A Butt for Mr. Heartbeat

Keeping up with news is like smoking cigarettes:

A handicap to some, recreation to others. A cause of nervousness, a way to unwind. An addiction for those who worry, a luxury for those who reflect. An annoyance to those nearby, or a pastime in good company.

Me? I rarely light up with the blow-torch Bics of page one, but with the kitchen-cranny Ohio Blues down at the bottom of page seven, or 37. For insight, it’s not what’s up front that counts.

That’s why all the front page and top-of-the-hour attention to our Reality TV president is all smokescreen. Breathe the news more deeply and you’ll choke on the environmental, occupational safety, food and drug protections, voting rights, and (just this past week) fair housing legislation that have been torched.

Unnoticed under the clouds of COVID and the election, it may well be that the Republican president’s foremost qualification for office may be the same as Bill Clinton’s: He never inhales.

For four years, lead stories have exhaled his foibles by the carton:

Cancer causing windmills, Finland raking forests, a Sharpie hurricane, a proposed water bomb to be dropped on a burning cathedral, Clorox down the hatch, UV lights up the butt, George Washington capturing LaGuardia, Logan, Dulles, JFK, LAX. Did he forget Cape Canaveral?

Last week we got “Person, woman, man, camera, TV” which prompted my friend in Fort Myers to yell, “Jesus, Mary, and Fred!” She didn’t need a phone.

Some of us laugh so hard at this that we can hardly distinguish the cellophane of page one from the ashtrays of editorial comment.

Except, of course, when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg takes a tumble or feels a pain in her side and lands on an operating table. Then we’re off to the emergency room, re-reading the Surgeon General’s warning, checking the insurance policy–which in America is no guarantee.

As I write this, a few live-ash journalists are speculating on page eight, or maybe 28, that he might bow out of the election rather than face a loss, using health as a pretext. One glowing theory holds that a resignation will install Mike Pence in the White House and provide a pretext for postponing the election.

Very doubtful, but it is worth noting that America has had a VP these last four years–and possibly for another four, and who could become president at any time–who was writing op-ed columns less than 20 years ago saying things like:

“Smoking doesn’t kill. In fact, two out of every three smokers does not die from a smoking related illness and nine out of ten smokers do not contract lung cancer.”

Yes, Mr. Heartbeat is also on record saying, “condoms are a very, very poor protection against sexually transmitted disease” and “Global warming is a myth. The global warming treaty is a disaster… a ‘chicken little’ attempt to raise taxes and grow centralized governmental power… the earth is actually cooler today than it was about 50 years ago.”

An odd record for someone put in charge of a national response to a pandemic, but that’s the front page stuff you hear everywhere, and it’s painfully (and now lethally) obvious that his only qualification is his willingness to begin his every pronouncement with: “Under the extraordinary, steady leadership of President Donald Trump…”

Somewhere between page nine and 39 last month, cigarettes wafted into the news when US tobacco companies became the beneficiary of yet more snuffed out restrictions on their trade in Asia. All of which gains the rubber stamp of Senate Republicans, most enthusiastically from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who represents Kentucky, the home of King Nicotine itself.

Thanks to the recessed filters of the Republican Party, it’s possible for a group calling itself “Right to Life” to approve or look the other way at such moves as they blow the smoke rings of “family values.”

As close to Heartbeat’s heart as Kentucky to Indiana, Right to Life was the lucky strike that put him on the pall mall course to become the VP candidate in 2016. The Republicans needed someone to reassure the evangelicals they were asking to overlook two divorces, hush money to call girls, open bragging of sexual conquest, glorification of sexual harassment, gratuitous vulgarity, open deceit, obscene smears–

I mean, Jesus, Mary, and Fred, they had to have something to hold up the camel’s back!

We in the press–Bic Flickers and Ohio Tippers alike–need to be more careful about these seeming jokes, the lunacy of 45, the absurdity of his slobbering, slavish, spineless, pathetic, pompous, pulseless, pusillanimous, limp, lame, grovelling, boot-licking, butt-wiping No. 2. These seeming foibles are diversions which we render successful every time because we fail to recognize the most cherished American freedom:

The right to be crude and stupid.

Though it’s no time to lighten up on COVID or the election at the top of the news, we do need to light up more attention to the pages from five to 55 where the real effects of our most debilitating national disease beg for treatment.

Election Day? Consider it Cold Turkey. Or else!

