tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-99918642024-03-07T14:05:02.840-05:00Razing the BarAndy Whitmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04010130934552315074noreply@blogger.comBlogger1233125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991864.post-71184245922417791392019-10-16T14:57:00.001-04:002019-10-16T15:06:22.217-04:00Truth, Justice, and the American Way<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2bOI84qfF8nko4L5L96mSzAKWw8la1bcieSMK-kwqex0sA-lwkn17JGnmJGdxxj_qLuuqfpGTKNIgS-bGaDKBngb77rcBmuhqaKDXljS_-9MYHEjmK2jU1-DomiEdg5xX9KnA/s1600/Superman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="326" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2bOI84qfF8nko4L5L96mSzAKWw8la1bcieSMK-kwqex0sA-lwkn17JGnmJGdxxj_qLuuqfpGTKNIgS-bGaDKBngb77rcBmuhqaKDXljS_-9MYHEjmK2jU1-DomiEdg5xX9KnA/s320/Superman.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>
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Dear Pro-Life Friends,<o:p></o:p></div>
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Please consider voting for someone other than Donald Trump
for President of the United States in November, 2020. I understand that the
sanctity of life is very important to you, probably the most important issue to
you. I understand that many of you believe so strongly and passionately about
this issue that every other issue pales in comparison, and that some of you would
consider yourselves one-issue voters because no other issue, and indeed no
other combination of issues, could possibly be more urgent and more significant
than the fact that 860,000 babies per year are aborted in the United States.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I get all that. I understand your position. And I’m asking
you to vote for someone other than Donald Trump anyway. <o:p></o:p></div>
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There are several reasons for that. But let’s start with
what your vote for Donald Trump does not achieve. First, your staunch support
of anti-abortion policies does not result in a dramatic increase in saved lives.
I wish it did. But it does not. Here is a link to a September, 2019 summary of
current abortion statistics in the United States: <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/report/abortion-incidence-service-availability-us-2017">https://www.guttmacher.org/report/abortion-incidence-service-availability-us-2017</a></span>.
It analyzes current abortion statistics from a variety of perspectives. I
encourage you to read it. One item I would like to point out is that there is
no correlation between the number of abortion clinics and the number of
abortions. In other words, fewer abortion clinics does not result in fewer
abortions. In some cases, noted in the study, states that saw abortion clinics
close between 2014 and 2017 actually reported higher numbers of abortions
during those years. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Overall, the number of abortions continues to decline in the
U.S. from a high of 1.6 million per year in the U.S. in 1980 (or 29.3 per 1,000
women between the ages of 15 and 44) to approximately 860,000 per year in 2017
(or 13.5 per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44). This is a trend that
has been consistent for almost the past 40 years, and has obviously carried across
multiple Democratic and Republican presidential administrations. In other
words, abortions are declining. They declined during the George H.W. Bush, Bill
Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama administrations. They are declining
during the Donald Trump administration. But your vote along party lines, quite
clearly, doesn’t affect that. If you’re a pro-life person, you should feel
somewhat heartened. The number of abortions is going down. But it’s not because
of who sits in the Oval Office. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So let’s discuss who sits in the Oval Office, and how that
might affect a few other things. Let’s discuss what a vote for Donald Trump in
2020 DOES mean. But before I go there, let me note one of my underlying
assumptions: you do not vote according to your pocketbook. It’s okay. I don’t
either.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the 1990s, Bill Clinton was (in)famous for many reasons.
But one of them was his terse summary of what drove voters: “It’s the economy,
stupid.” That is, economic concerns were more important than any other issues,
regardless of their moral and ethical import. I’m betting that Bill was wrong
then, and that he’s wrong now because of your overarching beliefs and
principles. You, after all, have made one issue supreme over all others, and
it’s not the economy, stupid. He’s wrong for me. I’m working on the assumption
that he’s wrong for you as well, and that the economy, which in general has
performed well during the Trump administration, is not what will motivate you
when you step into a voting booth in November, 2020. Are we in agreement?<o:p></o:p></div>
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So let’s talk pro-life. Historically, the term has become
synonymous with anti-abortion. But the words, in and of themselves, obviously
encompass life – inside the womb, outside the womb, from conception through the
end of life. So when we speak about being pro-life, I think it’s important to
consider the implications of the statements of the President and the policies
(s)he supports to gauge the total impact on life, from conception through
death. And how do the words and the deeds of Donald Trump measure up according
to that standard? To quote New York Times columnist David Leonhardt):<o:p></o:p></div>
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<ul>
<li>He has pressured a foreign leader to interfere in the 2020 American presidential election.</li>
<li>He urged a foreign country to intervene in the 2016 presidential election.</li>
<li>He divulged classified information to foreign officials.</li>
<li>He publicly undermined American intelligence agents while standing next to a hostile foreign autocrat.</li>
<li>He hired a national security adviser whom he knew had secretly worked as a foreign lobbyist.</li>
<li>He encourages foreign leaders to enrich him and his family by staying at his hotels.</li>
<li>He genuflects to murderous dictators.</li>
<li>He has alienated America's closest allies.</li>
<li>He lied to the American people about his company's business dealings in Russia.</li>
<li>He tells new lies virtually every week - about the economy, voter fraud, even the weather.</li>
<li>He spends hours on end watching television and days on end staying at resorts.</li>
<li>He often declines to read briefing books or perform other basic functions of a president's job.</li>
<li>He has aides, as well as members of his own party in Congress, who mock him behind his back as unfit for office.</li>
<li>He has repeatedly denigrated a deceased United States Senator who was a war hero.</li>
<li>He insulted a Gold Star family - the survivors of American troops killed in action.</li>
<li>He described a former first lady, not long after she died, as "nasty."</li>
<li>He described white supremacists as "some very fine people."</li>
<li>He told four women of color, all citizens and members of Congress, to "go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came."</li>
<li>He made a joke about Pocohontas during a ceremony honoring Native American World War II veterans.</li>
<li>He launched a political career by falsely claiming that the first black president was not really American.</li>
<li>He launched his presidential campaign by describing Mexicans as "rapists."</li>
<li>He has described women, variously, as "a dog," "a pig" and "horseface," as well as "bleeding badly from a facelift" and having "blood coming out of her wherever."</li>
