“I’ll Tell You What”

“I’ll tell you what,” is a phrase one uses when saying whatever is about to be said.  “I’ll tell you what,” is verbal blather.  All one needs to say, of course, is what follows “I’ll tell you what: we’re out of gas.”  The first half of the sentence is attention-gathering noise.  “We’re out of gas” says it all.  But the phrase “I’ll tell you what” requires space and sound as verbal duct tape, used so often it all but disappears into the ether.  “I’ll tell you what” is a verbal foot in the door which allows the speaker to tell us what’s on his or her mind.  As I listened to the football game the other night, I was of a mind to tune off the television solely based on one announcer who could not utter one thought, not one sentence, without beginning with, “I’ll tell you what…”  You don’t need to use that phrase to tell me what you have to say.  But you will, won’t you?

I suppose most English teachers, a profession I practiced for over thirty-five years, have a peeve or two over the way people use and abuse language.  For reasons I don’t understand, football announcers and analysts use the word “physicality” as a shortcut, a euphemistic term for bashing people silly.  When used, I think, it means the player is a brute and controls his or her space with great force.  It’s a sanitized way of saying So-and-So violently overpowers opponents with no thought to safety.  It’s a big word for a game in which people do not use big words.  But directly after saying someone on the football field displays physicality, the same announcer will undoubtedly identify a play as “unbelievable.”  Each baseball game I watch or listen to has several “unbelievable” plays, which I find hard to believe.  But I am corrected by none other than the late Dizzy Dean who famously said, "A lot of folks who ain't sayin' 'ain't,' ain't eatin'.  So, Teach, you learn 'em English, and I'll learn 'em baseball." Dizzy also insisted on saying, “He slud” rather than slid, claiming “slud” meant much more force and effort than slid.  True, Dizzy you did know baseball, but your hayseed, ungrammatical clodhopper style of calling a baseball game was, in my view, purposely done to make educators’ skin crawl.  Dizzy, you made me dizzy.

I recently watched a college football game after which several star players were asked about the game.  Each player answered every question by beginning, “I mean….”  “Did you think you had a chance even though the oddsmakers had your team ten-point underdogs?”  “I mean, we just wanted to go out there and have fun, you know.”  “What do you think makes this victory special?”  “I mean, we needed to overcome adversity, and we did.”  “How important is it that your coach placed a lot of faith in you to get the job done?”  “I mean, I’ll tell you what, it means a lot to me.”  E-gad, I mean, I mean is the same as proclaiming you are about to tell me what.  What?

At the end of the day, I am on the lookout for words that add little or nothing to meaning, words that violate clarity and succinctness.  “At the end of the day” is almost always a throw-a-way phrase, but it seems everyone uses it as their “bottom-line,” so to speak, as it were.  By the way, “needless to say” is always needless to say.  “As we all know” is a lie because there is always someone who doesn’t know.  I suppose we must agree that it is what it is because we have all been there and done that. 

Noodle-speak is vogue, “and that’s what I’m talking about,” as it has been for as long as we’ve used language thoughtlessly.  What is noodle-speak?  Words that have no meaning and are empty of value, and we use plentiful numbers of them.  You know that dish that has a full load of noodles plopped in your bowl but lacking protein and meaningful flavor.  That’s the equivalent of noodle-speak.

That’s what!

Boycotts

A spirited campaign aimed at boycotting American products and services has popped up in Denmark and to a lesser degree in Canada and subsequently spread to European countries, and likely will widen to other parts of the world.  As Trump continues to insult and demean countries and their leaders left and right, consumer groups outside of the U.S. have published lists of American companies to shun, enablers and supporters of Trump’s regime.  Why should consumers of a foreign country buy products and services from America if American leaders abuse and humiliate them?  A list of non-U.S. alternatives, companies which provide competitive products and services, has been published so foreign consumers may maintain their spending preferences and spurn American companies.  Economic forces would certainly coerce American companies to lobby Trump to modify his diplomatic manners.  Or else!  Even so, large scale, boycotting is unlikely to move the needle without significant participation and substantial downturns in the targeted companies’ profits.  “Money talks and bullshit walks,” is the operative conclusion, isn’t it?  The bottom-liners will let us know when reputational damage and red ink start to spill across their quarterly financial reports.  Trump-weary Danish consumers have begun an aggressive and organized campaign to avoid all major U.S services and products.  Many Canadians are not far behind in avoiding American products or unsubscribing from American services (Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Comcast, and so on).

An ongoing discussion, particularly among western European countries, centers on Trump's confrontational and aggressive conduct.  And now as Isreal and the U.S. attack Iran and its surrogate forces in and around the Middle East, the likelihood of Iran’s football team withdrawing from World Cup play remains possible especially if bombing continues.  Others may follow, depending on military actions.  A few outspoken political and sports officials in Europe have suggested a boycott as well.  Why not?  America is seen by many as a hostile state the same as Russia.  Trump loves the world stage and would enjoy being on camera to take his bows in front of a worldwide audience.  Think of the attention he would receive.  He has threatened to change venues of some World Cup cities dominated by Democrats to more MAGA friendly venues.  What a rebuke of his hegemon role if several nations decided to boycott the World Cup.

Further, arguments have been made to bar the United States from hosting the summer Olympic Games scheduled to take place in Los Angeles.  If Trump continues to use lawless military incursions counter to international laws, our country ought to be treated the same way Russia was treated after it attacked Afghanistan or more recently when it invaded Ukraine.  It’s doubtful that either boycotts will take full form, but the threat of such actions ought to soften Trump’s barrage of insults and militaristic mayhems.  Maybe.  Highly hypothetical that such boycotts would take place unless Trump invaded Greenland or some other such outrage.  Keep in mind, he is fully capable of extending inane threats far beyond reason.

At this point, it wouldn’t take much to set in motion boycotts and push-back responses even from nations historically friendly toward us.  Already a sharp decline in international tourists coming to the United States from Canada and Europe has resulted because of geopolitical concerns as well as negative sentiment toward the U.S. government.  Trump slump is real—nearly a year of decline in foreign visitors, down nearly 6%.

If in fact we have a dangerous and toxic government, the rest of the world’s nations would do well to be done with us for the time being until a more familiar and peaceable leadership finds its way to Washington D.C.  As an embarrassed American, I see advantages in boycotting America and in making us bleed money until it hurts, until some of the hubris is shed, until the time we must say “Uncle.”  As in welcoming Uncle Sam back into our daily lives.

Best way to deal with a bully regime is to separate oneself from the off-putting influence.  Which means, sadly, don’t participate in their games, World Cup soccer, Olympics, whatever.    

Decency

Perhaps decency never had priority status in America, but if it did, it must have died.  Didn’t we once find shame in belittlement of others and in impugning a person’s character?  Didn’t we once teach people not to lie?  Didn’t the Great Generation display ethical standards, emphasizing truthfulness, respect, kindness, and empathy?  And weren’t those values what we taught our children?  One certainty: over the last few decades the ethics of conduct in political debate and social encounters has turned away from whatever decency we may have once demonstrated.  It’s as if the Civil War never ended.  Red set against Blue.  MAGA versus Woke.  Texas versus California.  New York versus Florida, billionaires versus salaried workers (it is alleged Elon Musk’s net worth is equal to or larger than 170 million US citizens’ net worth).  Anti-gay voices set against the LGBT+ community.  Christian Nationalists versus mainstream Christians.  The whole country needs anger management workshops.  Outrage is as common as sirens.

Not long ago I asked a colleague how his anger management class was going and he said, “Erm, it makes me so mad!”  Everyone is outraged.  When social media grew deep roots into the groundwork of American life, sniping and appalling manners became almost normal, often even admired, depending which side of an issue one found oneself.

The other day, I received an email from George Conway, Democrat, a candidate for Congress, asserting that Trump is “a fucking piece of shit.”  Wow, Conway does not keep his judgement close to his vest, but how can we endorse his statesmanship or his choice of words.  Not to be surpassed in the profanity sector, Trump sent an Easter message to Iran “Open the Fuckn’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”  Trump’s language and tone tell us what sort of person he is.  Whatever your conclusion about him as President, he decidedly proves himself to be a lousy human being.

Sarcasm, scorn, and inflammatory attacks, often autonomous, have become common parlance, something akin to schoolyard hostilities.  Good manners be damned, for now the game is on and the object is to win at the expense of those who oppose you.  Winning means something like trolling the trolls with bad manners and invective galore.  Hurtful and petty, the insults have become common coin on the internet and in the public square.  Perhaps we lost our way when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, or when Martin Luther King was murdered, or when the Vietnam war divided us, or, well, who knows when or if it happened.  But if we ever were guided by a sense of decency, we sure as death in the morgue no longer have it.  The culture of decency, if it ever existed, has been replaced by a culture of contempt.  That goes for Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, woke folks and traditionalists, cancel cultural and anti-cancel culture interests.

