COVID-19 and the Many Languages of God

“The Tower of Babel” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525-69)

Of late, a number of people have asked if I was aware of any distinctly Jewish prayer for the sick that speaks specifically of COVID-19. In each case I told the enquirers that as of the moment I did not, promised that I would check it out and if necessary, would write one myself. It didn’t take all that long for me to find such a prayer - one written by Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef, the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel. Along the way, I remembered a short-short story I wrote years and years ago. It concerned a young child who was studying Torah with his or her elderly rabbi. One day, they were learning the story about the Tower of Babel (מִגְדַל בָּבֵל migdahl bavel), which attempts to explain how the world came to have so many languages. Suddenly, the child asked the rabbi “Rebbe, how many languages are there in the world?” to which the rabbi replied “Well, according to our sages of old, there are 70 different languages.” “And how many does God speak?” the child asked. The rabbi pondered the question for a moment or two and then answered “Why, all of them” he answered, and then pausing, a twinkle in his eye concluded with the words “. . . but mit a Jewish accent!” In these times of sickness, stress, isolation and self-quarantine, many understandably feel the need for prayer; of creating some kind of direct link with "the healer of the sick.” In the Jewish world, we frequently feel a bit more comfortable saying these prayers in “the mother tongue” (מאמע לשון - mama loschen) . . . Hebrew or occasionally Yiddish.   Again, in the Jewish world, it is a custom of long, long standing that when one says a prayer for people who are ill, the words are accompanied by a tangible deed . . . normally, making a contribution to a cause or fund. This tangible act is called Tzdakah (צדקה), which comes from a word meaning not “charity,” but rather, “justice.”

What follows is the prayer I found, composed, as mentioned above, by Yitzchak Yosef, the Chief Sephardi Rabbi of the State of Israel:

אָנָא אֵל רַחוּם וְחַנּוּן, תְהֵא הַשָעָה הַזֹאת שְעַת רַחֲמִים וְעֵת רָצוֹן מִלְפָנֶיךָ. תָחוֹן וְתַחְמוֹל וּתְרַחֵם עָלֵינוּ, אֲנָשִים נָשִים וָטָף, וְתַצִילֵנוּ מִכָל פֶגַע רָע, וּבִפְרָט מִנָגִיף הַקוֹרוֹנָה הַמִתְפַשֵט בְכָל רַחֲבֵי הָעוֹלָם, אֲשֶר רַבִים חֲלָלִים הִפִיל, וּרְבָבוֹת וַאֲלָפִים נֶחְלוּ וְנִדְבְקוּ בוֹ.

הוֹשִיעֵנוּ וְרַחֲמֵנוּ וְהַצִילֵנוּ. כִי כֵן דַרְכְךָ לַעֲשֹוֹת חֶסֶד חִנָם בְכָל דּוֹר וָדוֹר.

רִבּוֹן כָל הָעוֹלָמִים, הַעֲלֶה אֲרוּכָה וּמַרְפֵא לְכָל תַחֲלוּאֵינוּ, וּלְכָל מַכְאוֹבֵינוּ וּלְכָל מַכּוֹתֵינוּ. וּשְלַח מָזוֹר לְמַחֲלָה זוֹ. וְהַצֵל אֶת הָעוֹלָם כֻלּוֹ מִכָל דֶבֶר וּמַגֵפָה וּבִפְרָט מִנָגִיף הַקוֹרוֹנָה.

וְקַבֵל בְרַחֲמִים וּבְרָצוֹן אֶת תְפִלָתֵנוּ.

אָמֵן

(“AH-nah EHL rah-KHOOM və-khah-NOON, tə-HEH hah-shah-AH hah-ZOHT shə-AHT rah-khah-MEEM və-EHT rah-TSOHN mee-lə-fah-NEH-khah. tah-KHOHN və-tahkh-MOHL oot-rah-KHEHM ah-LEHY-noo, ah-nah-SHEEM, nah-SHEEM vah-TAHF, və-tah-tsee-LEH-noo mee-KOHL PEH-gah RAH oo-veef-RAHT mee-nah-GEEF hah-koh-ROH-nah ha-meet-pah-SHEHT bə-KHOHL rahkh-VEHY hah-oh-LAHM ah-SHEHR rah-BEEM khah-lah-LEEM hee-PEEL, oor-vah-VOHT vah-ah-lah-FEEM NEKH-loo və-need-bə-KOO VOH.

hoh-shee-EH-noo və-rah-khah-MEH-noo və-hah-tsee-LEH-noo. KEE KHEHN dahr-kə-KHAH lah-ah-SOHT KHEH-sehd khee-NAHM bə-KHOHL DOHR vah-DOHR.

ree-BOHN KOHL hah-oh-lah-MEEM, hah-ah-LEH ah-roo-KHAH oo-mahr-PEH lə-KHOHL tah-khah-loo-EHY-noo, ool-KHOHL mahkh-oh-VEHY-noo ool-KHOHL mah-koh-TEHY-noo. oosh-LAHKH mah-ZOHR lə-mah-khah-LAH ZOH. və-hah-TSEHL EHT hah-oh-LAHM koo-LOH mee-KOHL DEH-vehr oo-mah-geh-FAH oo-veef-RAHT mee-nah-GEEF hah-koh-ROH-nah.

və-kah-BEHL bə-rah-khah-MEEM oov-rah-TSOHN EHT tə-fee-lah-TEH-noo. ah-MEHN.”)

Please, our merciful and gracious God, let this be a time of mercy and good will before you. Show grace, compassion and mercy to all of us: men, women, and children. Save us from bad affliction, and in particular from the coronavirus which is spreading throughout the world, and which has felled many, and many tens of thousands have become ill and infected with it.

Save us, have mercy on us, and rescue us, because it is your way to do gratuitous kindness in every single generation.

Master of the universe, bring recovery and healing for all our diseases, sufferings and injuries, and send a cure for this disease. Rescue the entire world from every pestilence and plague, and in particular from the coronavirus.

And receive our prayer with mercy and good will.

Amen.

In terms of where you might wish to direct your act of tzdakah, permit me to suggest 3 galaxy-class research institutions:

1. La Jolla Institute for Immunology

2. Johns Hopkins Medicine - COVID-19 Research

3. Cleveland Clinic COVID-19 Response

In one of the major commentaries to the Biblical tale about migdahl bavel (the Tower of Babel), the rabbis taught that the thing that really, truly got God the angriest at the people was not their narcissistic desire to “Make ourselves a name” (Gen. 11:4), but rather the heartless way in which they responded to tragedy. According to this commentary, it happened that one of the tower builders, nearing the top of the structure, heavy brick in hand, fell to his death. And instead of the other builders feeling terribly over the loss of a human life, they were infinitely more concerned and angered over the lost brick . . . which now had to be remade and brought back up to top of the structure. In other words, God’s anger was kindled - and thus “co” (my dual “he/she” pronoun for the Divine) confused their speech because they put materiality far above humanity.

Let us not, I pray, fall pray to the same sin.

Now, more than ever, we must rise to the challenge and with combined prayers, compassion, generosity, empathy and that which is best in each and every one of us, speak one language . . . the language of healing and humanity.

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

From Your Mouth to God's Ear

Yesterday, Friday May 15, POTUS and members of the administration confidently proclaimed that the U.S. will be able to distribute a full-scale coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year. The project, POTUS explained to the world, has been given the name Operation Warp Speed. Explaining its purpose and aims, POTUS, in an overly repetitively redundant bit of rhetorical puffery, called it “A massive scientific, industrial, and logistical endeavor unlike anything our country has seen since the Manhattan Project.  You really could say that nobody has seen anything like we’re doing . . . .  Nobody has seen anything like we’re doing now, within our country, since the Second World War.  Incredible.” As I listened to the least truthful president in American history proclaim, once again, that his newest scientific gambit would see a successful, surefire anti-Covid-19 vaccine available for all those who want it - hopefully - by the beginning of next year, all I could think of was the old Yiddish expression “פֿון דיין מויל צו גאָט ס אויער” (pronounced fun dyne moyel tzu gaht’s aoyer, and meaning “From your mouth to God’s ears”).

From the political point of view, 45’s creation of “Warp Speed” is perfectly understandable - although filled with foul air. After having been caught accusing his predecessor of engaging in the “biggest political scandal in the history of the United States” (Obamagate) he had to quickly change lanes when Majority Leader McConnell admitted to having lied about Obama leaving the incoming Trump administration without any plan or background info on an upcoming pandemic. So how to live this down? Simple . . . a return to happy talk and empty promises. And BTW, ‘45 even managed to throw a bit of red meat to his most strident supporters by mentioning that the upcoming vaccine would only be for those who “wanted to take it” - thus leaving room for those who believe vaccines are part of a conspiracy funded by George Soros and the rest of the Lesbian Left.

From a purely scientific/medical point of view, ’45 is once again delving into areas he knows nothing about . . . like how much time, effort, trial and error it takes for vaccines, medical devices and new procedures to earn the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval: in this case, the imprimatur of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Even if a med. vaccine or device is granted “humanitarian use” status, it’s not going to start changing the world overnight. And for good reason.

In the world of medical research, there are a ton of hoops to jump through before a med, vaccine or device is approved. Welcome to the largely unknown world of medical ethics and Institutional Review Boards. In order to understand what we’re talking about, let’s quickly go back to the so-called “Doctor’s Trial” at Nuremberg. On December 9, 1946, an American military tribunal opened criminal proceedings against twenty-three leading German physicians and administrators for their willing participation in war crimes and crimes against humanity. Officially called United States of America v. Karl Brandt et al, the trial was the first of twelve similar proceedings against Nazi doctors held by the United States following World War II. Without getting into too much detail, the trials proved that nearly two-dozen German doctors were responsible for carrying out horrific medical experiments on mostly Jewish “patients” without either their knowledge, much less their consent. As a result of the trials’ findings, a movement began which eventually made it mandatory that anyone participating in clinical trials be protected and have full knowledge of what was about to be done by way of experimentation. And, perhaps most importantly, making it crystal clear that any such participation must be both voluntary and retractable.

Thus was a new world - and a new level of protection - created in order to safeguard the rights of people engaged in medical experimentation.

Over the past 75 years, the world of medical ethics (which a lot of idiots consider to be an oxymoron) has become an integral part of clinical trials - the pursuit of creating new medicines, devices and procedures while keeping an ever watchful eye on the safety of human subjects. Personally, I have been an active member of an Institutional Review Board - the technical name for such panels - for the past quarter century; 18 with the Cleveland Clinic and the past 7 with Advarra, the largest such group in the world. Our board, by law, is made up of MDs in various specialties, pharmacologists, bio-engineers and at least two “civilians” whose responsibility is vetting and translating informed consent documents into understandable English. The latter has long been my specialty. As such, I have been privy to literally thousands of medical protocols, modifications, informed consent forms (ICFs) and continuing review documents.

Through all these years, I have learned an awful lot about the world of medicine. I have seen up close and personal just how much time, effort money and brilliance goes into taking an idea or theory and eventually turning what once was a mere pipe dream into a panacea. A high percentage of the “pipe dreams” will never pass muster; will never get FDA approval and thus become marketable. In order to succeed, “drug X,” “device Y” or “surgical procedure Z” must first go through animal studies, then a minimum of 3 separate “phases,” which first are given or undergone to (or by) healthy human subjects . . . with their full knowledge and retractable consent.

In these “phase 1” studies researchers investigate whether the drug in question is safe. This is accomplished by looking closely at maximum dose tolerability, pharmacokinetics “PK” - a branch of pharmacology which looks at absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion (ADME), pharmacogenetics “PG” - which is concerned with the effect of genetic factors on reactions to the drug in question, and pharmacodynamics “PD” which investigates how the drug affects the human body. In phase 1 studies, subjects are informed that not only is their participation voluntary, it must not be considered a treatment for any known disease of medical issue.

In “phase 2,” the question for researchers becomes “does the treatment (or drug-in-the-making) work? In phase 2 clinical trials, participants actually have some form of the disease in question. With regards to some phase 2 trials for Covid-19, subjects may have a mild form of the disease or have recovered. Herein, researchers are likely to investigate whether or not the body has developed antibodies which may, in turn, be used to create vaccines. In phase 2 trials, subjects may receive the the same dose amounts, a Single Ascending Dose (SAD), a Multiple Ascending Dose (MAD) or be part of what is called “double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. “Double-blind” means that neither the investigator(s) nor subject(s) know what dose is being administered, or whether the unknown dose is the drug in question or a “dummy” pill or infusion. This is called a “placebo.”

Now on to “phase 3,” in which, generally speaking, these clinical trials compare the safety and effectiveness of the new treatment against the current standard treatment. Because doctors do not yet know if the new drug is better than the “standard of care” (SOC), subjects are usually randomized to get either the standard treatment or the new treatment.