<li>He has been accused of sexual assault or misconduct by multiple women.</li>
<li>He enthusiastically campaigned for a Senate candidate who was accused of molesting multiple teenage girls.</li>
<li>He waved around his arms while giving a speech to ridicule a physically disabled person.</li>
<li>He has encouraged his supporters to commit violence against his political opponents.</li>
<li>He has called for his opponents and critics to be investigated and jailed.</li>
<li>He uses a phrase popular with dictators - "the enemy of the people" - to describe journalists.</li>
<li>He attempts to undermine any independent source of information that he does not like, including judges, scientists, journalists, election officials, the FBI, the CIA, the Congressional Budget Office, and the National Weather Service.</li>
<li>He has tried to harass the chairman of the Federal Reserve into lowering interest rates.</li>
<li>He said that a judge could not be objective because of his Mexican heritage.</li>
<li>He obstructed justice by trying to influence an investigation into his presidential campaign.</li>
<li>He violated federal law by directing his lawyer to pay $280,000 in hush money to cover up two apparent extramarital affairs.</li>
<li>He made his fortune partly through wide-scale financial fraud.</li>
<li>He has refused to release his tax returns.</li>
<li>He falsely accused his predecessor of wiretapping him.</li>
<li>He claimed that federal law-enforcement agents and prosecutors regularly fabricated evidence, thereby damaging the credibility of criminal investigations across the country.</li>
<li>He has ordered children to be physically separated from their parents.</li>
<li>He has suggested that America is no different from or better than Vladimir Putin's Russia.</li>
<li>He has called America a "hellhole."</li>
</ul>
And to quote no one but myself:<br />
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<br />
<li>He's about to undergo impeachment proceedings because he attempted to strongarm and blackmail another nation into spying on his political opponents.</li>
</blockquote>
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I’m summarizing. Hundreds of real-life examples, with dates,
citations, links, and videos are available upon request.<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Read that laundry list. No, really, read it. Many of you, my
pro-life friends, identify as Christians, and you have given your allegiance to
Jesus, and to the understanding of Jesus as revealed to you through the Bible
and the historic teachings of the Christian Church. Is there anything in that
laundry list that reminds you of Jesus? Anything? One thing?<o:p></o:p></div>
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So please do me a favor. Do not vote for this man in 2020.
He makes a mockery of everything you claim to believe and value. He raises the
serious specter of blatant hypocrisy in your midst when you claim to follow
Jesus and still support him. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So vote for someone, anyone else. I’m not kidding. If the
thought of voting for a Democrat sends you into paroxysms of panic and grief,
don’t vote for a Democrat. Vote for another Republican. Vote for a third-party
candidate. Get your friends together, talk it over, and come up with a strategy
to elect someone else. But please don’t vote for Donald Trump. It’s a very bad
look. The world – people you claim to love, people Jesus died for – is watching,
and they are repulsed by what they see. So is much of the Christian Church. They
see a segment of America that claims to follow Jesus but has utterly lost the
plot, that is driven by fear of the other and by a series of grievances against
not Satan, not foreign powers opposed to the nation we love, but other
Americans. For the sake of Truth, Justice and the American Way (yep, all three)
cast your vote for anyone other than Donald Trump next November. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Andy Whitmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04010130934552315074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991864.post-1117647517281905202019-10-14T13:40:00.002-04:002019-10-14T13:49:32.228-04:00Technology Nightmares<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUTQm9dykXk-X56_8FxLChto1Oo8kNPVbjGUFR2eSYqvWsvXFXJ3wR6_5btShBP1qj9jjnl33djqJs99-GGercpnNDcg_gPhJjNK3WRdZpO7EqiLJ65SnfZ4jeUBVNBXODqcws/s1600/Technology+Nightmare.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="195" data-original-width="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUTQm9dykXk-X56_8FxLChto1Oo8kNPVbjGUFR2eSYqvWsvXFXJ3wR6_5btShBP1qj9jjnl33djqJs99-GGercpnNDcg_gPhJjNK3WRdZpO7EqiLJ65SnfZ4jeUBVNBXODqcws/s1600/Technology+Nightmare.jpg" /></a></div>
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Or how to spend almost an entire weekend in fruitless
pursuit of what worked fine a couple weeks ago …<o:p></o:p></div>
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I recognize the value of technology. Technology allows me to
communicate with many of you. Yay, technology!<o:p></o:p></div>
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But I’m telling you, I miss the relatively carefree, placid
days when communication arrived via the U.S. mail, and required a postage stamp
(look it up, kids), and you adjusted the rabbit ears on top of the TV set to
improve the picture quality of CBS, NBC, ABC, and PBS.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Nightmare #1<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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A fine technician from WOW visited my home for the third
time in ten days. The reasons for these visits have included a picture that was
so pixelated as to be unwatchable, and a perfectly clear picture on a screen
reading “No signal detected. Please contact customer support.” In between the
three visits there have been several conversations with customer support that
have taken up 4 – 6 hours of my time as I run through the standard scripts with
yet another new customer support person, who coos reassuring things to me and
has me check the cables on the back of the box, makes sure that my TV can turn
on and off, etc. So technician #3 arrived late yesterday morning, replacing the
new box that was three days old with an even newer box. He fiddled with wires
and cables, had me test all the channels and, amazingly, all the channels
appeared in non-pixelated form with no error messages. So Kate and I left to
run an errand (see Nightmare #2, below). When we arrived back home, I
triumphantly switched on the television and witnessed a few seconds of a
pixelated screen, which was quickly replaced by a picture on a screen reading “No
signal detected. Please contact customer support.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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I called customer support. I said, in slightly more polite
words, but only slightly, “Skip the cooing. I’m not going to mess with cables
and wires. I want you to cancel my service, and I want you to guarantee that I
am not going to be penalized financially because I’m ending my 24-month
contract early. The reason I am ending my contract early is because your
company cannot provide cable TV and Internet service to my home. So don’t give
me a hard time.” The customer service representative proceeded to give me a
hard time. The supervisor/manager, who I then asked to speak with, also gave me
a hard time. It’s still not resolved. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to be
financially penalized for not receiving services I pay for, and because I find
the current “solution” to be completely unacceptable. This is not my problem.