The Marquis of Queensbury boxing rules might be worth consulting for those among us who have lost a semblance of courtesy.  Those rules represent the epitome of sportsmanship and fair play, decency factors, even has one tries to knock out an opponent.  Recently, our behavior suggests we enjoy hitting below the belt and kicking our opponent when he’s down.  Vengeance has replaced charity.  Hatred has replaced Love.

You may recall Rodney King who was severely beaten prior to the 1992 Los Angeles riots.  His plea for goodwill and peace: "People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?"

Good question, Rodney.  Can we?

Dangerous People

Theoritcally, the principles of democracy protect human rights and the dignity of people.  Isn’t that our long-held understanding of democracy?  Political sovereignty, societal equality, and free and fair elections underpin the fundamentals of democracy.  Obviously, democratic governments do not tolerate killing people except during war and in uncommon cases of capital punishment.  These conclusions are foundational to the America ethos.

Alas, homicidal heads of state, regardless of the brand of government, are everywhere throughout history, even in self-described democracies.  When power is concentrated in government, the prospect of state sponsored murder increases.  Totalitarian regimes, autocracies, and political strongmen, whatever their designation, account for the most lethal brands of rule.  Communists, fascists, or dictatorships head the list of dangerous agents who are likely to slaughter their citizens.  While it may be tricky parsing a government as a democracy, a republic, a monarchy, a socialist state, a communist state, or a mixture of political components, and so on, it is easy to match human bloodbaths to leadership when the meatgrinder starts to turn.  As we thumb through the chapters of history, the list of murdered millions boggles rational thought and defeats reason.

Mao Zedong is the undisputed champion of killing the most people, 40 to 80 million, though the actual number is impossible to calculate.  These deaths occurred through systematic executions, forced labor conditions, and, most significantly, man-made famine.  The Great Leap forward resulted in at least 15 million dead people.  Famine as well as an ill-conceived cultural revolution cashiered millions more.  Mao’s foolish decisions (killing all the English sparrows, rats, mosquitoes, and flies, for instance, which added to the unbalance of nature and caused plagues and diseases) enhanced the death toll.  So much for the experiment of allowing a poet to rule a country!

Likewise, Joseph (Uncle Joe) Stalin murdered, give or take, about 40 million.  Genghis Khan’s feudal military government doubtless slaughtered 40 million as well.  And Hitler was responsible for over 35 million murders, likely closer to 36 million.  Other infamous butchers have contributed to the Top Ten list of those responsible for most people killed.  Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, cashiered between 1.5 and 2 million people.  The dictator of North Korea - Kim Il Sung, racked upwards to three million Korean citizens. Ethiopian Marxist Mengistu Haile Mariam was responsible for between half a million and two million dead.  The Nigerian Yakubu Gowon, the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the former dictator of Uganda Idi Amin (who ate some of his victims), all were responsible for untold murders.

The fascist leaders Benito Mussolini and Francisco Franco were responsible for tens of thousands of civilian deaths and for multiple war crimes.  Hard to calculate just how many they killed.

Though it makes one dizzy, let’s look at the scoreboard for just the 21stcentury.  Who are the most dangerous people, the ones doing the most killing over the last 25 years?

Russa’s Putin leaps to mind, of course, because of the defenestration of his adversaries and political opponents.  Who knows how many people he has killed?  After nearly 25 years in power, the list of dead foes and critics cannot be a series of luckless coincidences.  Bearing in mind his murderous attacks against Chechnya and Ukraine, his toll of misery and outrageous aggression is extraordinary.  Simply put, Putin is a big-time killer, and he will kill more when he needs to show his power over every enemy and critic.

The long list of Putin’s enemies who have met early and violent deaths, include the journalist Anna Politkovsaya, the ex-FSB agent Alexander Litvinkenko, the opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, and recently the death of Alexei Anatolyevich Navalny (allegedly poisoned by a toxin found in a South America dart frog).  Critic and former United Nations diplomat, Boris Bondarev tells Tortoise: “I think [Putin] wanted to show his power, his capacity to reach to anybody.  Maybe because what was the point of being a dictator if you do not abuse your power?”

 Xi Jinping’s body count is difficult to calculate because his is a closed society.  Yet various international human rights group have noted over 20,000 Uyghurs have been killed while in internment camps, millions of political opponents have been persecuted, many of whom committed suicide as a result.  And, most of all, millions of Chinese citizens died during the COVID-19 crisis either because the virus was released from government research labs or Xi Jinping mishandled the crisis.  Perhaps both.

While Trump’s body count is difficult to chart, he does have blood on his small hands.  Dozens of medical experts claim over 400,000 unnecessary deaths occurred during the final years of Trump’s first term because of inept COVID-19 responses.  Those deaths cannot be labeled murder but may be considered criminally negligent homicide.  Now as Trump promises to export “the worst of the worst criminals” to foreign shores, the worst criminal in our country just happens to live in the White House.  Mass deportation will claim the lives of hundreds if not thousands of lives, many did nothing but fail to complete the proper forms, to ask for the necessary hearings.  Recently, Trump has decided to add outright murder to his CV by killing suspected drug-runners.  He has acted as judge, jury, and executioner without presenting any evidence as he executed extrajudicial killings.  He has drawn the attention of the U.N Commission for Human Rights, which has condemned the practice as murder.

His elected aggression has peaked recently with a full-scale attack on Iran and its partners in the middle east.  Though he has pledged to keep America out of wars, he opted to barrel into yet another war, one promising to take thousands of lives, if not much more.  Distilled, Trump is a murderer and proud of it. 

Trump recently said “I don’t think we’re necessarily going to ask for a declaration of war. I think we’re just gonna kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. We’re going to kill them. They’re going to be, like, dead.”  He does seem proud of himself.

As of this moment, Trump is still at-large and considered armed and dangerous.

Labeling

During the runup to the recent presidential election, major political parties categorized opponents with damning names, trading infantile insults.  Republicans had a fondness for designating Democrats as Marxists or satanists or elitists or enablers.  Trump referred to Harris as “Comrade Kamala.”  Democrats replied by labeling the former president “McLiarFace,” or “Cadet Bones Spurs,” and accused the GOP of promoting Nazis or white supremacists or fascists. Seems the Rs and the Ds left comity behind and wanted nothing more than to taunt each other, schoolyard exchanges of insults which did nothing positive for anyone, anywhere.  Had there been a playground mediator present, the verdict would undoubtedly be these kids don’t play well together, which is obvious to all of us. 

Categorical labeling is not a matter of “sticks and stones,” is it?  It’s becoming tendentious to an extreme.  Civility, apparently, is for chumps.  Over-the-top stereotypes do damage because invariably they are not accurate and are chiefly used to inflict harm.

Think of the foulest words.  Now apply those words to someone you do not care for.  There you will find the dangers of labeling because we often spitball groups of people to ersatz categories.  Racial (isn’t she a squaw?), ethnic (aren’t most of them violent and lazy), cultural (they eat with their fingers, don’t they?), body type (short people have Napoleon complexes), cognitive (he travels on the short bus with all the retards), class (which Ivy League school did you attend?), political association (if you vote for them, you vote for the rich at the expense of the middle-class and the poor), sexual identity (they are so gay), and so on.  Isn’t it easier to buy potatoes by the sack than to select them individually.

Labeling allows us to cut through complexity in favor of generalizations, ones often inaccurate and pejorative, to stigmatize a particular group.  Once branded, those in the labeled group may realize a self-fulfilling role becoming what they are not.  Labeling has a way of compressing a complicated someone or something into a pressure sealed packet the size of a pea.  “Well, what do you expect from that sort?”  “Aren’t they all dirty, cunning, too lazy to work, and prone to steal?”

In simple terms, if a person is often late for work, he or she might be labeled as not dependable, which may not be true in other capacities of that person’s life.  Or consider that person who always shows up at an event wearing pajamas.  We might easily categorize such a person as unkept and/or lazy (I mean, can’t he or she at least get dressed to start the day?).  Perhaps we are extending our prejudices without knowing specifics.  Heard often enough, we might become what we are described as being.  If I am repeatedly told I am not very good at fixing things around the house, chances are I will agree and decline to even try to fix the leaky faucet.  On the other hand, if I am told repeatedly that I am generous and honest, I may yearn to fit the expectation.  Labeling, then, can become a kind of modeling for either good or bad ends, either a carrot or a whip.

As such, labeling creates distortion and can effect a change of behavior.  If as you rear children, you label them as “good for nothing, worthless trash,” your children likely will have a much to overcome.  Conversely, if you compliment and praise them, you stand a good chance your progeny will have, if not great success, at least a positive self-image.  Another way of saying labels become what they are is found in police interrogations.  After a while, a suspect may sign a confession if he is told repeatedly he is guilty even if innocent.