Under normal circumstances it takes at least a year - and frequently far more - to go from animal studies to phase 3. In the case of Covid-19, things are different; these are by no means “normal circumstances.” There is as yet no “standard of care.” At the moment, there are a minimum of 100 ongoing studies around the world. Many deal with the creation of a full-blown vaccine; some deal exclusively with creating better and more effective test kits; others are investigating things like T-cells found in Covid -19 patients and whether this will bode well for long-term immunity. Biopharma and biotech companies across the globe are approaching the fight against Covid-19 with various weapons—repurposed drugs, antivirals, vaccines and clinical antibodies. This is pure science. The fact that so many agencies within the federal government, university medical laboratories and private corporations are working around the clock is a hopeful sign.

The politics of Covid-19 is something else. In recent weeks, we’ve seen and heard POTUS hawking the use of Hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic Azithromycin (“Z-Pak”) as a panacea for the treatment and eventual eradication of Covid-19. Besides being totally devoid of any knowledge of things pharmacological, POTUS is causing time, talent and money to be wasted trying to prove that he is correct. Just the other day, the website of the National Institutes of Health informed the public that they were entered a phase 2b clinical trial investigating whether this “cocktail” can be efficacious. This comes on top of POTUS’s recent - and utterly reckless - suggestion that ingesting or infusing bleach into the human body might be effective. Shortly after having the entire medical/scientific community come down on him like the front line of the New England Patriots, he changed his tune and said he was merely being “sarcastic.”

Now comes “Operation Warp Speed.” From what I know about medical ethics and the closely-watched procedures involved in creating new medications, there are precisely two possibilities that Operation Warp Speed will be approved by the FDA and be made available to the public by the end of 2020: absolutely none and less than that. That is unless POTUS forces the NIH, FDA, HHS and a host of other scientific watchdogs to turn a blind eye to medical oversight . . . to turn back the clock to a time just after the “Doctors’ Trials.” This is truly unconscionable, immoral and, to my way of thinking, overtly illegal.

On the bright side, some of the best medical/scientific minds on the planet are working day and night to rein in this ghastly pandemic. From where I sit and the protocols we at Advarra have already been privy to, Covid-19, like the Spanish Flu of 1918/19 (not 1917, as POTUS believes) shall be overcome.

What America and the world needs now, more than ever, are leaders who are acutely aware of what they do not know, and get on with the work of saving the world because of what scientific and medical researchers do know.

פֿון אונדזער מויל צו גאָט ס אויער

(fun undzayr moyel tzu gaht’s aoyer “From our mouth to God’s ear!”)

174 days until the next election.

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

Oh, If Only Someone Would Leave His Mic On!

Earlier today, we posted an essay on my Tales From Hollywood & Vine blog entitled Budd Schulberg: Mostly Unknown But Still the Best of the Best. For those who haven’t gotten around to reading it - or simply don’t engage in the joy of my Hollywood blog, it details a bit about the life and accomplishments of a truly great writer, Seymour Wilson (Budd) Schulberg (1914-2005). The son of early movie mogul B(enjamin) P(ercival) and Adeline (Jaffee) Schulberg, who ran one of the oldest and best talent agencies in Hollywood, Budd was a Dartmouth graduate who became a legendary novelist and screenwriter. His best-known novel, What Makes Sammy Run?, which was published when he was still in his 20’s, has long been considered the best piece of Hollywood fiction ever written. It was so good . . . so very true-to-life that no one in Hollywood has ever made a film version of it.

Schulberg also wrote the screenplays for, among other films, On the Waterfront, The Harder They Fall, and A Face In the Crowd, which is perhaps the most haunting, most politically prophetic of all films.  Based on a Schulberg short-story entitled Your Arkansas Traveler, A Face in the Crowd (starring Andy Griffith in his first motion picture) tells the story of Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes, a drunken rural hick from Riddle, Arkansas who, with the help of radio publicist Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal) goes from being a small-town radio host to a Will Rogers-like national phenomenon with a national following and an ingravescent ego.  Before too long, “Lonesome” is approached by advertisers to endorse their products, and politicians who wish both his imprimatur and personal tutorial sessions in how to come across as “just a regular guy.”  Before too long, as “Lonesome” is grooming his own presidential candidate, Senator Worthington Fuller (played by former silent movie director Marshall Neilan), he gets his comeuppance: Marcia purposefully  leaves his mic on at the end of the show; the nation-wide audience who had believed him to be the heart and soul of down-home morality and virtue (“The family that prays together stays together” is his customary sign-off slogan) now hear him refer to both Senator Fuller, his sponsors, advertisers and listeners, as “idiots,” “clowns” and “jerks.” Within  24 hours, “Lonesome” has lost everything.  The movie ends with him screaming “MARSHA, MARSHA, MARSHA” from the balcony of his 25-room penthouse apartment as the woman who created  - and has now destroyed - him  drives off in a cab with radio writer Mel Miller (Walter Matthau) who loves her with every fiber of his college-educated being.

Whenever I watch A Face in the Crowd (I will be running it tomorrow for FAU Boca) or reread Your Arkansas Traveler, I can’t help think how similar Lonesome Rhodes and “The Donald: are:

• Both have titanic egos which likely mask a malignant inferiority complex;

• Both claim to know more about virtually anything and everything than people who are actual card-carrying experts;

• Both firmly believe they are impervious to the taunts and jeers of those who have seen through him . . . that the masses are asses

• Both are notorious womanizers who are as addicted to sins of the flesh as a gourmand is to greasy cheeseburgers, and

• Both are like the Platte River: a mile wide at the mouth and six inches deep.

One of the most obvious differences between Lonesome and The Donald has nothing to do with reality versus fiction, for indeed, they are frequently difficult to separate. No, one of the great differences has to do with each man’s audience. Lonesome’s national audience had the ability to be turned off by their idol’s sheer hypocrisy; to turn their backs on him when they learned he was a fraud. The Donald’s core constituency, on the other hand,  really couldn’t give a fig if he’s telling the truth or lying through his teeth; whether he knows what he’s talking about or is merely whistling in the dark; whether he’s truly caring and empathetic or merely wearing makeup. Then too, there doesn’t seem to be a single Marcia Jeffries in Trump’s circle of advisors or assistants; no one with the guts to leave his microphone on once the show has concluded. Kellyann Conway? Hope Hicks? Jared Kushner? Stephen Miller? Kayleigh McEnany? I don’t think so.

And even if there were someone - anyone - of a mind to keep the sound running, what would the public response be? Would those who already think the POTUS is nothing more than a fraudulent gas bag start thinking even worse of him? Is this humanly possible? And as for those who would slog through the Okefenokee Swamp on their knees for him, is there anything - like losing a job, falling prey to Covid-19 or getting evicted from one’s house, trailer or apartment, that would cause them to change their minds,  don masks and throw away their red MAGA hats? Again, I doubt it.

As much as I pray for but a single Marcia Jeffries to emerge from the sludge surrounding ‘45 and keep his mic on, it is not likely to happen. What can - and must - happen is for those who have long understood that our POTUS is no better than Lonesome Rhodes to become the microphones . . . to sound the alarm through making contributions, campaigning via the internet, making sure that everyone can vote by mail and ultimately sending ‘45 back to his penthouse where he can spend the rest of his days shouting out “MARSHA! MARSHA! MARSHA!

181 days until the next election.

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

Trump, Bezos and Ben Franklin: A Chess Game Played in Hell

On July 26, 1775, the Continental Congress appointed Dr. Benjamin Franklin Postmaster General of what would within a year be called the United States of America. Over the past 245 years, America has had 75 Postmasters. The first - and to far only - woman to serve as Postmistress General, Megan Brennan, is scheduled to retire shortly.  According to a survey last year by the Pew Research Center, 90% of the American public has a favorable view of the United States Postal Service (USPS), handily outdistancing even such other popular federal agencies as the National Park Service and NASA.

Not only is the Post Office widely popular: it is of immense importance to the well-being of the nation. Establishing “post offices and post roads” is one of the powers of Congress explicitly enumerated in the Constitution, right up there with the power to tax and borrow, declare war, coin money, establish federal courts and issue patents and copyrights. And yet, despite its vast popularity and historic centrality, there are those who have long sought to dismember and then privatize the USPS. Chief among them are the nation’s current Chief Executive and his most doting, most conservative acolytes and financial backers. The question is, of course, “Why? Why do they want to dismember the USPS?” In truth, IMPOTUS’s reasoning is quite a bit different - and more obvious - than that of his political allies. In order to get a grip on the political right’s modus operandi, we must go back in time to the year 2006, when the Republican-controlled 109th Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) which required the USPS to create a $72 billion fund to pay for the cost of its post-retirement health care costs . . . 75 years into the future. This burden applies to no other federal agency or private corporation. PAEA must have been extremely important to those who introduced, supported and voted for its passage: from its initial introduction into the hopper to presidential signature was a mere 13 days (Dec. 7-Dec. 20, 2006).  

Writing in the journal of the Institute for Policy Studies, authors Sarah Anderson, Scott Klinger and Brian Wakamo noted: If the costs of this retiree health care mandate were removed from the USPS financial statements, the Post Office would have reported operating profits in each of the last six years. This extraordinary mandate created a financial “crisis” that has been used to justify harmful service cuts and even calls for postal privatization. Additional cuts in service and privatization would be devastating for millions of postal workers and customers. Again, the question is “Why?” I’m not terribly sure what was behind the original bill and the speed-of-light alacrity which Congress used to get it passed and signed. For Republicans it is understandable: they have a tendency to want to see the federal agencies and programs shrink-wrapped to the point where they are eventually turned over to the private sector. That I can understand even if I am decidedly against it. However, two of the three co-signers of the PAEA (H.R. 6407) joining in with the bill’s author, Virginia Republican Tom Davis - were Democrats . . . one of whom was Henry Waxman (D-CA), one of his era’s craftiest and most universally respected progressives. So when I say “I don’t understand,” believe me . . . I don’t understand!

The part I do understand - minus the Democratic support - is that Congress was setting a future trap for USPS; making it possible to blame them for fiscal incompetence . . . for losing billions upon billions of dollars. Well, if it hadn’t have been for passage of H.R. 6407 in the first place, Ben Franklin’s great great, great, great grandchildren would have been showing sizable profits.

Just about a year ago (April 29, 2019 to be precise) Oregon Democrat Peter DeFazio filed H.R. 2382, the “USPS Fairness Act,” which would eliminate the pre-funding requirement. Advocates claim that it could single-handedly put the Postal Service out of the red and into the black. (At present, it is estimated that unless something is done soon, USPS will run out of money by 2024). Supporters argue the bill makes financial sense, puts the Postal Service on an even footing with literally every other federal agency, and helps ensure the solvency of one the programs that most directly affects ordinary Americans. The bill garnered 301 cosponsors (61 of whom were Republicans, and passed the House on February 5, 2020 by a veto-proof vote of 309-106. It was then sent over to the Senate where it picked up 5 cosponsors and was assigned to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. It has gone no further since and likely will languish . . . especially in light of IMPOTUS’s recent involvement in the issue.

Then there’s IMPOTUS’ line of argumentation. This past Friday he threatened to block an emergency loan to shore up the U.S. Postal Service unless it dramatically raised shipping prices on online retailers, an unprecedented move to seize control of the agency that analysts said could plunge its finances into a deeper hole. “The Postal Service is a joke,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. To obtain a $10 billion line of credit Congress approved this month, “The post office should raise the price of a package by approximately four times,” he said.  Several administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have said Trump’s criticism of Postal Service rates is rooted in a desire to hurt Amazon in particular. They have said that he fumes publicly and privately at Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post, for news coverage that Trump believes is unfair.  Of course, raising postal rates “by approximately four times” would likely hurt rural Americans - heretofore among his strongest, most loyal allies - the most. 

Delivering packages has been a good business for the Postal Service, making up just 5 percent of the Postal Service’s volume, but accounting for 30 percent of its revenue. And package volume jumped 53 percent last week, compared with the same period in 2019, as a homebound nation dives into e-commerce for groceries, prescriptions and household essentials. As much as IMPOTUS believes this to be the start of a game-winning strategy which will end up in a fifteen-move “check mate,” he is actually playing his to opponent’s game plan.  What he likely does not realize is that should USPS raise its shipping rates by 400%, Amazon can easily save money by doing even more of its own shipping . . . which no doubt would be quite harmful to USPS.  But far from being able to blame Amazon for the post office’s further economic slide, voters will blame Donald Trump.  And there’s not thing one he can do about it.

‘45 has long claimed that he is “the most transparent president in American history.”  Goodness knows, he says it at  least one a week.  And it’s just possible that in this deranged bit of braggadocio, he is telling the truth without really knowing it. How so?  For as long as he’s been in the public eye - whether in real estate, on television, in the air at the head of some eponymous wine, water, airline or tie - he has clearly massaged those who massage him and attempted to pummel those who will not praise him.  Cases in point: his obsessive ridding - if not eradicating - virtually every accomplishment of Barack Obama and his administration.   His belittling, deprecating and re-tagging people who do not, will not and cannot go along with him.  In these things, he is both obvious and transparent.  (One of the latest is his renaming Amazon founder - as well as publisher of the  Washington Post and wealthiest person on the planet  - Jeff Bezos “Jeff Bozo.”)  It must really be galling for IMPOTUS to have to  play someone else’s game only to realize that he’s getting closer and closer to hearing the words “check mate.”  

189 days until the next election.