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I learned long ago that when you imply that some popular pastime or habit is in any way bad, readers want to know whether you partake in it or ever did. Here’s the story of how and why I quit smoking in 2007, turned into an analogy to the Democratic primaries in 2016:

https://www.newburyportnews.com/opinion/when-smoke-gets-in-our-eyes/article_c1f2574b-1af7-5b77-be35-5c875a478ab6.html

Nearly 40 years before writing that, I wrote this for oakwood, the literary magazine at South Dakota State University:

Camels and White Owls, my best of friends,

And though the Gods admit,

They have my lungs upon dead ends,

I know I shall not quit.

So with a butt between my lips,

Two smoke rings I shall blow,

One, a zero to the Gods,

The other is my halo.

Available at: https://10againclothing.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/licensing-for-t-shirts/

In February when Pence was put in charge of the tisk-task force, Newsweek ran an article that listed several more of his anti-science stands than I have used here:

https://www.newsweek.com/mike-pence-coronavirus-science-hiv-aids-smoking-evolution-climate-change-1489458

A Cool Rocking Daddy

Sitting in front of my Shoebox on Plum Island, I overlook the estuary toward the mainland, enjoying a daylong breeze. It’s high tide and late afternoon, on a summer Sunday no less, a combination that sends many boaters through the channel, not close enough to see who they are–not that I would know any–but enough to exchange a wave.

If I’m just sipping coffee or quaffing ale, or if I happen to look up from what I’m reading or ranting, I wave to the slow moving small craft, catching their attention about half the time. And I always wave to the 40-foot Yankee Clipper, a tour boat which I miss this summer, that leisurely floats by with up to 42 people out for a mouth-of-the-river-and-to-the-marsh-and-back-to-Newburyport-they-go sunset cruise. A few folks always return that one.

A few summers ago, I was on the Yankee Clipper when a friend won a cruise for herself and 39 guests. Lived here for 30 years and it was the first time I saw the Shoebox from the channel. I went racing around the deck, sat at various tables, and let everyone know:

“There’s my place! See that small blue spot to the right? That’s the chair I’d be sitting in right now! See that tiny white spot in front of it? That’s a cooler I use as a foot stool!” As if they weren’t already laughing at me enough, I finished this manic performance each time by waving at my own empty chair. Some waved with me.

No waving today, however, as all the boats, mostly small yachts, are racing past full-throttle or near it. Following the deafening roar of three gas-guzzling cigarette boats that raced by as I sat down, these motor boats, even the ones that bounce up and down in each other’s wake, are hardly noticeable.

Except for the one with the blaring radio or sound-system booming out “Born in the USA.”

At the time, I was back indoors preparing a salad for dinner, and, though I could have hastened for a look, let it pass, leaving me free to wonder:

Was it the Everglade that docked in Newburyport the other night with pro-Trump flags, one including the F-word, and a figurehead mannequin, a flimsily topped female with exaggerated nipples?

No, I didn’t see it in town either–haven’t been there, haven’t been anywhere but here–but the picture was posted on a local social media page, and the comments are, well, surprising when we consider that they have real names attached. It’s not like an anonymous wave between this seat and the next fishing boat, much less like the anonymous trolls on the sites of newspapers.

There were many, and many simply joked about it. The mannequin led all to believe that the owner is male–and to several splintering wisecracks. But my favorite was from a fellow who noted the boat’s Florida registration and questioned the need for a quarantine for a vessel visiting us from the land of Gov. DeathSantis.

Surprisingly, for every expression of offense, there was an expression of admiration. He’s living the American dream! He can do whatever he wants! He earned it! The implication being: Here’s proof that America is Number One! Here’s what we all should strive for!

At a time when American hospitals are bursting at the seams, when American cities are falling under federally imposed martial law, when millions of Americans suddenly are without income, and when schoolteachers in Iowa are writing their obituaries, leaving only the date blank–

At such a time, that is the kind of guy who would roar a 116-foot yacht through a salt-marsh to the blaring tune of “Born in the U.S.A.”

Anyone want to tell him–or tell the many Americans who dance with him–what the song is actually about?

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The Shoebox, late March, as viewed by Michael Boer facing northwest from the end of the driveway. For more photos from his 2006 visit, see https://www.flickr.com/photos/onewe/sets/72157629278698261/with/6859647469/

The Yankee Clipper in Newburyport Harbor, in about the same focus from which I see it at the distance of a Canadian football field, endzones included. For more on Yankee Clipper tours, including many photos: https://www.harbortours.com/

Lyrics to “Born in the U.S.A.”: https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/brucespringsteen/bornintheusa.html

Disneyland Gone Wild

If you want a good laugh, type congressional map images and then Ohio or Pennsylvania or North Carolina into a search engine, and be sure not to have your mouth full of food or drink when they appear on your screen.