Well, what the heck, all this labeling comes to nothing more than what we already know, doesn’t it?  If we place a label on a malleable youth, say we ceaselessly call him or her “nothing but a bungling idiot,” we are greatly limiting that child’s potential.  We do have a way of repeating mistakes, and we will for the rest of our lives.

Usually we use labels as stigmas, a way of profiling people, a kind of self-preservation or survival instinct, I suppose, a cue to stay away from others whom we have stereotyped.  Seems we know better but have a hard time doing better.

It's Not Okay, Mr. President

To mime “fuck you” while flipping your wee middle finger at an auto factory worker who jeered you.

It’s not okay, Mr. President, to call people demeaning names in an unbecoming and uncouth manner, denigrating the dignity of your office (Elizabeth Warren, “Pocahontas”; Alvin Bragg; “Fat Alvin”; “deranged animal,” Jack Smith).  Further you degrade yourself by using pejorative language used to describe various real or imagined political opponents, "Scum,” “Dogs,” “Vermin”; terms frequently used against anyone who opposes you: “total loser,” “low IQ,” “dumb as a rock,” “fake.”

It’s no okay to kill people whom you suspect are trafficking drugs by bombing their boats in international waters when you could detain and arrest and sentence them without extrajudicial executions.

It's not okay to call low gross national income nations “shithole countries,” which are, incidentally, mostly peopled with black and brown people.

It’s not okay to brag about the women you’ve bedded and, using vulgar language, to claim your own daughter is “a piece of ass.”

It’s not okay to falsely assert that you won the 2020 presidential election, having no evidence and against official electoral college returns declaring a Biden victory.  Even Trump’s then U.S Attorney General, William Barr, concluded there were no election irregularities and that Biden won.

It's not okay to show disrespect to our longtime allies and friends (such as Denmark and Canada) by demanding they give up territory because you want it.

It’s not okay to blackmail and threaten countries by loading them with tariffs unless they agree with your policies.  Or else!

It’s not okay to promote America First while lacking empathy for all others and demonstrating your immorality.

It’s not okay to send ICE agents and military personnel, your goon squads, to occupy our cities and terrorize communities, schools, and workplaces.

It’s not okay to capsize academic freedom policies in our colleges and universities and subsequently to stem access to grant funding needed for scholars, scientists, and researchers to maintain strong intellectual standing.

It’s not okay to retract the promise of America, depicted as the “shinning city on the hill” by Ronald Reagan and inspired by Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, a God-blessed land with open arms for immigrants.

It’s not okay to turn our democracy inside-out and upside-down, revising it to become an autocracy or worse.

It’s not okay, Mr. President, to be a party to over 4100 lawsuits during the past three decades.  Massive litigation history implies more about your character than the sum of your resume.

It’s not okay to turn world opinion against America because of your need to be the hegemon of the world.

Pettiness

“I have as much authority as the Pope. I just don’t have as many people who believe it.” ― George Carlin

Nothing to be proud of, my grouchy responses to everyday events we all encounter.  With age, though, my tolerance toward annoyances dwindles.  I suppose my reactions are mostly vexations which qualify as petty responses, likely, if that’s what they are.  Small-minded, I admit.  What an opportunity to rise above my blinkeredness.  Off the top of my head, I fail, yes, guilty of giving in to my weak nature.  Semantics aside, my bugbears become an impediment to my peaceful state of mind and to those near me.

       So it is when I watch television and suffer a bombardment of commercials firing deception into my comfort zones.  I’m guessing most people mutter and roll their eyes as the shill on the screen asserts, “Friends, come on down for the biggest savings of the century for these gently used automobiles.”  Yes, the claims are mostly colorful exaggerations, if not blatant lies.  We know that.  One guy begins by saying, “This is the most honest commercial you’ll ever hear.”  What, I wonder, is that supposed to mean?  Could it be that most commercials are dishonest?  I don’t trust people who begin by saying, “Honestly…”  And the smiling liars are tough to countenance.

       So it is when watching television I hear the phone ring.  The voice on the other end of the line wants to know if I’ll answer a few survey questions.  Sure, I say, but I am about to grill some hamburgers.  Go ahead, I say.  I’ll get to food prep after this call.  Then the voice asks if my view of a local politician would change if I knew she was a lesbian.  Really, a push poll while I’m preparing smash burgers.?  I couldn’t slam the receiver down hard enough.

       So it is when dinnertime arrives, and we elect to enjoy our meal on the patio because the weather is warm, and a soothing breeze invites us to dine al fresco.  About that time, half the neighbors decide to mow lawns, use leaf blowers, and fire up their gas-powered weed-whackers.  One neighbor, oblivious to evening mealtimes, has the gall to employ a rented jackhammer to bust up a driveway for repair.  Makes us wonder if our small town needs a sturdier noise ordinance.

So it is when I receive a breaking news item declaring Taylor Swift will announce a new world tour.  I know you and countless others may care, but really—breaking news!  Wars and floods and school shootings and famine and Trump urinating on the Constitution and ships sinking and the breaking news is a pop singer’s world tour announcement.  Really?  Come on!  I suppose if we want to look away from a burning house, a little music might be just the ticket.

So it is when the Fourth of July descends on our town, and hoards of rowdy youth and shit-faced adults materialize from neighboring places to watch our annual fireworks display.  They park their cars and Winnebago vans in creative ways, leave litter everywhere they spread their blankets, shoot illegal firecrackers and bottle rockets, and pee in the bushes or against parked cars.  Happy birthday, America!

So it is when driving out of town for groceries we find every road blocked with construction projects.  “Expect Delays,” the signs read.  Yes, expect delays every day, everywhere, all the time because we all need to drive our SUVs and monster trucks to the 7-11 to buy a power drink and a box of Skittles.

So it is when people, online programs, voices on the phone, text messages tell me they “need” me to do this or that.  At least three times a week, a politician hectors me with that opening phrase, “Steve, I need you to see this latest data about the primary election…”  Try this approach next time you order a burger at Burger King.  Say to the teenager behind the counter.  “I need you to cook me a big burger and make me a thick shake.”

And those voices are not the only ones who need me to do one thing, or else, or another.  My computer, my phone, my car, my I-Pad, my Fitbit all insist that I drop what I’m doing to install a software update.  They all insist I need to do this update now.  They want me to enter a password to proceed.  Put simply, not only do people insist I do what they want me to do, but now the robots and bots insist I do what they need me to do.  Though I admit I am more contrary than cooperative, the compulsory tone of all these demands is off-putting and part of modern living I resent.

All right, I admit I’ve graduated from the status of killjoy to a full-scale curmudgeon.  Why can’t the world be what I want it to be rather than what it is?

“Okay, boomer,” you say.  Yep, that’s me and unashamedly so.

By the way, kid, get offa my lawn!

Trump, an Assessment

Sure, I admit it, Trump is not a textbook fascist, but he’s showing significant potential toward that target.  Also, he has not risen to the prominence of dictator, not yet, but he’d like absolute power because he seems to enjoy suppressing opposition and crushing civil liberties.  Nor has he checked all the boxes in grasping royal tyrant status, but, uh, woah, he must be tempted to reach out and place the crown of King of America on his dyed and coiffed pâte.  Our man Trump is ambitious for certain, but let’s face it, too many democratic traditions and legal commandments stand in his way to absolute power, and he’ll never enjoy his longed-for coronation because, pardon the argot, he’s a tw*t!  That’s right, you got that correctly, he’s a tw*t.  According to ordinary Brits, calling someone a “tw*t” deems a person stupid, contemptable, foolish, and obnoxious, all adjectives which stick the landing atop Trump.  Because the slur also connotes an anatomical and vulgar application here in America, it is far more offensive on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.  Because he is vulgar and disgusting from every vantage point, it is reasonable to agree with Brits.  Yes indeed, the insult’s associational meanings fall nicely into Trump’s bailiwick, for he enjoys crude name-calling and has penchants for embarrassing others.  He loves disparaging people as if he alone is the judge of a person’s value.  In fact, he seems to enjoy humiliating others.  Perhaps is tries to compensate because he is a felon and has been convicted of sexual abuse, for which he was fined five million dollars.  In a word, then, the term aptly applies to the clownish and loathsome President Donald Trump.

To underscore the particulars of Trump’s character, I quote Nate White who offers an assessment of Donald Trump, one you may have already read.  He wrote, "A few things spring to mind.  Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.  For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honor and no grace—all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.”

