Don't Forget Tisha B'Av!

I have had it with liberals of all advocacies whining, as they do on Facebook, “Whyyy didn’t we learrrrnn about THISSS in school?"

Well, maybe it’s because history is infinite. It is not just one thing; all things are connected. You learn basics in elementary school, more details in middle school, concepts and linkages in high school, and particulars in college. In fact, you never stop learning about history if you read. So all these things that snowflake bozos bitch about not being taught are not unknown. What they want is a history curriculum attuned to their desires, which of course would not be history at all but curricula of cultural superiorities.

If history teaches anything, it teaches that there is no single accurate viewpoint, but a patchwork of ideas, movements, and individuals that rose to an occasion for better or for worse.

Is there a single person reading this who did not know about Juneteenth until George Floyd was killed? Yet apparently we need a national holiday so Republicans can have something to claim they did for African-Americans. We have Lincoln’s birthday (subsumed into President’s Day), we know when the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, we all know about the beginning and end of the Civil War and Reconstruction. We know about Bloody Sunday at Selma and we celebrate MLK’s birthday as a national holiday.

By all means, take note of Juneteenth, as we might note St. Patrick’s Day, Pulaski Day, and, yes, Columbus Day. Without Columbus, we wouldn’t be here to complain about the kind of oppression that has gone on since the beginning of time and conducted by every single nation-state and ethnic group. But do we need national holidays for Americans of Greek, Turk, Czech, Polish, German, Armenian, or Palestinian descent?  (I am very sensitive to national “days” because out of 365, only one commemorates nothing – “National Nothing Day,” which falls on my birthday.)

So we do know stuff because we are exposed to history texts, teachers, and books, not to mention "Jeopardy." What many of us learn about our own heritage is done through religious and family instruction. Must everything with a political following be made into a national observation? Maybe so, and then watch for “Juneteenth” mattress sales. But stop the mewling that “the white power structure didn’t teach us what they wanted hidden.” There is only so much to teach in schools and only so much to be absorbed by tiny minds that overpopulate social media.

Now, what about Tisha B’av? (Pssst, it's July 29-30.)

Hit the Road, Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi, it is time for you to go, you weak whimpering feckless piece of antiquity. Here you are on  Trump: It’s the fault of the press, not of a Democratic party that couldn’t organize its own memorial service.

From an interview with Politico:

"What of Hollywood’s role in making Donald Trump a reality TV star? Do you blame the industry for the current state of U.S. politics as it relates to Trump?”

 “Well, let me say I’ve never seen his reality show, so I don’t know if it was any good or what. I do think that he was assisted by the communications industry, not just Hollywood, but the press as well, because all they do is enable him, and that is really a sad thing.  “I’ve said to many of my friends in the press, ‘You’re accomplices, whether you want to be or not,’ [and they say,] ‘If he’s saying it, then it’s news.’ I don’t think it’s news, but it monopolizes the airwaves. So there is a lot of responsibility to go around in terms of the creation of whatever that is in the White House.

“But he has a tactic, one that is used by autocrats, which is, ‘Just as long as they’re talking about me, no matter if it’s bad, then you’re not talking about my opponent.’ When [the press was] talking about him, they weren’t saying what Hillary was going to do about health care, to make our economy fair.”

As Col. Potter would have said, “Horse hockey!”

A couple of points, old lady:

1) Anything a president says is news. Period. Because if it isn’t, you and your Democratic minions would have no idea a) what is going on or b) what you can complain about. 

2) The press, by reporting what he says, should be an agent for change, but most people don’t want to act on the facts so why don’t you just say what you  mean – “the public is too stupid and hateful to do the right thing.”

3) The press WAS reporting what Hillary (oh only a woman can demean her by using her first name?) said on health care. But nobody fucking cared!!! And I dare anyone now to state succinctly what her plan WAS. Even if you can, what was and is needed is a short nasty memorable slogan and the gumption to fight dirty. Michelle Obama was dead wrong about “going higher.”

4) By declaring that the press didn’t explain what Clinton was doing “to make our economy fair,” you load the issue with the false trope of fairness. That was Clinton’s job, not that of the press!

