Kobe

Just got a call from my slightly older sister Erica (a.k.a. ‘Riki’) to give me a heads-up on a tragedy I was reading about at the very moment I picked up the phone: the incomprehensible death of Laker great Kobe Bryant. What a horrible, horrible tragedy. Such unbridled sadness and pain. Unless you’re an Angelino you cannot truly comprehend what we’re going through. While the rest of the world refers to Los Angeles as “La La Land,” we, who are proud natives, people who know our hometown as El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora Reina de Los Angeles, are a single, multi-ethnic family. If your Spanish is a bit rusty (or nonexistent) it translates as “The town of our lady, queen of the angels.” We are simply Angelinos, meaning “angels.” And, as Angels, we have just lost one of our greatest celestial heroes: Kobe Bryant. A mere 41-years old, Kobe was not only a titan of the round ball; he was, is, and always shall be a superstar.  As Angelinos, we feel a special. emotional kinship with the angels who have added so much to our city . . . even those who were neither born nor raised in our midst.

A Philadelphian by birth, Kobe and his family moved to Rieti, Italy, where his father, retired NBA player Joe “Jellybean” Bryant had gone to play for an Italian team. During his years in Rieti, Kobe became fluent in Italian; he eventually became fluent in Spanish as well. Returning to Philadelphia, Kobe was an eighteen-year-old high school phenom when first signed by the Lakers in 1996.  He would go on to become one of the greatest basketball players of all-time; an 18-time NBA all-star who won 5 NBA championships, became a two-time scoring champion, as well as an Academy Award-winner (for a documentary short film Dear Basketball ) and a philanthropist of note.  And while he did have his dark, nasty moments, became embroiled in a sex scandal and was fined $100,000 by the NBA for making homophobic slurs, was able to pick himself up, dust himself off, grow up, and make a triumphant return to the winner’s circle. His sudden death in a fiery helicopter crash has taken the breath away from people across the country and around the world . . . but likely nowhere harder or worse than in our beloved City of the Angels. For here - in Los Angeles - Kobe was far, far more than a mere basketball immortal; he was our son, our brother our neighbor. His helicopter went down in Calabasas (Spanish for “pumpkins”) in the extreme western end of the San Fernando Valley, site of the Motion Picture Country Home and a 20-minute walk from my mother’s and sister’s residences. He was a neighbor; a 41-year old father of 4 daughters; a retiree devoted to making the world a better place through the giving away of his vast fortune. He was just beginning his life’s second act . . .

Where a majority of readers and followers of this blog can identify Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, Mitch McConnell and Steve Scalise, most people cannot.  However, a far, far higher number of folks across this country and around the world can give you line and verse about Kobe Bryant.  In fact, he is, was always shall be one of those rare individuals - some famous, others infamous - who went through life being known by a single name . . . people like “Shaq,” “Cher,” “Sting,” “Marilyn,” “Rembrandt,” “Casanova” and “Mussolini.”  Kobe now becomes part of that celestial gathering of talented people who shed this mortal coil far, far too early: Rudolph Valentino, George Gershwin, Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison; Lou Gehrig, Thurman Munson, Roberto Clemente, and Len Bias; Sylvia Plath, Arthur Rimbeau and the Brontë sisters, Anne and Emily; RFK, JFK and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

One of the eeriest and perhaps most hopeful aspects of Kobe and Gianna (Gigi) Bryant’s horrible deaths is how quickly the nation’s emotional “channels” have been changed . . . from anger, intolerance, viciousness and disunity to mournful togetherness.  For the first time in ages, we as a nation are pretty much sharing the same teary-eyed feeling. Most of us are now mourners; most of us are Angelinos.  Oh sure, there are those hiding behind the barrier of Internet anonymity, reminding everyone that Kobe was far from a saint and rehashing his shortcomings and mortal errors.  I would imagine that some of them hold even greater sinners than Kobe Bryant in far higher esteem.  Whatever happened to not speaking ill of the dead?  But for now, at least, a vast majority can for the first time in a long time, share a deeply human emotion: ineffable loss. May this brief unity - forged through shock and sadness though it may be - act as a reminder that life is short, and that we should try getting along with one another.

In the words of John Lennon, another whose life ended far too soon:

Life is very short

And there's no time
For fussing and fighting, my friend
I have always thought
That it's a crime
So I will ask
You once
Again
Try to see it my way

Only time will tell if I am right or I am wrong
While you see it your way

There's a chance that we may fall apart before too long
We can work it out

We can work it out.

Farewell Kobe.

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

Adam Schiff: Superego to '45's Id

There are any number of Yiddish words which have, over the years, become recognizable to speakers of American English. Most of these folks - whether Jewish or not - know the words mentsch, meshugga (or meshuggeneh), chutzpah, drek, gonif and perhaps even kvell, to mention but a few This last one - kvell - which figuratively translates as “boast” or “brag” takes a bit of explaining. When one boasts or brags, it is frequently about oneself, and just as frequently can be a bit overblown and self—serving. When one kvells however, it is rarely if ever about oneself; one kvells over a child, grandchild . . . even the family dog or cat. And unlike boasting, kvell’n (the verbal form) can be better than true. In the Jewish world a kvell can be as simple as “My daughter the doctor” or “My grandson the Hollywood screenwriter.” To kvell is to publicly bust one’s buttons over someone else . . .

Imagine, if you will, how much kvelling (that’s “Yinglish”) Ed Schiff (Rep. Adam’s Schiff’s father) must be doing these days. For not only is his son Chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s choice for lead “Manager” in the upcoming impeachment proceeding against the POTUS, but has just been named by the Gallup Poll one of America’s 10 most admired men - a list which includes Barack Obama and Donald Trump (tied for first at 18%), former President Jimmy Carter, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Pope Francis, Bernie Sanders, the Dalai Lama, and Warren Buffett.  Ed, who is not one to spread the word about either of his sons (there’s also Adam’s older brother Dan, a financial planner in San Jose) couldn’t help but send out en email to family and friends giving us a proud-as-proud-can-be heads-up about Adam’s Gallup Poll ranking. That’s the living breathing definition of kvellling! 

Mazal tov Ed!

Without question, Adam is the best choice for lead manager in the impeachment trial. For in addition to being both terribly bright and a highly skilled, experienced prosecutor; he is the straightest arrow in the Congressional quiver, possesses a thick skin, a low temperature setting, and can show a surprisingly witty sense of humor. In other words, he is, in just about every imaginable way, the bipolar opposite of the man on trial. Where Trump is a congenital liar, Schiff has long been addicted to the truth; where The Donald barks and threatens, Adam hums and listens.

Brother Dan recently recalled a situation when Adam was about 7: Already a striver, Adam determined that he would outdo the neighborhood boy who was the best “burp-talker.” His relentless faux belches wore on his brother’s nerves, until Dan threw his jacket and the zipper caught Adam squarely in the mouth. Dan begged Adam to come up with a story, any story, to tell their parents. Adam howled. “There was all this blood. But what triggered him was that I was asking him to lie,” recalled Dan. “The fact that he was being steered to a lie . . . that really rankled him.”

Where the POTUS is voluble, high-strung, insulting and can, without notice, go off like a Roman candle; Adam Schiff is mostly low-key and laid-back. Schiff also possesses a far, far greater degree of self-awareness than the man he is prosecuting, and thus understands the important advantage it gives him: “What I’ve discovered is that ... in an irrational time when you have an erratic hothead in the Oval Office, there is a real premium on not having your hair on fire,” Schiff recently reflected to a reporter. “I suspect that part of it is just my own temperament, which I couldn’t change even if I wanted to.”

This is not to say that Adam Schiff takes all the insults lying down. During the Intelligence Committee impeachment hearings he compared the president’s furiously debated phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to a mob boss engaged in a “shakedown.” Trump and his followers then bestowed two nicknames on the committee chair: “Shifty Schiff” and “Pencil Neck Adam Schiff.” He has been called a “liar” and “traitor,” and watched as Republicans urged that he himself be impeached on grounds of being a traitor.

In Adam Schiff’s Capitol Hill office, one will find a photo of President Theodore Roosevelt, the nation’s 26th Chief Executive. Although I do not know of a certainty why T.R.’s photo adorns the wall, I would guess it’s because of a truism that the old Bull Moose committed to print in a 1918 essay: “Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President . . . “ (n.b. the rest of the quote, from an essay entitled ‘Lincoln and Free Speech'  continues: “. . . or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him in so far as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth — whether about the President or about anyone else — save in the rare cases where this would make known to the enemy information of military value which would otherwise be unknown to him.)  This is the truth which permeates Adam Schiff’s political life.

More than being Donald John Trump’s legal and political adversary, Adam Schiff has also become what might be referred to as “The Superego to ‘45’s Id.” What in the world does that mean?” one may well ask.  

Before answering, let’s dip a toe into the pond of Freudian psychoanalytic personality theory. Don’t worry: it’s neither difficult nor obscure. According to Freud, there are 3 parts of the human personality which develop at different stages of a young person’s life. These three parts combine to create the complex behavior of human beings. He refers to them as “id,” “ego,” and “superego.”

• The “Id” (das Es): the most basic part of the personality, the Id represents our most basic, animalistic urges. It is the first part of the personality to develop. The Id seeks instant gratification for our wants and needs . . . such as a man who grabs and kisses women at will . . . because that’s what he wants to do. If animalistic needs or wants are not met, a person can become tense, anxious, or angry.

• The Ego (das ich): The ego deals with reality, trying to meet the desires of the id in a way that is socially acceptable in the world. The same man, really wanting to grab a pretty woman and kiss her, refrains from doing so because he knows he could get into a lot of trouble. He compromises by complimenting her on her glasses or hairstyle.

• The superego (Über-Ich) The superego develops last, and is based on morals and judgments about right and wrong. Even though the superego and the ego may reach the same decision about something (such as not grabbing and kissing a beautiful woman), the superego's reason for that decision is based mostly on moral values, while the ego's decision is based more on what others will think or what the consequences of an action could be on the individual.

Taking our toes out of the Freudian pond, it should now be pretty understandable what referring to Adam Schiff as “The Superego to ‘45’s Id” means. What fuels Donald Trump’s actions (mainly if not exclusively) is his Id - the most primitive, psychologically puerile and self-centered aspect of his being.  He does what he does and says what he says because he wants what he wants. And if he cannot get it or finds his actions, statements or claims challenged, lashes out with childlike anger. Period.  He has little or no ego (at least in the Freudian sense of the term) to act as a restraining mechanism.  Adam Schiff, on the other hand - like many fully-realized, better balanced human beings - is guided largely by his superego.  He knows right from wrong and uses that knowledge as a measuring rod for his actions.  Although accused of being a  “deranged ultra-leftist who hates America” by both the POTUS, his followers and political allies, he is anything but.  Adam Schiff’s upbringing, education, professional experience and superego have made him a quintessential moderate . . . in both life and in politics. When it comes to acting as manager in the upcoming Senate trial, Adam Schiff is the ideal package; one which will no doubt stick in the Trumpian craw for the rest of his life. 

But before getting on with the “rest of his life,” ‘45 and his team must deal with a prosecution, a trial and a vote . . . not to mention a headlong collision between the supreme presidential id and a towering superego. I predict that the proceedings will so enrage the POTUS that he will find it next to impossible to forgo Tweeting, performing for the camera or sinking even deeper into the swamp of absurdity.  If his ‘45 further embarrasses himself before the public, it could cause some Senate Republicans (especially those up for reelection) to start paying more attention to their own egos and superegos . . . even if it is at the expense of their leader’s Id.

Adam Schiff, who is my pick for either Attorney General or Director of the CIA in a Democratic White House, is the right man in the right place at the right time.

And for that, we can all rightfully kvell.

287 1/2 days until the election . . .

Copyright 2020 Kurt F. Stone

Wag the Dog?

It goes without saying that General Qasem Soleimani, the late head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard-Force Quds was a despicable, blood-thirsty terrorist. (It should be noted that there are several different spellings used for Soleimani - “Qassem” and “Qasem” “Soleimani” and “Suleimani.” Take your pick.)

Shortly after his assassination this past Saturday via an American drone strike near the Baghdad International Airport, President Trump called Soleimani “the number one terrorist anywhere in the world.” I won’t argue with Mr. Trump’s assessment; Soleimani’s drone-induced death - along with Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and at least 10 other people - is not being mourned anywhere in the civilized world. Whether Soleimani’s being taken out will result in fewer or greater terrorist attacks against Western targets is yet to be realized.

Nonetheless, the Iranian Tasnim News Agency quoted a senior Revolutionary Guards commander as saying Iran will punish Americans wherever they are within reach of the Islamic Republic. Additionally, General Gholamali Abuhamzeh, the commander of the Guards in the southern province of Kerman (where Soleimani was born 62 years ago) raised the prospect of possible attacks on ships in the Gulf.  Wasting not a moment, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appointed the deputy commander of the Quds Force, Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani as Solemani’s replacement. In a statement, the Supreme Leader said that the program of the Quds Force "will be unchanged from the time of his predecessor."

Needless to say, Trump’s order to take out Soleimani has caused one hell of lot of press - both here at home and around the globe, some of it both negative and threatening, some of it both positive and questioning.  By and large, Republicans and Trump’s Israeli “amen corner” see in the assassination an act of strategic daring - the fulfillment of  a  political promise.  Democrats and many of  America’s Western allies are up in arms; Democrats, because the drone attack was accomplished without a single one of them being given a heads-up; our Western allies for pretty much the same reason.  They see in the president’s action the reemergence of a “go-it-alone” cowboy tactic, hauntingly reminiscent of the Reagan years.  There is also a widespread belief that the attack was predictable; a “wag the dog” strategy meant to divert attention from ‘45’s impeachment, while putting- a lethal arrow in his reelection quiver.  

For those who have been out of touch for the past many years, Wag the Dog is a 1997 Barry Levinson satirical dramady starring Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro and Ann Heche in which shortly before an election, a spin-doctor and a Hollywood producer join efforts to fabricate a war in order to cover up a Presidential sex scandal.  The concept - if not the specific idiom - has been around since the days of the ancient Greeks and Romans. They called it deus ex machina, literally, “God from the machine.” In their ancient dramas and comedies, whenever a plot had hit a serious snag, the playwright would literally have a person or thing hoisted suddenly and unexpectedly onto the stage by means of a crane, thereby providing an artificial or contrived solution to an apparently insoluble difficulty.  