No, you did not type “Jackson Pollack abstract expressionism” by mistake.

As much of a joke as it appears, it’s not one of those head-shakers at how stupid or drunk a rogue cartographer can be.

It’s all deliberate, calculated to carve Democratic districts shaped like babies’ drool and Republican districts like badly combobulated farm equipment as a way to insure that the state will elect more Republicans to the US House than Democrats–even as the Democratic candidates gain more votes statewide.

As David Daley reports in his just published Unrigged: How Americans Are Battling Back to Save Democracy, the Democratic and Republican candidates for the US House in 2012 split the popular vote 50/50 in six states–add Virginia, Wisconsin, and Michigan to the three named above–that nevertheless gave Republicans a 56-24 edge in their 80 contests.

Republicans will be quick to object with their knee-jerk whataboutism, and it’s true that Democrats are far from innocent. However, in both states that Republicans like to cite, Maryland and Massachusetts, all the seats in question were won by Democrats anyway, the gerrymander serving particular Democrats looking to preserve particular turf from upstart Democratic challengers. In Massachusetts, the offending districts were redrawn in 2010. (Regarding Maryland, see the link below).

In that same year, as if to capitalize on the Democrats’ correction, Republicans across the country instituted REDMAP, a campaign of “aggressive gerrymandering” in the states whose legislatures they controlled.

How aggressive? In Pennsylvania, one district was dubbed “Donald Duck Kicking Goofy,” and in North Carolina courts rejected Republican drawn maps as “monstrous” and “antidemocratic.”

Thanks to citizen initiatives, Penna now has a map that would not be confused with Disneyland Gone Wild. However, NC Republicans responded by passing one of the nation’s harshest voter-ID laws which a federal appeals court jinxed for “target[ing] African-Americans with almost surgical precision.”

These are samples of a dozen reports offered in Unrigged, something of a sequel to Daley’s 2016 as-confrontational-as-its-title Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count.

Good news is that it’s an optimistic sequel. As a new born breed of activists–from Maine to Arizona, from Idaho to Florida (always Florida)–kept telling Daley, the result of the 2016 presidential election shook them into action.

Accounts of voter registration include the reservations of North Dakota where Native Americans have never used street addresses–have never named streets–preferring to get their mail at the local post office. When Democrat Heidi Heitkamp won a US Senate seat in 2012, state Republicans looked for ways to suppress the Native American vote, so requiring street addresses was low hanging fruit. Though too late for Heitkamp’s re-election bid, that suppressive law was overturned in 2018. Ironically, but emphatically, the Republican state legislator who wrote the law was defeated and replaced by a Native American woman.

In Maine, Daley shares a delightful time with activists at their session in South Portland’s Foulmouthed Brew Pub where they sat folks down to flights of beer to demonstrate just how Ranked Choice Voting works. Maine’s alcohol industry no doubt increased in 2010 when Paul LePage, “a Tea Party bully with a posterior fixation, became governor in 2010, telling the NAACP to ‘kiss my butt’ and boasting that he’d ‘give it to people without Vaseline’.” He received just 37.6% of the vote in a five-way election, a travesty that would have been impossible with the built-in run-off of RCV (which is Question 2 on the Massachusetts Ballot this year).

In Idaho, Daley rode “the rickety ‘Medicaid Express,’ a literal vehicle for change” in the state’s resistance to federal funding under the Affordable Care Act. The 1977 Dodge Tiago RV was painted not red, not blue, but green. The words “Democrat” and “Republican” were left out of all discussion, which left more time for pure, clear, reliable mathematics to make the case. At the end of the year, Idaho–as well as Nebraska and Utah–adopted Medicaid for All with 61% of the vote.

Since it is a sequel to Ratf**ked, most of Unrigged‘s reports are about gerrymandering. In addition to a gallery of looney-tune maps–attached below, including D. Duck kicking Goofy into or out of Penna’s District 7–Daley describes political boundaries drawn right through the center of tight-knit communities and college campuses to split their vote and weaken their impact.