While one may smile at the buffoonish character flaws Trump displays, 27 psychiatrists wrote about the dangers Trump presents to the world.  One forensic psychiatrist among them even claimed: ‘Trump is now the most powerful head of state in the world, and one of the most impulsive, arrogant, ignorant, disorganized, chaotic, nihilistic, self-contradictory, self-important, and self-serving. He has his finger on the triggers of a thousand or more of the most powerful thermonuclear weapons in the world. That means he could kill more people in a few seconds than any dictator in past history has been able to kill during his entire years in power.’

Field R. Books: The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President: Assessing Dangerousness. Br J Gen Pract. 2018 Oct;68(675):490. doi: 10.3399/bjgp18X699269. PMID: 30262624; PMCID: PMC6145972.

Considering Trump’s contrariness and impulsivity, not to mention his inclination to seek severe punishment, even death, to his enemies, everyone risks the consequences from one of his meltdowns.

  Not all clowns are funny.  One of them ought to scare us to death.

DEI is Not Dead

Against the odds as well as present-day MAGA hegemony, DEI is not dead, nor will it be anytime soon.  Though external pressure from policymakers and some conservative stake holders changed some corporation policies regarding DEI, the basic principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion are here to stay because they are healthful virtues for a dynamic, strong culture.  Arguing against fairness is a losing proposition. 

What’s the hullabaloo over DEI anyway?  Are right-wing white guys ticked off at all the attention given to folks on the margins of society?  Is society weary of trying to balance the scales which we all know are skewed in favor of powerful interest groups?  Do DEI policies lower standards and overlook merit in job performance?  Is there a general longing for the old systems and ways of doing business which argue against DEI?  Shall we give another millennium of preferential treatment to straight, rich white men, to the well-connected and squires of the estates?

A hypocritical application of IDEA (or DEI, the A stands for accessibility) policies in many segments of government and industry is clear.  Great to have a corporate policy for IDEA, but when the board of directors discuss budgets and goals, what forever wins the day is profit, i.e. money matters.  In short, so much IDEA workshopping and organizational policy might be seen as lip service, not as compassion or fairness, not as a solution but as a slight-of-hand trick.  HR will be happy if the company looks good, not necessarily if it is good.  It’s sticky business to do the right thing, but not if it allows the unwashed at the gates to storm through and overtake the manor.

Is it wrong to suggest that opposition to IDEA policies come from the moneyed majority at last weary of accommodating minority and special groups within organizations?  Is it likely that folks hesitate at choosing pronouns because someone from the bully pulpit proclaims it be necessary?  Should one be shamed for saying, “That’s crazy,” when told that saying such a phrase is demeaning to folks with mental health issues?  Should one applaud the acknowledgements that recognize the land on which we all live was and is the stolen homeland of indigenous people?

       The main objection to IDEA comes from the powerful majority which feels victimized by entitlements of minorities who unquestionably have been denied front row seats for centuries.  Heck, they have been denied any seats expect those at the back of the bus.  More, the majority, mostly white and affluent MAGA inductees, now display something close to hatred for anyone who disagrees with their new view of the seating arrangements in town hall.  No more favors to the historically downtrodden, they say.  Merit will determine advantage, they say.  And guess who measures merit?  “Them” is how minorities are labeled.  “Why should we celebrate them,” they say.  “Isn’t IDEA another way of claiming reverse discrimination?” they ask.

Well, well, well, what’s all this?  So what could go wrong about endorsing Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility?  Could promoting these values do harm?  Apparently for the present regime in Washington D.C., IDEA is not simply an acronym; it’s become the rope in a cultural tug-o-war between progressive conformists and those who believe they are being given a purity test from moral police because they say “homeless” instead of “unhoused.”  Or they use the word “blacklist” instead of “blocklist.”  Or they simply do not comply when asked to make their pronoun choice.  Am I micro-aggressive in looking longer than usual at a same-sex couple handing hands, or assuming the young woman wearing scrubs is a nurse rather than a physician?  Or, really, many other unintentional words or actions which underscore my prejudgment or bias.  Sorry. Forgive me.  I truly want to be fair in dealing with others.  Given the state of human weaknesses, no one is innocent because we all come prepackaged with subtle prejudices.  So why should people get worked up over balancing scales that have long been rigged against BIPOC and LGBTQ+ people, not to mention all the other categories of people who suffer discrimination (non-English speakers, some ethnic groups, religious congregations, disabled people, and others who simply don’t fit neatly into conventional society). 

Something is Rotten in America

From his chemically treated off-orange face down to his chronic venous insufficient ankles, rot and corruption descend from he-who-would-be-king to his apple-polishing consiglieres, and his toxicity finally reaches we the people who must suffer his obnoxiousness and loathsomeness.  We don’t need a ghost to augur verdicts we already know: something is rotten in America.  The moral health of our nation suffers from deceit and corruption, and, naturally, nothing good will come from the man who brings shame upon our house.  Excessive pride, arrogance, and braggadocio ultimately lead to ruin, and Trump possesses a mother lode of hubris.  Also, we don’t need a professional diagnosis to conclude Trump has sociopathic character traits: lack of empathy, narcissistic tendencies, compulsive lying, manipulative behavior, and pleasure in harming others.  Add those weaknesses to his fragile self-esteem and his inability to keep healthy personal relationships and a convincing picture of a sick and dangerous person emerges. 

The America in which we live is not the same place we have known.  The Statue of Liberty fittingly represented us by displaying a universal symbol of freedom, democracy, and opportunity, a beacon of hope for immigrants as well as a symbol for what we as Americans valued.  With Trump, all those assumptions have changed.  We now offer freedom for some, democracy for no one, opportunity for rich people, and little or no hope for immigrants. Though the talk of fascists and tyrants may overstate the menace, the vitriol and needling coming from Trump and his handlers has turned the public square into something like a caged combat sport, a cruel amusement Trump evidently enjoys.  His bully bearing and need for constant blandishments is wearing thin on tolerance, even among some of his most ardent partisans.  No Queensberry rules for Trump.  He goes dirty and vindictive, disregarding all tenets of decorum in fighting adversaries.  If you disagree with him, he’ll sue you.  If you complain, he’ll find a way to have you fired.  If you are a person of color, he will demean you unless you kneel before him.  If a judge rules against him, he’ll appeal and appeal some more, refusing to surrender.  Ever.  It’s not tenacity he exhibits; it’s irate pig-headedness.  He is the ideal angry man, Archie Bunker with a stable of a hundred lawyers to sue you, your mother, and the horse you rode in on (since the mid-70s he has been involved in over 4000 lawsuits).  Trump is an infectious decay.  The accelerated spoilage moves quickly from the White House to every precinct of our country.

Vengeance is a constant theme for Trump, payback, counterpunch, never turn the other cheek.  Having no empathy nor qualms about the feelings of others, he will insult you, sue you, arrest you, jail you, or kill you.  Facts or legal judgments will not give him pause.  He makes the rules.  If he insists those Black kids in Central Park did the crime, no matter the proof of their innocence, Trump will insist he’s right and everyone else is wrong.  If he declares Obama is not a US citizen, no one will ever convince him otherwise.  If he decides climate change is not a thing, he’ll tell his big oil friends, “Drill, baby, drill.”

He has a history of not paying his debts and has used bankruptcy laws six times to skip paying investors and suppliers.  He dodged the draft as a young man, later labeling many who served and even died for our country “suckers and losers.”  We know his history of over 30,000 lies while in office, dozens of rape and sexual harassment allegations made against him, his swindles in inventing fraudulent charities and a sham university, his unprincipled hypocrisy in mocking his distractors as guilty of the same failings he demonstrates, and, of course, his attempt to overturn the election of 2020.

But wait!  There’s more.  Republican Senator Ted Cruz put it succinctly when he said, “The man is utterly amoral…Morality does not exist for him.”

More, laws and rules do not exist for him.

Just for us!

Sticks and Stones

Admit it.  We are a violent and neurotic society judging by the political assassinations and internecine conflicts spanning red and blue regions of the nation.  Like people everywhere, we get outraged at one another and too often raise our quarrels to the point of violence.  But unlike people in other countries, we have lots of guns and we find it convenient to use them.  It is to our credit, considering all the disputes and available weapons, that more of us have not been killed while defending our beliefs.

Four US presidents have been assassinated.  Three have been wounded in attempted assassination.  And dozens of other plots and attempts to take the life of a US president were either thwarted or failed in execution.  Along the way, Timothy McVeigh murdered 168 people (including 19 children) in an Oklahoma City bombing, a political act of defiance against the government.  James Earl Ray killed Dr. Martin Luter King in April 1968.  Sirhan Sirhan killed Robert F. Kennedy in June 1968.  George Wallace was shot and nearly killed in 1972.  More recently, several bad actors have killed high profile Democrats and Republicans.  Acknowledging our bloody record, Alex Nowrasteh of the Cato Institute, asserts politically motivated violence is not quite as alarming as we are led to believe (a post on his webpage on September 11, 2025).  He presents data which show the number and share of deaths of all political motivated terrorism and murder since 2020.