And I’m not going to pay for it. Stay tuned, if you care. I know you’re all
awaiting the resolution of this cliffhanger.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Nightmare #2<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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Periodically, my Mac desktop informs that an update is
waiting for me, and that I should install it. One such message showed up
Saturday, and I clicked the magic “Install update” link. Yeah, yeah, I agree to
everything, damn it, so go ahead and install it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Big mistake. It’s on me, I know. Yes, I should have read the
fine print. But honestly, who reads the fine print? I’m thinking that a more
fruitful and truthful approach would have been to stop the installation process
at a couple points along the way with screens that said something like,
“WARNING!!!!!!! By installing this version of the operating system, all your
music will go away. Are you sure you want to do this?” and “You should also
know that all the apps, such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft
Powerpoint that you paid for long ago, and that have worked just fine for
years, will no longer be available to you once you install this new operating
system. You’ll have to pay a monthly fee to use the same apps in the Cloud,
sucker. Are you sure you want to do this?” That would have been helpful to
know.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Alas, I did not know, and found out the hard way. So that
errand we ran between the installation of Cable Box #3 and the fateful call to
cancel cable/Internet service was to the Apple Store, where the genius at the
Genius Bar helped me uninstall the latest, “greatest” O/S and helped me
re-install the previous version of the O/S. Guy was a genius. And really, that
was helpful, and once I figure out how to transfer the roughly 340,000 songs
from various external hard drives back onto iTunes, which is now a blank slate,
I’ll probably be eternally grateful.<o:p></o:p></div>
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At any rate, we returned from the Genius Bar to find a
pixelated screen and the wondrous “No signal detected” message on the TV.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I love technology. I hate technology. So that was my
weekend. How was yours?<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Andy Whitmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04010130934552315074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991864.post-81859845514717534592019-10-09T14:41:00.001-04:002019-10-09T14:41:37.238-04:00The Mandate of Heaven<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv9AGZRQHZkk3TWlVs8HrxfJq9Ec1aC4-c_cb6Koc7Pmt5-g2oltYbHrfyfFu0iCCTZyh4fCR9PwXX6mYv6f0YBXWgHqTYReB50qzDUfP0wb9ByW4olu8nVLRW3kHcpFufMLyy/s1600/Pat-Robertson.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="764" data-original-width="1406" height="173" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv9AGZRQHZkk3TWlVs8HrxfJq9Ec1aC4-c_cb6Koc7Pmt5-g2oltYbHrfyfFu0iCCTZyh4fCR9PwXX6mYv6f0YBXWgHqTYReB50qzDUfP0wb9ByW4olu8nVLRW3kHcpFufMLyy/s320/Pat-Robertson.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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There is a lot to swallow with Christianity. Virgin births.