Republicans, of course, aren’t the only ones who have been suspected of wagging the dog. Back in August 1998, three days after President Bill (“I did not have sex with that woman”) Clinton’s unsatisfying apology to the nation, and on the same day that Monica Lewinsky’s returned to the grand jury, the U.S. military struck in Afghanistan and Sudan, causing skeptics to ask: Are they truly a response to the Kenya-Tanzania bombings of American embassies, or a manufactured crisis to divert public attention from President Clinton’s personal troubles? Or, as one reporter asked then-Defense Secretary William Cohen at a news briefing on the attacks, isn’t there a “striking resemblance” to “Wag the Dog”? Cohen, forced to address the issue, said, in essence, of course not.

The employment of a “wag the dog” (or deus ex machina) strategy antedates the Clintons and Trumps of this world by nearly a century. In the last days of the 19th century, it was William Randolph Hearst employing the “You provide the photographs, I’ll provide the war” which launched America in the Spanish-American War. Who benefited from this egregious Yellow Journalism? President William McKinley and his soon-to-become successor, Theodore Roosevelt.

Indeed, there’s nothing new under the sun.

The political value of “Wagging the dog” is certainly not unknown to Donald Trump or his advisers.  Back in 2011-12 - long before the real estate mogul entered the world of hardcore politics - Trump repeatedly predicted that then-President Barack Obama would start a war between the U.S. and Iran to help secure a second term in the White House. “Our president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate,” then reality-television star Donald Trump said in a video uploaded to YouTube in November 2011. “I believe that he will attack Iran sometime prior to the election because he thinks that’s the only way he can get elected. Isn’t it pathetic?”  Asked about this in early 2020, now-President Trump has been afflicted with a raging case of amnesia . . . 

When asked by members of the press the obvious question “why now?” regarding Suleimani’s assassination, the POTUS and members of his administration said that they were acting on incontrovertible intelligence that the the Iranians were planning on a series of deadly terrorist attacks against American interests and troops in the near future. This is less than reassuring, and for a couple of reasons:

1. From almost day one of his administration, ‘45 has roundly and loudly denigrated the American intelligence community, saying that he knows far, far more than they do. Now he is relying upon their findings?

2. That despite Suleimani being the leader of one of the planet’s most menacing, best organized terrorist forces, his leadership was not essential; the Quds Force’s overarching plans and grand design will continue with or without him.

3. Despite being in office for nearly 3 years, ‘45 has never developed anything approaching a “grand strategy” - when it comes to Iran. To be fair, Trump isn’t singularly responsible for this lack. Although there have certainly been “topple the Iranian mullahs” hawks in the government ever since the fall of the Shah (John Bolton being a prime example), nobody has developed an overall understanding of America’s goals, tactics or end game.

So, answering the questions “Why now?” and “What now?” are as elusive and unknowable as ever. That’s a large part of the problem of having a Presidency-via-Twitter. Being limited to precisely 280 keystrokes per Tweet presents obvious difficulties. When one is telling the world precisely the what and why of leading America, the task is impossible. In a Saturday night Tweet-storm ‘45 wrote:

“. . . if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets,"  the U.S. has targeted 52 Iranian sites including — "some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD

On Sunday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appeared to walk back Trump's statements on ABC's This Week. "We'll behave lawfully. We'll behave inside the system. We always have, and we always will," he said on Sunday morning. That evening, ‘45 doubled down on his threat, telling reporters "They're allowed to kill our people. They're allowed to torture and maim our people. They're allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people," And we're not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn't work that way." The next day, Defense Secretary Mike Esper indicated that U.S. forces would carry out the president’s threat, saying, “We will follow the laws of armed conflict.”  In discussing this particular aspect of ‘45’s unbalanced threats with my good friend and esteemed colleague, Professor Emeritus Gil Klajman (a truly wise and worldly man) he posed the question: “Who do you think put the idea of attacking precisely ‘52 Iranian cultural sites’ into his head?  I mean, who in their right might would believe even for a moment that Trump had any idea of there being 52 sites in Iran to bomb or blow  up?”  This is a fascinating question; one which leads one to wonder who is pulling on Trump’s leash? 

(n.b. The targeting of cultural properties by the U.S. is indeed not allowed. The U.S. is a signatory to the 1954 Hague Convention, which requires "refraining from any act of hostility" directed against cultural property.)

‘45 has also flatly stated that American forces will be withdrawn from Iraq . . . and that thousands more will be sent to the Middle East. How much prior conversation he has had with America’s allies before taking these steps is unknown; lone wolves do have a tendency to keep things close to the vest. Whether or not ‘45 has considered what these steps will do to the shape and future history of the region is debatable. Already, there are signs that oil prices are beginning to undergo a sharp rise . . . something a president really doesn’t want to have happen in an election year.

Some of ‘45’s BFFs - like Fox News commentators Tucker Carlson and Geraldo Rivera have questioned the president’s rationale and wisdom for the Soleimani drone strike, seeing it as a prelude to a wider conflict. As a result of Carlson and Rivera opening their mouths, many of the president’s most steadfast supporters are questioning whether or not Fox has joined the ranks of the “lamestream media,” and shifting their allegiance to the highly conservative “One America News Network.” Even Israeli P.M. Bibi Netanyahu - whose own political future is in the cross-hairs - has ordered his Cabinet ministers not to speak to the press about the Soleimani assassination in order to prevent public statements that might create the impression Israel was involved in the operation.  Obviously Netanyahu - who despite his many personal shortcomings is a crafty political operator - understands that Trump’s latest escapade is not in Israel’s best interests.

At this point in time, it is impossible to know for certain whether or not Soleimani’s assassination is a “wag the dog” or deus ex machina response to the many political travails of Donald J. Trump.  Nor is it knowable if this event will further imperil his race for reelection.  Only those with fully functioning crystal balls can know the answer.  And while ‘45’s most ardent fan (as well as those who, in general, believe him to be a mindless buffoon, will applaud his having taken out a truly evil man, there remains the question of what effect, in the long run, it will have on the United States, Israel, the Middle East and the 2020 election.  

Perhaps only Barry Levinson and David Mamet (the screenwriter) know the answer . . .

273 days until the general election.

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

Tempus Fugit

One of the universal truths which exist outside the bounds of logic is this: that the older one becomes, the quicker time flies (tempus fugit).  Within the logical sphere, of course, tempus fugit is pure twaddle; no matter what one’s age, a day will always consist of 24 hours, a week of 7 days, a year of 12 months, and a decade of precisely 5,256,000 minutes.  This is, again, within the realm of reason.  Emotionally and experientially however, time does seem to fly faster and faster with each passing year.  To a 9-year old counting the days until the beginning of summer vacation, a single month feels like an eternity; to a retiree taking a two-week cruise to Alaska, 336 hours go by in the wink of an eye.

You get the point.

Then there is the nether-realm of time - neither long nor short, a combination of blink-of-an-eye fast and agonizingly slow,  As an example, three weeks from today, January 20, 2020, ‘45 will have “served” (?) as POTUS for 3 years - 1,095 days. In some respects these three years have gone by very, very quickly. Indeed, it seems like yesterday when he claimed his inauguration was attended by “up to 1.5 million people” - a figure which photographs clearly debunked. And yet, how many eternities has it been since he began referring to journalists as “among the most dishonest human beings on earth?” In matter of fact, both occurred on the same day: January 21, 2017.

Without question, 2019, filled as it has been with drama, heroism and angst, tragedy and antic lunacy, has, nonetheless flown by. Then too, it has also crawled by at a snail’s pace, leaving behind a trail of shock, horror, hatred and gastropodal slime which although not necessarily lethal, is truly disgusting. Standing at the threshold of 2020, it can’t get here fast enough. Perhaps - just perhaps - the new year will bring hope; hope for a return to the “Yes we can!” weltanschauung of just a few years back.

New Years have long involved the making of resolutions. They can range from the personal - like taking off 10 pounds, quitting smoking or being more charitable - to the communal - such as showing greater civility, fighting against bigotry, prejudice and inequality. Making resolutions is easy; keeping and accomplishing them is a far, far greater challenge.

It is with utter humility that I suggest a few social, political and communal resolutions to consider:

“Seize the Day!”

• To Democrats, Moderate Republicans and Independents: decide what’s most important in the person you nominate to take on ‘45: the ability to defeat him, give walking papers to the likes of McConnell, Graham, Gohmert and Collins and begin to restore America’s position of world leadership or pushing a platform which is beyond the ability of a large swathe of the voting public to grasp, let alone support.

• Quit seeking the “perfect” nominee to take on Boss Tweet and his mutinous minions; doing so can only make “the good” or the “most possible” into an also-ran . . . thereby reelecting IMPOTUS.

• Quit trying to change the minds of those whose minds have already been made up for them. All that can come of such arguments and debates are anger, incivility and even greater civic divisiveness.

• Quit sitting around and merely grousing: Do not expect others to be responsible for the change(s) we seek. We must all work together if we are to bring about those changes we seek.

Unbelievably, the first event in the 2020 presidential campaign season - the Iowa Caucus - takes place a mere 7 weeks from today (Monday, February 3.)  I predict that these 7 weeks will fly by at the speed of light. Tempus Fugit indeed! The day after that caucus, attention will then shift across the country to New Hampshire, whose primary takes place 1 week later (Feb. 11), then on to Nevada (caucus, Feb. 22) and South Carolina (Feb. 29). By the 1st of March, if all goes well, we will add another watchword to our Latin catechism: carpe diem, namely “Seize the Day!”

If 2020 is to be the watershed moment in time we so desperately need, it’s going to take a lot of work, energy, drive and commitment. Let us resolve to keep our eyes on the prize.

Fiat lux (“Let there be light!”)

And to all, wishing you “a Happy Sylvester” - a Happy, healthy and successful 2020.

290 days until the next presidential election.

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

Nancy Pelosi: Strategist Par Excellence

Those who have been paying attention to the televised portion of the impeachment process, have undoubtedly observed the many differences between Democrats and Republicans - and not just in terms of whose side they’re on. The most obvious difference, it seems to me, is that for Democrats, facts are paramount, while for Republicans its process. I guess it’s that way because the Republicans know that arguing against the facts would be a waste of breath. Another obvious difference is that Democrats serving on both the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (chaired by California’s Adam Schiff) and the Judiciary Committee (chaired by New York’s Jerry Nadler) are nowhere near as gratingly voluble as their Republican colleagues. To compare the relative decibel level of an Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell or Jamie Raskin to that of a Devin Nunes, “Gym” Jordan or Doug Collins is akin to comparing Herons to Hoot Owls.

Then, after a long day’s worth of 5-minute speeches, everyone “reserving the balance of their time,” recording votes on useless resolutions that were bound to be defeated along strict party lines and forensic codas by House leaders, came the final votes on 2 articles of impeachment commenced. And standing high above the House, dressed in black, gavel in hand, stood Speaker Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi, the most powerful Democrat in America, both the de facto and de jure leader of her party. When, after results of the first vote were announced, Democrats, below and to her right, began to cheer. Within a nanosecond, the speaker had shot her colleagues a stern look and pointed a tally card directly at them. Immediately, there was total silence from her side of the aisle. The same thing occurred after results of the second vote were announced. Where another Speaker might have used the gavel to quiet down the majority, Speaker Pelosi did it with a single sharp-eyed glance; the power of her presence. Say what you want about her: the woman is a political force to be reckoned with.

And yet, despite how long she’s been around, how much respect she has garnered and her unparalleled political skills, most Americans know little about her . . . outside of the fact that the president calls her “Nervous Nancy,” and that she’s from San Francisco . . . which I guess means we’re supposed to assume she’s some kind of a gonzo Commie. Actually, she comes from a famous and politically powerful Baltimore family; both her father and brother served as mayors of the place John Quincy Adams tagged “The Monumental City.” At the time of her birth in March of 1940, her father, Thomas D’Alesandro, had just been elected to Congress, where he would serve for 3 terms. She’s been around the political scene long enough that she attended JFK’s inaugural 59 years ago and interned in Senator Daniel Brewster’s  (1923-2007) office with fellow college student Steny Hoyer, who today is her #2 (Majority Leader) in the House.

Rep. Schiff and Speaker Pelosi

Since returning to the post of Speaker of the House on January 3, 2019, Nancy Pelosi has been at the epicenter of the entire impeachment debate.  Viewed from afar, it would seem that she has been uncertain as to what to do; of what possible effect going ahead with the impeachment of Donald Trump would have on her party in the 2020 elections and beyond.  Would it put victory firmly into the hands of the GOP or would it work to the Democrats advantage?  Yes, until rather recently, she was publicly against going ahead with the procedure.  And then, shortly after news of the Trump/Zelensky/Hunter Biden imbroglio became public Speaker Pelosi seemed to change her mind and decide to go ahead. In matter of fact, she was just waiting for the right time. And in giving House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff a greater public role than Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler, she was showing great political wisdom; for Rep. Schiff is a world-class prosecutor, totally unflappable, and can go toe-to-toe with the opposition without ever losing his smile. She knew that he would make the ideal face of the forces of impeachment. Look for her to name him - and perhaps Rep. Eric Swalwell (also a former prosecutor) to act as “managers’ (prosecutors) for the upcoming trial in the United States Senate.

Now comes the Speaker’s latest move on the political chessboard: delaying the start of the impeachment trial in the senate.  According to an op-ed piece by Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe published in last Monday’s Washington Post, Speaker Pelosi’s delaying tactic is nothing short of brilliant . . . and for a couple of reasons. Wrote Professor Tribe: “As a tactical matter, it could strengthen Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) hand in bargaining over trial rules with McConnell because of McConnell’s and Trump’s urgent desire to get this whole business behind them. On a substantive level, it would be justified to withhold going forward with a Senate trial. Under the current circumstances, such a proceeding would fail to render a meaningful verdict of acquittal. It would also fail to inform the public, which has the right to know the truth about the conduct of its president.“

Responding to one revered Harvard Law professor with the words and thoughts of another, Fox News broadcast an op-ed by retired Professor Alan Dershowitz which originally appeared in Newsmax rebutting Professor Tribe and declaring that Pelosi’s delaying tactic is grossly unconstitutional: "It is difficult to imagine anything more unconstitutional, more violative of the intention of the Framers, more of a denial of basic due process and civil liberties, more unfair to the president and more likely to increase the current divisiveness among the American people. Put bluntly, it is hard to imagine a worse idea put forward by good people." 

Senators Graham and McConnell

It so happens that I am in total disagreement with Professor Dershowitz, and find myself wondering whatever happened to him; he used to be far more progressive in his legal reasoning. I also find myself in awe of Nancy Pelosi’s strategic acumen; the ease with which she maneuvers about the political chessboard is truly something to behold. If there is to be anything resembling a fair trial, it will necessitate Senators McConnell and Graham (and many of their colleagues) taking a step back, rereading the Constitution, and finding the courage to live up to the oaths they take. And while I do not for one moment believe our IMPOTUS (“Impeached President Of The United States”) is going to be found guilty, I, along with every fair-minded American, can at least hope for a semblance of even-handedness in the proceedings to come. Unless and until they can, I know that Mrs. Pelosi will continue holding on to the Articles of Impeachment. like any world-class strategist would. Let her tie McConnell et al in knots until they do the right thing. And may they come to understand just who it is they’re dealing with.