And others drawn parallel with little more than a road between them to connect two cities in a single overwhelmingly Democratic district while keeping the rural districts on either side safe for Republicans. How else to explain the baby-drool of Cleveland-Akron?

One villain in this is Chief Justice John Roberts who in 2013 penned the 5-4 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, overturning Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and punting the issue back to the very state legislatures that were doing the damage all along.

But there are plenty of heroes who are, as the book’s subtitle declares, “Battling Back to Save Democracy.” In addition to so many activists, they range from mathematicians and cartographers with computer savvy to the Pennsylvania high school civics teacher “who returned from a deployment in Guantanamo Bay angry to find his hometown congressional district drawn into the shape of a barbell.”

More than anything, the book is timely. We all think of 2020 as an election year, and for many the interest ends at the top of the ballot. But 2020 is also a year for the US Census, and it’s the bottom of the ballot, the state representatives, with input from county and local officials, who will be charged with redrawing maps based on that census.

To put it in the current vernacular: All votes matter. Sheriff as much as Senator.

Will politics continue to warp geography–and grind its heel into the face of common sense? Or will we kick goofy geography’s butt off the American map once and for all?

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https://www.npr.org/books/titles/837936415/unrigged-how-americans-are-battling-back-to-save-democracy

If you ever wondered why Ohio Rep. James Jordan refuses to wear a jacket in House committee hearings, it may be simply because he represents a district where nothing fits. Jordan, of course, is the loud-mouthed, rapid-fire talking Trump shill who would be typecast in one of those ancient passion plays as the personification of hate. And it is easy to imagine many playwrights–from Aristophanes to Shakespeare to David Mamet–using Jordan’s frequent, high-pitched interjection, “Guess What!!!,” as a comic device.

This was struck down for, as the court ruled, targeting African Americans “with almost surgical precision.” But it’s worth noting that for the 12th District, they couldn’t even fit the number on the map and had to line it in from Virginia–while District 9 is so contorted, they had to number it twice. Together they make 4 and 13 more acceptable, even though they appear, respectively, as someone who just finished a shot-put and the results of an intestinal disease.

As ridiculous as 12 (the Barbell) and 7 (“D. Duck kicking Goofy”) appear, what may be most telling is the Pennsylvania GOP’s unwillingness to keep the state’s short lakefront in a single district. Compare that to neighboring Ohio (above) where District 9 is spread *like already melted butter* for triple the distance along Lake Erie. That, along with the Barbell and Disney characters gone wild, is remedied in the new map (below) thanks to the intercession of the folks who appear in Daley’s book and are well worth getting to know.

Regarding Maryland: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/6/1/1532608/-No-Maryland-is-not-the-most-gerrymandered-state-There-is-more-to-gerrymandering-than-ugly-shapes

A White Male Apology

My conscience is bothering me. Since the emergence of the brainless Tea Party in 2010, I have called Congressional Republicans arsonists, nihilists, cynics, paranoiacs, idiots, spineless weasels, witless lap-dogs, groveling nitwits, gullible puppies, outhouse grifters, fascist rubber stamps, corporate head-nodders, blind mice, deaf monkeys, dumb mules, cementheads, ostriches, jellyfish, snakes, quacks, goose-stepping storm-trumpers, and shit.

While listening to the Republican representative from Florida offer an obviously unfelt apology for smearing a Democratic rep from NYC on the Capitol steps, it finally occurred to me that shit serves a useful purpose. As fertilizer, shit helps things grow. Shit is good. You cannot say that about Congressional Republicans–not one of whom said a word about the incident in the three days between the news report and the faux-apology.

I hereby apologize to shit, and hope to see plenty of it–tons of it–piled onto the heads of Mitch “Grim Reaper” McConnell, Susan “Oh, I Think He Learned His Lesson” Collins, Jim “Guess What!” Jordan, Ted “F—ing Bitch” Yoho, and all their obstructionist Republican colleagues, all their Confederate and Nazi flag-waving supporters, as well as their Russian overseers when the American toilet is flushed in November.

I should also apologize to puppies. That comparison really was over the top.