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

A Dream to End a Nightmare

I had a most vibrant and bizarre dream last night; it was both haunting and hopeful . . . a full-spectrum middle-of-the-night Technicolor fantasy. But oh what a hallucination . . . a danse macabre set just beyond the portals of hell; its dramatis personae consisting of IMPOTUS, Vice President Pence and members of that omnium gatherum (motley crew) known as The Cabinet: V.P. Pence, A.G. Barr, Secretaries Pompeo, Mnuchin, Esper, Bernhardt, Perdue, Ross, Scalia, Azar, Carson, Chao, Brouilette, De Vos, Wilke, and Wolfe, as well as sub-cabinet officials Meadows, Lighthizer, Grenell, Vought, Haspell, Wheeler and Carranza. For reasons best known only to my subconscious and perhaps Dr. Freud, I held center-stage, wielding a gavel while mostly holding the attention of 23 pairs of eyes and ears.  I was speaking about their boss, the 45th POTUS:

“Ladies and gentlemen: I deeply appreciate your giving me a few minutes of your time. What I want to discuss with you may well change the course of American history. I know, it sounds terribly dramatic and I am a “Hollywood Brat,” so it’s likely that what I’ve got to say is part of my genetic inheritance. Nonetheless, I have also been deeply enmeshed in politics - both its history and practice - for more than half a century, so what I am about to present is also embedded in my personal experience.”

“By now, you are all, at some level, fully aware that the man you serve is deeply, deeply flawed - intellectually, psychologically, and morally. By now you know that he is a raging egomaniac, a pathological liar and a textbook narcissist. He is intellectually flawed, lacks even a simulacrum of curiosity, and is, at least to my way of thinking, a thoroughgoing moral albino. The intellectual side of him reminds me of how Mark Twain described King Arthur in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (Ch. 28): ‘He wasn’t a very heavy weight, intellectually. His head was an hour-glass; it could stow an idea, but it had to do it a grain at a time, not the whole idea at once.’ You all have your individual reasons for having kept your collective mouths shut during the first 3 years of his presidency as he has told an average of 10 lies a day while turning the United States into a subsidiary of his personal financial empire. You have stood by while he has befriended many of the planet’s most notorious dictators and autocrats while mocking, belittling and making public enemies of anyone and everyone in the American government and society who does not agree with him. You have remained seated on your thumbs and been utterly silent while he turns our free press into traitors and the vast majority of immigrants, refugees and asylees into murderers, rapists and unrepentant drug dealers. How can you live with yourselves?  Behind closed doors some of you may have winced; in public, you have acquiesced.  To say the least, this, in no manner, speaks well of you; it makes of you little more than heinous abettors.”

"I simply cannot imagine what you’re thinking about when you are alone, your heads on your pillows in the dead of night. Could it be that some of you, due to your religious weltanschauung or eschatology actually find merit and prophetic fulfillment in the effect your boss has on the world? Do you somehow believe he is the one prophesied by the Bible to oppose Jesus and substitute himself in Christ's place before the Second Coming, and that therefore you are more than willing - even delighted - to put up with all his neuroses, nastiness and utter b.s. in order to bring about the end-times as found in the First and Second Epistle of John? God help us if that is the case for those among you - like Pence, Pompeo, Barr and DeVos, who are yearning for the fulfillment of prophecy.”

“Doesn’t it brother you that unlike any other president in American history, IMPOTUS has shown an all but pathological disdain for building global alliances and forging meaningful cooperation at a time of international crisis?  Instead, he has used the Covid-19 pandemic as an excuse to carry out his most vile political programs,  such as  totally shutting down immigration to the U.S., shoveling hundreds upon hundreds of billions of dollars into the maw of big business, and drawing deep divides between so-called ‘red and blue states.’  Are these the actions of a leader . . . let alone a sane, liberty-loving human being? This president will go down in history as the worst, most maladroit, unprepared and venal in history. If he had his way, he would cancel the 2020 election and continue absorbing more and more power during a time of political, economic and medical crisis.  My question to you at this point  is ‘Why oh why do you remain silent?’  Are you afraid of him?  Afraid he’ll fire you and call you dirty names?  Oh come now, every one of you took a deep cut in salary to assume the positions you now occupy.  Are you afraid that if you turn on him it will mean the end your career in public service?  Tell me: after what you’ve gone through with IMPOTUS, would you ever want to continue serving the public?”

“As New York Times White House correspondents Katie Rogers and Annie Karni wrote in an extensive piece just the other day, he has pretty much isolated himself in the White House’s family quarters, watching endless hours of Fox News and spitting out dozens upon dozens of angry, vindictive cyber thunder bolts. ‘The president sees few allies no matter which channel he clicks. He is angry even with Fox, an old security blanket, for not portraying him as he would like to be seen. And he makes time to watch Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s briefings from New York, closely monitoring for a sporadic compliment or snipe. Confined to the White House, the president is isolated from the supporters, visitors, travel and golf that once entertained him, according to more than a dozen administration officials and close advisers who spoke about Mr. Trump’s strange new life.  This is a man on the verge of a total collapse.”

“Don’t you, ladies and gentlemen of the Cabinet, understand that under your boss, America has lost much of its prestige, thus becoming an embarrassment both at home and abroad? That we’ve lost our role as a beacon of light; that we are increasingly becoming a second- or even third-rate nation while much of the world is now looking to China and Russia for leadership and guidance? Does this not concern you? Are any of you willing to stand up, put on your political armor and scream out ENOUGH IS ENOUGH?”

“If only you had the courage and conviction to use the ultimate power of the Constitution, and invoke the 25th Amendment, thereby declaring that this man is mentally incapable of carrying out his mandated duties, you would be accomplishing more for the future of the United States than any contingent of Generals, Admirals and front-line troups?” If there will be any of you who needs a quick twenty-twenty on the 25th Amendment, which was originally suggested by Dwight Eisenhower and ratified on June 10, 1967, just ask; I’ll be glad to help you out.  Any questions or concerns. . .?”

It was at this point that my dream came to an end and I found myself stretching and, has long been my early morning custom, doing everything in my power to recapture a dream or two from the night before.  This particular dream . . . the one based upon a monstrous nightmare . . . seemed so real that I had to immediately grope for the bedside radio and flip on NPR’s “Morning Edition” in order to see if  perhaps it hadn’t been a dream . . . that the nightmare had really, truly ended.  But alas, it was a dream.

Ever since, I have been daydreaming; hoping against hope that those 23 pairs of eyes and ears will have the same dream tonight . . .tomorrow at the latest . . . and that once and for all, this nightmare will end. 

God knows, we all need it.

195 days until the next election.

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

"When I Hear Music, I Fear No Danger"

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

Without question, these are very strange, trying, and frightening times. We’ve been through them before and shall no doubt go through them again . . . but not quite like this. I wonder if we will ever again say the noun normal without first using the adjective new or putting the term in finger quotes. For some, times like these call for extra shots of Cocchi Vermouth di Verino or 25-year old Dalmore; for others it might involve watching Casablanca for the 900th time or rereading Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here for the 12th time. If it weren’t that I post weekly thousand-word political essays and lecture on both politics and political history online (until we get back into the classroom) I wouldn’t be spending any time watching the news or reading the Times, Post or The New Yorker.  It’s just so all-fired nauseating.

To me, one of the healthiest things a fellow sufferer can do (gym is closed) is listen to music . . . and not just any music.  Selecting precisely which tunes from what genres can keep one’s psyche safely afloat.  And then, the mere act of listening and singing or humming along can act as a wondrous humane cocoon.  The right song, the best sonata, that chart-topper from ages long gone, can be a restorative panacea for a torturous pandemic.  One is reminded of Thoreau’s marvelous bit of insight: When I hear music, I fear no danger! 

Wishing ever so much to allay a bit of fear and loathing while pasting a smile and a remembrance of things past (avec mes excuses, M. Proust) I would like to share with you 3 songs: one which can bring a tear to the eye; one which can put a smile on the face, and the 3rd which will hopefully put a bit of awe and optimism into the soul.

The first is Paul Simon’s 1973 piece American Tune, as sung by Paul and Art Garfunkle (who did not appear on the original recording) at a concert in New York’s Central Park on September 19,, 1981. The ever dexterous Simon “borrowed” the major motif for this song from J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion (who in turn bodily stole it from a composer named Hans Leo Hassler) and is, in my mind, the most patriotic, most deeply American song ever written.  It is one of the few songs always - and I mean ALWAYS - brought tears to my eyes:

"American Tune"
Many's the time I've been mistaken
And many times confused
Yes, and I've often felt forsaken
And certainly misused
But I'm all right, I'm all right
I'm just weary to my bones
Still, you don't expect to be
Bright and bon vivant
So far away from home, so far away from home

And I don't know a soul who's not been battered
I don't have a friend who feels at ease
I don't know a dream that's not been shattered
or driven to its knees
But it's all right, it's all right
For we've lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the road we're traveling on
I wonder what's gone wrong
I can't help it, I wonder what's gone wrong

And I dreamed I was dying
I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly
And looking back down at me
Smiled reassuringly
And I dreamed I was flying
And high up above my eyes could clearly see
The Statue of Liberty
Sailing away to sea
And I dreamed I was flying

We come on the ship they call the Mayflower
We come on the ship that sailed the moon
We come in the age's most uncertain hour
and sing an American tune
But it's all right, it's all right
You can't be forever blessed
Still, tomorrow's going to be another working day
And I'm trying to get some rest
That's all, I'm trying to get some rest

Next comes “Fly Me to the Moon,” written by Bart Howard and Kaye Ballad in 1954, and most famously, recorded by Frank Sinatra in 1964 and closely associated with the initial Apollo flight to the moon.  Over the years it has also been recorded by the likes of Tony Bennett, Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole and Judy Garland.  The version we include is here by the then 5 year old Sophie Fatu, an extraordinarily talented little girl who really has music in her soul.  I posted this last week on my Facebook page and received a lot of “likes” and “loves.”  I have already watched/listed to it a couple of dozen times.  To me, it expresses the delight, the energy and simple pure sweetness of extreme youth . . .  an emotional pick-me-up at a time of extreme fatigue:

 "Fly Me To The Moon (In Other Words)"

Fly me to the moon
Let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
On a-Jupiter and Mars

In other words: hold my hand
In other words: baby, kiss me

Fill my heart with song
And let me sing for ever more
You are all I long for
All I worship and adore

In other words: please, be true
In other words: I love you

Fill my heart with song
Let me sing for ever more
You are all I long for
All I worship and adore

In other words: please, be true
In other words, in other words: I love you

Lastly, The Weight, a 1968 song written by Robbie Robertson and recorded by his group, “The Band,” one of the greatest rock bands of all time. It is a fairly esoteric piece containing the end-of stanza phrase:

Take a load off Fanny
Take a load for free
Take a load off Fanny
And (and, and) you put the load right on me
(You put the load right on me)

The reason I included this song is two-fold:

1. It always brings me back to my years as an undergraduate at the University of California: a time of growth, of exploration and experimentation, a time of political awakening and spiritual growth; a time - even before Woodstock - when we truly believed our generation could change and heal the world, and

2. The extraordinary new, online version of this song in which musicians from virtually all over the globe - some world famous, many unknown outside their own neighborhoods, combine in the isolation wrought by Covid-19, to record and video a single song. Like Michael Jackson’s “We Are the World,” it sends a message of healing; that together, people from all over the world, working in harmony towards a single goal, can accomplish great things for humanity. Unlike Jackson’s paean - in which dozens upon dozens of musicians gathered on a single recording stage - this time around, Robertson’s message was recorded and performed all over the planet . . . in perfect musical and human unity.

To me, watching and listening to this wondrously conceived, brilliantly mastered piece of musical technology, shows what people can accomplish by working together. Together, perhaps, we can make the world more a family sharing pretty much the same dangers and dreams, inspired by the same goals and ambitions. This weight is truly The Weight:

"The Weight (Concert Version)"
(from "The Last Waltz" soundtrack)

I pulled into Nazareth, just to feelin' about half past dead
I just need to place where I can lay my head
"Uh, mister, can you tell me where a man might find a bed?"
He just grinned and shook my hand, but "no" was all he said

Take a load off Fanny
Take a load for free
Take a load off Fanny
And (and, and) you put the load right on me
(You put the load right on me)

I picked up my bag, and went a-lookin' for a place to hide
When I saw Carmen and the Devil walkin' side by side
And I said, "Hey, Carmen, come on would you go downtown?"
She said, "Well, I gotta go but my friend can stick around."

Take a load off Fanny
Take a load for free
Take a load off Fanny
And (and, and) you put the load right on me
(You put the load right on me)

Go down, Miss Moses, there ain't nothin' you can say
'Cause it's just old Luke and Luke's a-waitin' on the Judgment Day
"Well, now, Luke, my friend, what about young Anna Lee?"
He said, "Do me a favor, son, won't you stay and keep this Anna Lee company?"

And take a load off Fanny
Take a load for free
Take a load off Fanny
And (and, and) you put the load right on me
(You put the load right on me)

Crazy Chester followed me, yes, he caught me in the fog
He said, "I will fix your rack if you take old Jack, my dog."
I said, "Wait a minute, Chester, you know I'm a peaceful man."
He said, "That's OK, boy, won't you feed old Chester when the other eat."