298 days until the presidential election.

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

Refusal and Recusal

By the end of the week, we can expect to see the POTUS impeached by a majority of the House of Representatives. It will undoubtedly be on a strict party-line basis, although there is a chance that a couple of Democrats may - I repeat may - cast their votes against impeachment. If so, it will neither be because they are enamored with ‘45 nor believe there is insufficient factual evidence to impeach, but rather because they are looking to save their political hide from an electoral tanning come 2020. From there, the bill of impeachment will move over to the United States Senate for trial. Said trial will be, according to the Constitution, presided over by Chief Justice Roberts. The prosecutors, chosen by Speaker Pelosi, will likely be Representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, both members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and both former prosecutors.

Prior to beginning the trial, each senator will, according to strictly dictated rules, swear an oath to carry out “impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws.”   Most lamentably, several Republican senators, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Senate Judiciary Chair Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Rand Paul (R-KY) have already publicly stated that they are steadfastly in support of the president, and absolutely refuse to cast a vote for conviction.  In other words, they see no purpose in pledging “impartial justice,”  which means that legally, they have announced their intention to suborn perjury.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took that a step further, telling Fox News last week that he was working in “total coordination” with the White House.  Responding to leader McConnell’s perjurious statement, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler said that was like “the foreman of the jury saying he’s going to work hand in glove with the defense attorney.” This attitude amounts to a “violation of the oath that they’re about to take, and it’s a complete subversion of the constitutional scheme.” Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) went further, calling on McConnell to recuse himself from the Senate proceedings based on his Fox News remarks.  

Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s closest allies in Congress ever since he defeated Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College, also said that his mind was made up even before the process began. “I’m not trying to hide the fact that I have disdain for the accusations in the process,” Graham said Sunday on CBS’ Face the Nation. Speaking with CNN on Saturday, Graham further said that he wasn’t “trying to pretend to be a fair juror.” Graham predicted that impeachment “will die quickly” in the Senate and vowed to “do everything I can to make it die quickly.” It should be remembered that in 2015 and 2016, Graham referred to then candidate Trump as “a complete idiot,” and “a nut job,” and swore that under no circumstances would he ever vote for the New York real estate magnate for POTUS.

Speaking on CNN’s “State of the  Union” yesterday, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul told interviewer Jake Tapper  he doesn’t expect any Republicans in the House to vote in favor of impeachment and that he expects a “handful of Democrats” to vote against impeachment efforts. In terms of the Senate, he said he believes all Republicans will vote against convicting Trump and that they’ll likely be joined by two Democrats.  “I think what we’re seeing is this is a very partisan thing,” Paul told Tapper. “This is a disagreement. People on the Democrats’ side don’t like President Trump. They don’t like his demeanor, and so they’ve sort of decided to criminalize politics. But I don’t think it’s a good thing,” Paul added. “I don’t think it’s a good day for the country. I think it’s a sad day because I hope it doesn’t devolve into every president — like in different parts of Latin America — we either impeach or throw presidents into jail just because we don’t like their politics. I think that will really dumb down and destroy the country.”

Paul concluded by saying quite incorrectly, “This is a disagreement over policy and this is sort of an extension of politics, but this isn’t about the Constitution or the president breaking the Constitution.” 

Where Senator Paul - and Senators Graham and McConnell - most obviously err, is in contending that the House’s impeachment of ‘45 has nothing  to do with the Constitution; that it is simply because they don’t like him and are still as angry as a swarm of hornets over Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016.  How utterly inept and disingenuous. 

I have the feeling that  already, Republican strategists are plotting separate impeachment scenarios for Vice President Biden, Senators Sanders and Warren and Mayors Bloomberg and  Buttigieg - whoever may possibly defeat Donald Trump in November 2020.  As much as I fear that ‘45 may be reelected, what nauseates me the most is the thought that American politics will devolve in to 2- and 4-year clashes between Democrats and Republicans where nothing gets done; that the central focus is cutting down the other side to size.

There has been so much whittling away at the Constitution, political credibility and maturity that it now seems as if generations have passed since our leaders last acted  or worked with seriousness of purpose.  Our elections more closely resemble a turf war between vicious neighborhood gangs than serious political competition.  

I am of the strong opinion that those senators who have already announced their votes even before the first gavel is heard or first witness deposed should be brought up on charges of subornation of perjury. This is not a 1st Amendment “freedom of speech” issue.  It is, without question, a gross conflict of interest.  Senator McConnell: you should recuse yourself if for no other reason than the fact that your wife serves in 45’s Cabinet as Secretary of Transportation.  Senator Graham: you should listen to some of your early speeches and refuse to partake in the hearings.  Senator Paul: you must determine whether your first allegiance is to the law or to your fundraisers.  And in general, members of the Republican Party, you must acknowledge in public what you whisper behind closed doors.  The very future of this once grand country depends on  it.  

Ask yourself: how do I want history to remember me?

222 days until the election . . .

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

Ralph Waldo Emerson Is Turning Over in His Grave

If I am not mistaken, it was Ralph Waldo Emerson, that most American of all philosophers, who first noted “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Found in perhaps his most memorable essay, “Self Reliance,” Emerson (1803-1882), nowhere explained the difference between “foolish” and “wise” consistency. Nonetheless, it would seem that the “Father of American Transcendentalism” was warning future generations against those whose public pronouncements run counter to their private predilections; whose words would be at obvious odds with their often heartless deeds. Emerson would have had a field-day pointing out the utter inconsistency of those who today are publicly - and self-righteously - “pro-life,” but politically supportive of most everything which counters their oft-stated position. In matter of sad fact, they are misnamed: they are really “pro-birth.” Once the “pre-born” take their first breath, they are pretty much on their own . . .

The Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, which struck down a Texas statute banning abortion (thus effectively legalizing the procedure across the United States), was far more than a victory for women; it also created an issue which has served as both a 30-decibel storm warning and perhaps the most divisive political litmus test of the past 150 years.  Prior to Roe v. Wade, far, far fewer conservative and fundamentalist Christians participated in the political process than today. In truth, in pre-Roe times, many of their pastors, reverends and other assorted religious leaders thundered from thousands of pulpits that politics was the work of the devil. Then came the Roe decision, and secular political strategists discovered an untapped market, which they initially referred to as the “Moral Majority.” (I remember wearing a button bearing the slogan “The Moral Majority is Neither!”) Secular political strategists convinced several generations of the devout that they could enact God’s will - especially when it came to the “the pre-born” - if only they would lend their voices, votes and overall support to those who were running on the side of the Lord. And by the way, so the strategists informed them, God also favors low taxes for corporations, a generous oil depletion allowance, far, far fewer federal regulations, support of charter schools . . . the entire conservative agenda.  And by the way, “global warming” is lie perpetrated by those who do not believe in the word of the Lord . . .

But it all began with the divisive clash between the forces of morality (e.g. pro-life/pro-birth/anti-welfare/anti-science) and the forces of evil (e.g. pro-choice/pro-environment/anti/anti ”trickle-down” economics). Nearly a half-century after the Roe decision and all that it has wrought, the sides have become so case-hardened that one side will rarely - if ever - engage in civil debate with the other, let alone find an ounce of humanity, comity or moral consistency on the part of their political opponents. 

Protecting the lives and rights of the “pre-born” became so absolutely central to the politics espoused by the merchants of morality that they somehow convinced their customers that nothing else really mattered.  Poll after poll proves this point: so long as ‘45 (backed by the cacophonous "hallelujahs” of the Federalist Society) continues appointing anti-Roe judges to lifetime seats on the federal bench (where they will hold sway for the next 30-40 years), his utter lack of probity, humility  and humanity will not keep his largely white-Christian base from supporting him . . . from believing he’s the second coming of King Cyrus.  These people form the strongest, most consistent part of the Republican base . . . despite the fact that in  a 2019 survey, about six-in-ten U.S. adults (61%) said that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared with 38% who said it should be illegal all or most of the time.  

And yet, the past several years have seen state legislatures passing increasingly restrictive laws - banning abortions after a mere six weeks; limiting (and even eliminating) the number of abortion clinics in a state; threatening any doctor who performs an abortion with serving a maximum of 99 years in prison, and forcing women seeking an abortion for any reason (including incest or rape) to have to wait several days after initially appearing at a clinic.  Studies have shown that these laws - some of which have already been overturned in state courts (and now heading towards the Trump-appointed federal bench) have a far greater negative impact on poor, rural, non-white women than those who are largely white, urban and middle-class.  You had better believe that were, God forbid, the daughter of a far-right senator or representative become pregnant as a result of rape or incest, her family would find a way to terminate that pregnancy.  Oh yes, it’s still legal; I almost forgot. 

And now comes the most frightening law of them all: Ohio House Bill 413, known as the “abortion murder” bill, which carries language that appears to require doctors treating a woman who suffers an ectopic pregnancy to re-implant the fertilized egg in the patient’s uterus or face criminal charges.  The procedure required by this piece of legislation is both medically impossible and morally reprehensible.  If passed, it would mean that a state legislature is now in a position to tell a physician how to practice medicine or face a charge of murder.  In checking with several physicians whom I work with on an Institutional Review Board (IRB - a group of doctors, pharmacists, bio-engineers and lay specialists whose job it is to protect the rights and safety of subjects partaking in medical research) they all quickly (and firmly) said the same thing: “re-implanting a fertilized egg in a woman’s uterus is alchemy.  Period.”  And yet, there are enough “pro-birth” members of the Ohio legislature that the bill will likely be enacted. 

If I live to be 120 (the same age as Moses), I will never understand the inconsistency of some people; of how they can demand that the government stay away from regulating in any way, shape or form the air they breath, the water they drink or the guns they purchase - to give but three examples - and then turn  around and fervently support the government’s intrusion into our bodies, bedrooms or marriage canopies - to again name but three. Historically speaking, “morality by fiat” has always had a chilling effect on civil society.  What one does, says or believes within their church, shul or mosque - the religious dictates people follow within their own faith-based lives - must neither be ordained, transmuted nor demanded for people of different persuasions. To create a secular political identity out of the clay sectarian belief is both cynical and foolhardy - not to mention a foolish consistency that can easily tear apart a secular, democratic society.

Emerson taught a far younger America a lot about “small minds.”  I wonder what he’d say about our modern hobgoblins?

228 days until the 2020 election.

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

Maddeningly Inevitable . . . Frighteningly Unconscionable

Frankly speaking, I’m a bit surprised that the ugly, twisted specter of anti-Semitism has taken quite so long to reappear on the stage of impeachment. To me, it was all but inevitable that as the dramatis personæ of the tragedy entitled Trump v. Constitution of the United States became better known to the public, a certain twisted segment of America would once again claim that Jews - merciless, acquisitive, immoral Zionists - were behind the craven plot to overthrow the Chritian world.  This has been on my mind for quite some time; the question was not “will the age-old conspiracy reemerge from the shadows?” but rather, “when?”  

About two weeks ago - November 22 to be precise - Rick Wiles, a controversial right-wing pastor, and founder of TruNews, an online hate site, launched a virulently anti-Semitic attack on leading congressional Democrats, claiming that impeachment proceedings against POTUS amounted to a “Jew coup.” On his “True News” program, Wiles, putting Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff between the cross-hairs (“Just look at his eyes . . . you can tell he’s utterly demonic”) and warned:

“That’s the way the Jews work, they are deceivers, they plot, they lie, they do whatever they have to do to accomplish their political agenda. This ‘impeach Trump’ effort is a Jew coup and the American people better wake up to it really fast because this thing is moving now toward a vote in the House and then a trial in the Senate. We could have a trial before Christmas.

This country could be in civil war at Christmastime. Members of the U.S. military are going to have to take a stand just like they did in the 1860s with the Civil War. They are going to have to decide: are you fighting for the North or the South? People are going to be forced, possibly by this Christmas, to take a stand because of this Jew coup in the United States.

This is a coup led by Jews to overthrow the constitutionally elected president of the United States and it’s beyond removing Donald Trump, it’s removing you and me. That’s what’s at the heart of it. You have been taken over by a Jewish cabal.”

Wiles and his demented allies are scared witless by the roster of Jews “leading” or “involved in” the impeachment of the POTUS:

• Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): Chair, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

• Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY): Chair: House Judiciary

• Elliot Engel (D-NY) Chair: House Foreign Affairs

• Ted Deutch (D-FL) Chair: House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Terrorism

• Ted Deutch (D-FL) Chair: House Ethics Committee

• Steve Cohen (D-TN) Chair: House Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

• Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman: Director of European Affairs, National Security Council - witness

• Amb. Gordon Sondland: U.S. Ambassador to European Union - witness

• Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine

• Other Jewish members of the House Judiciary Committee include Steven Cohen (D-TN), Ted Deutch (D-FL) David Cicilline (D-RI), and Jaimie Raskin (D-MD)

• Other Jewish member of Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence: Elise Stefanik (R-NY)

Not surprisingly, many of those accusing Jews of belonging to an insidious, conspiratorial cabal bent on overthrowing the government, claim it is being financed by George Soros, a liberal Jewish billionaire. (These same anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists have also long believed that during the Holocaust, the then-teenage Soros was a Nazi collaborator.)

During her testimony before the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Dr. Fiona Hill, former deputy assistant to the president and senior director for Europe and Russia on the National Security Council staff, likened a right-wing narrative casting liberal Jewish billionaire George Soros as all-controlling to a notorious anti-Semitic forgery. The narrative that Soros is behind an array of evildoings “is the new Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” Hill said Thursday in hearings. “It’s an absolute outrage.”

Soros has become a bugbear for some right-wingers, who blame his liberal philanthropy for a number of ills, citing little evidence. Trump himself last year blamed Soros for an “invasion” of Central American migrants that never materialized. Even loony Texas Representative Louie Gohmert brought up the Soros-as-Nazi-collaborator canard while being interviewed on Fox News. Despite having been thoroughly discredited years ago, the Soros fabrication, like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, is a lie that will not die. 

Even as “classical” anti-Semitic memes and tropes are beginning to resurface with a vengeance, evangelical support for Israel - which they tend to refer to as “The Holy Land” - remains strong.  It is a fact that the largest pro-Israel group in America is not the overwhelmingly Jewish AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) but the overwhelmingly Evangelical “Christians United For Israel,” which was founded by the Pastor John Hagee in 2006.

