeVos is an idiot, fool, rich, clueless elitist who wants to destroy the public school system.

Elizabeth Warren is a Goddess who is really good at destroying everyone who disagrees with her.

Al Franken, a former comedian, has suddenly been transformed into an expert on federal education policy.

Actors and directors in Hollywood are very afraid of what may become of them and us.

The guy we just elected as President has time to...tweet.

...and good lord is he thin-skinned!

The Inauguration is going to be overrun with the dispossessed, with protesters outnumbering celebrants 2:1

There will only be a relative handful of protesters but their number will be wildly exaggerated by the press.

Oh, and members of the press who are critical of Trump, (which is to say 95% of the press), are about to be rounded up and sent to internment camps.

That's the only conclusion I could reasonably come to if the world is accurately portrayed on my Facebook feed. Maybe everything I just wrote is true, all of it, true. Maybe some of it is overheated. Maybe some of it is hyperbole. But there can be no doubt that for a lot of the people who posted, it is very much their reality. I do not envy them. What a ghastly place this world must be if politics rules your world. It's a world of endless fundraising letters warning of always impending doom. It's a world  where the men and women on the other side are all blinded by dogma, full of hatred and animus, where only the enlightened men and women on your side can save the day...but not without your financial contribution of $10, $25, $50, $100, or more!

On the other hand, it's only Facebook. If I give it time, eventually politics will trickle away, one frantic, panicked post at a time, and before you know it, we will once again be contented with posting pictures of sunsets, puppies, kittens and our grandchildren. You know...the golden age of meaningless feel-good drivel!

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.