Yeah, take a load off Fanny
Take a load for free
Take a load off Fanny
And (and, and) you put the load right on me
(You put the load right on me)

I catch a cannon ball now to take me over down the line
'Cause my bag is sinkin' low and I do believe it's time
To get back to Miss Fanny, you know that she's the only one
She sent me here with her regards for everyone

Take a load off Fanny
Take a load for free
Take a load off Fanny
And (and, and) you put the load right on me
(You put the load right on me).

H.D. Thoreau is/was/always shall be true when he begins his verse: “When I hear music, I shall fear no danger . . .”

So too is the end of the verse right on the money: “I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.”

Stay safe.  Stay healthy.  Stay kind.  Stay humble.  Stay home.

Copyright©1954, Bart Howard, Kaye Ballard
Copyright©1968, Robbie Robertson
Copyright©1973, Paul Simon

Copyright©2020, Kurt F. Stone

"Damnatio Memoriae" Or, When Was the Last Time Anyone Named a Kid Caligula?

Damnatio memoriae is a Latin phrase literally meaning condemnation of memory, the sense being a judgment that a person must not be remembered. It was a form of dishonor that could be passed by the Roman Senate upon traitors or others who brought dishonor to the Roman State. The intent was to erase someone from history, a task somewhat easier in ancient times, when documentation was much sparser. In ancient Rome, the practice of damnatio memoriae could be used to condemn Roman elites and emperors after their deaths. He/they could have their property seized, their names erased, and whatever statues, coins or friezes might exist, reworked. Then too, it was a sure sign that no one would ever again be called by those names; I mean, when was the last time anyone named a child Caligula, Nero, Domitian (that’s his effaced bust on the left) or Vespasian?

(n.b. the Romans weren’t the only ones into damnatio memoriae: centuries before the Romans, the Egyptians removed all mention of Queen Hatshepsut and Pharaoh Akhenaten (the husband of Queen Nefertiti) from royal history; as recently as 2011, Hosni Mubarak, the President of Egypt for almost 30 years, was deposed. After his deposition, the names of both Hosni and his wife, Suzanne, were removed from all Egyptian monuments. The Soviets under Stalin were also hip deep in this practice, becoming expert at eliminating enemies of the state from photographs in which they were originally posed next their “revered leader.” The most famous case was likely that of Nikolai Yezhov, nicknamed ‘The Vanishing Commisar.’ Then too, it is an ancient Jewish custom to “blot out the name of Amalek” - from whom the wicked Haman was descended “from under the Heavens” - by the sound of noisemakers on the joyous [some would say “frivolous”] holiday known as Purim (c.f. Deut. 25:15.)

Were it up to me, I would heartily reimpliment damnatio memoriae and not just for the current POTUS.  Indeed, I would gladly place under this umbrella of ignominy the names of Mike Pence (V.P.), Mike Pompeo (Sec. of State), William Barr (Attorney General), Steven Mnuchin (Sec. of Treasury), Wilbur Ross (Sec. of Commerce), Betsy DeVos (Sec. of Education), Ben Carson (Sec. of Housing and Urban Development), and Elaine Chaio (Sec. of Transportation, not to mention Senator Mitch McConnell (Senate Majority Leader) and Chief Congressional Enabler), and Rep. Devin Nunes (Ranking Member, House Intelligence Committee, not to mention Jared Kusher and Stephen Miller, (Senior White House Advisers).

Why these folks, one well may ask?  Because they have gladly, willingly and chillingly lent their wholehearted support to a president whose political raison d’être has had since day one far, far more to do with his ego and their personal interests than the needs of the people or nation they are supposed to be serving.   I cannot for the life of me understand why these supposedly well-educated, highly successful people could maintain such silence and servility in the face of so much psychopathy. Are they afraid of being fired or of being called names? Or  are they more interested in bringing about some sort of religious rapture for the very well heeled?

Of course, the mere exercise of those mentioned above, who in my humble opinion should be considered for a spot on our national damnatio memoriae list, is a bit of satiric wish fulfillment. Nonetheless, what’s been going on these past 3+ years - and especially the past several weeks - certainly qualifies the POTUS and his enablers to be part of this ancient ritual. The sins for which he and his clique should be eliminated from memory include far more than the tax bonanza granted the hyper wealthy, the steady stream of lies, and the utter incompetence and what The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols calls his “political glossolalia.” The worst of the worst it seems to me, is the sin of convincing a solid minority that the media can neither be trusted nor believed ever again; that they are consciously engaged in taking this administration down; that anyone who disagrees with the POTUS - and this list includes the likes of Speaker Pelosi, Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff and the likely soon-to-be-fired Dr. Anthony Fauci - is a traitorous conspirator bent on destroying not only the president, but the nation itself. And if for no other reason than the video-taped fact that ‘45 will not supply states whose governors aren’t “nice to” or “supportive of” the man in the Oval Office with respirators, surgical gloves, masks and gowns . . . makes him eminently worthy of being forgotten.  Oh, I forgot, all these medical necessities belong to him personally .  . . not the people. 

The time will come when well-heeled Trump supporters begin collecting gazillions of dollars in order to create a presidential library/museum in perpetual remembrance of a man they never truly liked in the first place. For those who believe in damnatio memoriae, I am happy to report that purchasing land for such a library will be next to impossible. Think about it: the price of empty space to build a presidential library in:

• Independence, Missouri (Harry Truman)

• Grand Rapids, Michigan: Jerald R. Ford)

• Simi Valley, California (Ronald Reagan)

• Atlanta, Georgia (Jimmy Carter)

• College Station, Texas (George W.Bush)

• Little Rock, Arkansas (Bill Clinton) and

• Hoffman Estates, Illinois (Barack Obama)

was and is far, far less pricey than 725 5th Avenue, New York, New York, where the Trump Library/Museum would likely be located. And despite the fact that none of America’s previous 44 presidents were  outright paragons of moral or political perfection, they all spoke and wrote English with greater facility, and knew more about the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and Emancipation Proclamation than the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  None, so far as I know, exhibited the mass of foibles, personal insecurity or contempt for both the people and the nation they were elected to serve as does ‘45.  It seems to me that the  greatest punishment the nation could mete out to this self-proclaimed “stable genius” would be a declaration of damnatio memoriae.

Just think: no more children named Caligula, Hatshepsut, Domitian or . . . Donald.

204 days until the next election . . . whether in person or via mail.

  Copyright©2020, Kurt F. Stone

"Better days will return . . ."

On October 13,, 1940, the future queen of England -  the then 14-year old Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor - made her first public speech over the B.B.C. It was a brief address of less than two minutes to the children of the United Kingdom - the children of the Commonwealth - many of them living far away from home due to the war. It was a time when the German Luftwaffe was bombing London virtually every night, causing untold damage and destruction. In her speech, the teenage princess said, in part:

Thousands of you in this country have had to leave your homes and be separated from your fathers and mothers. My sister Margaret Rose and I feel so much for you as we know from experience what it means to be away from those we love most of all.

To you, living in new surroundings, we send a message of true sympathy and at the same time we would like to thank the kind people who have welcomed you to their homes in the country.

All of us children who are still at home think continually of our friends and relations who have gone overseas - who have traveled thousands of miles to find a wartime home and a kindly welcome in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States of America.

My sister and I feel we know quite a lot about these countries. Our father and mother have so often talked to us of their visits to different parts of the world. So it is not difficult for us to picture the sort of life you are all leading, and to think of all the new sights you must be seeing, and the adventures you must be having.

But I am sure that you, too, are often thinking of the Old Country. I know you won't forget us; it is just because we are not forgetting you that I want, on behalf of all the children at home, to send you our love and best wishes - to you and to your kind hosts as well.

She concluded her speech by introducing her youngest sister, Princess Margaret who simply said ‘Goodnight children’ and concluded by saying, We know, everyone of us, that in the end all will be well; for God will care for us and give us victory and peace. And when peace comes, remember it will be for us, the children of today, to make the world of tomorrow a better and happier place.

Goodnight, and good luck to you all.

Even at age 14, Elizabeth understood the meaning of noblesse oblige: “nobility has its obligations.”  Part of being a leader - whether born to the blue, inheriting it, or earning it for oneself, means to act with generosity of spirit; to uplift and spread optimism wherever and whenever it is required; to point to the sun and the stars when the skies are as dark and cloudy as can be.  Among the many, many things our current leader - IMPOTUS - lacks is precisely what Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor possessed oh so many years ago.  

She has lived a truly heroic life; one filled with verve, boundless energy and what the French philosopher Henri Bergson called élan vital - the vital force or impulse of life. One possessed of élan vital is capable of bringing a modicum of hope to the hopeless, courage to the fearful, and energy to the physically and emotionally fatigued. Just as were the people of the Commonwealth to whom she spoke over the airwaves in October 1940.  She has put more B-12 into the veins of the people of the commonwealth than any 10,000 physicians.  And just the other day, nearly 80 years after her first broadcast, she was at it again: infusing hope, optimism and élan vital into the veins of the very people who consider her immortal. 

This time around, it wasn’t on radio, but rather the TV. The enemy was not the Third Reich but rather, Covid-19. And yet, the purpose and challenge were virtually the same: to dispense hope, energy and courage; to put all the noblesse oblige she possesses to its best possible use. Yes, it is 80 years later, and the 14-year is now nearly 94, but the message and the purpose are the same: Together we are tackling this disease, and I want to reassure you that if we remain united and resolute, then we will overcome it. I hope in the years to come everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge, and those who come after us will say the Britons of this generation were as strong as any, that the attributes of self-discipline, of quiet, good-humored resolve, and of fellow feeling still characterize this country. The pride in who we are is not a part of our past, it defines our present and our future.

For as long as we can remember, our mother’s mother, “Granny Annie,” told us that we were descended from the British House of Rothschild. Was it true? We don’t know of a certainty, but she was forever pointing out certain physical and personal characteristics I shared with one of her Rothschild uncles. Whatever the case, she imbued us with a strong adoration for the House of Windsor, especially Queen Victoria (who sat on the throne of England during grandma’s childhood) and had the wisdom to make one of our ancestors, Sir Nathan Rothschild (1840-1915) a baron . . . the first Jewish member of the House of Lords who had never converted to Christianity. Whatever the case - and again, no one knows for sure, (including mom, who is now 96), we have always had strong, positive feelings about the House of Windsor. The current leader of that house, Queen Elizabeth II, has certainly shown the world what it means to be a leader . . . even at age 93+.

Among the many things we suffer from these days are leaders who instead of speaking of the future . . . of those who really, truly believe that “. . . better days will return,” are more interested in pointing fingers of blame and abdicating any and all responsibility for what is transpiring.  (Indeed, at his March 20 presser, NBC’s Kristen Welker asked the POTUS whether he “takes responsibility for the lag in making test kits available?” His reply consisted of precisely 7 words: “No. I don’t take responsibility at all.”) This is the bipolar opposite of noblesse oblige; it certainly is not giving strength to those who are weak; courage to those who are frightened; nor lending hope for the future.  It is anything but.

Every day of the week, the IMPOTUS spends two hours on nationwide television telling one and all how brilliant he is, how much more medically savvy he is than infectious disease specialists, epidemiologists and people who have spent a lifetime dealing with infectious diseases, and precisely who’s to blame for the current pandemic.  To be more than blunt, it is disgusting. He has yet to express condolences to the families of those who have expired, regards for those who have placed themselves in harms way, or even a smattering of concern for minimum wage earners who stock shelves, help shoppers, or deliver groceries. We are not paying nearly enough attention to those who put their lives on the line serving us while being under-served by their employers. We should recognize them for what they truly are: heroes and heroines who make our lives possible.

On the bright side, we are beginning to see the sort of “united resolution” HM Elizabeth II referred to in her televised address of April 5th. Newspapers and evening newscasts are introducing us to individuals (many are children), families and communities that have taken it upon themselves to create and hand-make surgical masks; to go grocery shopping for their elderly neighbors, walk their dogs and place daily calls just to say “hi, hello, how are you?” Businesses - including America’s oldest, Brooks Brothers - have retooled in order to manufacture upwards of 150,000 masks and surgical gowns a day. There’s something instinctively warm, caring and innovative about the American people during times of crisis. Oh that the crisis would fade even as the caring and innovation bloom.

And when we one day return to whatever the “new normal” shall be, I for one will look forward to watching an even more elderly  “Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith” (her official title),  address her subjects and admirers with the same grace, dignity and overwhelming noblesse oblige she first publicly evinced way back on October 14, 1940.

Better days will return.

Wishing one and all a chag samayach, and a meaningful Easter and Pentecost. May they bring hope to one and all.

Stay Well, Stay Safe,  Stay Humble, Stay Kind and above all . . . Stay Home.