Indeed, it is more than anomalous that some of the most fervently pro-Israel Christians can, at the same time, find such innate, conspiratorial evil in Jewish people themselves. But even here, a crack is beginning to appear. “Doc” Burkhart, Rick Wiles’ on-air co-host recently gave a call for listeners and viewers to repent for supporting Israel. Burkhart led his audience to confess their sin of standing with Israel: “Lord, I’m so sorry. I don’t how I was so deceived. I don’t how I was so bewitched by all of this,” he asks his viewers to pray. “I thought it was a good thing to support the people of Israel. I thought it was a good thing to help Israel. But now I see it’s just people using the name of Israel, people using the people of Israel in order to line their own pockets, in order to build their own kingdoms, in order to make themselves feel important.”

Burkhart/Wiles’ astonishingly foul heresy even has a name: “Replacement Theology,” which teaches its adherents and acolytes “Jesus, You are my Zion. Jesus, You are my Promised Land. Jesus, You are my Temple. Jesus, You are my Eternal Capitol, Lord.”

We live in an increasingly angry, maddening and dangerous world. That Jewish support for Israel has been called into question by those who see it as a portal to the Apocalypse and its Chosen People as agents of evil is frighteningly unconscionable.

חָזַק חָזַק וְנִתחַזֵּק

(Chazak chazak v’neetchazayk):

“Be strong, be Strong and We Shall Be Strengthened”

335 days until the presidential election

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

Proditomania & Other Issues

For every kind of nuttiness or fear, there is a precise term that fills the bill. Among the more fascinating fears are:

“Who stole my strawberries? And while we’re at it, why is everyone out to get me?”

• glossophobia: the fear of speaking in front of an audience (performance anxiety)

• aviophobia: the fear of flying

• nyctophobia: the fear of nighttime or darkness

• coulrophobia: Fear of clowns

• scoionophobia: the fear of school

• triskaidekaphoobia: the fear of the number thirteen

Looking for a single word meaning “the excessive desire to participate in war?” That would be polemania, which is derived from the Greek “polemo,” meaning “war.” How’s about “Lying or exaggerating to an abnormal extent?” That would be mythomania. Then there’s pseudomania, meaning “an Irrational predilection for lying,” typomania, “a craze for printing one’s lucubrations,” and the title of this week’s essay, proditomania, meaning “the feeling or belief that everyone is out to get you.”  Without question, these five manias have all found a home in the  mind of our current POTUS.  It’s akin to a reverse pathological version of Graft Versus Host Disease, wherein it’s the mind (instead of the body) which immunizes itself against (thus rejecting) a transfusion of otherwise psychologically healthy cells. 

For more than 2 years, psychiatrists, psychotherapists and neurobiologists have been analyzing ‘45’s psychological profile without benefit of interviews, clinical sessions or tests; ethically questionable to be sure, but nonetheless understandably ineluctable.  In March of this year, a group of 37 prominent analysts published The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, which provides valuable insights in DJT’s psychosocial pathology. Medical ethics aside, he possesses one of the most worrisome and potentially harmful psychological makeups of anyone who has occupied the office of President. Besides possessing a paranoiac personality, ‘45 likely suffers from “Narcissistic Personality Disorder,” the hallmarks of which include grandiosity, a lack of empathy for other people, and a need for admiration. People with this condition are frequently described as arrogant, self-centered, manipulative, and demanding. They may also have grandiose fantasies and may be convinced that they deserve special treatment.

Of course, ‘45 is not the first - nor undoubtedly the last - to be beset by complex psychological demons. According to a study by Jonathan Davidson of the Duke University Medical Center and colleagues, who reviewed biographical sources for the first 37 presidents (1791-1974), half of those men had been afflicted by mental illness—and 27% met those criteria while in office, something that could have clearly affected their ability to perform their jobs. Among those Davidson cited were:

• Abraham Lincoln, who suffered from what used to be called “melancholy” (depression or bi-polarity);

• Teddy Roosevelt, who exhibited many of the classic symptoms of both Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and bipolarity.

• William Howard Taft, who suffered from sleep apnea, which is associated with declines in cognitive functioning, and most famously,

• Ronald Reagan, who showed early signs of Alzheimer’s while still in office.

Of course it should go without saying that anyone who believes they have what it takes to be elected and then serve as POTUS has a larger-than-normal ego. This is definitely not a position for anyone who suffers from an inferiority complex . . . although it is possible that the former (ego-mania) can serve as overcompensation for the latter (inferiority complex). In medical terminology, an overdeveloped ego can be a sequela (a consequence) of deep-seated feelings of inferiority. (Or, as mom has said on more than one occasion: “It’s not that he suffers from an inferiority complex; he’s just plain inferior!”)

‘45’s proditomania – the obsessive belief that everyone is out to get him - is on display in a thousand different ways every day of the week.  It is this belief which leads him to accuse any media outlet or personality to be part and parcel of a vast conspiracy which he and his hard-core followers call “Fake News.”  It is his proditomaniac worldview - coupled with runaway narcissism - which gives him license to eviscerate  and dehumanize the opposition, all the while cloaking himself in a steely veil of virtue. Frequently, 45’s most inexplicable actions (and reactions) bring to mind a line from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: There are no rules in a knife fight.”

When it comes to ‘45’s credibility, there seems to be 3 unequal camps:

1. Those who refuse to believe or accept anything he says or claims;

2. Those who are more than willing to believe or accept anything he says or claims;

3. Those who no longer care.

I for one am squarely in the first camp . . . which bothers me greatly. For I would greatly prefer to have even a modicum of faith in the POTUS, his administration and those who serve not their party nor their own interests, but rather our country and its Constitution.

I find myself wondering what goes on in Boss Tweet’s mind when he finally lays his head on the pillow at the end of a day. Is he afflicted with own dishonesty . . . his own perfidy and imperfection? Or does he sleep like a baby, secure in the delusion that he is the smartest, most successful and healthiest person to ever occupy the Oval Office? Does he really, truly reach out to Morpheus, the ancient god of sleep and dreams, smiling at the thought of a second, third or even fourth term in office? Or is he tossing and turning, besieged by the pending nightmare of just how he’s going to get himself out of all the mayhem he himself has wrought?

Not quite 2 weeks ago, ‘45 made an unscheduled, unannounced visit to Walter Reed hospital for a medical checkup. Precisely what tests and/or procedures he underwent has yet to be made public. What we do know is that he is not as healthy as he claims: according to his “body mass index” (BMI) he is morbidly obese, exists on a diet largely made up of fast food and so-called “comfort foods,” and takes both a statin (Crestor) and a daily dose of aspirin . . . both of which are to stave off a future heart attack. And then, there are all those pesky psychological issues.

I find myself wondering if in the time it takes to fall asleep (meaning those nights he doesn’t take an Ambien tablet), he is setting in motion a plan to resign his office before the dreck hits the fan. Could it be that the unscheduled visit to Walter Reed was part of the strategy? Is it possible that someday soon he will announce that due to an unforeseen medical issue, he must, upon the advice of his medical team, turn over his office to Vice President Pence? Could this be his way of having to spend the remainder of his time in office facing a trial in the Senate and then losing reelection . . . thus being able to prove that he was, in the end of days, correct: they were out to get him.

Only time will tell . . . although I for one will continue to pray for his health.

342 days until the presidential election

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

The Revolving Door

Stephen Miller

As anyone with half a brain knows, access and egress to the Trump White House comes in the form of a revolving door. The list of those who have either resigned or been fired extends all the way from Foggy Bottom to Fredericksburg, Va. and from the West Wing to the West Coast. The list of the dismissed is a lengthy one. The reasons for their leaving - whether voluntarily or by fiat - vary and are occasionally even eyebrow-raising.  The latest to be fired - America’s Ambassador to the Ukraine Marie Louise "Masha" Yovanovitch - never got a reason for her dismissal.  Sneering at her to his 66 million Twitter followers, ‘45 informed them that “Wherever  Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad . . . . She started off in Somalia, how did that go?” Gee, I for one never fully realized how much political and strategic power a single ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary possesses; I must have been sleeping when they covered that subject in my diplomatic history class.

The roster of the rejected in Trumpland is both long and occasionally inexplicable.  What, for but one example, caused Anthony Scaramucci’s tenure as White House Communications Director to last a mere 6 days, the shortest tenure in American history?  (For those who are trivia buffs, the second shortest tenure belongs to Ronald Reagan’s Communication’s Director, Jack Koehler, who lasted in his post for 11 days back in March 1987.  The longest tenure belongs to FDR’s Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins - an amazing 12 years, 4 months.) It is true that Scaramucci was and is a world-class egomaniac with a mouth like the Okefenokee Swamp; then too, he is totally self-aware and has disproved F. Scott Fitzgerald’s epigram about there being “no second acts in America.”  

By far, employment-wise, the two greatest mysteries of the current administration are Senior Presidential Counselor Kellyanne Conway and Stephen Miller, the president’s Senior Adviser for Policy.  Of the former, one can be amazed that she still occupies her position if for no other reason than who she’s married to: George Conway, a conservative Harvard-trained attorney who spends a great deal of his time being a hostile thorn in the president’s side. The other day he likened his wife’s working for ‘45 to being a member of a cult. For his rhetorical efforts, Mr. Conway has been compared to Martha Mitchell, the wife of Richard M. Nixon’s attorney general, John Mitchell, and an open critic of the Nixon administration during the Watergate scandal.  And yet, Kellyanne still has her job.  

Of the latter, Stephen Miller, much has been written.  By now, most news junkies know of his early years, being raised in an  upper-middle class Jewish home in Santa Monica, California; of his early “conversion” to hardcore political conservatism and his years at Duke University, where he helped future white supremacist leader Richard Spencer raise funds and promote an immigration policy debate between between Peter Laufer, an open-borders activist and University of Oregon professor, and journalist Peter Brimelow, founder of the anti-immigration website VDARE.  

Prior to going to work for Donald Trump, Miller served as press secretary for former Minnesota Representative Michelle Bachmann and as an adviser to Alabama Senator (and future Attorney General) Jeff Sessions.  Miller signed on early with the Trump campaign, aligning himself with Steve Bannon on most political issues.  He traveled the country with the campaign, often acting as Trump’s “opening act.”  It was Miller - along with Bannon - who created the anti-immigration strategy which would become central to the 2016 presidential race.  He, more than anyone, created the anti-Muslim ban, the removing of refugee and immigrant children from their families, and keeping the administration from showing the public an internal study by the Department of Health and Human Services that found that refugees had a net positive effect on government revenues. Miller insisted that only the costs of refugees be publicized, not the revenues refugees bring in.  Then too, Miller - along with then-Senator Jeff Sessions - was largely responsible for creating and priming Trump’s obsession with building a wall on America’s Southern Border - the one that Mexico was going to pay for.

Stephen Miller is the great-grandchild of Jewish immigrants; people who came to the United States from Czarist Russia at the turn of the 20th century in order to escape murderous pogroms, state-sponsored anti-Antisemitism and the prospect of serving 25 years in the Czar’s army. Had Stephen Miller been a White House adviser back in 1903, his family would have been sent back to Europe, where they likely would have been exterminated by the Nazis years later. How in the world did Miller, who came from such a background and a family that prospered so greatly in a land which welcomed them with open arms, turn out to be such an anti-immigration hawk? How does a person reared in an atmosphere of progressive idealism and civility come to be a such a strident white nationalist?

MIller’s affinity for white nationalism has been thoroughly researched and documented through leaked emails. From what has been revealed - largely by the Southern Poverty Law Center - Stephen Miller really, truly believes that non-Nordic people possess lower IQs than Hispanics, Muslims and people of African descent; that they present a clear and present danger to the West. In sum, Miller wants America to look more like his home town of Santa Monica - rich and white. He is worse than an utter embarrassment to his family, his heritage and indeed, his country.

Of late though, various groups and Congressional caucuses have been gathering signatures and support, all demanding that Miller either be fired or resign his White House position. The chances of ‘45 ever firing him are somewhere between slim and none. The chances of him resigning are even less than that.

For those who refuse to sit back and groan in pain, there are petitions to be signed and steps to be taken. Among the places to go and add your name to the fight are:

1. MoveOn Petitions

2. Change.Org

3. The National Council of Jewish Women

4. The Action Network

5. Stephen Miller Must Go!

To paraphrase a line from Fiddler on the Roof: “May God bless and keep Stephen Miller . . . far away from us!”

The revolving door is right in front of you . . .

350 days until the next presidential election.

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

Some Thoughts on Veterans Day

Our father, Henry Ellis (Schimberg) Stone served in the Army Air Corps (the original name of the Air Force) for nearly six years. By the end of World War II, he had spent nearly 20% of his life in uniform. Dad (1915-2002) was billeted to India as part of the CBI (the China-India-Burma Theater), where he forecast weather trends for transport planes flying over some of the most treacherous terrain on the earth: “The Hump.” This was the name Allied pilots in the Second World War gave to the eastern end of the Himalayan Mountains over which they flew military transport aircraft from India to China. It was a deadly route along which thousands of pilots died or were gravely injured. Forecasting weather trends in this part of the world was a crucial job; one which Dad rarely - if ever - spoke of for the rest of his life.

Towards the end of his long and very well-lived life, Dad did tell us a little bit about his time in the CBI. I remember him telling us about the grinding poverty he witnessed in India (a place to which he never returned - even as a tourist); of the searing heat and the pressure of having to be as accurate as humanly possible in order to safeguard the lives of the pilots who daily disappeared into the haze, bound for China with their precious cargo. I also remember him telling us that he felt rather badly for all those men and women who were still talking about their war experiences nearly 70 years after its conclusion - as if it was the high-point of their lives. “You have to have some compassion for them,” he told us. “I know that my life was far more fascinating and challenging both before and after the war . . . “ Then too, he added, “ those who are still telling war stories after so many, many years are probably stretching the truth just a bit . . . to put it mildly.“  Dad, remembered by one and all as a “wondrously handsome gentleman,” was originally destined for - perhaps - for film stardom.  After serving his six years in the war, he realized that he would have to find another path to success. Instead of becoming a Hollywood heart throb, he became one of their favorite stockbrokers, introducing a generation to a new financial instrument: mutual funds. It was a match made in heaven.

Dad, who was not, in the norm, a philosophical or reflective sort, did tell us that the most positive thing about his years in the service, was meeting, working alongside - and bonding with - all sorts of people.  In many, many cases, he told us, he was the first Jew many of his comrades had ever met in the flesh.  And for him - a young man who had spent his formative years in Baltimore and Richmond, Virginia - it was the first time he had ever met corn-fed mid-Westerners, New England Yankees, Sooners, Arkansans and people from the rural north who were educated in one-room schoolhouses.  “In a way,” he recollected when in his mid-eighties, “one great byproduct of service was introducing Americans to one another; it’s much much harder to stereotype people you’ve actually lived, worked and shared life with . . . “

Growing up in the nineteen-fifties and sixties, a majority of our family friends - both men and women - saw some sort of service during the war.  Even mom worked for a spell at an Italian Prisoner of War camp at Ft. Scottsbluff in Western Nebraska, where 4,000 POWs worked the bean and sugar-beet fields.  To us, it just seemed normal that our parents and friends’ parents had served in the war . . . and then got back to the challenges of civilian life.  In other words, veterans were not other peoples’ fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters . . . they were ours.  That, of course, is no longer the case; most of us aren’t related to veterans.