Assigning murder counts to one partisan group or another is not an exact science, of course, but certain agreement must be that all are done in the name of extremism.  Since 2020 54% of politically motivated murders were charged to right-wing causes, 22% to the left. Other categories comprised the remainder.

Further, in her article “The Rise of Political Violence in the United States,” October 2021, Rachel Kleinfeld uses a graph in the “Journal of Democracy” to show terrorism in the United States by ideology from 2000—2018.

       Once again, her figures point to the frequency and variety of political violence.  

       According to PBS News, “Trump and members of his administration are threatening to target whole organizations and movements and the people who work in them with aggressive legal measures – to jail them or scrutinize their favorable tax status. But research shows that the majority of political violence comes from people following right-wing ideologies.”

Updated on Sep 22, 2025 10:32 AM EDT — Published on Sep 20, 2025 2:48 PM ED

       According to recent research done by PBS News, “most domestic terrorists in the U.S. are politically on the right, and right-wing attacks account for the vast majority of fatalities from domestic terrorism.” *

*Updated on Sep 22, 2025 10:32 AM EDT — Published on Sep 20, 2025 2:48 PM EDT

Thugs or Mugs

Who are these guys?  Is America becoming a police state?  Trump is using national guard units and a politicized military to advance federal control of law enforcement over blue urban areas.  Daily ICE agents detain people suspected of being illegal aliens.  You may view the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as stars or thugs or something else.  A rational case can be made for several conclusions.  They are, as we all know, well-trained officers paid by the federal government.  They carry weapons, usually SIG Sauer P320C 9mm pistols and often use ballistic body armor, tactical gear and helmets.  But here’s the rub, these officers do not wear uniforms, they often wear masks or balaclavas, and do not need a judicial warrant to make an arrest.  On first glance they could be mistaken for bounty hunters or for an organized gang of thieves.  But, of course, they are law enforcement officers.  They come with an air of surprise.  A lack of accountability attends an officer whose face is covered and may not have a visible identifying badge or insignia.  Hard not to think that these incognito agents have disturbing similarities to the Sturmabteilung, also known as the Brownshirts, a paramilitary organization which helped Hitler come to power in Germany. The Brownshirts carried out unchecked intimidation against Nazi challengers and Jews.  Benito Mussolini also had a paramilitary group of dogmatic nationalists labeled Blackshirts.  General Francisco Franco had an even more powerful grip on policing in fascist Spain.  He used the Political-Social Brigade as a secret police to persecute and repress all opposition groups.  Franco used death squads and military trails to subject citizens to imprisonment and executions.

Now in America we are witnessing strikingly similar heavy-handed, even cruel, immigration activities by ICE agents under the direction of Trump’s administration, employing what looks like a gang of vigilantes lying in wait for unsuspecting immigration targets.  What they are doing is legal, perhaps, but far from what we expect from civil policing in a democratic society.

       Thugs or not, these are Trump’s enforcers fulfilling Trump’s brand of justice.  Unlike the Proud Boys and the gathering mob who unlawfully, treasonably, stormed the capitol on January 6th, 2021, ICE agents are paid officials of our government charged with rounding up people from Home Depot parking lots, from hallways in courthouses, from factories and airports, from church basements, and agricultural producing locations.

       According to the American Immigration Council report in early 2025, a little more than 14% of our nation’s population is foreign-born, almost half of whom are naturized citizens.  Just under 4.9% of America’s workforce is undocumented and could be detained and eventually deported.  Overall, 8.3 million people are classified as illegal immigrants.  Culling them from our population will take time, probably decades, and more money than one can logically calculate (one estimate guesses 355 billion per year to process one million deportations).  Realistically, what Trump wants to do is something like emptying water from an Olympic size pool with a teaspoon.  Besides being formidable, that solution won’t work long term.  Walls and fences and squads of ICE agents may disrupt but will not stop people wanting to live in America.  Short of turning America into a police state, the direction we are presently slowly heading, the answer to lasting and balanced immigration policy lies in the hands of problem-solvers, not in MAGA officials and their allies who have been making harsh, anti-American, unethical decisions.  Direct pressures against civil liberties and to the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures are now firmly in play. Also, ICE policies have sapped community trust in law enforcement.  Hard to root for these guys who hide their faces while detaining mostly struggling and poor people of color from the streets.  The problems in dealing with undocumented people within US borders will not be solved by the present whack-a-mole strategy.  Logistical and financial challenges arise immediately considering the magnitude of removing the millions of people who do not have the legal status.  Add to the heap of impediments in removing millions of people from our shores are Constitutional due process matters, which to date are being flouted by Trump and his allies.

       Even if the MAGA forces come close to their goal of removing a million immigrants over the course of Trump’s second term, they will still be foolishly short of solving the crisis they engineered and then bungled.

Naming Names

Names have power, and naming things empowers the one doing the naming.  It is an act of creation.  Along the way, words work as legitimizers and often cast long shadows.  Whoever names the names is the one controlling the landscape.  It is easy, for instance, to add nuance and shading to words by adjusting a definition.  The “final solution,” ("Endlösung der Judenfrage") as an example, became a euphemism for genocide.  “Collateral damage” is a term often used to describe civilian causalities harmed by the ones doing the damage.  “Terrorist,” in its broadest sense, is defined as violence against non-combatants for a political or religious cause (which would mean Trump’s attack on the Capitol on the 6 January 2020 was an act of terrorism).  Of course, terrorists usually call themselves “freedom fighters” or “champions of justice.”  Words are slippery, aren’t they?  And the one who controls definitions is usually the one wielding power.

When someone slaps his or her name on things, it is an act of ownership, an extension of one’s influence.  To the point, Trump is big on posting his name on buildings, wine bottles, golf courses, hotels, designer bags, casinos, parks, bitcoins, streets, hot dogs, beer bottles, vodka bottles, airplanes, board games, souvenirs, books, baseball caps, anything at all he claims.  By executive order he has decreed that the name of Denali revert to Mt. McKinley, and the Gulf of Mexico be rebranded to the Gulf of America.  He’s big on being the one who names things.  As the chief name-maker, he wants to change the name of the Kennedy Arts Center to the Donald J. Trump Center for the Preforming Arts.  In addition, he wants to rename the opera house the Melania Trump Opera House.  He also wants to have his face carved onto the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota.  His ego cannot be contained.  Humility is not in his vocabulary.  Some of his devotees have suggested changing Dulles Airport to the Donald J. Trump Airport.  In keeping with that theme, I have renamed the putrescence (hydrogen sulfide) coming from a broken neighborhood sewer after Donald Trump, now named the “Donald Trump Stinker.”  See what I did there?  I just assumed the authority of being the one who names things.

Can there be any limit to Trump’s prideful reach, his bloated ego, and his narcissistic personality disorder?  Sources close to the White House suggest Trump is thinking about replacing the Holy Ghost as part of the triune God, which may be only a small stretch of imagination.  According to his own inflated assessment, he knows more about everything, more than anyone else in the world, everything includes finances, climate change, tv ratings, and technology.  He gives himself an A+ before asking the interviewer, “Is there anything higher?”  It is difficult for most of us to suffer the constant promotion of such a childish attention-seeker.

But there he is promoting himself daily.  A forensic psychiatrist, who has studied the principles on which the assessment of current and future dangerousness in violent criminals is based, concludes:

‘Trump is now the most powerful head of state in the world, and one of the most impulsive, arrogant, ignorant, disorganised, chaotic, nihilistic, self-contradictory, self-important, and self-serving. He has his finger on the triggers of a thousand or more of the most powerful thermonuclear weapons in the world. That means he could kill more people in a few seconds than any dictator in past history has been able to kill during his entire years in power.’

[i]

[i]Field R. Books: The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President: Assessing Dangerousness. Br J Gen Pract. 2018 Oct;68(675):490. doi: 10.3399/bjgp18X699269. PMID: 30262624; PMCID: PMC6145972.

Worst of the Worst

Sylvia Plath’s poem “Daddy” explores the twisted and complicated psychological incongruities coming from her cracked bond with her father, whom she loved/hated in tandem.  She had conflicting feelings for her father who purportedly was cold and distant, someone hard to love but nevertheless her father.  She wrote:

     “Every woman adores a Fascist,
      The boot in the face, the brute
      Brute heart of a brute like you.”

Use Donald Trump as a stand-in for Plath’s father, and a convoluted conclusion appears as to how America authored its own disaster of politics and governance.  Nearly half of our electorate adored Trump, most still do.  They won, and now we pay for that misjudgment.