One God in three persons, two of them invisible, and the other one a real human
being/divinity who lived 2,000 years ago but is still alive. Resurrections from
the dead. And that’s just for starters. But the strangest, most unlikely supernatural
occurrence may have to do with Donald Trump losing the mandate of heaven.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’m not sure how Donald Trump got the mandate, or how one
would know, but according to televangelist Pat Robertson, he has the mandate. And
he could lose it – could very well chuck the whole enthusiastic approval and holy
imprimatur from the Creator of the Universe – by his support of Turkey instead
of the U.S.’s Kurdish allies.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Part of me agrees with Pat Robertson, which in itself is a
minor miracle. I think what Turnabout Trump is allowing to happen to the Kurds
is a tragedy and a betrayal. But I still have all kinds of questions about the
mandate of heaven. Presumably, 73 years of lying and grifting, blowing through
marriages like test drives of new cars, and pursuing porn stars while his third
wife was home with his infant son weren’t enough to shake the mandate of
heaven. Still good, St. Don. Apparently, theological non-sequiturs such as maintaining
that he had no reason to pray or repent because he had never done anything
wrong weren’t enough to topple the Heavenly Mandate crown. The 13,000 lies in
three years? The narcissistic preening? The constant fits of bluster and
profanity? Caging toddlers? Referring to human beings as savages and
cockroaches and infestations? Mocking disabled people? Threatening to sic his
thugs on those who disagreed with him? Blessed are the thugs. No big deal. It’s
apparently what Jesus would do, right? Mandate from Heaven territory. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But you mess with the Kurds and you’re risking the departure
of God’s glory.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I love Jesus. This is why I continue as a Christian. But one
has to ignore a lot of absurdity from Christians. I can deal with virgin births
and resurrections far easier than I can deal with the mental and spiritual
gymnastics that have to take place to not only excuse, but to exult Donald
Trump. This is just more of the ridiculousness and heartbreaking sorrow that
has characterized the last half decade of my life. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Andy Whitmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04010130934552315074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991864.post-59215225030956826282019-10-05T17:24:00.000-04:002019-10-05T17:25:46.198-04:00Fly Boys<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjC5silBuNyuAnm9kT26qUduBGZOXnVoxJii0HOY5UJcQLoRm0e8sJAq1V6eCToygvP9msAw533yf4z6LoWUedvUzesjtgtbRa8wFuslT1l5XOWeYzlMylmG9CXlCuyA1-WXKp/s1600/Fly+Boys.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="567" data-original-width="768" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjC5silBuNyuAnm9kT26qUduBGZOXnVoxJii0HOY5UJcQLoRm0e8sJAq1V6eCToygvP9msAw533yf4z6LoWUedvUzesjtgtbRa8wFuslT1l5XOWeYzlMylmG9CXlCuyA1-WXKp/s320/Fly+Boys.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I'm guessing that I've been in airplanes hundreds of times. But every single time it happens, I think to myself "I'm sitting in a big metal tube flying through the air," and it never ceases to astound me.<br />
<br />
Today I visited the U.S. Air Force Museum outside of Dayton, Ohio, and that never ceases to astound me, either. Right down the road from Wilbur and Orville Wright's bicycle shop, and a couple miles west of the big open field in which they launched themselves into the air and prepared the way for those big metal tubes, the Air Force Museum is a stupendous monument to these magnificent men and their flying machines. We were there all day and saw roughly one-third of what there was to see. I've been there before, but I'll be back. Because the vision still dazzles me after all these years.<br />
<br />
There must be something about the flat Ohio corn fields. Wilbur and Orville dreamed their dreams in them, and so did John Glenn down in New Concord, and so did Neil Armstrong up in Wapakoneta, about an hour north of Dayton. Farm kids who looked up, way up, from the tops of the corn stalks.<br />
<br />
So too did my father-in-law, Carroll Krupp, raised on a farm not too far from Wapakoneta. Carroll was a child of the Depression, and his parents could barely afford to put food on the table, let alone send their dreaming son off to college. So Carroll did it on his own and took flight lessons in his early twenties, and was doing loop-de-loops his second time out, scaring his instructor and calling down the wrath of the authorities. By the time he quit he had 44 patents to his name, and he had designed spacesuits for NASA and brakes for big commercial airplanes and diving suits for deep sea diving. I see his handiwork in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum whenever we venture to D.C.<br />
<br />
Carroll, who was quiet and timid and a genius at designing and making things with his hands, didn't like the fact that I wanted to marry his youngest daughter. We circled one another warily for a while until he figured out that maybe, just maybe, it might work out between young Kathleen and this upstart Creative Writing buffoon. We're approaching four decades now, and he probably would have made his peace with the notion at this point. He is, alas, long gone.<br />
<br />
But I think about him every time we venture over to Dayton, Ohio, drive through the flat cornfields to witness the massive, sprawling place that honors him and all the magnificent young men and their flying machines. All those Ohio fly boys made their mark, dreamed big dreams, and, by God, flew through the air. I'm still astounded.<br />
<br />
<br />Andy Whitmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04010130934552315074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991864.post-10513198581093078792019-10-04T08:58:00.000-04:002019-10-04T09:47:11.704-04:00Abe Lincoln on Despotism<br />
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In the wilds of the online jungle, Abraham Lincoln has been
credited with all manner of illustrious deeds and profound statements. Author
of the Magna Carta, inventor of the Internet, first man on the moon, Abe was
and is all things to all people.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But he actually did say some of the things he is credited
with saying, and he actually did write some of the things he is credited with
writing. Here is one of them:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“As a nation, we began by declaring that ‘all men are
created equal.’ We now practically read it ‘all men are created equal, except
negroes.’ When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created
equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.’ When it comes to this I
should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving
liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and
without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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That was from a letter Lincoln wrote to his friend Joshua
Speed in 1855, back when he was just a struggling lawyer from downstate
Illinois. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Why is that relevant today? It is relevant because despotism
is alive and well, and because this very day, and for the past, oh, let’s say
four years, Donald Trump has been openly asking foreign governments to
interfere in presidential elections against his rivals. Yesterday, he asked not
one, but two foreign governments to assist him in investigating his political
rivals Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren. Openly. Brazenly. And Republicans are
allowing it to happen by doing nothing about impeachment or ensuring that
elections are fair and secure. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In response, Ellen Weintraub, the chairperson of the Federal
Election Commission, wrote yesterday, “Let me make something 100% clear to the
American public and anyone running for public office. It is illegal for any
person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign
national in connection with a U.S. election. This is not a novel concept.