Fast-forward a couple of generations and we find that more and more, people frequently don’t know their neighbors - let alone folks from different parts of the country or totally different backgrounds.  And what’s worse, through the “gift” of social media, ignorance-based stereotyping - frequently stoked by so-called “leaders” who should know better - has grabbed an awful lot of Americans by the collar and shaken them into high-walled, case-hardened opposing camps.  Our politics have become so impermeable, so hermetically-sealed, that today, where one stands is frequently the product of where one sits.  Partly, of course, it’s because we no longer look through the same eyes; mostly, however, it’s due to our no longer knowing one another; partisanship and political puerility have easily lapped what used to be known as “the commonweal,” viz, “that which is shared and beneficial for members of a group, a community or even a nation.”

As we observe Veterans Day - an annual commemoration established 100 years ago (and known until 1954 as “Armistice Day”)  - we give thanks to all those who have served (or still serve) this great nation in both war and in peace.  Some saw service in wars of necessity; others in wars of choice. We even knew people who helped build bridges, dams, libraries and parks during the Great Depression. Heretofore, millions were drafted or enlisted; for the past generation, they have all been volunteers. Unbeknownst to many, the Selective Service System is still in operation, and registration is still mandatory in most states for every male (and soon females) from age 18-26, though the last prosecution for non-registration was in January 1986. Its current director is Don Benton, who was appointed by President Donald Trump April 13, 2017.  Prior to this position, he served as the Trump campaign chair in Washington State.

In contemplating veterans of our collective past, present, and even future - of all they have meant to America and indeed, the world - I find myself pondering the nature of national service - of its importance in American civil life.  I hear the words of the late President Kennedy - himself a war hero: “Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.”  I wonder if American society would be any different - any more unified, tolerant and understanding, less divided and territorial - if, like past generations - we worked  together side by side  as opposed to standing apart; if we could once again commit ourselves to accomplishing common goals instead of standing  defiantly in our private corners, surrounded only by those with whom we agree.  If we could, in JFK’s awe-inspiring trope ask not what our country could do for us, but rather what we could do for our country. Would we be any better off? I think the answer is “yes.”

In short, I find myself on this Veterans Day contemplating the possible unifying value that National Service could offer this country and its citizens, residents, and refugees.  Congressman Charles Rangel, a New York Democrat who served in Congress from 1971-2017, submitted his first legislative proposal for a “Universal National Service Act” in 2003; his bill would have provided that, as early as June 2005, young men and women ages 18–26 could be called to service - and not just military service. It had two cosponsors and was voted down 402-2.  Rangel resubmitted different forms of his bill again in 2006, 2007, 2010, 2013 and 2017; it never saw the light of day.  Not too long ago, South Bend, Indiana Mayor - and Democratic presidential candidate - Pete Buttigieg, speaking to MSNBC’s Rachael Maddow (who, like Mayor Pete is a former Rhodes Scholar) spoke at length about how, in his estimation, a national public service program for all young adults could help unify Americans of different backgrounds.  "We really want to talk about the threat to social cohesion that helps characterize this presidency but also just this era," Mayor Pete told Ms. Maddow. "One thing we could do that would change that would be to make it — if not legally obligatory but certainly a social norm — that anybody, after they're 18, spends a year in national service."
Such a program should, in theory, appeal to both parties — the idealism speaking to Democrats, and the service component drawing in conservatives. Without question, if such a program were to be enacted, it would need to be bipartisan. If would unquestionably require a different Republican president or a Democratic president. 45’ is unlikely to ever call for such a program, anyway; his 2020 budget proposes to eliminate the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), the agency that runs AmeriCorps.  I for one urge every Democratic nominee for POTUS to make Mayor Pete’s proposal part of their campaigns and for the Democratic Party to make it a prominent plank in the 2020 election. The nuts and bolts of funding, creating (or reworking) an agency that combines the past efficiency of Selective Service and ongoing idealism of Americorps is doable; these are, after all just details. The hardest part is getting both politicians and citizens to understand and acknowledge that national service is a good and positive thing; that the nation need not be at war in order to benefit from national service.

Our parents, grandparents and great grandparents saved the world from fascism 75 years ago. It is daunting to realize that the vast, vast majority of those who accomplished this were children and young adults - at least by modern standards. (Hell’s bells: Dad was only 30 years old at war’s end and he was considered ancient!) If we can but take away the lesson of working together for national goals on this Veterans Day, we will have honored them in the best way possible . . . thereby helping to save ourselves, and getting to know and work with a vast slice of humanity.

I wish you all a meaningful, contemplative and energizing Veterans Day.

There are now 357 days to go until the presidential election.

 Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

To Boo or Not to Boo: That Is the Question

Like you, I am both pleased and thankful that American Special Forces took out Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the most wanted murderer on the planet. Although he undoubtedly will be replaced by yet another fanatic mastermind, for the moment Isis is both headless and flat broke.  In watching and listening to the president’s speech/press conference about al-Baghdadi’s demise, I  found myself comparing his presentation to that of President Obama at the time he announced the death of Osama bin Laden. Obama’s 1,383-word report took just under 9 minutes to deliver, and consisted of precisely 9 uses of the word “I” or “I’ve.”  It was anything but a “victory lap.”  By comparison, President Trump’s 7,728-word announcement - including a brief Q and A - lasted 48 minutes, 15 seconds, during which he used the words “I,” “I’ve,” “me” and “my” more than 125 times. 

(n.b. For what it’s worth, the picture above shows the ‘situation room’ during both the al-Baghdadi and bin Laden strikes. One is obviously posed - the president and his men are looking straight into the camera; in the other the president and his men and women are looking at a screen. In the top photo, neither the computer nor phone cables are plugged in to anything; that on the bottom shows a fully operational cyber table.)

One of the other major differences between Obama’s announcement regarding the death of bin Laden and Trump’s about al-Baghdadi was tonal: while the former’s was as solemn and matter-of-fact as a Yom Kippur confession, the other’s was far more akin to a victory lap - a rookie running back spiking the ball and receiving a 15-yard penalty for taunting the opposition. As the Washington Post’s Max Boot noted, “President Trump has a preternatural ability to turn any occasion, no matter how solemn or important, into a ridiculous, risible spectacle. . . . When he began to ad-lib about what happened near Idlib, Syria, he treated the world to his usual blend of braggadocio and bluster — dishonest and distasteful in equal measure.  

Among other things, ‘45 managed to insult Democratic congressional leaders by not informing them of the upcoming raid (although he did notify both Russia and Turkey) and offer a minute-by-minute account of al-Baghdadi’s final moments worthy of an obsessive compulsive.  The only problem with this accounting (“. . . he died like a coward . . . whimpering and crying and screaming all the way.”) was that there was no audio, so how did he know what Baghdadi was saying? When asked about this, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and Joint Chiefs of Staff chair Gen. Mark Milley pointedly refused to confirm those details.

One of the eeriest, most ear-scratching aspects of this past Sunday is what occurred that night . . . when the POTUS attended the World Series game between the hometown Washington Nationals and the American League champion Houston Astros: upon seeing ‘45 up on the stadium, Jumbotron, a sizable percentage of the fans booed him and shouted “LOCK HIM UP!!” over and again.

The morning after the boo-fest at Nationals Park MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and his wife and co-anchor Mika Brzezinski (who are by no means Trump supporters) said it was “un-American” and “disrespectful” for the crowd to have acted in the manner they did. Quickly, more than 10,000 tweets including the phrase “sorry Joe” began trending on Twitter as users defended the actions of onlookers at Nationals Park on Sunday night. “The misrule, cruelty and infantilism of this administration is such that some sense of an enduring ethos is actually redeemed when we the people openly express our contempt,” wrote author and TV writer David Simon. “Dissent is the most American thing there is -- and to get clean, we need as much as there is on display.”

Scarborough took to Twitter after the segment aired to defend himself against his critics.

“So let’s see if I’ve got this straight: When crowds chant 'Lock her up” toward Hillary, it is illiberal and anti-American. (I agree). But when crowds chant the same toward Trump, it is suddenly a fulsome exercise of sacred First Amendment rights. What hypocritical clowns,” he tweeted.

He added that those who “think that democracy is strengthened by calling for the arrest of political opponents” are as “ignorant and illiberal” as the president himself.

“Delete your account and read some civics,” Scarborough fired back. “Stop embarrassing yourself.”

And so, to boo or not to boo . . . that is the question. This is no simple thumbs up/thumbs down question. To me, it is a real challenge:

On the one hand, I myself have a deep and abiding respect for the office of the President. Indeed, over the past 230 years, it has been occupied by 44 men (Grover Cleveland having served 2 non-consecutive terms) whose backgrounds, personalities, accomplishments and shortcomings were as varied as the nation they led. And whether or not they be blue bloods or tailors, slave owners or abolitionists, professorial or plainspoken, they managed to share one common trait: a deep-seated respect for both the Constitution and the Office they held. And up until recently, this has been an utterly true statement of fact. Sadly, this statement of fact now contains an asterisk . . . which reads “*except for Donald J. Trump.“ For in his words and actions, his demeanor and psychological makeup, he has shown himself to lack that one telling trait which has bound all the nation’s chief executives together.

But one can blithely argue - and correctly so - that his asterisk represents the failure of the man himself, and not the office he holds. If one accepts this argument, then the boos and catcalls (“Lock Him Up!”) even if unintentionally directed at both the man and the office are, in my humble opinion, wrong.

On the other hand, one can say “Enough already! He’s besmirched the presidency, abused his power and turned the White House into just another Trump, Inc. subsidiary. He gets what he deserves!” Although one can certainly understand and perhaps even accept the emotional anger this response engenders, it pushes the swamp well beyond the Anacostia River and perfectly-named “Buzzard’s Point” all the way to America’s collective front porch. This response, although again, understandable, is tantamount to fighting stink with stench, inhumanity with incivility. 

So what are we to do?  To boo or not to boo . . . that is the question.

Personally, I would never join with those shouting “LOCK HIM UP!! LOCK HIM UP!!”  It is both a waste of time and a further degradation of the office.  Seems to me we are better off using our energy to VOTE HIM OUT.  Then too, perhaps we can take chapter out of the book of the sixties’ protests.  I remember a day long ago when then-California Governor Ronald Reagan came to a meeting of the university Board of Regents on campus.  Now mind you, this was at the height of the anti-war, anti-draft  “Don’t trust anyone over the age of 30” era.  And so, when the governor entered the campus, we formed two long, long lines of greeting . . . a cortege of complaint.  As he entered the line, likely wondering if he were about to be screamed at, pelted with eggs or what have you, a unique form of protest ensued: we all, one by one, turned our backs on him, thereby forcing the Governor of California to cross the quadrangle surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of silent backsides.  We opted for silent humiliation in lieu of cacophonous insult.

What are your thoughts?

To boo or not to boo . . . please share your answer.

378 days until the next election.

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

Of Gadsby, Lipogramic Literature and The Future of Donald Trump

"E" is the most commonly used letter in the English language. Not only that; it’s the most commonly used letter in lots of other languages including French, German, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Danish, and Dutch. So there are undoubtedly easier letters to omit if one decides to construct a lipogram—a text that deliberately omits a particular letter—no matter what one’s nationality or native language might be.

All of which makes the fact that not one but two authors managed to write entire novels without ever using the letter "E" all the more amazing. The first of these, Ernest Vincent Wright's Gadsby is a 50,000 word novel which he self-published in 1939 —and there’s nary an "E" in sight (at least not once you get past the author's name or the introduction, in which Wright mentions how people often told him that such a feat was impossible). How did he do it? Simple (well, sort of): he simply disabled the “e” key on his manual typewriter.

Inspired by Wright, French Jewish novelist Georges Perec (1936-1982) decided to write his own lipogramic novel without the letter "E"—in his first language, French. Published in 1969, it was called La Disparition and was later, incredibly, translated into English in 1994 by Gilbert Adair, who renamed it A Void, as the literal translation (The Disappearance) would have contained three examples of the prohibited letter in question).

This kind of highly disciplined writing is known as “lipogramic literature,” generally defined as “ . . . a kind of constrained writing or word game consisting of writing paragraphs or longer works in which a particular letter or group of letters is avoided.” Historically, this is nothing new: extended Ancient Greek texts avoiding the letter sigma (Σ, the 18th letter in the Greek alphabet) are the earliest examples of lipograms.

In his review of La Disparition, Italian journalist and short story writer Italo Calvino (1923-1985) noted that Perec “bears no resemblance to anyone else.” Indeed, there is another best-selling “author” named Trump of whom the same can honestly be said: that he “bears no resemblance to anyone else.”

“Ah!” I can hear my many detractors bellowing. “We were wondering just how long it would take you to get around to disparaging Donald Trump, the best POTUS in all American history.” Sorry it took so long (precisely 330 words), but it’s the god’s-honest truth: he is unquestionably unlike anyone else who has ever held that office. Unlike Gadsby or La Disparition, 45’s utter otherness has not been - indeed, has never been - based on a conscious intellectual challenge of being sui generis. Rather, it’s because he has long possessed a different mindset than any of the preceding 44 American chief executives. His unconstrained manner public expression - not to mention his relationship to the truth, or sense of self - have been totally at odds with that which we’ve come to expect from American presidents. He’s not just missing the most common letter in the alphabet; he is totally bereft of that which separates self-aware primates from trilobites.  Yes, this is a pretty harsh judgment, but one which - so far as I can tell - is eminently merited.

Over the past several weeks, the march toward impeachment - not to mention removal from office - has been as relentless and inexorable as Sherman’s “March to the Sea.” As a result of Boss Tweet’s capitulation to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, thereby sentencing our Kurdish allies to death and upsetting the balance of power in the Middle East, ‘45 has begun losing the support of his most ardent, most devotedly compliant paper tigers in Congress, the Department of Justice, Foggy Bottom and even the “700 Club’s” Reverend Pat Robertson, who recently warned that the POTUS is “in danger of losing the mandate of heaven.” And, speaking of religion, one wonders how much longer his most zealous Jewish supporters (the ones who are more than willing to overlook everything squirrely about him because “He’s the best friend Israel ever had!”) and begin realizing that by pulling our troops out of Northern Syria, he’s essentially ceded power in the area to Russia and Iran . . . which will likely imperil the Jewish State.