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ refusal to accept the faux-apology is a tour de force that may very well begin to appear in American history textbooks before long, mainly because it so well captures the intersection of #metoo and #blacklivesmatter at a time when, for all the talk of black and white, Americans can’t seem to tell red from green:

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4894496/representative-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-speaks-exchange-representative-ted-yoho

The final words of Yoho’s “apology” are bizarre. Certainly non-sequitur. Perhaps an indignant refusal to apologize for his “love of country”–as if smearing AOC was motivated by patriotism–is Confederate code? An attempt to echo DT’s telling her to go back where she came from?

https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=uh-mail-web&p=yoho+apology+youtube#id=2&vid=3bc151dd639b3834d1550f78f7b6236a&action=click

As for the “family man” facade, how about this for a rule: If any public official invokes a spouse or children over the age of 18 on the floor of the House or Senate, that spouse and those children must be made available to the press? They can invoke the 5th all they want, but the point is that they cannot be used as props.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley in Boston on Oct. 1, 2018, during a rally protesting the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. Pressley spoke on the House floor yesterday in support of AOC’s contention that verbal abuse of women permeates American government. In fact, AOC actually thanked Ted Yoho for putting the subject on the House floor with his “apology.” Photo Credit…Mary Schwalm/Associated Press

Oh Say Can You Think?

Major League Baseball opens its season tonight in Washington DC (of all places) with Dr. Anthony Fauci reportedly slated to throw out the ceremonial first pitch.

Judging by a few incidents during exhibition games, we may see players, coaches, and at least one manager kneeling during the playing of the National Anthem.

Which means, unavoidably, that we are going to hear and see complaints from those who believe that the symbolic, silent, and entirely peaceful protest shows disrespect for the flag.

Here are two suggestions for those who are caught between not wanting to argue and not wanting let the misrepresentation slide:

Remind the speaker that the anthem begins with a question, “Oh say can you see…,” and then ask if he or she sees the reason why anyone would kneel.
Notice if the speaker says “against the anthem” rather than “during the anthem.” If so, ask if they think there’s a difference. If not, ask just when the statement should be made.

Whether you want to pursue it any further than that depends on what you hear and your assessment of how reasonable the speaker is. However, I would recommend phrasing everything as a question, and that as many questions as possible be about the song.

For example: “Do you expect African-Americans to agree that America in 2020 can honestly be called ‘the land of the free’?”

And: “Do you believe that an America in which people would rather not be upset or inconvenienced by such silent, symbolic, peaceful protests can honestly call itself ‘the home of the brave’?”

If this sounds like a rough assignment, consider that the song itself, is not about living the good life, but about a military battle. Consider that the song’s questions are not answered, but are left to be answered. Consider that the answers do not accommodate relaxation, but insist on attention.

Consider that the Americans on their knees are asking us to pay attention.

Oh, say, what could be more patriotic than that?

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A banner hung this week prior to the start of pre-season games by the Boston Red Sox. That’s the Mass Pike in the foreground running alongside the back of the left field wall, aka the Green Monster. Photo courtesy of NECN (New England Cable News).

Beautiful World Wars

Interviewer Chris Wallace is gaining much credit for challenging obvious lies about the virus being under control. Though he gained no admission, Wallace did force a full display of a 12-Step president’s gaslighting tricks in their usual succession:

1. Deny facts.

2. Dismiss or condemn those who make facts known.

3. Condemn with simple but vague words (nasty, disgraceful).

4. Make a false claim.

5. Repeat and exaggerate all of the above.

6. Change the subject to something unrelated but commonly known and imply a comparison to your claim.

7. Repeat the denial and the claim, adding repetition for single words and phrases to impress on the listener (buzzwords).

8. Praise anyone involved in the unrelated subject.

9. Praise with simple but vague words (tremendous, beautiful).

10. Compare the false claim to the unrelated subject.

11. Repeat and exaggerate the praise and the comparison.

12. Keep repeating until the interviewer gives up or until you call him or her “nasty” and walk away.

Yes, a 12-step program, but instead of beginning like all others with a recognition of the problem and calling it by its accurate name, this one begins by claiming there is no problem–or claiming it is already solved–and calling anyone who says there’s a problem some very nasty and disgraceful names.

Wallace deserves credit for leading our Republican president through his 12 steps, but the most revealing item of all has gained very little attention. Donny 12-Step’s unrelated subject for comparison to his hallucinatory victory over the pandemic was “two world wars.” What passes for logic seems to be that, since America defeated global military threats, we can–and in 12-Step’s mind, we already have–defeated COVID-19.

The two world wars, of course, are dear to America’s heart and soul, history and memory. But those are four qualities of which Donny 12-Step is null and void. For him, the buzzing phrase was nothing more than the verbal equivalent of flag waving. How else do you explain his saying it over and again, as if waving a flag back and forth?