Electoral intervention from foreign governments has been considered
unacceptable since the beginnings of our nation. Our Founding Fathers sounded
the alarm about “foreign interference, intrigue, and influence.” They knew that
when foreign governments seek to influence American politics, it is always to
advance their own interests, not America’s. Anyone who solicits or accepts
foreign assistance risks being on the wrong end of a federal investigation. Any
political campaign that receives an offer or a prohibited donation from a
foreign source should report that offer to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Want to hear something funny? Not ha-ha funny. Shake your
head in disbelief funny. Ellen Weintraub can write whatever she wants, and she
can write statements that are completely ethical and legal and well founded on the
vision of American governance. But the Federal Election Commission can’t do its
job. The federal agency that polices America’s elections is paralyzed because
it doesn’t have a quorum to vote or to do a damn thing. Commissioners have retired
and have not been replaced, and this is a pattern that has now gone on for the
last several years. You know who needs to appoint and confirm new
commissioners? Take a wild guess. If you answered, “Who are the President of the
United States and the United States Senate, Alex, er Andy?” you win Double
Jeopardy. Without the quorum the FEC can’t investigate complaints, issue
opinions, or fine violators. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Huh. Is there someone who might benefit from this arrangement?
Anyone? Bueller?<o:p></o:p></div>
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We are in chin-high shit as a nation, and we may very well
go under. I think Abe Lincoln might have said that, but maybe not. He surely
thought it. But I’m going to say it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Here’s something else I’m going to say. If Donald Trump gets
away with impeachable offenses, if the Republicans and the Cult, Evangelical
and otherwise, just shrug at despotism, and turn a blind eye to blatant evil, then
I’m gone. And I can’t wait to leave. If and when it comes to it, I too should
prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving
liberty, or Jesus, or any other high-minded concepts or teachings or man-God
persons who have been cruelly used and turned into objects of doubleplusungood
propaganda to confuse and manipulate the muddled masses. I don’t think Russia
would have me. But maybe Mexico. If I can get over or through the wall. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Andy Whitmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04010130934552315074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991864.post-90954881020076768142019-10-02T12:32:00.004-04:002019-10-02T12:33:54.532-04:00The Beautiful Mess of The Goldfinch<br />
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This is one of the few reviews of “The Goldfinch” that
attempts to grapple with trauma, and the effects of trauma, in a young life.
And while I can (and will) quibble just a bit with the commentary, I think it’s
fundamentally correct. I’m still baffled by all the negative reviews of this
film, and I will defend this film as both a faithful encapsulation of Donna
Tartt’s sprawling novel and a beautifully framed and filmed love letter to New
York City. What a lovely movie. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But let’s talk trauma, shall we?<o:p></o:p></div>
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First, the quibble: I didn’t find the portrayal of the young
Theo to be inaccurate or in the least unbelievable. He doesn’t act like a
little adult, as the reviewer comments. He acts like a repressed kid on the
verge of adolescence. He stuffs the trauma. He simply doesn’t know what to do
with it. It comes out in dreams (as it often really does). It comes out in the
inability to articulate emotions. It comes out in the uneaten meals, the
inability to concentrate on a stupid game of chess. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I agree with the reviewer that the young adult Theo still
acts like a child. He is impulsive (flying off to Amsterdam on the verge of his
wedding), indecisive, confused, addicted, floundering. But again, such behavior
is entirely consistent with the devastating effects of childhood trauma, which
leaves its victims stunted, emotionally frozen at the point at which the trauma
occurred. Again, the behavior is entirely believable. The audience wants to see
a young adult. But there is no young adult there. There is only a badly damaged
young adolescent.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I like this film. It’s not perfect, but it’s good, and it’s
true. At this point, all the negative reviews have probably doomed it to a
quick exit from theaters. And that’s unfortunate. It deserves to be seen. See it
while you still can. <o:p></o:p><br />
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<a href="https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2019/09/the-beautiful-mess-of-the-goldfinch.html" target="_blank">https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2019/09/the-beautiful-mess-of-the-goldfinch.html</a></div>
Andy Whitmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04010130934552315074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991864.post-18302161315912437382019-09-27T10:38:00.001-04:002019-09-27T10:46:13.953-04:00Bill Schroeder and the Great Red, White and Blue Calf<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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On this day when the country is unraveling, when the clay-footed idols strut and sputter, I can't help thinking about Bill Schroeder.<br />
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William "Bill" Schroeder was one of four students shot to death at Kent State University in May of 1970. He was a member of the ROTC, an exemplary student, and an Eagle scout. He had the audacity to be walking to class on May 4, 1970, and was more than 100 yards away from the protesters and soldiers. He was carrying a folder. That was his weapon of choice. And he was shot to death by members of the Ohio National Guard.<br />
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In the weeks and months following Bill Schroeder's death, his parents received over 2,000 threatening/harassing messages. They were called every vile name imaginable. They received death threats.<br />
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Think about that. Not one or two hateful nutcases. 2,000 messages.<br />
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I was shocked when I read that, and part of me still is. What it suggests to me is that the Great American Civil Religion, which is the real deity of the land, and whose chief symbol is the American flag, and whose faith is based on unquestioned and unquestioning allegiance, is a far more powerful and dangerous idol that I had ever envisioned. As time has passed, and as I've reflected on the many ways the worshipers prostrate themselves before the red, white and blue calf, my convictions have only grown stronger. Richard Nixon, who was guilty as hell, and who absolutely deserved to be impeached, could whip up the idolaters simply by wrapping his lies and denials in patriotic jargon. He was not a crook. He was a good, upstanding patriot. All those naive, idealistic kids and parents and grandparents who marched and carried signs and protested a senseless war in Vietnam were Communists.<br />
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And I see similar dynamics at work today. A President can be caught redhanded in blackmailing a foreign nation and then attempting to cover it up, in using $400 million of taxpayer's money in military aid as leverage to pressure a foreign country into damaging a political opponent. And his contributions for re-election can and will go up as a result. All that idealistic malarkey about upholding the Constitution? It's a mirage. Many Americans - perhaps enough to re-elect an admitted crook - don't really give a shit about that stuff. The evidence dates back at least to the spring of 1970, and it can be found as recently as this week. If you were on the campus of Kent State University on May 4, 1970, and you were shot, then you deserved to die. And so did your parents. Damn Communists. And nothing has really changed. It's still all about demonizing "Communists" and/or journalists, waving that flag like a talisman, and reminding idolaters about unquestioned and unquestioning obedience.<br />