This matter of the Rev. Robertson and white evangelical Christians has me particularly stumped.  Why would Trump’s base - which uttered not a peep over the immorality of separating Hispanic children from their parents and then stuffing them into dangerously over-crowded holding facilities - why should they now find his abandonment of the Kurds and quid-pro-quo with the Ukrainian president so immorally offsetting?  Why after all the years of silence about his many affairs, his shutting down the government in order to get a border wall he had promised a thousand times over would be paid for by the Mexicans, and his obsessive “lapdogism” when it comes to autocrats and murderous dictators, why now the beginnings of this seemingly unstoppable march to the sea of political oblivion?  

Perhaps in the not so distant future, after the partisan dust has begun settling and ‘45 has gone on to the next (and perhaps last) phase of his public life - that of the perpetual defendant - some brilliant, highly motivated lipogramacist will write and publish a novel which avoids the letters t-r-u-m- and p. And, if there is any justice in the world of letters, this novel will suffer the same fate as Ernest Vincent Wright’s Gadsby: shortly after its vanity publication, a warehouse containing the vast majority of extant, unsold copies, burnt to the ground . . . thus consigning the novel’s protagonist, John Gadsy, to the fires of eternal obscurity.

385 days until the next election.

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

Never Interrupt Your Enemy When He is Making a Mistake

After pretty much staying the hell away from politics the past two weeks due to being consumed with the rabbinic side of life, I find that things are pretty much the same . . . and a whole lot worse. But I thank the good Lord for being able to spend at least a couple of days away from the cares, woes and Inanities of partisan politics. And so, having confessed to more sins and transgressions than I thought possible, I’m ready to reengage in the hurly-burly of political insanity. I began the following essay 24 hours before the onset of the Jewish festival holiday called Succot. . . .

When one stops and thinks about it, there are just about as many definitions for politics as there are political practitioners. One of my favorites belongs to Groucho Marx - as written by Morrie Ryskind:

“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.”

Then too, there is the very quotable H.L. Mencken, who famously noted:

"Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule -- and both commonly succeed, and are right.

And of course, who can ever forget the eminently quotable (and wondrously literate) Winston Churchill:

“A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And have the ability, afterwords , to explain why it didn’t happen.”

Over the years, politics has been likened with many diverse sports and gaming metaphors: Texas Hold ‘em Poker, Mixed Martial Arts, and my favorite, Chess. To my way of thinking, Chess works best for it is a game - or art form - which requires one to be constantly looking five to ten moves ahead, with the goal of deciding whether to defeat the opponent’s strategy or forcing the opponent to play and trying and attempting to defeat yours. I rather prefer the former; this is the strategy attributed to Napoleon (that’s him on the upper left), who brilliantly observed: “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. “

This “politics as chess” strategy has been on display for the American public seemingly ever since March 23, 2010, that historic and fateful day when the United States Senate passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka the ACA or “Obamacare”) by a party-line vote of 60-39. From the day of its passage - and even further back to the days when it was first proposed by then First Lady Hillary Clinton - Obamacare has been labeled “Socialistic - a proposed takeover of American healthcare.” And despite more than 60 Republican attempts to vote it out of existence, Obamacare has remained the law of the land until this very day.

But that is likely to change. There is now a chance that one of newly reconstituted Trumpist federal Appeals Courts will soon invalidate all or part of the ACA in the coming weeks. And amazingly, in response to this tragedy, the White House may well try to delay a potential Supreme Court hearing on the matter until after the 2020 election. Talk about Chess!

Senior administration officials say they have some ideas for replacing parts of the 2010 health-care law, “principles” crafted in part by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid administrator Seema Verma. However, replacing key benefits — such as guaranteed coverage for people with preexisting conditions and permitting young adults to remain on their parents’ health plans until age 26 — would require the cooperation of Democratic congressional leaders, who have vowed to defend the law as a totality and have no interest in a piecemeal replacement plan likely to fall far short of preserving health coverage for about 20 million Americans.

The administration’s plan to seek a stay of any court ruling that undermines the law reflects the political disadvantages of its decision to side with GOP-led states seeking to topple the ACA. Even as the Justice Department urges the courts to invalidate the entire ACA, administration officials are promising voters that there will be no immediate impact on their coverage. Why? Because were said legal upending to become reality, ‘45 and his campaign would then have to reveal to voters from Maine to California precisely what their replacement is going to be. Remember, Boss Tweet has endlessly promised the American public that he can produce a far better healthcare plan than Obamacare.

Poll after poll after poll demonstrates that healthcare is at - or near - the very top of voters’ concerns heading into the 2020 election. If the Democrats can finally wrap their collective heads around this fact and keep their collective eyes on the Republican’s political chess game, they stand a strong chance of reaching “check mate” in both the presidential and Congressional elections. For as sure as God made little green apples, their strategy is going to rely far more on reliving and relitigating the 2016 election - plus slinging mega-gallons of mud, slime and flügel scheiss - than anything positive. Of a certainty, there will plenty of “running against Trump.” It only makes sense. However, a word to Democratic strategists: spend more time, effort and energy articulating plans and policies for the future than attacking either the past or the present. Knowing that ‘45 is going to use the same negative, hit-below-the-belt strategy in 2020 that he has used since the day he first entered politics, why not use it against him? Let him and his foul-mouth associates run against the so-called “far-left” and continue calling Schiff, Nadler, Pelosi and “the Squad” vile childish names; let him continue using fear as the intrinsic gear of his corrosive political machine.

Above all, let Trump be Trump . . . all the while being guided by Bonaparte’s political wisdom . . . to never interrupt one’s enemy when he is making a mistake.

That’s one great recipe for political success.

392 days until the election.

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

"Do Not Separate Yourself from the Community"

(An opening note: Tis that time of the year when reading and editing clinical trials, lecturing and writing about the golden age of Hollywood and engaging in partisan politics must take a backseat to preparing for High Holiday services. And so, as is annually the case, I am turning one of my Rosh Hashana sermons into the basis of a weekly essay. Because I - for obvious reasons - despise the expression “killing two birds with one Stone” - let’s just say that this week’s post is serving a dual purpose . . .

Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, is the only Jewish holiday which begins on the first day of the month.  And unlike most calendars, the Jewish New Year does not begin on the first day of the first month.  Rather, the Jewish New Year begins on the first day of the  7th month, which is called Tishri.  The Jewish calendar is a monumentally complex document; while years (we are entering 5780) are reckoned on a strictly solar basis, months are strictly lunar - e.g., based on fluctuations of the moon. And unlike most New Year’s celebrations around the world, this one calls for far more contemplation than revelry; the “resolutions” it requires we make are far less fanciful or frivolous than most.  Year in, year out as I prepare for the new year, I reread and contemplate anew a handful of what I consider to be among the most important, the most crucial bits of wisdom coming from our literature.  Among them are:     

• Lev. 19:14: לֹֽא־תְקַלֵּ֣ל חֵרֵ֔שׁ וְלִפְנֵ֣י עִוֵּ֔ר לֹ֥א תִתֵּ֖ן מִכְשֹׁ֑ל וְיָרֵ֥אתָ מֵּֽאֱלֹהֶ֖יךָ אֲנִ֥י יְהוָֹֽה (Neither curse the deaf nor put a stumbling block before the blind.”)

  Lev. 19:16” לֹֽא־תֵלֵ֤ךְ רָכִיל֙ בְּעַמֶּ֔יךָ לֹ֥א תַֽעֲמֹ֖ד עַל־דַּ֣ם רֵעֶ֑ךָ (“Do not be a talebearer *[a perpetual or compulsive liar]; do not stand by and watch other human beings idly bleed.”) 

• The Ethics of the Sages (2:1) הוּא הָיָה אוֹמֵר, אֵין בּוּר יְרֵא חֵטְא, וְלֹא עַם הָאָרֶץ חָסִיד, וְלֹא הַבַּיְשָׁן לָמֵד, וְלֹא הַקַּפְּדָן מְלַמֵּד, וְלֹא כָל הַמַּרְבֶּה בִסְחוֹרָה מַחְכִּים. ובִמְקוֹם שֶׁאֵין אֲנָשִׁים, הִשְׁתַּדֵּל לִהְיוֹת אִישׁ: (“The Sage Hillel used to say: a A brutish man cannot fear sin; an ignorant man cannot be pious, nor can the shy man learn, or the impatient man teach. He who engages excessively in business cannot become wise. In a place where there few if any human beings  you strive to be a mentsch.”)

• The Ethics of the Sages (4:1): :זוֹמָא אוֹמֵר, אֵיזֶהוּ חָכָם, הַלּוֹמֵד מִכָּל אָדָם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (תהלים קיט), מִכָּל מְלַמְּדַי הִשְׂכַּלְתִּי (The sage Ben Zoma used to say ‘Who is truly wise? The one who can learn from any and everyone.  For as it is written (Psalms 119.99) “I have learned from all my teachers.”

• The Ethics of the Sages (2:4) אַל תִּפְרוֹשׁ מִן הַצִּבּוּר (Do not separate yourself from your community.”)

In concluding 5779 and heading into the Jewish year 5780, these 4 lessons can and should be of paramount importance. For this past year (or two or three) has made most of us angry, cynical, lacking in trust, and has brought about intense feelings of powerlessness. Hillel’s insight into the nature of brutes, boors and ignoramuses is so on the money as to seem like it was written just yesterday.  With few exceptions among those we know and love, people have become stupefied over how easy it is for those supposedly occupying positions of authority to turn their back or remain silent in the face of gross authoritarianism, cupidity and outright inhumanity.  We wonder at the gross inconsistency of public people presenting and proclaiming their religious bona fides to anyone and everyone who will watch or listen, and then turning both a blind eye and a deaf ear on the poorest, most vulnerable among us.  So which of the rabbinic and Biblical aphorisms and laws is most important in this day and age?  Certainly being a menstch  (Yiddish for “a substantial human being”) when so many others are acting like proster mentschen (the antithesis of a mentsch) is of great importance.  I have to believe that Hillel’s dictum about not separating ourselves from the community (הציבור ha-Tzibor ) comes in first.  Originally,  in using the term הַצִּבּוּר (ha-Tzibur, the community) Hillel was referring specifically to the Jewish community.  Today, after centuries and generations, I think we can expand ha-tzibur to mean “humanity in general.” That which ties all of us together into a single community - whether European, Asian, African or Pacific Islander is planet earth. This is the community that binds us all together.

In a medieval Jewish story, a wealthy landowner asks a simple-minded peon who works on his vast estate “What is the biggest thing in the world?” Deathly afraid to give the wrong answer - and certain he is incapable of giving the correct one, he blurts out “The biggest thing in the world is the earth itself!” Thinking over what he had heard, the landowner smiled and said “How right you are! Indeed, that is the only answer possible.” Think about it: could there be anything in the world larger than the world itself? 

This brings us back to Rosh Hashana and all the anger, cynicism and feelings of powerlessness which consume us as we enter 5780. What can we do to shake all the negativity and use it as positive fuel for the New Year? Certainly complaining, kvetching and endlessly arguing with those who see the world through different eyes is not the answer. Nowadays, attempting to change people’s minds is as about as futile and frustrating as trying to convince an elephant how much more sense it makes to be a donkey. No, it seems to me that perhaps the most potent prescription for the New Year is the one ascribed to Hillel in Pirke Avot (The Ethics of the Sages):

אַל תִּפְרוֹשׁ מִן הַצִּבּוּר (“Do not separate yourself from your community”)

In other words, don’t seat a back and merely curse the darkness; find a cause and do your part to repair a broken world. As I write these words, Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg - the new face of a planet-wide climate change movement - has just finished an impassioned speech before the United Nations on the biggest thing on earth: the earth itself. In her “How dare you?” address, Ms. Thunberg told the nations of the world “You all come to us young people for hope. How dare you? You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words, and yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school, on the other side of the ocean." Citing more than 30 years' worth of scientific studies and warnings that greenhouse gases and other factors were establishing a dangerous new environmental trend, Thunberg criticized politicians for not developing solutions and strategies to confront that threat. She repeatedly reminded the various delegates that her generation - not theirs - will be the ones who ultimately have to live with the consequences of global warming.

In order to make an even greater point, Ms. Thunberg sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to New York - rather than flying in an immense polluting jet aircraft. For her efforts at rallying young people the world over to the cause of climate change, she was greeted with warmth and thunderous applause. Perhaps not surprisingly, she was also castigated, called a “Socialist who’s part of an international conspiracy,” and put down for not understanding reality. In a sarcastic Tweet, the president of the United States (who did not attend that part of the United Nations gathering) mocked Ms. Thunberg: "She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!" he Tweeted.

Shortly after the speech, Thunberg and other young people filed a legal complaint against five countries, saying their role in climate change has violated a widely ratified U.N. pact on children's human rights.

"I and 15 other children from around the world filed a legal complaint against 5 nations over the climate crisis through the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child," Thunberg said via Twitter. "These 5 nations are the largest emitters that have ratified the convention."

Those countries are France, Germany, Brazil, Argentina and Turkey; they are accused of not curbing emissions and promoting fossil fuels, despite being well aware of the risks of climate change. Unlike most other signatories to the convention, the five countries have also approved a procedure for receiving complaints about potential violations.

The U.S. has signed the U.N. treaty, but has never ratified it. When Somalia and South Sudan ratified the convention in 2015, that left the U.S. alone in not being a party to the human rights agreement.

The young activists announced their complaint at a press conference at UNICEF Headquarters in New York — right across the street from the U.N. building where Thunberg spoke earlier.

The movement among the young is catching on. Already, students around the globe are taking off Fridays from school in order to make their concerns known to adults in both the world of politics and business - stressing that time is running out and they must put the needs of the planet above profit. For their efforts, their movement is growing by the week . . . as are the negative comments. But still fueled by youthful idealism - that which less than 2 generations ago ended the military draft, caused the voting age to be lowered from 21 to 18, drove a president from seeking reelection and ultimately ended a war - these teeners and tweeners are the living, breathing embodiment of HIllel’s dictum about not separating ourselves from the community.

And so, on this, the first day of 5780, I urge one and all to commit themselves to a cause or a project larger than themselves;  causes which will help repair the world. The ribono shel olam (“Master of the Universe”) has placed it in our hands to act as beloved stewards and caretakers of the world he/she created. There is so much work to be done and so little time in which to do it. For anyone looking for a cause, a campaign or an action who is a bit in the dark, please contact me and I will provide you with a list of possibilities. God’s planet needs us - now, more than ever.

אני מאחל לכם שנה טובה ומתוקה Wishing you a Happy and Sweet New Year,

הר אשר איעזר בן ר' אליעזר סטון (KFS)

411 days until the next election.