And, as always in his fits of repetition, exaggeration kicked in–or what he may have thought was lavish praise–and at the end of it, as if in a carnival barker’s final pitch, we heard him say, “beautiful world wars.”

His supporters, always grasping at non-existent straws, will shrug this off with “You know what he meant,” referring not to bloodshed and death but only to military might as “beautiful.” Even at that, it’s a claim that would have horrified Washington, Grant, Eisenhower, and most other successful generals.

Question is: Does Donny 12-Step know what he’s talking about?

And for all the gaslighting with America’ military past–and all that credit heaped on Wallace–why was there no question about Russian bounties on American soldiers under the Republicans’ present day watch?

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Necessary Trouble

In 1978, I was among 20 new Volunteers In Service To America (VISTA) sent in to Washington DC for orientation, pep talks, and guidance that we were to share with hundreds of others back in our assigned districts—in my case, the Dakotas and a few nearby states.

One of those talks was from a very young John Lewis, still an organizer nine years away from taking a seat in the US House of Representatives. When he fielded questions, including one from me that I can’t even recall, he quickly perceived an over-anxious idealism that he didn’t try to tone down so much as redirect.

Using a variety of examples and phrases, he imparted one message that I never forgot, even though I can’t recall if he said these exact words just once or several times:

“You can’t influence a place until you are part of that place.”

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Reviews from Lake America

Well, it’s been a quiet summer in Lake America, my native land.

And a hot one. Spending so much time on the beach, I won’t be surprised if people wearing certain red caps start telling me to go back to where I came from.

After 38 years on Plum Island, it’s hard to figure where that would be. Lawrence where I grew up? Salem where I came of age? Dakota where I did my Prodigal Son stint? Denver where I found my calling?

Maybe my age allows me to think that it doesn’t matter, that they are all ports in one Lake America.

Like Dayton and El Paso. Like Charlottesville and Flint. Like Standing Rock and the Rio Grande.

Today, the expression “all over the map” (or “place”) is negative criticism, a reason to dismiss someone who makes such a case, but I’m from an era when we wanted to know about other people in other places.

As the young president declared, “Ich bin ein Berliner!”

As if to reinforce that world-view, my Catholic high school assigned a summer reading list that made it possible to be a Berliner, a Harlemite, a Johannesburger, a Mississippi River rat, a Polynesian, an Okie, and more for hours at a time and memories for all time.

Today, most of my summer readings are hardcover from the Newburyport Public Library’s new releases with colorful dust jackets and titles large enough to catch the eye of anyone strolling the beach.

Yes, I’m one of those who sits facing the surf—and close to it—rather than the arcing sun, sometimes in the surf on a low tide sandbar, so I don’t blame any passersby curious enough to ask about a book and am as glad to give an answer as they are to get it.

One woman couldn’t resist The Swamp, and I braced myself for a Trump supporter gloating over the swamp he promised to drain or anyone else railing against the swamp he has ever since filled.

Not at all. She was simply struck by the irony of that word facing the incoming tide of the North Atlantic, huge font notwithstanding.

After sharing that laugh, she paid rapt attention to my summary of a history of the Everglades, especially to a late chapter’s description of Al Gore’s betrayal of Florida environmentalists, many of whom then stayed home or turned to Ralph Nadar in the 2000 election.

A cautionary tale against over-caution that would have served the Democrats well in 2016—not to mention right now—if Democrats weren’t too cautious to heed cautionary tales.

Last summer, The Impeachers, an account of the disaster known as President Andrew Johnson—and a Steven Spielberg movie waiting to happen, with Tommy Lee Jones in the lead role—gained more laughs than surfcasters land stripers on a good day.

“Just change the names and dates!” I kept calling out.

Of course, there is always a bottom feeder, and he approached when he saw the title, Coolidge, and took it as an invitation to expound on the sanctity of laissez faire capitalism.

Didn’t bother him any more than it bothered Ronald Reagan or Newt Gingrich, both ardent admirers of the 30^th US president, when I pointed out that “Silent Cal” steered us right out of the Roarin’ Twenties into the ditch of the Great Depression.

When he whined of FDR’s “government overreach,” I compared FDR to a fire department with no choice but to intervene.

“No metaphors!” he cried. “Just say what it is, don’t compare it!”

Now, I’ve dealt with people who limit what they know, but this was a limit on how to know it, a level to which I prefer not to sink. I told him to go away, although I may have used an anatomically impossible metaphor to do it.