5)  You handed Trump a campaign victory by agreeing to a trade deal, which, whether good for the country or not, will give him an accomplishment that will further energize his base and peel off Democrats.

I know people will say “look at what she did for women in politics, in regaining a House majority, and standing up to Trump.” All that is old-school machine politics at best, and at worst gaining power only for the purpose of exercising it, not for any larger vision. She has now cravenly adopted the autocrat’s real mantra: Blame the messenger.

Harper Leave

I have been vocal about nothing else so much as Bryce Harper for the past 7 years. While watching him in a Nats uniform would have been fun, both for the circus he creates and the mammoth homers, 

I am glad he is somewhere else. He represents everything I despise in athletes, and in people in general. (Watching him on DC TV today, I am also appalled at his cliché-spouting and teenage-like verbal fillers such as “and things like that” in every sentence. I know I will now not patronize Silver Diner or the Italian Store again.)

Regardless of the he said/he said about contract negotiations, we all knew he would leave because he would always take more money and more attention. Ignore everything about where he wanted to be forever, or to raise a family. He wanted to be wooed and paid more than anyone, though he got screwed in the latter. Remember, he did not choose Washington; he was an obvious No. 1 draft pick. He did choose to leave.  And he left with two strikeouts in his last two at-bats.

He is Donald Trump in a baseball uniform. Everything is about him. He is dishonest. He wears brand names on every piece of clothing, waves the flag on his bat, has designer spikes, trademark hair, and a clinically destructive narcissism.  I assume Phillie fans are clued in enough to give him a standing ovation the first time he hits a cutoff man. The drunk cretins at Citizens Bank Park will probably just further enable his hair flipping, head first sliding, and bazooka throwing past the third baseman.

Showmanship is fine in sports, to a degree, but not to the point where the outcome of the game and the season is secondary. The Phillies may win it all, but a large part it would be due to other additions they made. They probably will not, just as the Nats WITH Harper, Werth, Zimmerman, Scherzer, and Strasburg did not. Baseball, as the sages know, is unpredictable – especially with rule changes that allow almost any lucky .500 team to become world champions.

I hope Harper fails in every endeavor, not because he chose Philly over DC (we may never know all the details of that), but because he represents everything wrong with sports, and he is bringing to baseball what has killed football and basketball, for me. A universe where wins don’t matter, only marketing.

Portrait of Mobsters

From a book about a central character in the New York City business world in the 1980s by journalist Selwyn Raab:

“Flattering print and television stories about his opulent lifestyle, his unorthodox mannerisms, and his …invincibility magnified his opinion of himself. …  ‘He was made to order for the press. The way he looked, dressed, his arrogance toward the law. The press was manipulated by him and turned him into a folk hero’ (said a U.S. Attorney.) … He was heard fulminating at the government’s vendetta to convict him and how tough the law would be on him if he were ensnared.  Yet he repeatedly committed the fundamental mistakes that earlier had gotten him into difficulties, until they proved to be fatal. … His inability to judge loyalty and talent were pitfalls for (him.”

The author also expounds at length about his and his associates’ foul public insults of federal prosecutors.

The passages are actually about John Gotti, but it adds to the portrait of Donald J. Trump as the greatest organized crime boss ever.

My only optimism is that he will talk himself into impeachment, exile, or prison.

Bye, Bye, Bernie

I did not support Bernie Sanders last time, and will not again, even though I might positively check most of his policy boxes. 

I gave him another chance while watching his CNN “town hall” but had to leave after a few minutes when I realized what a horrible candidate he is. He is unlistenable-to with a whiny Brooklyn accent; lengthy explications when a bumper-sticker-answer might convince, God forbid, excite someone; condescension and utter lack of genuineness. He is the most unlikeable politician I have ever encountered.

Today, I read this, and now believe he is a useless, horrible, specimen of a human being, as well -- Trumpian, by way of despising a free press and possessing not an ounce of humility or humor. He is a nightmare because, like Trump, he attracts politically brainless political neophytes. But unlike Trump, his voters have demonstrated they would rather lose the presidency than exhibit any common sense.

Since it is unlikely that either the House or Senate would become Democratic Socialist after a Sanders victory, try to imagine him managing the daily push-and-pull of events. 

I cannot.