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It is hard to remember this, and it is hard to watch it happening again. The evidence from 49 years ago. The evidence from this week. It is difficult and demoralizing to be an idealist. And a Christian who tries not to be an idolater.Andy Whitmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04010130934552315074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991864.post-9022829439658442462019-09-26T09:25:00.000-04:002019-09-26T13:45:31.798-04:00What is Country?<br />
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One of the great conundrums that Ken Burns’ massive “Country
Music” documentary tried to solve, with mixed results, was the very definition
of the musical genre itself. Just what was, and is, country music?<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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“It’s white man’s soul music,” Kris Kristofferson opined in
an early episode of Burns’ documentary. Well, not exactly, as Ray Charles demonstrated
in the early 1960s with his massively popular album “Modern Sounds in Country and
Western Music,” and as Charlie Pride refuted with a string of hits in the first
half of the 1970s. Rhiannon Giddens (and her former band Carolina Chocolate
Drops) would dispute the claim as well, going back to even earlier sources as a
tireless champion of the music of early African American string bands; bands,
incidentally, that everyone from Stephen Foster to the Carter Family “borrowed”
from without credit. But that’s the folk tradition, some might argue. Nah. That’s
country music.<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Country music is music with a twang, some would argue, a
theory refuted by Eddy Arnold, a bland and very much twangless crooner of vapid
pop ditties in the 1950s, who was inexplicably marketed to the country
audience, and thus became, by default, a singer of country music. <br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Country music is music performed by people from the southern
U.S. and derived from rural or Appalachian musical traditions, say the
anthropologists. It is music that consciously hearkens back to the past,
sentimental and nostalgic, fundamentally conservative in nature. Not really, said
the long-haired hippies, who rocked it up but kept the twang, and earned the
ire of the Nashville establishment. Witness the one and only disastrous Grand
Ole Opry appearance of The Byrds, who were booed off the stage, and the subject
of condescending snark from legendary Nashville DJ Ralph Emery.<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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The hippies got their revenge in a song co-written by Roger
McGuinn and Gram Parsons of the Byrds:<br />
<br />
Well, he don't like the young folks I know<br />
He told me one night on his radio show<br />
He's got him a medal he won in the War<br />
It weighs five-hundred pounds and it sleeps on his floor<br />
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He's a door store truck drivin' man<br />
He's the head of the Ku Klux Klan<br />
When summer rolls around<br />
He'll be lucky if he's not in town<br />
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"This one's for you, Ralph," McGuinn sang as the song faded. And you bet, that was country music.<br />
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Burns cut if off in 1996 (except for a coda featuring the deaths
of June Carter Cash and Johnny Cash), so subjects for further debate weren’t
available. But they are out there. Here’s a prime example, with thrashing
guitars, pedal steel, and the weariest of world-weary lyrics: “This
trickle-down theory’s left all these pockets empty/And the bar clock says 3
a.m./Fallout shelter sign above the door/In other words, don’t come here
anymore.”<br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">You want my opinion? Oh, yes. Country music.</span></div>
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<br />Andy Whitmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04010130934552315074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991864.post-70588043759116217242019-09-25T13:18:00.003-04:002019-09-25T13:36:38.175-04:00Country Music, the Gripes<br />
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Ken Burns gets a lot right in his exhaustive, but never
exhausting, country music documentary. The seven episodes (Episode 8, the
finale, airs tonight) have been hugely entertaining and enlightening, admirably
encapsulating almost a century of music, highlighting the obvious giants of the
genre, and allowing plenty of room for the practitioners to wax nostalgic
and/or philosophical on the brilliance of the music and the foibles of the
people who made it. Special kudos to Burns for recognizing the genius of Marty
Stuart and for allowing him to fill the Shelby Foote (The Civil War)/Buck O’Neil
(Baseball) role as resident ranconteur and wag. Favorite moments: a) Stuart
recounting the story of meeting beautiful country singer Connie Smith as a starstruck
kid: “I told my mama after getting Connie’s autograph that one day I was going
to marry her. Twenty-five years later, I did” and b) Stuart reflecting on his
career: “The first two albums I ever bought as a kid were by Lester Flatt and
Johnny Cash. The only two bands I’ve ever played in were led by Lester Flatt
and Johnny Cash. So that worked out all right.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’m going to give it a solid “A” but still scribble a few
notes in the margins of the paper. Specifically:</div>
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- Yeah, yeah, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, The Byrds and Gram
Parsons, and Bob Dylan in Nashville. All hugely significant in terms of roping
in the Boomer kids and convincing them that there might be merit in the
hillbillies and hopelessly square Nashvillians (Nashvillains?). But aside from
a glancing mention of The Eagles, you’d hardly know that country rock – as a
musical and cultural movement – even happened. A few mentions of, and few notes
from, Poco, Pure Prairie League, and early Linda Ronstadt would have been in
order.<o:p></o:p></div>
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- Steve Earle? Where is he? Anyone? Maybe he’ll show up
tonight in the final episode, but Steve was certainly around in the timeframe
of last night’s episode, and if he goes missing from the entire documentary, I’m
gonna cry Foul. Big miss, Ken.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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- I appreciate the focus on Austin, and on Willie and Waylon, Guy
and Townes, but there was a whole lot more going on as well. Ray Wylie Hubbard,
Jerry Jeff Walker, Doug Sahm, Alejandro Escovedo, Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, and Jimmie
Dale Gilmore all deserved at least a passing mention.<o:p></o:p><br />
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- Mickey Newbury, Mickey Newbury, Mickey Newbury. If you’re
going to feature Kris Kristofferson (and you should), you have to mention Mickey
Newbury in the same literate saloon. Along with Kristofferson, Newbury re-wrote
the rules of how a country song could be written. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It’s all quibbling. Yes, I’d like to see those things, and
yes, this documentary is superb. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Andy Whitmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04010130934552315074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991864.post-83167659331013052592019-09-23T09:32:00.003-04:002019-09-23T09:32:47.287-04:00The Big Picture<br />
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the crush of daily outrages (there’s no
judgment implied there; as a human being, there are plenty of reasons to be
outraged on a daily basis), it’s easy to lose sight of the broader narrative.