“Vaffanculo!” as my maternal uncles might have said out of hearing of my young ears. Ich bin ein Calabriano!

To everyone else who stopped, whether for a quick question, a quick laugh, or a full review, feel free stop again for reviews from Lake America where all the books are strong, all the magazines are good looking, and all the newspapers are above average.

And bring your metaphors.

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No, not me, but the complexion, hair color, wrinkles, and whiskers are all approximate. This is Beppe Grillo, a long-time, wildly popular, and by all accounts foulmouthed Italian comic-turned-political activist who, on one day in September, 2007, held a rally in Bologna that was live streamed into 220 other Italian city squares packed by a combined, estimated two million people who joined his chant of “Vaffanculo!” They called it V-Day. For more on this and other irreverent political movements around the globe, see: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/coding-democracy

Books mentioned in this post:

Voting Blue & Green

When I first heard that Rep. Joe Kennedy had announced his bid to unseat Sen. Ed Markey, you may have overheard my reaction.

If so, I apologize for the expletive piercingly bleated.

As much as I like young Kennedy and hope he has a long career in public service, I’d rather not push a senator as insightful, thoughtful, incisive, and thorough as Markey aside.

Kennedy already has an office where he can continue to do much good. If he was challenging either of Kentucky’s two obstructionists, I’d move to Louisville and campaign for him outside Churchill Downs.

Here, however, he is running against an incumbent with the finest environmental record in the senate, a ranking member on key senate subcommittees for oversight and science with extensive experience in transportation and infrastructure.

In the shadow of Elizabeth Warren who brought a national reputation to her first campaign in Massachusetts, and of our neighbor to the north, Bernie Sanders, Markey’s progressive credentials tend to go unnoticed.

But not by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who gained his support as a co-author of the Green New Deal.

At times, Markey’s progressive credentials have been ignored by other progressives so focused on a single issue that they may as well be wearing blinders for all others.

That happened out loud when he was still in the House of Representatives, and it exemplifies the foremost reason why he should remain in the US Senate now.

Markey seemed to be the only member of either chamber in 2010 who understood that the most infamous court decision in American history precipitated the 14^th Amendment—which was invoked as a precedent for Citizens United.

He wrote: “The Supreme Court had the horrific judgment to issue the Dred Scott decision, and people rose up to challenge it. Today we’re faced with another egregious decision that needs overturning.”

Many liberals condemned the comparison as if it was an equation. Others, who surely knew better, pounced on the opportunity to make it appear an equation.

We all know the danger of quotes taken out of context. Markey’s was smothered in a context that was never intended and in no way deserved.

Result? We miss the point. In this case, that unlimited, anonymous spending in elections is, as Markey nailed it, “a legitimate Constitutional crisis.”

When I taught college classes, I’d have welcomed the insertion of the Dred Scott decision of 1857 into the relevance of today, a direct historical link between two US Supreme Court decisions.

With respect for all minorities that have suffered any form of oppression, there can be no proprietary claim on what is an American—an all-American—experience.

If we are so fond of saying that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it, then why do we chasten those who bring history’s most urgent lessons to our attention?

And why would we replace Ed Markey, one of the few people willing to do it, in the US Senate?

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Worth noting that, back in January before the pandemic shut everything down, Markey was one of the opening readers–second I think–in the Annual Moby-Dick Marathon at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. I was something like the 122nd reader in the wee hours, and so we did not cross paths, but it’s nice to have something like that in common.

Also, following the presidential election but before the meeting of the Electoral College six weeks later in 2004, Markey was one of just 31 Democratic House members who voted not to seat the electors from Ohio after an inquiry by the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee revealed county by county irregularities in the state’s vote. Since Republicans held a majority in the House at the time, they simply refused to participate in the effort led by Rep. John Conyers of Michigan:

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/what-went-wrong-in-ohio-the-conyers-report-on-the-2004-presidential-election_gore-vidal/901128/#isbn=089733535X&idiq=2055758

My Italian State of Mind

We hear at an early age that Nero fiddled while Rome burned, and many of us are recalling it as Nitwit tweets while America burns with more than one disease.

But we never hear about the music Nero played or how skilled he was.

Had he lived 16 centuries later, would Vivaldi have hired him for his Venetian Strung Up Quartet? Or traded him to Bach in Leipzig or Handel in London for one of their hyperventilating flautists?