No matter if you’re a MAGA enlistee, or even a Trump chum, we all privately agree our president is a liar, a cheat, a swindler, an upstager, a windbag, a draft dodger, a bully, a womanizer, a convicted sex abuser, a racist, a felon 34 times over, a man with little compassion, charm, or empathy.  Apparently lots of American voters enjoy, even encourage, the behavior of a bad boy/strong man for psychological motives, for the sense of dominance and adventure these stinkers exhibit, as well as for a vicarious thrill of aligning oneself with a risktaker who pushes back at every real or inferred affront.

Trump has never seen a lawsuit he did not like.  Admit it, he has been a party to over 4000 legal battles during his career and continues to sue anybody who crosses his path.  Throughout his litigious past, he has maintained and continues to declare he is a victim or champion of justice in every dispute, thousands of them.  Always innocent.  Others always wrong.  He will punish those who cross him.  He weaponizes the courts to satisfy his need for vengeance and for his private brand of justice, which means if he loses in court he will appeal.  Legal cases will never end until he wins, and if he doesn’t win, he will continue appealing Ad Infinitum.  He claims he is merely taking advantage of a system which allows him to do as he wants.  Anyone can do what he does, he argues.  However, only the uber-wealthy can use the courts as their personal remonstration laboratory.  Since the mid 1970s, Trump’s name has appeared on thousands of lawsuits, jam-packing court dockets.  Fault lies not only with Trump for monopolizing courtrooms but also with a judicial system that allows big money to write its itineraries.  Lately, it seems every time Trump gets irked by the “lunatic left,” he sends an emergency request to the Supreme Court.  In the process, he has corrupted our legal system, which was already deeply flawed.  More, he has bent Congress to his will.  In effect, Congress does not do the peoples’ business.  Congress now does Trump’s business.    

       Trump’s preeminent pride and narcissism distinguish him as a backer of fascist values in the style of Benito Mussolini, El Duce.  Come to think, Trump has less honor and much less grace than Mussolini.  Accordingly, our president plans to sponsor a UFC cage fight on the White House Lawn.  He wears a red baseball cap to compliment his blue suit and red tie.  He rarely smiles except when used as a weapon of braggadocio or about being a winner when he inflicts harm on people who are down and out.  His dominant thoughts are for money and for himself, not necessarily in that order.  His theme “America First” translates to the richest Americans may move to the front of the line.  He shows little mercy or kindness toward “the least of these brothers and sisters of mine,” as Jesus referred to the vulnerable and marginalized people whom he treated as the first order of duty.  He builds walls and locks doors.  Trump treats these “lowlifes” and refugees from “shithole countries” as primary opponents to kick while they are down and then to throw in prison if they still breathe.  After showing him the respect he demands, even his immediate family must be discomfited by him.  He’s easy to dislike.  His loyal followers must find him to be a disgusting piece of work.  Polling be damned—he is not an honest person, and Republicans know that.  We all know that.

       His supporters cheer when they find their man leading the charge against debauched leftists and a deep state regime, not to mention “woke ideology” which they claim has infested our culture.  After all, one feels at ease when someone else makes the tough decisions, right?  Trump will do that and more!  Sure, they may reason, he has some faults writ large, say what you may, but the old man has energy to do ten things at once.  Patterned after Rommel’s’ blitzkrieg strategy in northern Africa during the Second World War, Trump has let out all the stops as he signs over one hundred executive orders designed to punish all his perceived enemies and overrun whatever policies Biden and Obama might have put forward.  He is busy firing people and closing offices at a record pace to satisfy the whims of his ultra-wealthy right-wing advice-givers.

       The chaos and gravity of his punishing and cruel programs will ultimately catch up with him.  Having pleased the 1% richest Americans can only serve his ends for a time before 99% of us fully understand the damage he has done and is doing.  The other day he threatened to “take over” New York City and Washington D.C., citing the fear of a communist takeover.  Sound familiar?  The spirit of Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare comes to mind.  Then just yesterday he suggested that the Washington Commadores changed their name back to the Washington Redskins.  What’s next?  He may soon bring back some form of slavery to amuse the former Confederate states and the really rich white men who have had enough of pandering to racial minorities and freeloaders.

Trump and his army of lawyers have won the day, but they will not win the war because Americans are better people than what we have recently demonstrated.  Finally, we will understand what we already know.  As I vividly recall from our schoolyard chant after a game of kickball, “We win.  Cheaters lose.”

Beggars Aplenty

Because I admit my views are farfetched, my apologies to professors of economics.  Truth is, I can’t remember if I ever took an econ class in college.  Probably not.  So I ask forgiveness from devotees of Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, and all lofty thinking economists from schools of hardcore socialism to unshakeable capitalism, as I proclaim my pet theory, which at least deserves a hearing before we all bend over laughing.

Daily we receive dozens of requests, appeals to donate to sound causes: political organizations, food banks, medical services in foreign places, colleges and universities, animal shelters, legal institutions, faith groups, NPR, non-profits of innumerable varieties, and an assortment of community service concerns.  These appeals, in my view, fall in the category of begging in the guise of fundraising.  I’m sure there is a master list shared among askers comprised of people who might, just maybe, shell out a few dollars for a good cause.  As a minimum, these mendicants must have a system akin to the hobo codes during the Great Depression (a circle with an X in the middle meant good place for a handout).  Fund raisers, marketers, influencers, a legion of money grubbers, modern Diageneses each making a case for why I should immediately contribute.  They usually have a deadline, of course, which happens to be coming up in a few hours, so you’ll understand the dire nature of the request.  Often they also have arranged for matching funds—anyway, that’s the claim.  You fork over twenty-five bucks, and they have found a more affluent donor willing to match that and then some.  How can anyone pass on such a offer?

My cynical thought: our economy, the marketing of this, that, and the other, and our need for more money in every coffer amounts to begging or its near cousin, the guy who always asks for a loan.  Our system of economics has a platform, and on it someone is making an appeal which sounds very much like begging.  I know panhandlers don’t usually offer a service or product, so they are unarguably beggars.  But the rest of the supplicants hustling for people’s money are no different or morally superior in their hands-out money grubbing.  How can you pass this deal by?  Just three easy payments.  You’ll be sorry if you don’t sign on the dotted line.  Have you been injured in an auto accident?  Ask your doctor about Zqxerizi.  This credit card is killing it.  This is the deal of the century!  They implore us just like the ragman kneeling on the street who asks for a dollar so he can buy a beer, except the ragman is a smidgeon more truthful.

  Forgive me, or don’t, as I suggest our present economic scheme is based on begging.  Truly.  Marketing begets begging.  Daily we confront a wave of hustlers.  We face street beggars, online beggars, Madison Avenue beggars, Washington D.C. beggars, Wall Street beggars, beggars for religious causes, bamboozlers for every possible cause, product, or service.  Most of these corporate hornswogglers offer us something in return for our dollars, I know, but many outfits promote exaggerated service and/or substandard products, so I openhandedly classify them as ersatz beggars, beggars galore!  Beggars everywhere!  In my view, when a stakeholder puts himself or herself out-front and asks for money, regardless of the value of the transaction, that person is a beggar.  As such, I classify most salespeople as beggars because their pitches are extended hands-out, gimme gimme gimme.

Sure, I know, down-and-out panhandlers offer no product or service.  They just want you to fork over a few bucks for the sake of kindness.  The line blurs, though, between these beggars and all the other beggars who cup their hands and ask for money, especially considering the hectoring we suffer each day from a choir of beggars.  Someone wants access to our wallets—that’s the sum of all those interactions online and via mass media.  The hard sell, the soft sell, the upsell, the oversell—all spitfire begging.

Perhaps begging is innately human, which doesn’t make it good or bad, I guess.  On his deathbed, his final words, Martin Luther said, “We are all beggars.”  I’m not sure exactly what the good doctor meant by that, but he probably was speaking about how each of us needs grace and mercy from a higher power.

Can’t argue with that reasoning.  Please check out my go-fund-me-page.  Do you think I write this stuff for the fun?

Vulture Technology

The other day, I was transferring files and folders on my Mac, and I did something stupid.  I don’t know exactly what I did, but subsequently a decree descended from the summit of Mount Microsoft.  I was required to verify my subscription to Word 365.  Okay.  No problem.  I tried.  No good.  Password not recognized.  Really?  I tried again.  Still no good.  These problems happen, right?  We have all been there, right?  The realization stuck me: I couldn’t edit or do any work in my documents until I sorted out the snag.  Okay. I’ve got this.  I’ll fix it.  Microsoft’s bot gatekeeper wanted to send a code to an email account I no longer use or have access to (don’t ask).  Okay, I’ll call the customer service people at Microsoft.  Hold on, whoa, no such thing as customer service people at Microsoft, not for the at-home user, anyway.  Try a virtual assistant?  Sure, but that got me nowhere slowly.  There is no phone number to call for assistance unless you contact an online technical support company, a subcontracting enterprise, which will charge a few bucks now and forever if the poor schmuck who can’t access files does not cancel immediately after fixing the problem.  So there’s the rub.  If you want help from an actual person, you must pay for something that ought to be included when you purchase a product or service.  Point is, Microsoft and many other mega-corporations don’t give a bent penny about helping you once you’ve written them a check.  If you want people support, you’ll pay more for each setback.  Oh, sure, you can go to your manuals and poke around online forums for go-figure-it-out-on-your-own support, but chances are you’ll be more frustrated than ever and will waste half a day getting nowhere.  To underscore the point, unless you represent a large business, Microsoft considers you a shift-for-yourself customer.  Figure it out.  You are on your own, Kilroy. Huge companies are too huge to care.