Copyright©2020, Kurt F. Stone

The Psychology and Politics of Unfriending

As of 7:00 a.m. today, I have precisely 701 Facebook “friends.” For reasons largely unknown (perhaps the relative boredom of isolation), I decided to cull through this list and see how many of the 701 I could identify. I’m happy to report that easily more than half were known to me; a mixture of family, old school-mates, fellow “Hollywood Brats,” political people, students and colleagues from various universities, former synagogue youth group/summer camp chaverim (Hebrew for “friends”) and former and current congregants. Then too, there were literally dozens whom I had virtually no idea of who, how and why they were on my friends list, and more than a handful of people who were no longer alive . . . although their Facebook pages were still “idly active.” All this took somewhat a bit less than 2 hours. 

After (sadly) deleting the deceased, I started looking over the pages of people I couldn’t for the  life of me identify.  That’s when it dawned on me that if I checked  out who was on their friends list that might explain our “relationship.”  In many cases, it was but a single  individual we had  in common.  One such person - a writer who had one of my politics students on her list - had just posed a message stating, in part, “It's after midnight Sunday night, and I can't begin to think about getting to sleep. Listening to the things Trump said today has made that impossible. I know I have a number of "friends" on FB who support this man, and I have come to the end of my tolerance for you. Tonight I am unfriending all of you—and I don't care if we have been friends for decades or if we are related by marriage or blood. . . .You are no longer my friends or relations, on Facebook or in real life. Don't contact me to defend your position; I never, ever want to hear from you again. Goodbye.”

To be perfectly honest (unlike the POTUS), I’m not sure whether I agree or disagree with this Facebook friend. To unfriend or not to unfriend: that is the question. On the one hand, I really, truly hate the nausea and bile that well up every time I read the words of praise these otherwise intelligent, successful people heap upon their miscreant-in-chief.  But who ever said that just because a person is successful it follows that they understand thing one about civics, civility or sanity? Ridding oneself of the bile is as simple as pressing the “unfriend” button . . . one, two, three and voila!  They and their noxious nostrums have evaporated into the political putrescence. But it comes at a price: knowing that they are forever gone from my life.   On the other hand, there is a part of me that truly wants to believe that to unfriend those who are intolerably smug and small is to make me far less a mentsch - a decent human being - than I could cope with. But then I remember that quote from Winston Churchill: “Never give in, never, never, never–never, in nothing, great or small, large or petty–never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.”

This week’s essay is the 874th I’ve posted since February 2005 back when this blog was called “Beating the Bushes.". In all these years, I’ve received thousands upon thousands of comments . . . most praiseworthy, many thoughtful, and more than I care to remember nasty and vile. Since many are sent to one of my many email addresses, I have the ability to pre-screen and send the writers of vile drek directly into the various spam files. I must admit that every once in a while I do read what these folks write. Some are so strident as to be a stitch; others are threatening, horribly misspelled, and make me proud to have come from a bright, well-educated family. With Facebook it’s a bit different. If you want to keep the rest of your little world from seeing just how nuts and politically poisoned people can be, you first must unfriend them. But then I think: what do I care if the rest of my readers think they’re village idiots? That’s their - e.g. the village idiots - problem!

While I can certainly applaud my anonymous Facebook friend’s decision to unfriend all those who persist in being aggressively, aggravatingly pro-Trump – despite all the lies, the inability to accept the input of those far, far better versed than he, and that otherworldly egomania - I myself cannot push these folks overboard. Of course, I don’t have to read their screeds.    Sooner or later they will suffer loss, and may well come to grasp that there are more things under heaven and earth than can ever be blamed on Obama and Clinton, Pelosi, Biden, George Soros or even Dr. Fauci.

In the long run, unfriending those who annoyingly, flippantly oppose one’s political point of view and hate you for not loving Trump and all he stands for (and against) will, it seems to me, do next to nothing.  On the other hand, supporting those who agree can at least let you know that there are more sane people in the world than you ever dreamed of. Instead of grousing get cracking; there are candidates to support and elections to be won. There’s a country and a world to be saved . . .

“Never give in, never, never, never–never, in nothing, great or small, large or petty–never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.”

219 days until the next election.

Be well, read books and watch movies, be extra nice to those you are quarantined with and WASH YOUR HANDS!

Copyright ©, 2020, Kurt F. Stone

Who in the Hell Are the "They" That "Say?"

Over the past quarter century I’ve spent the lion’s share of my most rewarding time not as a rabbi, nor as a professor or a writer in the fields of politics, history, and old Hollywood. Rather, my most productive and rewarding time has been the tens of dozens of hours I spent each month as a member of an ‘Institutional Review Board'; a medical panel in which physicians, pharmacologists, geneticists, bio-engineers, and medically knowledgeable lay people delve into the newest, most up-to-date clinical trials (medical research) with an eye towards protecting the rights of men, women and children who might eventually volunteer to participate in the creation of the next generation of drugs, surgical procedures and medical devices. Believe me: of all the things I do in a given day, week, month or year, being part of a world-class Institutional Review Board is, hands-down, the most satisfying of all. And now, at the very beginning of the Covin-19 Virus pandemic, we are sitting in the very first row, privy to what’s going on before just about anybody else.

Participating in twice-weekly teleconferences with a handful of galaxy-class physicians and medical experts - all backed by several dozen off-screen staff experts, is bound to give a lay person like myself a feeling of utter humility.  And now, having been assigned oversight of nearly all the Covin-19 Virus clinical trials we recognize just how little we know.  It never ceases to amaze me how much my colleagues know and  understand the boundaries of their brilliance; a neurosurgeon, gastropod, OB-GYN, rheumatologist, or cardiologist, to name but 5, won’t deign to answer questions about the efficacy of a particular Covin-19 vaccine . . . and  will instead defer to any and all infectious disease specialists on the board.  “That’s not my specialty,” we will hear time and again.  Such utter humility!  Oh yes, they will weigh in on the latest possible medications -  chloroquine phosphate and hydroxychloroquine - if they happen to specialize in rheumatology - for they are accustomed to prescribing it for people suffering from such immunosuppressive conditions as Lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.  But aside from that, they prefer to sit back and listen to those who truly know what they are talking about.

(n.b.; ever since the POTUS has started talking about what “they say” as to the possible efficacy of using chloroquine, it has become increasingly difficult for those suffering from Lupus or Rheumatoid Arthritis to get the medications they truly need for their conditions.  And all the POTUS has to go on is the “they say”  “proof” about its efficacy vis-à-vis Covin-19.  Without question, the president’s embrace of unproven drugs to treat Coronavirus absolutely defies science. I for one cannot imagine what Dr. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases must feel like at the end of a Trump press conference, for virtually everything his boss says goes against both science and medicine. The good doctor no doubt deserves an Oscar for keeping a straight face while listening to POTUS endlessly and inanely bloviate about things he knows not . . . which covers a vast sea of topics and issues. We keep hearing the phrase “. . . they say that . . .” which means next to nothing.  I know that when I speak to people who are aware of my work as a medical ethicist I keep hearing “They say that,” to which I always begin my answer with “ . . . and who in the Hell are ‘they’ who ‘say’”?  Frequently I am told that “medical” and “ethics” are an oxymoron.  Does that mean that whatsoever the POTUS says is the G-d’s honest truth?  Well, I’m here to tell you that next to nothing coming from his lips is the truth, and that “medical” and “ethics” are, for the most part, as congruent as peanut butter and jelly. 

At this point in time, things are pretty damned bleak.  The further we go, the more Donald Trump seems like the reincarnation of Robert Penn Warren’s fictional Willie Stark (All the King’s Men), a mercurial know-nothing who goes from fiery man-of-the-people populist to autocrat within a single term as governor of an unidentified fictional state.  In Penn Warren’s Pulitzer-Prize (and Academy Award-winning) novel and film, Willie becomes the hero of the common-folk,  one who is incapable of doing anything wrong.  While convincing the little people that he is their hero, he is really doing whatever he can to feather his own nest.  But in an incredibly meaningful epigraph to the 1946 novel, Penn Warren quotes Dante’s The Divine Comedy (Purgatoria, canto III) “Mentre che la speranza ha fior del verde. . . loosely translated “. . . as long as hope has any touch of green . . .” What this epigraph means in terms of Dante’s voyage through Hell, All the King’s Men and the vile Willie Stark is several steps above my pay grade.  What it may mean in terms of the Covid-19 pandemic, economic crisis and the “They say” syndrome may be a bit more understandable.

“ . . . as long as hope has any touch of green . . . “ may, in the long run, refer to the acts humanity, compassion, and thoughtfulness we see and experience in the midst of this epochal crisis . . . of which there are many. While the media (both mainstream and downstream) endlessly report on the inability of the White House, the Feds and our so-called national leaders to put science, medicine and other forms of expertise ahead of the politics of blame, cupidity and outright criminality, there are so many everyday people, institutions, businesses, philanthropists and local leaders whose deeds are being lost in the shuffle. Where many look at the Covid-19 cataclysm as a means for making a fortune - whether political or economic - for feeding one’s ego or feathering one’s nest, there are others who - like doctors, nurses, emergency medical technicians, home healthcare workers, grocery store employees, postal workers and spiritual leaders - who are putting their lives on the line in order to provide that “touch of green” we so desperately need.  The other day, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo held a press conference, announcing that he was officially shutting New York State down in order to safeguard the healthcare system from being overrun and overloaded.  Unlike the POTUS, who held his daily “presser” just as the governor’s was ending, Cuomo offered people of his state - and across the country - that touch of green  - that someone is in charge . . . even if the news is bad and getting worse. And Cuomo is not alone; all across the country there are governors and mayors, city council members and teachers who are providing moral and civic uplift by acting with the calm reassuring strength of leadership.

He ended his nearly 1 hour press conference by saying: “And my last point is: practice humanity. We don't talk about practicing humanity, but now if ever there was a time to practice humanity that time is now. Show some kindness, show some compassion to people, show some gentility even as a New Yorker. Yes, we can be tough. Yes, this is a dense environment. It can be a difficult environment. But it can also be the most supportive, courageous community that you have ever seen.”  Then the governor stood up and said “I’m gonna go to work.”  Nowhere in his speech did he take credit, claim knowledge he does not possess, or badmouth reporters whose questions he did not particularly like.  In other words, he spoke as a leader should.

“They” say this and that about Covid-19.  Please, don’t pass on “facts” that come from “factless” amateurs.  We will, together, pull through this catastrophe if only we pay attention to those who have dedicated their professional lives to knowing as much as there is to know about things most know nothing about . . . and then taking them seriously.  For these are the only “They” who have the ability to “say.”

They are the “touch of green” who will ultimately provide both hope and health.

Copyright, © 2020 Kurt F. Stone

ByeDon

Prior to last Tuesday’s “Who woulda thunk it?” turnaround for former Vice President Joe Biden, his presidential campaign was on life support. He woke up that morning facing an all but certain end to a national political career which had begun way back in 1972 when he defeated two-term Senator J. Caleb Boggs (R-DE) by the razor-thin margin of 3,162 votes. Within 24 hours, Biden - whose campaign had next to no money, little organizational depth and virtually no “ground game,” had inexplicably won 10 of 14 primaries and was, like Bill Clinton in 1992, the “Comeback Kid.” Actually, comebacks are and were nothing new to Joseph Biden. With less than 3 months to go in his initial, 1972 senate race, Biden was trailing the well-funded Boggs by nearly 30 points. But Biden’s energy level, his attractive young family (2 of whom would tragically die in a traffic accident shortly before he could take the oath of office), and his ability to connect with voters' emotions, gave the 29-year old the victory. Thus, was a historic political career born.

Fast forward to the beginning of last week’s “Super Tuesday.”  Biden, who had initially been the front-runner saw the field expand and expand until the point where he had sunk down to the level of “also-ran.”  Lacking the fund-raising machine of a Sanders or Warren, the youth  and energy of a  Buttigieg, the rhetorical muscle of a Harris, Booker or Klobuchar, or personal wealth of a Steyer or  Bloomberg, Biden came across as an old, creaky member of the Democratic establishment. He began sinking in the polls.  Increasingly, it looked like the Democratic nomination would belong to anyone but Biden.

And then came South Carolina . . . the state Biden and his threadbare staff knew stood between resuscitation and retirement.  Enter Representative Jim Clyburn, the House Majority Whip and without question, the most powerful, most universally respected  politician in the Palmetto State.  Just days before Super Tuesday, Clyburn endorsed Vice President Biden; Senator Sanders never called nor sought Clyburn’s imprimatur.  Biden went on to manhandle the Vermont Senator in South Carolina with its huge African American voting bloc.  This victory provided the Biden campaign with all the political muscle it needed to resurrect his campaign and go back to the top of the presidential heap.

How did this happen?  Was it something the former Vice President did right or something the Vermont Senator did wrong?  Actually, it was a bit of both. Looking at Sanders’ exit polling one notes that he received far fewer votes in 2020 than he did in 2016.  Out of the 14 states in play on Super Tuesday, he only received more votes in 2 states this time around than in 2016: Texas and Tennessee. (He even received 35,000 fewer votes in his home state. Most notably, he had far fewer young voters casting ballots for him this time around. It would seem that the fatal flaw in the Sanders campaign was that they were unable to expand their base; his “revolution” had fizzled. His campaign staff long believed that all they needed to do was capture 30% of the delegates going into the convention, then demand the nomination. Thus, they built a campaign that demanded little of Sanders: no change in message, no effort to broaden the coalition. Like his utter lack of interest in legislating, his campaign had zero interest in building actual majority support. 