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

Maria Isabel Bueso, MPS VI, and the Sin of 'Moral Albinism'

In the world of medicine, albinism (being an albino) refers to any of a number of rare, inherited genetic conditions in which the amount of melanin pigment (that which causes skin to tan in sunlight) is dangerously low. Albinism is characterized by almost dead-white skin and hair and - somewhat erroneously - pink eyes. Baby boomers will likely remember rock guitarists Johnny and Edgar Winter and are certainly familiar with journalist Anderson Cooper, all of whom suffer from the condition.

Maria Isabel Bueso: Amerca’s Most Prominent Victim of Trumpain Moral Ablinism

Thus, to be an albino - medically speaking - means to be without any color or shading. It is - without question - a genetic condition. Let’s posit for the nonce that albinism can extend beyond the body, and the term used to describe and define other kinds of human mutations and failings.  What I have in mind is what we might call “moral albinism” - an ethical code utterly devoid of conscience, coloration or nuance, and caused not by an inherited genetic mutation, but rather by intense psychological abnormality - which may or may not be a familial legacy. To my way of thinking ‘45 and most of what passes for his revolving-door, three-ring circus of an administration, suffer from collective moral albinism.  Let’s face it: anyone possessing even a scintilla of “moral melanin” would find it difficult - if not morally repugnant to the max - to lend support to white supremacists, neo-Nazis or racists; to find no problem with separating refugee or asylee children from their refugee or asylee parents; or from having little or no problem deporting children with life-threatening medical conditions to countries which are virtually incapable of treating, let alone saving their lives.   

At this point we introduce one and all to Maria Isabel Bueso, potentially America’s most prominent victim of Trumpian Moral Albinism.  Maria Isabel (called mostly by her middle name, “Isabel”) was born in Guatemala. At age 7, she was diagnosed with  MPS-VI, also called “Maroteaux-Lamy Syndrome” and mucopolysaccharidosis type VI, a rare and fatal genetic disorder. Permit me a sentence or two as a medical ethicist who is not unaware of compassionate use studies involving MPS VI. This rare condition involves the deficiency or absence of an enzyme called arylsulfatase B which leads to the accumulation of complex carbohydrates. It can easily cause life-threatening complications including coarse facial features, corneal clouding, joint abnormalities, skeletal malformations, an abnormally enlarged liver and/or spleen, hearing loss and death, generally by age 20.  This is the disorder  Isabel was diagnosed as having at age 7.  Without treatment (which was all but nonexistent in 2002) there was little hope she could live another decade.

In 2002, Dr. Paul Harmatz, a pediatric gastroenterologist who practices at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland, Calif. learned about Isabel and inquired as to  her interest in coming to California in order to partake in a clinical trial of a new drug (Naglazyme®), a first-of-its-kind enzyme-replacement therapy that extends patients’ lives by more than a decade, on average. Isabel and her family’s willingness to relocate to support her - and armed with a V-2 Visa, helped make it possible for the trial to move forward. Two years later, Dr. Harmatz’s trial led to FDA approval of Naglazyme. For the past 16  years, Isabel has been receiving 6-hour weekly infusions.  Not only that; during these sixteen years she has stabilized, graduated summa cum laude from California State University, East Bay, and made other contributions, including the establishment of a scholarship for students with disabilities. Meanwhile, her family members have forged new careers and new connections in their church and community here in the United States.  For the past 16 years Isabel, her family, and tens of dozens of other children having life-threatening diseases and disorders, have continued receiving medical care under a government program that defers action on deportations in order to seek medical treatment.

Then Isabel - and so many other children and families - ran headlong into Trumpian Moral Albinism: the program which permitted them to remain in the United States was about to be discontinued and they all had one month to leave the country or face deportation.  For Isabel and the other children - whose participation in these clinical trials has led to major medical breakthroughs - deportation was tantamount to a death sentence.  Last week Isabel testified before the House Oversight Committee - alongside Jonathan Sanchez, a young Honduran suffering from Cystic Fibrosis - telling them that being forced out of the United States was signing their death warrants.  

For its part, the Trump administration has wavered back and forth as to what indeed they are going to do.  First, the administration, in a statement from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), announced an abrupt end to the program which permits non-citizens seeking medical treatment in the U.S.  Then, after Isabel’s congressional testimony brought this sinful, inhumane situation to overall public attention, USCIS backtracked a bit and said they would reexamine Isabel’s deferred action application.  As of today (September 15, 2019) no one knows what the outcome will be.  The one thing the administration has done is to transfer the entire issue from USCIS to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), whose mandate has nothing - I repeat NOTHING - to do with these sort of deferrals. 

So far, the administration has been absolutely closed-mouth about what motivated them to deny medical attention to some of the most vulnerable people on earth.  Trump’s legion of moral albinos have taken to social media and charged that these deathly ill human beings are “milking American taxpayers out of their hard-earned dollars” and that “we should take care of Americans first.”  Of course many of those making these kinds of charges steadfastly favor eliminating Obamacare, cutting funding for Medicaid and mental health services and deporting any and all who “take” so much as a dime in government services.  Then too, they have no idea that most compassionate use studies are paid for by pharmaceutical companies, philanthropic organizations, the National Institutes for Health or national groups devoted to raising funds for  and awareness of various medical conditions, diseases and disorders.  

This sinful act of moral albinism - larded over with good old-fashioned stupidity and abject meanness - is, quite likely, the POTUS’s attempt to keep his political base happy . . . to show them how terribly tough he can be when it comes to and all non-citizens. Although I find this strategy far more than detestable, I nonetheless can understand it . . . as a political strategy; do anything and everything to keep your political base happy. Again, this I understand. But what mystifies and sickens me the most is that this base is made up largely of Evangelical Christians - people who carry a Bible in one hand and the sword of puritanical moral judgement in the other. For reasons which totally elude me, they find no inconsistency in decrying the moral degradation of modern society while supporting the least moral president in history; of urging “In God We Trust” signs and the Ten Commandments (which include the words “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor” in every classroom all the while cheering on a man who never goes to church, tells a minimum of a dozen lies a day and doesn’t even know that “Corinthians II” is called “Second Corinthians” rather than “Two Corinthians,” His base contains millions of people who can quote Scripture from here to Tristan Da Cuna but conveniently become deaf, dumb and blind when it comes to verses which implore us to clothe the naked, feed the hungry and care for the sick and the strangers amongst us.

I guess that when it comes to choosing between appointing conservative Supreme Court justices, restricting abortion access and LGBT rights, supporting the right to own and carry automatic weapons and turning a blind eye to the sin of moral albinism, the choice is easy.

Let’s pray that one day, someone will engage in a clinical trial for creating a successful method of moral melanin replacement therapy. Goodness knows we need it.

421 days until the next election.

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

The Truth About Genius

Leonardo da Vinci

Those who have been reading this blog over the past 15 years will likely be familiar with Alan Wald, whom I have ofttimes expressed thanks for giving me ideas for future essays. So, who in the world is Alan? Simply stated, he has been one of my closest friends for more than 60 years. Due to the fact that “Stone” and Wald” were so close to one another in terms of alphabetical order, we spent a lot of years sitting next to one another in Mr. Ito’s homeroom (that would be be J.O. Ito, whose son Lance would preside over the O.J. Simpson trial) and Chemistry class, (we were lab partners) which was presided over by the wondrously droll Mr. Falb.  Alan and I were born and raised a couple of blocks from one another (he still lives in the same house) and were part of an incredibly unique group of kids who grew up and attended school together from the mid-1950’s through the latter 1960’s.  “Our Gang,” which was made up of upper-middle class Jewish kids, were mostly the children of families that made their livings in one way or another from the screen industry - as writers, actors, publicists, directors and ancillary financiers.  Our parents and neighbors were largely college-educated, literate, highly intelligent, politically knowledgeable and for the most part, quite successful. And yet, despite all the relative advantages,  we were, for the most part, pretty down to earth.  Simply stated, we had no idea that our parents and families were any different from anyone else. 

Needless, to say, teachers looked forward to our “Gang” finally arriving in their classes.  We loved learning and being challenged academically, earned mostly A’s( back when “A” meant “excellent”) and wound up averaging more than 1550 (out of 1600) on our SATS.  Most of us wound up attending top-rated colleges and universities and became physicians, attorneys and academics.  Among the members of “The Gang”

• Gail W. who, along with her husband founded the Kashi company, which they eventually sold to Kellogg’s in 2000;

• Stephen G., who became a Harvard-trained pediatrician;

• Sam W., who was admitted to med. school despite never having graduated from college;

• Alan Wald, who studied epidemiology, traveled the world and now makes his living as a Hollywood extra;

• Mike M., who spent 44 years teaching mathematics at UCLA and contemporaneously worked for the Rand Corporation for nearly a quarter century,

• The relative “failures” became actors, rabbis and medical ethicists, not to mention network news analysts, and first-rate attorneys in Beverly  Hills. 

Despite the collective reputation as a gang of geniuses, we were as normal as hell: we collected baseball cards and had fish-tanks; took piano and dance lessons, went to summer camp and read Mad Magazine.  Some of us even earned letters in swimming, football and track. 

Albert Einstein

There was, without question, one real, honest to god genius in the group: Mike M., the mathematician.  As a kid, Mike was miles and miles ahead of our math teachers.  He also had the best fish aquariums (both fresh and saltwater), and collected baseball cards, comic books and more. “I was born with collectoritis,” he said not too long ago.  He also developed a world-class passion for opera and eventually, operetta.  To say that Mike and his wife are operetta aficionados (his car carries a plate reading “OPERETT”) doesn’t do them justice.  Their home was custom built to hold their massive collection of 60,000 recordings, 10,000 pieces of sheet music, 9,000 books, 5,000 vocal scores, and numerous posters, programs, postcards, radio broadcasts, and more devoted to operetta and early musical theater.  One day in the future, Mike and Nan’s (his wife) collection will be housed at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library . . . along with a $1 million endowment that will fund the costs of packing, moving, processing and sustaining the collection.  

Over the years, Mike has engaged in such far-ranging mathematic topics as The Hilbert Basis Theorem and Hilbert’s Nullstellensatz, Zariski topology, the Grassmannian, Irreducibility and dimension, morphisms, sheaves  and properties. (If you don’t have the slightest  idea what any of these topics entail, don’t worry; hardly anyone  does . . . Remember, Mike is a honest-to-god genius.)

So, what in the world does all of this have to do with genius?  Those who have studied the great minds throughout history (famous people like Tesla, Mozart, Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Kepler, Kant, Jefferson, Hawking and Chaplin and not-so famous folks such as Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, Emanuel Swedenborg, Konrad Lorenz and Georg Ohm) all share certain characteristics:

• An insatiable appetite for knowledge; they question everything.

• They talk to themselves; no one understands them as well as they themselves do,

• They are incessant readers; they read on many, many topics and in many, many languages.

• They are constantly challenging themselves; they must forever be stimulating their brains. 

• They are acutely aware and understanding of how much they do not know.

• They’re largely open-minded; geniuses are willing to accept and consider other views with value and broad-mindedness.

• Geniuses possess a high level of self-control; they are generally able to overcome impulsiveness by planning, clarifying goals, exploring alternative strategies, and considering consequences before they begin.  

• They are, in many cases, very funny people.   Even scientists agree.

Pres. Theodore Roosevelt

Additionally, some of history’s best-known geniuses are polymaths; people like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt, whose knowledge spanned a seemingly endless number of subjects and languages.  One of my favorite modern polymaths is former Federal Judge Richard Posner who, in addition to being the most cited legal scholar of the 20th century and America’s pre-eminent authority on anti-trust law, has written on sex, security, politics, Hegel, Homeric society, medieval Iceland and a whole lot more. The Wall Street Journal once called him a “one-man think-tank.”

From all I have read and the many fascinating, creative people of brilliance I have encountered in my first 70 years, I have noted one additional - and truly intriguing - thing that geniuses have in common: an all but total inability to refer to themselves as such.  I don’t think it’s because they lack ego; few human beings do. No, I think the reason for their seeming humility is that they are just too busy, too engaged, to waste time on such such mundanities.

Which, of course, disqualifies our current president from ever being considered a genius . . . except by himself. On more than one occasion, ‘45 has referred to himself as “a true Stable Genius (sic).” He first used the term in January 2018 in response to concerns that he was not mentally fit for office, which were magnified after the publication of Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.. The book featured quotes from administration officials who questioned Boss Tweet’s cognitive ability, including White House strategist Steve Bannon, who said the POTUS “has lost it.” In response to the Wolf book, ‘45 Tweeted “Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart.” He then added that being elected POTUS “on my first try” should “qualify as not smart, but genius . . . and a very stable genius at that!”  ‘45’s bit of inane braggadocio led Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-PA) to author the Stable Genius Act, which would “ . . . require presidential candidates to have a medical exam and publicly disclose the results before the general election.”  The proposed legislation was referred to the House Committee on House Administration, where it has since languished. 

Many of humanities’ greatest advances have come about due to the efforts of geniuses and polymaths who were, in their own time, misunderstood.  Nonetheless, their names and achievements are still remembered and lauded; through their brilliance they achieved immortality.  Today, however, we are faced with the dangerously inane misdeeds of a self-anointed “stable genius.”  Real genius, when all is said, done and understood, is well beyond our ken . . . and whether or not they are “stable”  is utterly irrelevant.

I for one am truly humbled to have lived and grown up in the same neighborhood as at least one certifiable genius.

Thanks once again, dear Alan, for putting yet another idea into my head . . . Here’s to the next 70 years!

426 days until the next election.

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

The Audacity of Taupe

Exactly five years ago today (i.e. September 28, 2014) then-President Barack Obama became embroiled in what was the gravest (and to my knowledge, only) scandal of his administration. So what happened? After surviving “birtherism,” being damned for having bowed down to the Saudi King and assorted other heresies, the 44th POTUS had the utter gall to show up at a press conference clad in a . . . are you buckled up and ready for this? . . . a beige suit! Horror of Horrors!

Predictably, Fox News commentators came down on Obama for wearing the suit, claiming that he was “cheapening” the presidency; Representative Peter King (R-NY), who is still a member of the House, fumed that the suit “pointed to a lack of seriousness” on the president’s part. Five years later it’s hard to recall just how much press time this “scandal” consumed. Cable news shows held round-table discussions, fashion critics and image consultants weighed in, and TV news reporters conducted person-on-the-street interviews to find out what the people of Northeast Ohio thought of the controversial look. (Happy to report that to a person, they thought the question was absurd; that there were many things of far greater importance to discuss.)