Same day that afternoon, I took break from my computer frustrations and decided to do some grocery shopping, always a pivoting distraction from routines.  Wanting to avoid long check-out lines, I chose self-service.  One just follows directions, tap screen, scan items using Universal Product Codes (UPC).  Fine, okay.  Should be a cinch, right?  The checkout technology, I found, is not perfect.  I’d swipe an item or two, and the help light would start blinking.  Need assistance?  Okay.  I don’t know exactly how these things work, but I know they don’t work well.  The light kept blinking on nearly every item I swiped.  “The machine doesn’t want you to put your items there,” the obliging service person said.  “No you can’t bag your cabbage here.  Try it here.”  “You need to swipe your driver’s license before you can add that.”  Lights kept blinking.  Over and over, the toting machine demanded someone come to where I checked my groceries until I felt, impatiently, like falling to my knees in despair.  Mandates from the world of technology have captured us and our surrender is required.  They, meaning the machines that oversee for us just don’t care because they are machines.  More and more, non-humans have become the authorities we mustobey.  Or else!  Technology doesn’t listen to an argument, or care for that matter.

Unquestionably technology has changed the way we conduct our daily lives.  Need for the humans to solve problems and conduct simple services has declined toward a purgatorial realm requiring little human interaction.  Oh, sure, there are still a cadre of humans willing to help us, people who work for companies yet to switch exclusively to non-human services.  These helpful people are in call centers in India.  Typically they are paid less than $100 per month.  As a result, we are leaving the human village and heading toward a megalopolis of robots.

For many of us, a typical day may begin with online shopping using facial recognition or index fingerprint to log on, a task completed without human interaction.  After a Doctor Google search using several healthcare sites to assess a sciatica condition, once again without human interaction, one may order a Waymo (a driverless auto) to deliver one to a restaurant which employs food preparation done by a robot and then delivered to one’s table by a robot server.  The day isn’t complete without a canoodle with one’s new and improved sex bot after which a little conversation with an AI counselling app to provide one with mental health support and guidance, which is sorely needed because one lives in a world without significant human interaction.

Technology has become the modern-day fast lane for all of us.  Do it the automated way or forget it.  Non-human gatekeepers (bouncers) have spawned cottage industries, people doing problem solving as folks have done for the millennia.  JustAnsweris such a company which allows one to talk to (or text with) real people, experts from a variety of professions, but of course such one-to-one help comes at a cost.  So rather than getting real help from the company one originally hired for goods or services, now comes an add-on fee.  These new services amount to the modern-day equivalent of the old protection swindle.  “Nice business you have there.  It would be a shame if anything bad happened to it.  Capiche?”

Naturally, or should I say unnaturally, a post-human world spawns loneliness and isolation.  The second nature of technology alters everything.  An acquaintance uses AI to chat through personal problems, so he gets therapy from a machine rather than a human.  He told me he likes his AI therapist.  For my friend, a non-judgmental, discrete, and supportive robot is welcome precisely because it is not a human.

Subjugation to technology must surely have its limitations or we somehow will no longer be human.  That, then, is an ontological issue if not an existential one.

What the Hell...

In case you missed it, our country has lost respect from nearly all the nations of the world.  Trump.  We are no longer the “shinning light on the hill.”  Trump.  Most nations, even our erstwhile friends, have a revised view of us as now being anathema to decency.  Trump.  The Statue of Liberty mocks us.  Trump.  The Constitution has become a joke book. Trump.  Our justice system promotes injustice.  Trump.  When our head of state declares he will respect all laws, he means he will break any law he considers improper.  Trump.  He is a vulgarian, a liar, and a man who gives hatred full reins by attacking all of those who disagree with him.  Trump.  The money lenders have taken control of the temple.  Trump.  Billionaires and ultra-rich oligarchs have taken control of the wheelhouse and plan to steer America on a new course, one which alters our culture, education, and justice systems.  Trump.  Objective truth has been replaced by “alternative truth.”  Trump.  Science and the arts have been assaulted by those uninitiated in either science or the arts.  Trump.  Racial, religious, and ethnic minorities are denigrated by the new nativist regime.  Trump.  Trump.  Trump. 

We let it happen, and now we’re stuck with a plutocracy.  Or worse.

Perhaps the antidote to our state of devolution comes from the story of Jesus flipping tables, driving sheep and cattle from the temple, and admonishing the money changers for turning a sacred place into a payday loan operation?  When business and greed become our topmost values, we lose our souls, our cultural authority.  When we choose a demagogue to define our values and goals, we become collaborators in disgrace.  We chose a man who bends reality to fulfill his prejudices.  Is it time to flip some tables and insist on a different kind of change?

At heart, Trump appeals to voters who want immigration restricted, entitlement reform, isolationism, not to mention giving a shy nod to anti-feminism, racism, and anti-LGBTQ causes.  Why not choose the alpha male leader, a throwback to the days of Julius Ceasar?  But whoopsie, Trump’s policies promoting his version of patriotism pose the most serious threat to democracy since Joesph McCarthy’s Red Scare blather.  Just as McCarthy turned from persecutor to persecuted, Trump will undoubtedly get his comeuppance.  At some point, Trump’s proclivity for making enemies of friends and foes alike will complete his downfall.  After all, no one enjoys the presence of a person who believes he knows more than everyone else in the room, especially if that person brags about it.  Even more, if that person is a pathological megalomaniac. Trump.

One way or another, pray that Trump is derailed somehow before he destroys our country.

Ugly America

Recall the scene in the movie A Christmas Story where Ralphie is hit with a snowball thrown by the neighborhood bully?  As the bully taunts and belittles his victim, Ralphie breaks down in tears but finally explodes in rage.  Against all odds, he tackles the bully and pummels him.  Ralphie had had enough, and his reaction became anger, and his anger led to a refusal to be further victimized.

While enduring Trump’s hegemony, many of us are reaching the stage Ralphie found himself in, despair, fear, and exhaustive anger.  How many insults and injuries to human decency can we accept?  If Trump and his far-right purists get their way, our nation will slide into the muck of fascism. 

Most political pundits conclude America does not satisfy the definition as a fascist nation because we enjoy a robust two-party system.  However, as a symptom of burgeoning autocracy, Trump’s neofascist regime is trying its darndest to crush all opposition and skip constitutive obstructions.  Trump employs vindictiveness, fear, plus a dash of animus to achieve his bully-boy ends.  Likely, we know how the Trump nightmare will end by referencing Benito Mussolini, Adolph Hitler, and Marshal Philippe Pétain.  The afore mentioned fascists were forcibly strident in humiliating the opposition, and all had tenures which ended in disgrace.  We are in early stages of becoming a fascist nation, headed by neo-fascist Donald Trump.  Unthinkably, we are becoming what we have always opposed.  Under Trump’s control, our country is cuddling up to Putin and other authoritarian regimes while betraying the democratic values we have long espoused.  Trump aligns closely with dictators and shuns our longtime democratic friends and allies.

Fascists have the practice of calling their opposition evil, which is exactly what Putin calls Ukrainian leadership.  Likewise, Trump uses a similar rhetorical pattern and has for years—if one calls him a corrupt influence, he returns the insult against whomever did the calling, “I’m not corrupt; you’re corrupt!  Plus you’re a traitor!”  Trump always returns fire and doubles down on the insults.

Add his neofascist inclinations to his complicity with Christian nationalism and we arrive at someone who spits on the text of the Sermon on the Mount.  For Trump and his disciples, revenge against anyone who opposes Trump’s creed is compulsory.  Little compassion exists in the quasi-religious crusade, only humiliation and punishment dealt to “losers” and “scumbags” who are not true patriots or Christians (i.e. Trump supporters).  It’s touchy stuff borne from Trump’s puerile perception of payback and power.

More, his tactless need to chasten the media and political insurrectionaries (unless they are white supremacists) spits on the Constitution.  It is impossible for him to “turn the other cheek.”  He’s the middle school bully who steals lunch money from the weak and others whom he deems rivals because he, Trump, is the most-popular-kid-on-the-playfield.  If another child tells him he sucks, he replies, “You suck, and so does your mother.”  And he won’t forget any insult.  With a lack of moral standards and empathy, he believes he is the shrewdest guy in the classroom, even though he is, at best, a middling student, and possibly less than that.