In the case of Joe Biden, his best selling point was the man currently occupying the Oval Office. Trump’s utter lack of civility, truthfulness, worldly knowledge and programmatic chops - except undoing anything and everything enacted by the Obama administration - made Democrats think long and hard about who stood the best chance of defeating the man in the MAGA cap - as well as holding the House, recapturing the Senate and giving an able assist to down-ballot Democrats around the country. Add to this the provable fact that the former Vice President has a long history of enacting legislation, as well as possessing a dignified mien and knowing far more about the world and foreign affairs than ‘45 (and comes equipped with a Rolodex which is second-to-none) and one can easily understand why all the political stars are quickly aligning. 

It has long been well known that Joe Biden is the one challenger who gives ‘45 the greatest number of sleepless nights.  Were Sanders to become the Democratic candidate, all Boss Tweet would have to do is say the words “Socialist” and “Communist” a couple of hundred thousand times until his base would man the barricades.  By terms of this scenario, Bernie Sanders could easily become the 21st century equivalent of George McGovern.  With Biden however, the president would find his campaign strategy in need of a major retrofit. Consider the following:

• Were Trump to bring up the issue of Hunter Biden (which had so much to do with ‘45’s impeachment), all the former Veep would have to do is utter the names “Eric Trump,” “Donald Trump Jr.,” and “Ivanka, and Jared Kushner.” He could then ask how Hunter’s $50,000 a month from Burisma compares with Ivanka and Jared’s reported $135 million in 2019 alone?  Can you spell “hyper- nepotism?”

• Were the president to revisit a September 1987 Biden speech in which the then-Senator (and potential presidential candidate) was discovered to have lifted phrases and mannerisms from a fiery British Labour Party politician (Neil Kinnock) at the end of a debate, all the Vice President would have to do is begin counting off the Trump lies . . . beginning with his first day in office. Trump would likely counter with the charge that he never lies . . . it’s all the fault of “fake news.”

• At some point, POTUS will no doubt bring up the fact that VOTUS originally supported the war in Iraq, while businessman Trump was always steadfastly against it. This is a flat-out lie; as early as September 11, 2002 (six months before the American invasion of Iraq), Trump told radio shock jock Howard Stern “Yeah, I guess I would favor it [invading Iraq] . . .  You know, I wish the first time it was done correctly.

• Were Trump to attack Biden for being too old and use as proof some of his rhetorical gaffs, the Veep would have the ability to run more than 24-hours worth of YouTube captures of ‘45’s misstatements, mispronunciations and overly repetitive redundancies.

• Look for ‘45 to tie Joe Biden ever tighter to Barack Obama over such issues as NAFTA, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), being anti-Israel, supporting the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (“JCPOA” - the Iranian nuclear deal) and being a supporter of the Paris Agreement (which 196 countries and the European Union have signed). In just about every case, ‘45 has argued that Biden’s positions indicate beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is a thoroughgoing socialist and cares not a whit about jobs for Americans. Unbeknownst to Boss Tweet, being tied to Obama is actually a pretty good thing: the 44th POTUS has ranked as the most admired man in America for the past 12 years . . .

For most of his presidency, Donald Trump has referred to V.P, Biden as “Sleepy Joe.” Events of the past two weeks show that Biden is anything but fatigued. He is gaining strength, endorsements and popularity. By the same token, the POTUS is likely beginning to be afflicted by nausea, insomnia and what might be diagnosed as “Nero-itis” . . . the urge to fiddle while his kingdom burns. Let him continue with his “Make America Great Again slogan, while Joe Biden and his campaign give serious consideration to making their’s

                                                                                                 BYEDON 2020

240 days let until the presidential election.

Be careful, be healthy and WASH YOUR HANDS!

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

Can a Pandemic Bring Down a Presidency?

Seemingly, there is an axiom within the pages of human history that any major catastrophic event must be birthed along with its own malevolent twin: a conspiracy theory. The truth of this axiom can be seen most clearly when it comes to pandemics. Consider, if you will, the “Black Death” (bubonic plague) which killed nearly 20 million people - more than one-third of Europe - in the mid 14th century. The disease was terrifyingly contagious; the Italian Renaissance poet Giovanni Boccaccio (best known for The Decameron) wrote that “the mere touching of the clothes appeared to itself to communicate the malady to the toucher.” The disease was also terrifyingly efficient: People who were perfectly healthy when they went to bed at night could be dead by morning.

Understandably, religious fervor, fanaticism and conspiracy theories bloomed and abounded in the wake of the Black Death. One of the best-known of the latter involved the scapegoating of the Jews of Europe, who it was said caused the Black Death by poisoning the water wells (which they confessed to under torture). While it is true that Jews apparently did suffer far fewer deaths, it is likely due to the fact that Jewish villages and communities had their own water wells and practiced better hygiene than their non-Jewish neighbors. (Jewish law commanded Jews to wash their hands before eating; Jewish custom had Jews bathe at least once a week.) Nonetheless, this conspiracy theory - this malevolent twin - led to massacres and cremations of Jews in Flanders, Aragon, Mainz, Cologne and Strasbourg.

Then there was the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-1919 - the tail end of what was then called “The Great War” (WWI) and the first year after the Armistice. This contagion infected more than a third of the world’s population and killed more than 100 million people. r

Rumour and misinformation were rife. The pathogen responsible for Spanish flu remained a mystery and, with little helpful guidance available from the medical community, the world was ripe for the proliferation of ‘fake news.” Conspiracy theories abounded and blamed the pandemic on the war – often, unsurprisingly, on the enemy. In Rio de Janeiro, one newspaper reported that the pandemic had been purposely spread around the world by German submarines, with innocent people “falling victim to the Germans’ treacherous bacteriological creation”. Artist Jordan Baseman, in researching the pandemic for a piece which ran on “Radio Influenza" found “The flu was blamed on foreigners (anywhere in the world, not just the UK), on Jewish people, on dancing, on jazz music, on the bombing of the soil as a result of the war, and on pretty much anything else you could think of.”

Although we have yet to come across anyone charging “enemies of the people” with purposely cooking up COVID-19 for god-knows-what mendacious purposes, we are witnessing enough conspiracy-mongering, dystopian theorizing, and outright lunacy to make invalids of us all. ‘45’s response to the approaching pandemic has been medically infantile, intellectually sterile and politically puerile. His main concern has been not to reassure both America and the world that we are doing everything within our scientific power to meet this problem head-on, but to kvetch and complain that his enemies - Democrats and the “lame-stream” media come to mind - are doing everything in their power to make sure he is not reelected. He is blaming us/them of endlessly reporting on the progress of COVID-19 in order to cause the thunderous collapse of the Dow Jones, which in turn will no doubt make his chances of reelection more dubious. As always, he is looking at the world through the eyes of a deranged narcissist.

Since his inauguration, D. Trump has cut funding for both the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and National Institutes for Health (NIH), as well as getting rid of virtually any and everyone who has experience dealing with pandemics. This should come as no surprise: no president has ever been so anti-science, while proclaiming himself to be the most scientifically knowledgeable of all presidents. While millions wonder whether it is best to wear surgical masks, the POTUS wears his mask over his eyes.

At his press conference last week, the president held forth on the difference between flu and COVID-19, predicted that with the coming spring and summer the higher temperatures would destroy the virus, and slammed the top-ranking Senate Democrat who said ‘45’s $2.5 billion request from Congress to fight the deadly virus is insufficient. In a later tweet, the POTUS wrote "Cryin' Chuck Schumer is complaining, for publicity purposes only, that I should be asking for more money than $2.5 Billion to prepare for Coronavirus. If I asked for more he would say it is too much. He didn’t like my early travel closings. I was right. He is incompetent!," Trump added.

As the impact of coronavirus continues to be reported, concerns are arising that it is driving xenophobic attacks toward people of Asian descent. Conspiracy theories and agenda-driven narratives are popping  up all over the internet and throughout right-wing media, adding more panic and confusion to an already chaotic situation. The virus has also triggered anti-Semitic sentiments, medical and scientific disinformation, and fear mongering from the religious right about the end of the world. The  president and his allies in the media have also absurdly argued that Democrats and the media are politicizing coronavirus for their own gain to make him look bad and cause panic in the stock market.

Right-wing media outlets and online accounts are spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories which could have deadly consequences. Many in the right-wing media are placing blame squarely on the back of the Chinese government: On the same day as ‘45’s press conference, Fox Business host Lou Dobbs claimed, “we don’t know yet whether or not this [e.g. COVID-19] was an engineered virus” and said that there is “a research lab some 300 yards from the epicenter of this outbreak.”  Rush Limbaugh falsely claimed that the virus is "an effort to get Trump" and was no worse than "the common cold." On Friday, Vice President Mike Pence (who the POTUS appointed to be his eyes and ears vis-a-vis COVID-19) stopped by Limbaugh's studio to talk about the response. Limbaugh did not bring up his conspiracy theories, though the VEEP did promise that the virus would not spread within the country (less than 24 hours later reports would indicate that the virus spread on the west coast and that an American in Washington State had died). [n.b. Since I started writing this essay less than 24 hours ago, a second death has been reported in Washington State.]

As COVID-19 continues to spread - which inevitably and regrettably it shall - the White House. its residential householder and the political party he leads, are going to feel and hear more and more disapprobation from the American public. They will hear the complaints of people who are feeling unwell yet cannot take a day or two off work or school; they are going to be hounded by all the men, women and children who cannot afford to get medical checkups either because they have no health insurance or when they go to the local E.R. find they can’t even find a parking space . . . let alone an available M.D., P.A., R.N. or N.P. They are going to be feeling the wrath of millions upon millions of wage earners whose I.R.A.s are dwindling precipitously to near nothing; they are likely hear the increasing drumbeats of fear and perhaps finally come to realize that they haven’t the slightest idea what to do.

Can a pandemic bring down a presidency? I don’t know; my crystal ball has yet to come back from the dry cleaner. What I do know is that I would greatly prefer to live in a country whose president is sane enough to know what he does not know, and wise enough to seek the counsel of those who do.

A little bit of knowledge goes a long way.

Be well, and stay away from myths!

247 days until the presidential election.

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

Can Hate Ever Be Conquered?

April 12, 1945: Generals Eisenhower, Patton and Bradley at Ohrdruf

On April 4, 1945, soldiers of the 4th Armored Division entered and liberated Ohrdruf, a subcamp of the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp. What they discovered was far worse than anything from Dante’s Inferno: piles of bodies, some covered with lime, and others partially incinerated on pyres. The ghastly nature of their discovery led General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, to visit the camp on April 12, with Generals George S. Patton and Omar Bradley. After his visit, Eisenhower cabled General George C. Marshall, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington, describing his trip to Ohrdruf: the things I saw beggar description. … The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick ... . I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to “propaganda.” (Today, Eisenhower’s words are etched on a plaque which hands outside the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.)

Eisenhower also ordered every soldier who had a camera to snap as many photographs as possible, as a way to begin documenting the horror they found. Further, on April 19, 1945, Eisenhower again cabled General Marshall with a request to bring members of Congress and journalists to the newly liberated camps so that they could convey the horrible truth about Nazi atrocities to the American public. Within days, congressional representatives, senators and journalists began arriving to bear witness to Nazi crimes in the camps. The discovery of the Ohrdruf camp, and the subsequent liberation of  Dora-Mittelbau (April 11), Flossenbürg (April 23), Dachau (April 29), and Mauthausen (May 5) opened the eyes of many US soldiers and the American public to the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

Without question, the Holocaust was - and is - the most thoroughly documented act of mass murder - the product of irrational hatred - in all human history.  And yet, despite the tens of millions of photos and films, the hundreds of thousands of soldiers and survivors who provided eye-witness testimony and all the German citizens and soldiers that Eisenhower forced to see what had been done in their name - there are those who believe with all their hearts (and to this very day) that the Holocaust never happened . . . that it was all a heinous fabrication on the part of the very people who claimed that they were its victims.

Indeed, Anti-Semitism - the irrational hatred of Jews - seems to be of greater antiquity than the religion or people themselves. It has forced more than one wit to wonder what came first: Jews or Anti-Semites. There are times one satirically wonders if G-d, in Co’s (my pronoun which is gender infinite) divine wisdom had not created the Jews, then the devil would have in order to have an eternal object of hatred and obloquy. Certainly groundless hatred is as old as the world itself. Witness the Biblical enmity between Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, as well as Jacob and Esau. Over several millennia, these hatreds expanded to the point where any people or group who was seen as being different - possessing “otherness” - became the object of scorn and derision as well as the source and cause of whatever was wrong or incomprehensible. Got a plague spreading across your continent? Blame the Jews for poisoning all the water wells. Suffering from a devastating economic downturn? Blame and punish the immigrants for stealing jobs and creating crime, or what today we refer to as the LGBTQ community for forcing the hand of the Lord and inflicting us with Divine wrath because of their “immoral” lifestyle. Suffer a devastating surprise attack by foreign fanatics? Turn every member of that group - whether be members of a particular country, culture or religion - into a collective, conspiratorial force of ultimate evil.