Where Obama normally limited himself top either grey or blue suits and, unlike Gerald Ford never wore a vest, he by no means was the only president to wear a khaki-colored suit. Check out FDR, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and JFK to see their color sense. Interestingly, most of them - including Barack Obama - had their suits made by the same tailor: “George of Paris” (née Georgios Christopoulos) of Kalamata, Greece. Unlike ‘45, who wears $5,000.00 suits that are tailored to hide his bulging gut, monumental tuchas and over-long red ties, Barack Obama was a fashion plate whether clad in jeans, or khaki slacks. He must have learned from my father - a wonderfully-tailored gentleman in his own right - who used to say that the best way to keep one’s weight in check was to find a great tailor whose prices were just a hair beyond your means. “This’ he used to say, “would force one to keep their size, shape and weight because five pounds one way or the other would cause your trousers and jackets to be obviously out of whack.”

But this is far from the purpose of this essay. As much as I may personally chortle at 45’s tailoring, I am far more disgusted by his absolute inability to laugh at himself. Where ‘45 responds to any negative comment about himself with all the vengeance of a tiger (long recognized as the most retaliatory creature on the planet) Barack Obama’s innumerable cracks about the suit became part of his repertoire of bad jokes: He told attendees of a September 2014 awards dinner for the Congressional Black Caucus that he would have worn his tan suit if the event wasn’t black-tie, and joked at his final news conference in January 2017 that he had been “sorely tempted” to wear a tan suit for the occasion.

How’s About Them Sartorial Apples?

And although after 5 years most fashionistas still contend that Obama’s taupe suit (no matter how impeccably tailored) was a boo boo, what shocks them most is that it came to dominate an entire news cycle. If this turns out to be the worst personal scandal of the eight Obama years, so be it. In comparison to what his successor has put the planet through over the past 19+ months, Obama’s “Audacity of “Taupe” is nothing more than a quaint twitter (pun intended) in the annals of presidential history. In retrospect, the Obama years now seem as innocent and charming as an episode of The Donna Reed Show. Of course they weren’t; after all, these were the 8 years which included Obama’s “red line in the sand” vis-à-vis Assad’s Syria, the assassination of Bin Laden and the deportation of more illegal immigrants than ‘45 ever dreamed of. And yes, for virtually everything Obama did, did not do, said or wore, he had tons of militant detractors.

But if anyone had looked into the political crystal ball and foretold that our next president would be known for monetizing his office; for making creepy comments about finding his own daughter attractive; for being investigated for allegedly colluding with Russia and obstructing justice; and for cozying up to dictators from Rio to Moscow to Pyongyang, we would have immediately sent that crystal ball to the repair shop and deported said seer to the lunatic asylum of Charenton.

What most of us crave is a return to sanity and maturity; to honesty and humility; to empathy and compassion . . . if not to far more use of the first person plural instead of a steady diet of the first person singular. And who knows, perhaps even a return to the audacity of taupe, if not pin stripes or power pantsuits . . .

435 days until the next election.

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

'45 Is NOT the Best Friend Israel Ever Had

One of the easiest ways to start a heated argument these days is to claim that Donald Trump is unquestionably NOT “the best friend Israel ever had.” For many American Jews and non-Jews alike especially - those who view politics mostly through the “blue and white” Israeli lens - 45’s moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and then recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights provided more than enough brownie points to earn him the exalted title of “The best friend Israel ever had.”. Gee, and I have long been of the opinion that when it comes to Israel - or Canaan, Judea, Palestine Eretz Yisrael or whatever you choose to call it - Moses, Theodore Herzl and David Ben Gurion dwarf the man who currently occupies the White House.

Like the vast majority of American Jews, I am both a staunch Zionist and an ohayv Yisrael (a lover of Israel). Unlike many, I am able to read, speak, write and understand both ancient and modern Hebrew with a reasonable degree of proficiency, and am a close student of both her history and politics. Again, like a majority of American Jews, I am not a particular fan of P.M. Netanyahu, am totally against the BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanction) Movement, and am a devoted Democrat. I find no disparity between loving and supporting the Jewish State and finding fault with - and speaking out against - various policies, principles and politicians whenever necessary. To my way of thinking, this does not make me - or those who are of similar mind - any less a Zionist than those whose litmus test is 100% fealty. Sorry guys: Democracy should not - and in fact does not - make any such demands.

Which gets us back to the question of whether or not Boss Tweet is “the best friend Israel ever had.” The answer has to be a resounding NO!! While there are dozens upon dozens (hundreds?) of idiotic, mean-spirited, mendacious anti-democratic things ‘45 has done to make his eventual historic ranking beneath that of Presidents Andrew Johnson, Zachary Taylor and Warren G. Harding, the one which should truly bother American Jews the most is his making Israel a wedge issue in American politics. To wit, the POTUS - with the knowing acquiescence of Bibi Netanyahu - have done the unthinkable: turned support for Israel - which for decades has been a bipartisan imperative - into a political wedge issue. Trump, with the active support of Stephen Miller and Jared Kushner, have done everything in their power to convince America that Democrats are anti-Israel anti-Semites while Republicans are the only people who “truly can be counted on” to support Israel. As the New York Times’ Tom Friedman noted just the other day, Few things are more dangerous to Israel’s long-term interests than its becoming a partisan matter in America, which is Israel’s vital political, military and economic backer in the world.

As I noted in an essay posted last February (Politics - Like Acting and Aging - Ain’t For Sissies) ‘45’s strategy for reelection would involve turning the as yet unnamed “Squad” into the face of the Democratic Party, thus hopefully shoring up his support among evangelical Christians (who form the largest pro-Zionist bloc in America) while convincing more and more Jews that if they love Israel, they must vote Republican.

(It should be noted that a majority of white evangelicals consider Israel to be the Jesus Landing Pad. Once all the Jews congregate in Jerusalem, Jesus can return with his flaming sword. Jews who refuse to accept him as their savior will die. In other words, Jews are nothing more than eschatological doormats for white evangelicals.)

The “Trumptanyahu” strategy vis-à-vis keeping two duly elected Muslim members of Congress from entering Israel (Reps. Omar and Tlaib) is the bottom of the barrel. Yes, both of these women (along with the other two members of “the Squad” - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts) are supporters of the BDS movement and would never, ever get my vote. Nonetheless, it is up to the voters of their districts - not the Israeli P.M. and certainly not the POTUS - to cast judgment on them by driving a lethal spike into the heart of the democratic principles which have guided our countries for generations. Historically, no president has ever - and I mean EVER - forced a foreign leader to deny duly elected members of Congress from entering his/her country. By doing so, it shows that both Trump and Netanyahu are more interested in being reelected than in preserving democratic values. Bibi caved after reading a Trump tweet to the effect that permitting Omar and/or Tlaib entry would be a sign of “weakness.” It should be kept in mind that Netanyahu, like Trump is facing national elections, which he- again like Trump - must win in order to keep from going on trial for corruption. And, in order to win and retain his position as P.M., he must stay in the good graces of the most conservative, ultra-nationalist factions in Israel’s political universe . . . just as ‘45 must cater to his political base made up largely of ultra-conservative, pro-gun white evangelicals. The two - ‘45 and Bibi - are in their way, fraternal twins. Indeed, many a pundit has declared “Netanyahu is pretty much identical to Trump . . . but with a better vocabulary - in 2 different languages.”

‘45’s latest foray into foreign policy via tweet has drawn harsh criticism from both sides of the aisle. Even the vaunted, establishmentarian AIPAC (America Israel Public Affairs Committee) has broken with the president over the Tlaib/Omar fiasco. "We disagree with Reps. Omar and Tlaib’s support for the anti-Israel and anti-peace BDS movement, along with Rep. Tlaib’s calls for a one-state solution. We also believe every member of Congress should be able to visit and experience our democratic ally Israel firsthand," AIPAC tweeted this past Thursday. Both Florida Senator Marco Rubio and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) chastised P.M. Netanyahu (though not the president by name) for denying entry to two members of Congress. Said Senator Rubio, “I disagree 100% with Reps. Tlaib & Omar on #Israel & am the author of the #AntiBDS bill we passed in the Senate,” he tweeted. “But denying them entry into #Israel is a mistake. Being blocked is what they really hoped for all along in order to bolster their attacks against the Jewish state.” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) called Israel’s decision to bar the two representatives “outrageous,” and revealed that in recent exhaustive talks with Ron Dermer, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, that they would be permitted their visit. But then the POTUS became involved and all bets were off.

This of course puts Democrats in a politically dicey situation; condemning many of Omar’s and Tlaib’s comments (and rightfully so) while supporting their right to visit Israel and perhaps see how democracy works - even if not perfectly so - in the Middle East.

Trump and Netanyahu share many political commonalities . . . not the least of which is gleefully putting short-term gains (e.g. reelection) before long-term progress.

In any event, it is growing clearer every day that Donald Trump is NOT the “best friend Israel ever had.” And those who ignore all the other noxious aspects of his being, ultimately do so at the sake of weakening and perhaps losing the state they truly love. For with the exception of moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem and recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan, he hasn’t done jack. What he has done is go against virtually every Jewish value handed down from Mt. Sinai, codified in rabbinic literature and passed on from generation to generation.

That is definitely not the mark of a haver - a “friend”.

So go ahead . . . attack me, call me an anti-Semite; tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about; insist that I am a deluded liberal stooge . . . but please try and do it in Hebrew if you can.

 445 days until the next presidential election.

 Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone

The Inexplicable Confidence of the Utterly Incompetent

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It seems that with every passing week and month, the partisan political divide has become wider, nastier and far more case-hardened. Political stereotypes (“Hollywood is made up of nothing but intellectually snobbish, irreligious, far-left dupes”; “the South is made up of uneducated, gun-toting bigots”) have supplanted reason and made conversation - let alone progress - next to impossible. We’ve all been victimized by stereotypical belief patterns, whether at work, while socializing or at family gatherings. And, to be perfectly honest, it hurts; precisely because it drives a wedge between people who used to be close. One of the hardest things to deal with is the political certainty of those who in reality evince precious little - if any - knowledge of politics. If it is of any succor however, remember the words of King Solomon, writing under the name of Kohelet:

.מַה־שֶּֽׁהָיָה֙ ה֣וּא שֶׁיִּֽהְיֶ֔ה וּמַ֨ה־שֶּׁנַּֽעֲשָׂ֔ה ה֖וּא שֶׁיֵּֽעָשֶׂ֑ה וְאֵ֥ין כָּל־חָדָ֖שׁ תַּ֥חַת הַשָּֽׁמֶשׁ

Namely, “What has been is what shall be; and what has been done is what shall be done; and there is nothing new under the sun.”

Long, long ago, the extreme confidence of the incompetent was noted by Socrates who, we are told, said something along the lines of “the only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” Then there was Charles Darwin who, towards the end of his life noted that “ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.” Not long after Darwin’s demise (1882), a new academic field, Political Philosophy, proved that this was actually true. The so-called “father” of political philosophy was a French polymath (a person of wide-ranging knowledge or learning) by the name of Gustav Le Bon. Le Bon (1841-1931) whose areas of academic interest included medicine, sociology, anthropology and physics, was most famous for his 1895 work The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, which has long been considered one of the seminal works of political psychology. As far back as 1895, Le Bon described the psychological underpinnings of support for such demagogues as Hitler, Mussolini, Joseph McCarthy and Donald Trump - who wouldn’t become part of the world scene for decades to come.

In a 1999 paper, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers David Dunning and Justin Kruger brought statistical truth to what has been known by philosophers since Socrates and Darwin. Simply put, that incompetent people think they know more than they really do, and tend to be more boastful about it.

To test Darwin’s theory, the researchers quizzed people on several topics, such as grammar, logical reasoning and humor. After each test, they asked the participants how they thought they did. Specifically, participants were asked how many of the other quiz-takers they beat.

Dunning and Kruger were shocked by the results, even though it confirmed their hypothesis. Time after time, no matter the subject, the people who did poorly on the tests ranked their competence much higher. On average, test takers who scored as low as the 10th percentile ranked themselves near the 70th percentile. Those least likely to know what they were talking about believed they knew as much as the experts.

What do YOU see when you look in the mirror?

Dunning and Kruger’s results have been replicated in at least a dozen different domains: math skills, wine tasting, chess, medical knowledge among surgeons and firearm safety among hunters. For readers of this blog, the most important finding of their study - and those studies which have since followed - is that the less people know about civics, politics and foreign policy, the more they claim to understand. Whether or not Donald Trump, his advisers and strategists have ever read, heard of or digested what has come to be known as the “Dunning-Kruger Effect” is as irrelevant as it unlikely. Nonetheless, they act as if they do.

The Dunning Kruger Effect is a type of cognitive bias, whereby people with little expertise or ability assume they have superior expertise or ability. This overestimation occurs as a result of the fact that they don’t have enough knowledge to know they don’t have enough knowledge. When they look in the mirror - assuming they ever do - they see a genius . . . or a titan or one whose every judgment is correct. A study published in the April 2018 issue of the journal Political Psychology aimed the “Dunning Kruger Effect” specifically in the direction of partisan politics. Researched and written by University of Maryland Political Science professor Ian Anson, Partisanship, Political Knowledge, and the Dunning‐Kruger Effect found that those who evinced the least political knowledge (e.g. the ability to name Cabinet secretaries, identify the length of term limits for members of Congress or the names of programs that the U.S. government spends the least on) were far more likely to overestimate their level of political knowledge. Anson’s study found little difference between unknowing Democrats and unknowing Republicans. Indeed by itself, this is awfully depressing.

While the results of Anson’s study suggest that being uninformed leads to overconfidence across the political spectrum, other studies have shown that Democrats now tend to be more educated than Republicans, possibly making the latter more vulnerable to the Dunning-Kruger Effect. In fact, a Pew Research Center poll released in March of 2018, found that 54 percent of college graduates identified as Democrats or leaned Democratic, compared to 39 percent who identified or leaned Republican.

Writing in Psychology Today, cognitive neuroscientist Bobby Azarian speculated that the Dunning Kruger Effect “ . . . may help explain why certain Trump supporters seem to be so easily tricked into believing proven falsehoods when the President delivers what have become known as “alternative facts,” often using language designed to activate partisan identities. Because they lack knowledge but are confident that they do not, they may be less likely than others to actually fact-check the claims that the President makes.”

Getting through to people is never easy . . . especially in light of what everyone from Socrates and Darwin to Dunning, Kruger and Anson have both posited and proved. The best answer on the horizon is, of course, to overwhelmingly defeat Donald Trump and all those who feed their partisans with half-truth and outright lies, and replace them with people possessing greater intellectual honesty and modesty.

Remember this: a wise person knows what they know; a very wise person knows what they do not know; a truly wise person knows, trusts and engages with those who know the things that they themselves do not know.

452 days until the election . . .

Copyright©2019 Kurt F. Stone