Could he have taken one of the four seats around Jefferson’s ingenious music stand at Monticello and sat in with Tom, James Madison, and a cellist–possibly a secretary of interior or postmaster general–to be named later?

Could he tour the folk festival circuit as a member of Beausoleil avec Michael Doucet or of any of those foot-stomping dance bands from Quebec or the Maritimes?

Would he have enhanced or spoiled a cherished memory of a jam session with a harpsichordist in Fargo, North Dakota, half a lifetime ago?

What-ifs, maybes, might-have-beens…

I’d keep all the speculation to myself if not for wanting to point out that at least Rome had music while going up in flames.

All we get are on-screen whines, 140 characters at a time, with the occasional visual SCREAMING OF ALL CAPS and the visual flatulence of exclamation points, sometimes several together–i.e. !!!!–the visual equivalent of diarrhea.

Very unlikely that Nero would have been mistaken for Isaac Stern, Joshua Bell, or Alison Krauss, but it is likely that he played as well as, say, Richard Nixon played piano–well enough to be entertaining and keep enough of his audience satisfied enough to keep him on the stage.*

Until, as happened with Nixon, the curtain came crashing down.

I might also keep the comparison to myself if not for the recent rush of many–me included–to compare Dr. Fauci, a great Italian-American, to yet another famous Italian.

Problem with calling Fauci “the American Galileo” is that it casts the American Mussolini (speaking of famous Italians) in the role of the Vatican, which, for all its faults, has commissioned and inspired centuries of sacred liturgical music.

Some wags might say “”lethargical” music, but that would overlook so many fugues which are as much an athletic event as anything to emanate from the Mersey, Memphis, or Montreal–or that you might see and hear at a nearby Renaissance festival (but not this year). Then again, those are composed for great big organs which might encourage other wisecracks from those same wags that this half-blooded, second-generation Italian-American, long-lapsed Catholic would rather avoid.

I can hear those wags already: “Their organs have no stops!”

What I cannot avoid is not only the lack of music from our American Nero, but the objections, disavowals, and threats of lawsuits that he gets from the musicians whose recorded music plays at his rallies. Newsweek published a full list just three weeks ago (link below) which includes: Rihanna, R.E.M., Neil Young, Elton John, the Rolling Stones, Adele, Steven Tyler, and Axl Rose, as well as the estates of Tom Petty, Prince, and George Harrison.

Of all the Beatles songs that might have pumped up the MAGA crowd, the campaign chose “Here Comes the Sun.” As Harrison’s estate later joked on Twitter, “If it had been ‘Beware of Darkness,’ then we MAY have approved it! #TrumpYourself.”

What-ifs, maybes, might-have-beens…

Another estate that put the nix on Nixon-sans-piano was that of yet another famed Italian: Pavarotti. That may be as close to the real, musical Nero as our American Nero will ever come.

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https://www.newsweek.com/all-musicians-who-have-stopped-trump-using-their-music-1513138

Many thanks for this delightfully artistic piece of cartography to a fellow who apparently goes by the name “Human Map,” or “H-Map.” Just wish someone told him that Vivaldi had red hair. That’s his self-portrait in Roman garb in the lower left, and you might treat yourself to more of his work, perhaps even decipher his actual name if you can translate his language (which I don’t even know what it is) by going to: https://www.hmap.co.kr/

In recent years, researchers have found reason to believe that Nero’s fiddling while Rome burned is an apocryphal story, not literally true but intended to capture the larger truth in a single, simple, visual metaphor: Nero was indifferent to the needs of the Roman populace. He was 15 miles away says one. Fiddles didn’t exist says another, which strikes me as a picky refusal to account for the lyre, the fiddle of the day which he would have picked. Would we pay any attention to or remember, “Nero picked as Rome burned”? I don’t think so. For more of that debate, see: https://www.quora.com/What-is-Emperor-Nero-mostly-remembered-for

*Long-time Boston Globe columnist Curtis Wilkie’s 2002 memoir, Dixie, describes a joint fundraising appearance by Richard Nixon and his VP running mate, Spiro Agnew, both of them on a stage seated at pianos angled so they could face the audience and occasionally glance over their shoulders at each other. The musical duet provided backdrop for a ludicrous skit between a “master,” voiced by Nixon, and a “slave,” voiced in supposed dialect by Agnew. Republican donors howled in laughter. It was the era before Smartphones, so long ago that journalists agreed to keep such “fun” off the record.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/538548.Dixie