Read between the lines; you get the point.

We all know that hate crimes, incidences of violence against Jews, Muslims, African Americans, Hispanics and members of the LGBTQ community are at an all-time high.  Groups which track these events and the groups behind them - such as the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center - provide chilling statistical evidence of this rise.  It’s gotten to the point that just as soon as one act of lethal hate-provoked violence becomes front page, top-of-the-hour news, another comes along to replace it.  This past Wednesday, a lone gunman mowed down 9 people at 2 different shisha (hookah) bars in Hanau, Germany. The suspect and his mother were later found dead of gunshot wounds in his apartment. This is the 3rd mass killing in Germany so far this year. Attacks have likewise taken the lives of Jews, Muslim immigrants and members of the LGBTQ community in the United States, England, France, Italy and other countries since the beginning of 2020.

Responses to these murderous attacks include public vigils with plenty of prayers, placards and flowers, calls for new gun legislation (especially in the United States), finger-pointing . . . attempts at ascertaining just what or whom is most likely responsible for the startling upsurge in violence, hatred and intolerance. And while pointing a fist and finger at a president, prime minister, political party or economic inequality are all understandable, they are largely of the “full of sound and fury signifying nothing” variety. Attempting to assign blame - social networking sites and the “dark web,” too many guns which are too easily obtained, a serious lack of education, etc., does little more than permit people to vent, which is not altogether a bad thing,  However, to attempt to understand and ameliorate that which is inherently incomprehensible solves nothing. Trying to change the mind of a bigot, racist, homophobe, Islamophobe or Anti-Semite by providing facts, statistics or slices of history is next to useless. It is akin to banging one’s head against the wall which, so far as I know, produces little save concussions and cracked skulls.  The bigot, the racist, the homphobe and other such such cretinous blots on society all suffer from a disease called certitude, which as Mr. Justice Holmes noted long ago in a 1897 Harvard Law Review essay, “generally is illusion . . . is not certainty. We have [all] been cocksure of many things that never were . . .”  

Having expressed quite a bit of negativity, is there, in truth, anything which we - who are neither inherently bigoted, systemically violent nor willfully ignorant - can do to help stem the tide of hatred? Without slipping into the netherworld of idealistic innocence, there are a few suggestions to be made:

1. Always keep close at hand the names, phone numbers and email addresses of those organizations and/or individuals to whom we must report acts or threats of hatred. Shining a bright light upon the merchants of mendacity can have a sanitizing effect.

2. Be in constant contact with your elected officials . . . we must all be their eyes and ears.

3. Make sure to work and vote for those who share your worldview, your humanity and your outrage. Do not, under any circumstances decide to stay home and not vote because you don’t think it will make a difference.

4. Attend marches, vigils and meetings; if nothing else, to meet and get to know like-minded individuals.

5. Never give up.

When my sister Erica and I were toddlers, our Grannie Annie used to read us poems at bedtime.  One of the most memorable was Keep ‘a Going by the American poet Frank Lebby Stanton (1857-1927), which said in part:

If you strike a thorn or rose,
Keep a-goin'!
If it hails or if it snows,
Keep a-goin'!
'Taint no use to sit an' whine
When the fish ain't on your line;
Bait your hook an' keep a-tryin'--
Keep a-goin'!

So, is it possible for hatred to ever be conquered?  Don’t know for sure.  But one thing I do know was taught to us by our beloved grandma:

KEEP -A-GOIN’!

255 days until the Presidential election.

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

President's Day 2020

This is Presidents’ Day weekend.  Originally, it commemorated the birthday of George Washington. Washington's Birthday was first celebrated as a holiday in the District of Columbia in 1880. Five years later, It was made a federal holiday. The holiday was originally held on the anniversary of George Washington's birth, February 22. In 1971, this holiday was moved to the third Monday in February.  As the years have progressed, Abraham Lincoln, the nation’s 16th POTUS, has been added to the commemoration.  And  by extension, it has become a remembrance of all 45 of our Chief Executives . . . for better or for worse.

For many, President’s (or “Presidents’”) Day has become little more than a day off from school, bank closures, no mail delivery, and tons of Presidents’ Day Sales.  Commerce has largely overtaken celebration or commemoration.  I for one find the sales irrelevant; shopping is far, far down on my list of things to do in honor and memory of our leaders.  Taken as a group, the 45 men who have served are a fascinating mélange, ranging from breathtakingly brilliant and accomplished to dull-as-dishwater dimwits.  In the main, Americans have elected mostly memorable men to fill the top spot.  Indeed, each one - whether famous, infamous or somewhere in between, is known to history by at least one nickname:

1. George Washington: “The Father of His Country”

2. John Adams: “His Rotundity” and “Old Sink and Swim”

3. Thomas Jefferson: “The Sage of Monticello"“

4. James Madison: “Little Jemmy” and “Father of the Constitution”

5. James Monroe: “The Last Cocked Hat”

6. John Quincy Adams “Old Man Eloquent”

7. Andrew Jackson: “Old Hickory,” “King Andrew,” and “Jackass”

8. Martin Van Buren: “Matty Van,” “Old Kinderhook” and “The Little Magician”

9. William Henry Harrison: “Tippecanoe” and “Old Mum”

10. John Tyler: “His Accidency”

11. James K. Polk: “Young Hickory”

12. Zachary Taylor: “Old Rough and Ready”

13. Millard Fillmore: “The American Louis Philippe”

14. Franklin Pierce: “Handsome Frank”

15. James Buchanan: “Old Buck,” and “Ten-Cent Jimmy”

16. Abraham Lincoln: “Honest Abe,” The Great Emancipator,” and “The Rail Splitter”

17. Andrew Johnson: “The Tennessee Tailor”

18. Ulysses S. Grant: “Unconditional Surrender Grant”

19. Rutherford B. Hayes: “His Fraudulency”

20. James B. Garfield: “Boatman Jim,” and “Preacher President”

21. Chester A. Arthur: “Chet,” and “The Dude President”

22. Grover Cleveland: “His Obstinacy,” and “Uncle Jumbo”

23. Benjamin Harrison: “The Human Iceberg”

24. Grover Cleveland: “His Obstinacy,” and “Uncle Jumbo”

25. William McKinley: “The Napoleon of Protection”

26. Theodore Roosevelt: “TR,” “The Trust Buster,” and “The Hero of San Juan Hill”

27. Wm. Howard Taft: “Big Chief,” and “Big Lub”

28. Woodrow Wilson: “The Schoolmaster”

29. Warren G. Harding: “Wobbly Warren”

30. Calvin Coolidge: “Cool Cal,” and “Silent Cal”

31. Herbert Hoover: “The Great Engineer,” and “The Great Humanitarian”

32. Franklin D. Roosevelt: “FDR,” “Sphinx”

33. Harry S. Truman: “Give ‘em Hell Harry”

34. Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Ike”

35. John F. Kennedy: “JFK,” “Jack”

36. Lyndon B. Johnson: “LBJ,” “Landslide Lyndon”

37. Richard M. Nixon: “Tricky Dick”

38. Gerald R. Ford: “Mr. Nice Guy”

39. Jimmy Carter: “Jimmy,” and “The Peanut Farmer”

40. Ronald Reagan: :The Gipper,” “Dutch,” and “The Teflon President”

41. George H.W. Bush: “Papa Bush” “Bush ‘41”

42. Bill Clinton: “Slick Willie,” “Bubba,” and “The Comeback Kid”

43. George W. Bush: “Dubya” “Bush ‘43”

44. Barack Obama: “No Drama Obama”

45. Donald Trump: “The Donald,” and “Snowflake-in-Chief”

Then too, on this Presidents’ Day weekend, in addition to boning up on their nicknames, it is important to remember some of their more memorable words and expressions. They range from the truly literate and memorable to the self-serving and incomprehensible. I have chosen quotes from a handful of our Chief Executives . . .

GEORGE WASHINGTON:

• “If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”

• “In politics as in philosophy, my tenets are few and simple. The leading one of which, and indeed that which embraces most others, is to be honest and just ourselves and to exact it from others, meddling as little as possible in their affairs where our own are not involved. If this maxim was generally adopted, wars would cease and our swords would soon be converted into reap hooks and our harvests be more peaceful, abundant, and happy.”

• “99% of failures come from people who make excuses.”

• “I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.”

• “Experience teaches us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession.”

• “I conceive a knowledge of books is the basis upon which other knowledge is to be built.”

THOMAS JEFFERSON:

• “Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.”

• “I cannot live without books.”

• “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”

• “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

• “When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.”

• “Too old to plant trees for my own gratification, I shall do it for my posterity.”

ABRAHAM LINCOLN:

• “Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.”

• “I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.”

• “He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help.”

• “I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.

• “We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.”

• “What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.”

THEODORE ROOSEVELT:

• “The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.”

• “No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it.”

• “When you're at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on.”

• “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”

• “No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care”

FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT:

• “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.”

• “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.”

• “Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.”

• “The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize.”

• “Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

• “Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.”

HARRY S. TRUMAN”

• “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”

• “Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.”

• “The buck stops here.”

• “Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.”

• “My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. To tell the truth, there's hardly a difference.”

• “Democrats work to help people who need help. That other party, they work for people who don't need help. That's all there is to it.”

DWIGHT DAVID EISENHOWER:

• “The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.”

• “A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”

• “Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history.”

JOHN F. KENNEDY:

• "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."

• "Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."

• “The supreme reality of our time is the vulnerability of this planet.”

BARACK OBAMA:

• “Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.”

• “There's not a liberal America and a conservative America - there's the United States of America.”

• “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”

•  “Americans still believe in an America where anything’s possible – they just don’t think their leaders do.” 

• “You can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time.” 

• “The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don't wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.”    

DONALD J. TRUMP:

• “I feel a lot of people listen to what I have to say.”

• “A lot of people don't like to win. They actually don't know how to win, and they don't like to win because down deep inside they don't want to win.”

• “The point is that you can't be too greedy.”

• “I know words. I have the best words.”    

Come November, we the people will either be looking ahead to the inauguration of the 46th POTUS or the 2nd inauguration of the 45th. Whatever the case that man (or woman) will be joining the most select club in the history of the United States. May that person bring to that office the leadership skills of a Washington or Eisenhower, the manifold interests of a Jefferson or a Theodore Roosevelt, the humility of a Lincoln or a Carter, the faithful idealism of a Wilson and the class of an FDR, JFK or Barack Obama.

And tomorrow, perhaps instead of shopping, spend a bit of time contemplating about where the country is going, and who can best lead us through some particularly stormy seas.

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

If You Can't Be With the One You Love . . .

Sam Adams (1722-1802)

We begin with a bit of prophecy from one of the nation’s Founder’s, Sam Adams. Writing to his soon-to-become former friend, James Warren (1726-1808), President of the Massachusetts Provincial congress, Samuel Adams (1722-1802) addressed the seminal importance of morality, civility and education to the cause of liberty: “No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and virtue is preserved. On the contrary, when people are universally ignorant, and debauched in their manners, they will sink under their own weight without the aid of foreign invaders.” Now, whether or not Sam was a brewer (likely an urban legend), he did know a thing or two — or three - about what best nourished liberty and democracy.

It goes without saying that Adams would have shuddered in shame at the current IMPOTUS and a goodly portion of American society for being bereft of both “knowledge and virtue,” while also being “debauched in manners.” And were he alive to witness the unfolding of the 2020 presidential election, he would likely need a steady supply of his eponymous ale in order to deal with his frustration and pain. Operating under the haze of a case of “Sam ‘76,” he would likely find it difficult - if not impossible - to find a candidate to back . . . just like we moderns. Each of the Democrats “still standing” have their die-hard supporters. Then too, polling from a host of different sources shows that at this point - just after the disastrous Iowa caucuses and less than 2 days before the New Hampshire primary - nothing is even remotely close to being “sewn up.” And for those of us waiting for our state primaries to finally arrive, it is a time to weigh all sorts of things . . . like what’s most important: supporting the candidate who best exemplifies our positions and ideology, or voting for the person we feel has the best chance of defeating IMPOTUS, holding the House and capturing the Senate?

To be certain, it’s not an easy call. But what’s even more than certain is that the decision we make - between idealism and reality - is likely the most important one we shall ever make. At this point in primary season, Democratic daggers are beginning to be unsheathed - to be used against fellow Democrats. Fortunately, they have yet to become long knives or spears. Historically, Democrats have never really mastered the art of swordsmanship - let alone the sort of bare-knuckle brawling we’ve come to expect from the other side.

At this point in presidential season, there are few certainties . . . save these:

1. IMPOTUS will be as vicious, deceitful and fright-inducing as any candidate in American history. For him, the nastier-than-hell means will more than justify his venal, authoritarian ends.

2. Unless Democrats can circle the wagons around one candidate who will not fall into the trap of continually responding to Republican viciousness, we will lose not only the election - but the future as well.

3. That no matter who the Democratic candidate shall be (perhaps save one), that individual will be repeatedly tarred with the brush of “extreme left-wing Socialism” - despite the fact that few really, truly know what Socialism is . . . and is not.

Desperate times (and these are desperate times) call not for desperate measures; they call for courageous, intelligent, thinking-out-of-the-box measures.