Here is the broader narrative. There are people who will read this and will
deny the overwhelming evidence. There are perhaps other ways to explain this
phenomenon, but the best one that I can come up with is that we are living in
different and competing versions of reality, of what really happened, of what
is objectively true. Truth is almost certainly the most significant casualty of
the past half decade in America.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Sometimes it’s worth stepping back to look at
the full picture.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He has pressured
a foreign leader to interfere in the 2020 American presidential election.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He urged a
foreign country to intervene in the 2016 presidential election.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He divulged
classified information to foreign officials.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He publicly undermined
American intelligence agents while standing next to a hostile foreign autocrat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He hired a
national security adviser whom he knew had secretly worked as a foreign
lobbyist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He encourages
foreign leaders to enrich him and his family by staying at his hotels.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He genuflects to
murderous dictators.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He has alienated
America’s closest allies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He lied to the
American people about his company’s business dealings in Russia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He tells new lies
virtually every week — about the economy, voter fraud, even the weather.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He spends hours
on end watching television and days on end staying at resorts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He often declines
to read briefing books or perform other basic functions of a president’s job.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He has aides, as
well as members of his own party in Congress, who mock him behind his back as
unfit for office.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He has repeatedly
denigrated a deceased United States senator who was a war hero.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He insulted a
Gold Star family — the survivors of American troops killed in action.<br />
He described a former first lady, not long after she died, as “nasty.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He described
white supremacists as “some very fine people.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He told four
women of color, all citizens and members of Congress, to “go back and help fix
the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He made a joke
about Pocahontas during a ceremony honoring Native American World War II
veterans.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He launched his
political career by falsely claiming that the first black president was not
really American.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He launched his
presidential campaign by describing Mexicans as “rapists.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He has described
women, variously, as “a dog,” “a pig” and “horseface,” as well as “bleeding
badly from a facelift” and having “blood coming out of her wherever.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He has been
accused of sexual assault or misconduct by multiple women.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He enthusiastically
campaigned for a Senate candidate who was accused of molesting multiple teenage
girls.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He waved around
his arms, while giving a speech, to ridicule a physically disabled person.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He has encouraged
his supporters to commit violence against his political opponents.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He has called for
his opponents and critics to be investigated and jailed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He uses a phrase
popular with dictators — “the enemy of the people” — to describe journalists.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He attempts to
undermine any independent source of information that he does not like,
including judges, scientists, journalists, election officials, the F.B.I., the
C.I.A., the Congressional Budget Office and the National Weather Service.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He has tried to
harass the chairman of the Federal Reserve into lowering interest rates.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He said that a
judge could not be objective because of his Mexican heritage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He obstructed
justice by trying to influence an investigation into his presidential campaign.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He violated
federal law by directing his lawyer to pay $280,000 in hush money to cover up
two apparent extramarital affairs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He made his
fortune partly through wide-scale financial fraud.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He has refused to
release his tax returns.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He falsely
accused his predecessor of wiretapping him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He claimed that
federal law-enforcement agents and prosecutors regularly fabricated evidence,
thereby damaging the credibility of criminal investigations across the country.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He has ordered
children to be physically separated from their parents.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He has suggested
that America is no different from or better than Vladimir Putin’s Russia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.5pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He has called
America a “hellhole.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He is the
president of the United States, and he is a threat to virtually everything that
the United States should stand for.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">- David Leonhardt, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New York Times</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Andy Whitmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04010130934552315074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991864.post-58697589521711388262019-09-22T15:28:00.002-04:002019-09-22T15:34:44.556-04:00The RochesRemembering Maggie Roche, who died about this time two years ago.<br />
<br />
1979 was a fantastic year for music. Punk had mostly swept away the shards of yacht rock and insufferably upbeat neo-Vegas acts like Tony Orlando and Dawn and The Captain and Tennille, New Wave was in full swing, and a whole new generation of songwriters was ready with sharpened pencils.<br />
<br />