To use the same strategies of name-calling and disrespect which Trump employs merely serves to mimic the nasty strategies of MAGA devotees and their leader (“nasty” is a tag he uses when any outspoken woman challenges him).  In the main, Trump’s Christian nationalist followers demonstrate little modesty, scant humility, no forgiveness, and hardly any compassion.  According to Trump’s former consigliere and fix-it lawyer, Michael Cohen, Trump labeled Christianity as “bullshit,” and the boss went on to say most Christians are “fools” and “schmucks.”  He has shown no noticeable church attendance or affiliation, no spiritual tradition, no understanding of sacred texts, and has a habit of using religion as his political mule, a beast of burden to carry him to power.

If anything, his religion is money.  He is the transcendent leader of a newfangled cult, Trumpism, based on Trump and rich people getting the lion’s share of power and money, and in the process exposing the evils of “wokeness.”

Early exposure to the Marble Collegiate Church headed by author and clergyman Norman Vincent Peale surely influenced young Trump.  Child Trump attended the church with his family.  Peale, the New York Times bestseller author wrote The Power of Positive Thinking, preached the value of personal fulfillment, the fundamentals of prosperity gospel, which became hugely popular once television provided a platform for the likes of Jim and Tammy Bakker, Oral Roberts, and Pat Robertson, among others.  Adjacent to that thought, I’m reminded of Adlai Stevenson’s comments when asked about Peale’s ministry, his health and wealth gospel: “Speaking as a Christian, I find the Apostle Paul appealing and the Apostle Peale appalling.”

Following in the footsteps of the money-centric mass media clergy, Reverend Ike became, perhaps, the most blatant example of the gospel of prosperity.  He repeated an appeal which went something like this: "Close your eyes and see green," the minister suggested. "Money up to your armpits, a roomful of money and there you are, just tossing around in it like a swimming pool."  Didn’t I hear him say, “I love money.  I want money.  I need money. Amen.”

Trump, heretic pope of the Immaculate Church of Trump and a budding neofascist, dreamer of holding office for a third and fourth term, a felon who shows contempt for anyone who opposes him, is the man to who brings shame to America.

He is just like the bully who pelted Ralphie with a snowball.  Because the bully represents us, we have become, deservedly, ugly.

In Defense of Farce

After years of regarding human behavior as magical, godlike in its triumphs and pardonable in its defeats, I had an epiphany which demanded deep-thinking adjustments.  Of course to think anyone might care about my viewpoint is preposterous, farcical even.  Forgive me, then, for the following assertion.

Farce, I now admit, is the nutmeat of “all-the world-is-a-stage” metaphor and should be considered the prevailing leitmotif of human activities.  Don’t we witness buffoonery and absurd behavior on every screen, every news release, each precinct through which we travel?  Don’t we observe people presenting themselves to be something they are not?  Don’t we hear it when we are told “to run, not walk, to the nearest Ford dealership for savings of the century”?  To better tolerate the world and its creatures, wouldn’t it be amenable to consider God’s whole stagey creation as if it were a Moliere play, the humor of it taking center stage?  Bada bing bada boom!

Absurdity is not the turning point of our existence, as Camus claimed.  His conclusion was life is absurd because the world (however one wants to define it) is indifferent to meaning, which may be blindly absurd, as well as farcical, don’t you think?  No, surely our existence is more farcical than absurd, if you’ll allow my attempt at semantics to parse the difference.  

Farce is funny, of courbut also dead serious in its fundamental insinuations.  We laugh at the roughshod horseplay and buffoonery of The Three Stooges, though getting slapped and clunked on the head, “nyuck-nyuck-nyuck,” is no laughing matter.  And think of the Marx Brothers and their farcical take on Hitler, high society, pretentiousness, and just about everything else their audiences took seriously.  Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, an apt example, is farce from start to finish; it is also satire and alarmingly sober in its conclusions.  Tears of laughter seem appropriate even though you may weep for what the theme portends.  Waiting for Godot yet another example of absurdity capturing our attention and applying farcical suggestions, leaving us somewhere between laughing and weeping.  Because, at its core, funny is what we are, how we act from day to day.  We are an up-to-date Punch and Judy show, complete with smacks in the face and a howling audience.

MacBeth’s poetic claim seems to apply: “Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.”  Sure we may be sad figures as we stride across this stage, but at heart we would do well to laugh at the absurdity of our strutting and fretting as we melt away to the wings during our cameo appearance speaking our mostly silly and vainglorious lines.

In its raw state, politics is a decent (or indecent) example of farce, something like a clown show featuring sex, violence, and all the seven deadly sins demonstrated for our risible gratification.  Election season brings out the exaggerated and ridiculous in all of us, and we get an extra helping of mistruths.  This we know.  Biden’s verbal stumbles and his obliviousness to his diminished capacities are funny if taken in context.  As Kamala Harris took the baton from Biden, she believed her constituents, educated people along with fed up underclass people would carry the day by a landslide.  She drew knee-slapping chuckles from Republicans and crushing dejection from many Democrats.  Detached, it’s kind of funny, isn’t it?  Trump’s need to humiliate his rivals by using a stream of fabrications is funny if one considers how brazen and clownish he is, posing as he does in a blue dress suit, red tie, and topped by his ridiculous red baseball cap, as if he is one of the good old boys.  Posterity will likely judge him in the same category as we view Alfred E. Newman, a consummate buffoon and laugh-provoking ass.  Take a close look at the cast of characters in Washington D.C.  the ultra “woke” crowd, George Santos, Ted Cruz, Tommy Tuberville, and Paul Goser—all these seemingly thoughtful figures are entertaining because they are serious about what they do and say.  If they stood before a mirror and could somehow see how others viewed them, how they acted and heard what they said, they might consider starting new careers as stand-up comics.  Bada bing bada boom!

What does it all mean?  What purpose do we serve if farce is the thesis of everything?  What is the purpose of darn near anything at all.

Maybe not much, but on close analysis, absurdity and all that, great and fleeting value must be found in family, kindness, faith, and whatever the work of the moment is.  Even if it is all—all of it—sort of funny.

Honor

Whether you believe Jimmy Carter was an effective president or not, an accord among friends and foes alike is that he was an honorable man.  He spent a lifetime serving his community, his faith, his country, and the world.  In dealing with others, he showed humility, integrity, graciousness, and honesty—the core ingredients of honor.  Those qualities, however, are not presently top priorities in our culture where power and sharp elbows draw most the attention and applause.  Our culture prizes winning, materialism, celebrity, and smash-mouth NFL football (America’s new religion).

Placed on the plinth of celebrity and power is Donald Trump, someone who receives low marks on the scorecard measuring humility, graciousness, integrity, and honesty.  His attributes run counter to what has long been considered honorable conduct.  Trump is mendacious, a vulgarian, a braggart, a draft dodger, a womanizer, an adulterer, a swindler, a felon, a four-flusher, a bully, a racist, is as pitiless as Lady MacBeth, and has an appreciation for fascists.  In every instance, he is the opposite of Carter.  Trump is dishonorable and, I’m guessing, cares more about his idea of success than ethical standards.  Americans, too, care little for honor as they vie for winning and money.  Honor has not been a top priority in our culture.  It just hasn’t been.  The American ethos has little to do with “lifting others up, (and) not ourselves,” as found in Romans 12:10, “Be devoted to one another in love.  Honor one another above yourselves.”

Like Trump, much of America’s electorate value winning above all else, so honor may take a seat in the back of the room.  As the cliché goes: losing is not an option.  Truth is, though, losing is always an option for all of us even though we may not want to discuss the possibility.  If we refuse to lose, as Trump does in every case, we become twisted in our self-importance and in our empathy. Apparently, Trump’s soul is undisturbed by his aggressive me-first behavior.  His solipsism is complete.  His thinking is the only reality—nothing else matters.  The danger of a solipsist can be seen clearly in Moby Dick, Ishmael being the only survivor of Captain Ahab’s destructive thinking.

Samuel Johnson concluded that virtuous conduct and personal integrity are essential elements of honor.  Selfless service to others.  Staying good to one’s word.  Integrity, honesty, ethical conduct: these are the earmarks of honor which have been practiced for centuries.  Often associated with military and communal values, honor is seen as the opposite of baseness and self-serving conduct.

Even so, some part of us likes an iron-willed dictator who makes choices for us, a bully whom we want to please against all odds.  In Sylvia Plath’s poem “Daddy,” she writes, “Every woman adores a Fascist / The boot in the face, the brute / Brute heart of a brute like you….”

Sounds as if her Daddy was, in fact, very much like Trump!