We began this essay with a quote from Sam Adams as a way of succinctly analyzing the extraordinary challenge before us. We now turn to Steven Stills, rock guitarist extraordinaire (Buffalo Springfield, CSNY, Manassas), and one of the best songwriters of the past half century, to lay out what that courageous, intelligent, thinking-out-of-the-box strategy well may entail. On his 1970 self-titled album, Stills - along with David Crosby, Graham Nash, Rita Coolidge and John Sebastian had a big hit with a song entitled Love the One You’re With. Within the body of this catchy 3:05 song, Stills et al sing:

If you're down and confused

And you don't remember who you're talking to
Concentration slip away
Because your baby is so far away

Well, there's a rose in a fisted glove
And the eagle flies with the dove
And if you can’t be with the one you love, honey
Love the one you’re with
Love the one you’re with

Stills, it should be said, in addition to being in the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame as both a solo artist and two different bands, has long been an activist in the Democratic Party. In 2000, he served as a member of the Democratic Party credentials committee from Florida during the Democratic National Convention, and was a delegate in previous years. And so, I find within Stills’ lyrics a most thoughtful - call it prophetic - statement. If we can’t be with the one we love - e.g. the candidate who best fulfills our ideological and programmatic wishes - perhaps we should love the one we’re with. In this case, it may well mean that we must think out-of-the-box, and support a candidate who stands with us on many issues, but - and this is a huge BUT - stands the best chance of carrying us to victory by defeating the autocrat-loving tyrant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

That person is Mayor Michael Bloomberg who, it may well turn out, was the real winner of the Iowa caucus. 

As early as 2016, Bloomberg said in a speech in Philadelphia that Trump was “.  . the wrong guy to be president. The way he treats people, the way he runs an organization, and the way he makes decisions is not good for this country.”  Of course, for Mayor Bloomberg to receive the Democratic nomination, it would take a “brokered convention,” which some claim is a relic of the past . . . when party professionals in “smoke-filled rooms” would decide whom to nominate. Back in those times, when there was no clear-cut nominee by the time of a national convention (this goes for both Democrats and Republicans) there might be 50, 75 100 ballots or more before the old pols stepped in and made the decision. Sometimes, the candidate they anointed went on to suffer a stunning defeat:

• The 1924 Democratic National Convention was hopelessly deadlocked—delegates and party officials were deeply divided on whether their platform should endorse Prohibition, and whether or not to condemn the Ku Klux Klan. After factions led by New York governor Al Smith and former Treasury Secretary William McAdoo deadlocked for a stunning 102 ballots, a compromise candidate—ambassador John W. Davis—was named the presidential nominee on ballot no. 103. (Davis ultimately lost in a landslide to incumbent Republican president Calvin Coolidge.)

• The last time a Republican convention opened without a nominee decided in the primaries was in 1976. In one of the few times in history where an incumbent president was challenged in his re-election bid, Gerald Ford had a tiny lead in the popular vote and delegate count over California governor Ronald Reagan. A delegate ballot had to take place, but on the first ballot, enough delegates switched to Ford’s camp to secure him the nomination. (He lost in the general election to Jimmy Carter.)

In order for brokered conventions to work several things must be in place:

• A candidate who does not have to be introduced to the convention; that person must already be well-known to the masses.

• A professional political broker to act as “convention campaign manager” for the candidate in question.

• A field of candidates that cannot satisfy a majority of convention delegates.

Of course, there are negatives associated with Bloomberg:

• Before registering as a Democrat, he was a registered Republican and then switched to registered Independent.

• In 2004, Bloomberg supported G.W. Bush (a capture of a C-Span clip is already up on the internet.)

• While Mayor of New York, he instituted the “Stop and Frisk” policy which enraged the black community and made him anathema to many liberals, progressives and defenders of civil liberties. (The policy was eventually ruled unconstitutional by Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin in 2013.)  Despite apologizing for the policy years later, many still hold it against him.  In the same breath, it should be remembered that unlike IMPOTUS, Bloomberg was a highly successful mayor; one who was reelected twice.  

• Instead of spending upwards of $1 billion on a presidential race, many urge him to instead contribute that amount to Democratic candidates around the country (he has).

• Over the years, Bloomberg has made some sexist comments.

• Bloomberg is Jewish . . . and the 14th wealthiest person on the planet . . . which plays into the stereotype of anti-Semites.  Not to worry: they wouldn’t be voting for him under any circumstances, so there’s likely no net negative here.

On the other side of the aisle, Bloomberg is perhaps the one man who can truly get under Trump’s very thin skin . . . especially when it comes to the issue of wealth. Bloomberg is a self-made man from a working-class Jewish family (his father was a bookkeeper for a dairy company). Bloomberg is worth an estimated $61 billion to Trump’s . . . whatever. The IMPOTUS is very, very insecure when it comes to his net worth and net indebtedness. Bloomberg knows how to pick that scab. The other day, when asked by a CBS reporter “Do you think people are interested in seeing two billionaires fight it out on Twitter?” Bloomberg, stared at the reporter, arched an eyebrow and responded, “Two billionaires? Who’s the second one?”

Where Trump could easily (if incorrectly) attack any potential Democratic presidential candidate as being a “left-wing Socialist” in thrall to the likes of Pelosi, Schiff and OAC, using the same rhetoric on Bloomberg would be asinine. He is a capitalist with compassion, who has been giving away his vast fortune for years, funding many, many projects and programs . . . most notably climate change and the elimination of assault weapons.

Unlike the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Bloomberg carries himself as a gentleman, and despite being 7 inches shorter than IMPOTUS (5’8” to Trump’s 6’3”) seems to be much taller. Were Trump to loom up behind him during a televised debate (as he famously did to Hillary Clinton), it is likely that the mayor could chase him back to his corner without raising his voice.

Although Bloomberg isn’t as progressive as some of the current crop of candidates, he does support a hefty new tax on the hyper wealthy, favors a Medicare-For-All program, is fervently pro-choice, is despised by the NRA, and does not run a “one man show.” He employs more than 20,000 people worldwide, reads voluminously, and knows how to take advice. And unlike ‘45, who carries enough personal baggage to fill the cargo holds of a fleet of 747s, Michael Bloomberg’s “dirty linen” can apparently be packed into a single overnight bag . . . with enough room left over for a Kindle, a change of shoes and a laptop.

And oh yes, did I mention that he would likely have the best chance of defeating Donald Trump? OK, there are going to be a lot of Democratic activists who are going to find fault with the mere thought of him being the party standard-bearer. But at what cost? Remember, the question is whether it is more important to support the candidate with whom we share the same ideals and programmatic wishes, or the one who stands the best chance of winning . . . and isn’t that far off the programmatic mark when all is said and done?

Stephen Stills was and is correct: “If you can’t be with the one you love, honey, love the one you’re with.”

I am going to support the “rose in the fisted glove.”

268 days until the Presidential election.

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone 

Is History History?

Among those who are reasonably well-educated, it is generally agreed upon that Herodotus (that’s him in the photo on the left) is “The Father of History.” Born and raised in Halicarnassus (modern-day Turkey), Herodotus (c. 484-425 B.C.E) is best known for his work The Histories, a straightforward account of the origins and execution of the Greco-Persian Wars, which lasted from 499 to 479 B.C.E. “Here is the account,” the work begins, “of the inquiry of Herodotus of Halicarnassus in order that the deeds of men not be erased by time, and that the great and miraculous works–both of the Greeks and the barbarians–not go unrecorded.”  Most of what we know about the Battle of Marathon is from Herodotus. “The Histories” also incorporated observations and stories, both factual and fictional, from Herodotus’ travels.

Ever since, the writing, editing and reading of history has been of extraordinary importance. Across the centuries and generations, the study of history has been of paramount importance. “'Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it” philosopher Georges Santayana. Speaking before the House of Commons, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill modified Santayana just a tad, changing it to “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.' Whichever is the true rendering, the truth remains; without knowing, understanding and caring about history, our mutual future is in dire jeopardy.

Over the past several weeks and days, national attention has been fixated on the United States Senate as to whether or not the Upper Chamber would vote to convict or acquit our impeached president of the United States (IMPOTUS), Donald J. Trump of abuse of power and contempt of Congress.  Among those Republicans in the political cross-hairs, none were more prominent than Senators Romney (UT), Murkowski (AK), Collins (ME) and Alexander (TN). All 4 had publicly spoken about their desire to subpoena witnesses for the senate trial. In the long-run, Senators Romney and Collins decided to vote in favor of subpoenaing witnesses like former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton, Acting Chief of Staff and Director of the Office of Management and Budget Nick Mulvaney. and Michael Duffey, a senior official in the Office of Management and Budget. Senator Romney evinced a level of moral courage seldom seen among members of the Republican caucus.  As can best be determined, Senator Susan Collins was given a pass by Majority Leader McConnell: not only was her vote unneeded; had she voted against subpoenaing witnesses, voters in Maine would likely have voted her out of office.  In the meantime, Senators Alexander and Murkowski changed their minds stating, in essence, that although the IMPOTUS was obviously guilty of the charges against him, they did not add up to impeachable offenses. So far as Tennessee Senator Alexander, who is retiring and thus not running for reelection, his rationale is, to my way of thinking nearly incomprehensible.  On his official website, he (or his staff) wrote:

I worked with other senators to make sure that we have the right to ask for more documents and witnesses, but there is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven and that does not meet the United States Constitution’s high bar for an impeachable offense. …The Constitution does not give the Senate the power to remove the president from office and ban him from this year’s ballot simply for actions that are inappropriate. 

“The question then is not whether the president did it, but whether the United States Senate or the American people should decide what to do about what he did. I believe that the Constitution provides that the people should make that decision in the presidential election that begins in Iowa on Monday. …Our founding documents provide for duly elected presidents who serve with ‘the consent of the governed,’ not at the pleasure of the United States Congress. Let the people decide.” 

Likewise, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski’s logic was more than a bit skewed: 

“Given the partisan nature of this impeachment from the very beginning and throughout. I have come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate. I don’t believe the continuation of this process will change anything. It is sad for me to admit that, as an institution, the Congress has failed.”

What Senators Alexander and Murkowski - along with a lot of other Republicans (and a few Democrats) - are going to wind up with is a tainted reputation - an acidic asterisk - for the rest of time for being elected leaders who, for whatever reason, decided that despite the IMPOTUS’s obvious guilt, were not going to vote to support hearing from a single witness against him. Imagine that: a trial of momentous import without a single witness! This makes virtually no sense. It seems that in the long run, Senators Alexander, Murkowski et al care not a whit about the judgment of history; they are far, far more concerned about what the president, his henchmen and supporters care about them today.

In other words: to hell with tomorrow.

History has become history . . .

In this essay’s second paragraph, we presented the nearly identical aphorisms of Santayana and Churchill about those who forget history being doomed to repeat it. Pretty chilling stuff. Well, in this instance - the senate’s 51-49 vote against subpoenaing witnesses - the man of the hour is neither as wise as the former nor as politically adroit as the latter. In this case the aphorist of note was a legendary industrialist and multi-billionaire (about $200 billion in today’s $$$) who also happened to be one of most the hateful bigots of all time: Henry Ford.  Unlike Santayana and Churchill, Ford believed with every fiber of his being that “History is bunk.”  In a widely-reported 1916 interview with a journalist from the Chicago Tribune, Ford told the writer, one Charles N. Wheeler:

"Say, what do I care about Napoleon? What do we care about what they did 500 or 1,000 years ago? I don't know whether Napoleon did or did not try to get across and I don't care. It means nothing to me. History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's dam is the history we make today."

(It should be noted that not only did Ford create the industrial assembly line and the world’s first affordable automobile, he also purchased a newspaper [The Dearborn Independent] in order to publish a multi-issue screed entitled The International Jew: The World’s Problem . . . which incorporated most, if not all of, history’s most vicious anti-Semitic tract: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.  To this very day, Ford remains a god to White Nationalists, neo-Nazis and conspiracy addicts of all stripes.)

It is more than depressing to imagine people who are supposedly of accomplishment and rank, people who are in a position to play a significant role on the stage of history, having so little - if any - concern whatsoever about their future place on that stage. I guess so long as they maintain their political positions, not draw the fury or ire of their “highly stable genius” and live out lives of comfort and recognition, that’s all that matters. I for one cannot understand how so many people whose lives are both guided and guarded by deeply-held religious scruples and theological concerns of eternal life, can at the same time be so lacking in curiosity - so uncaring - about their place in the annals of history. Does it not matter to them that history - if not G-d co-self (my term for “him/herself”) - will have the final judgement. Has it not dawned on them that in five, ten, fifty years and more, historians will have uncovered just how corrupt, self-serving and traitorous this administration has been from even before day one? That in large part, it was due to their spineless lack of moral courage, their robotic need to put partisanship above patriotism that led to America’s no longer being the world’s “last great hope?” If history will remember them at all, it will not likely be for their greatness . . . but for their turning their backs on both the people they were supposed to selflessly serve and on history itself.

Tell me: has history, like Herodotus, himself, become history?

274 days until the presidential election.

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone

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