Some of the pencils were exceedingly sharp. I'd have a difficult time naming a favorite album from that year, but this one, by the three Roche sisters, is certainly in the running. Maggie, who is in the middle of the album cover photo, had the sharpest pencil. Ostensibly she wrote folk ditties, but these tunes had a bite, and those sweet harmonies belied a world of dysfunction and sadness and a quest for human connection, a quest that was often unfulfilled.<br />
<br />
Listen to her masterpiece, an extended dialogue between parents and daughter, where the details are both elliptical and oh, so specific.<br />
<br />
<i>I went down to Hammond</i><br />
<i>I did as I pleased</i><br />
<i>I ain't the only one<br />Who's got this disease</i><br />
<br />
The Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul and Mary didn't write 'em like that. Maggie Roche did.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />Andy Whitmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04010130934552315074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991864.post-62071003456723574502019-09-20T09:50:00.002-04:002019-09-20T10:05:46.754-04:00Doubt is About as Good as a Heart Attack<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi76Fv3RHnp5Peizk_KgZXThW6_G4fIHASrQGOLgWUTM90jLZaSzI-JoLSjXtPRPjO0Du155kkd_d8hJOyM_UQJHZSs9kQS_2MDrY4jdqUEtcnl-9FxVqnlUmQ0Y1laXPGdmmVf/s1600/Faith+and+Doubt.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi76Fv3RHnp5Peizk_KgZXThW6_G4fIHASrQGOLgWUTM90jLZaSzI-JoLSjXtPRPjO0Du155kkd_d8hJOyM_UQJHZSs9kQS_2MDrY4jdqUEtcnl-9FxVqnlUmQ0Y1laXPGdmmVf/s320/Faith+and+Doubt.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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The quote from the photo comes from someone named Kelly
Balarie, a self-proclaimed “Cheerleader of Faith.” Kelly herself looks like a
cheerleader, perhaps now a few years removed from shaking pompoms on the
sidelines, but still possessing that wholesome, All-American look that inspires
superhuman feats of athletic prowess and giving it 110%.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I have nothing against Kelly, but I suspect she will
experience life at some point, by which I mean that she will encounter inexplicable
and devastating sadness and loss. It comes with the territory. If you haven’t experienced
that yet, give it time. You will. And Kelly will experience it as well. When
she does, I would like to interview her. Kelly would tell me today that the opposite
of faith is doubt. I would tell her that the opposite of doubt is certainty,
not faith, and that doubt, in the words of writer and theologian Frederick Buechner,
is the ants in the pants of faith. If I didn’t doubt, I wouldn’t need faith.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I think about this because I spent a significant portion of
my adult life in churches that exercised Cheerleader Faith. A lot of the rah-rah
clapping and general hallooing was intended to drive away doubt. People would
wander in after a tough morning of dealing with snot-nosed, sick kids, or wondering
how they were going to pay the bills, and they would be hit by half an hour or
so of bright, upbeat sentiments like these:<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<i>I wandered so aimless, my life filled with sin</i><br />
<i>I wouldn't let my dear savior in</i><br />
<i>Then Jesus came like a stranger in the night</i><br />
<i>Praise the Lord, I saw the light</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>I saw the light, I saw the light</i><br />
<i>No more darkness, no more night</i><br />
<i>Now I'm so happy, no sorrow in sight</i><br />
<i>Praise the Lord, I saw the light</i><br />
<br />
That’s an old Hank Williams tune, and I believe I’ve sung it in
more than half a dozen churches. Hank, of course, ended up dead in the back
seat of his car at the ripe old age of 29, which was and is a very sad and devastating
loss, but hardly inexplicable. It’s what often happens when you mix morphine
and bourbon. Whatever light Hank experienced – and I’ll take him at his word
that he experienced the love of God – wasn’t enough to overcome the darkness.
No sorrow in sight? Check with the grieving widow and the kids who lost a
father.</div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I understand the sentiments of the song and the desire to provide
uplifting words directed to God. To extend the cheerleader/athletic metaphor
just a bit, someone should have immediately thrown a flag on the “now I’m so happy,
no sorrow in sight” line and kicked the songwriter out of the game for
heretical bullshittery, but I understand the basic concept of spiritual
transformation and why it’s important. But the question of how one gets there,
how one arrives at a transformed life, is important as well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">My wife and I had an extended conversation about five years ago
that went on for many weeks. It was your basic “Let’s take stock of where we are”
dialogue that I enthusiastically, nay, almost happily recommend for married
couples. We couldn’t do it anymore. We couldn’t deal with “now I’m so happy, no
sorrow in sight.” I literally couldn’t sing it because it was flatly untrue,
and I wasn’t going to pretend that it was true. We were watching the fourth or
fifth wave of new people come into our church, and stick around for a bit, and
then leave. We were considering our aging bodies and witnessing every other Sunday
as Kid’s Sunday, complete with balloons. And we were looking at the toxic changes
happening in America and in the Christian Church in America, and connecting the
dots, and concluding that we either needed to get the hell out of America or out
of the Christian Church or both, and for the good of our souls.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">We ended up in the Catholic Church. It’s mostly better than
staying home and doing the New York Times crossword puzzle (minus the benefits
of building vocabulary), and it’s good for our souls. You don’t have to tell me
about the problems of the Catholic Church. I’m aware of them. I’m also well aware
that there are wide swaths of the Catholic Church in America where I would be
unwelcome, and where I would not want to be present in the first place. It’s a
crapshoot, and there’s plenty of crap to go around.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">As best I can tell, here is how a transformed life works: show up,
confess your sins to God and one another, ask for help to stop sinning, acknowledge
the reality of sorrow and loss, express your doubts, and live in hope, faith,
and love. I see positive changes in people’s lives, including my own. It’s a
quieter, less showy faith, although the pomp and circumstance would lead many
people to suspect the opposite. But it is. It’s quieter. It’s less
(melo)dramatic. It’s less prone to before and after thinking and more inclined
toward process, which includes showing up, confessing your sins, and being
forgiven, again and again and again, scraping away at the barnacles of the old,
dead life. I’m pretty happy in the Catholic Church, at least the local
expression of my parish. At this point (and I’m keeping all options open), I’m thankful
I didn’t leave the country, and I’m thankful I didn’t bag it all and focus on
crossword puzzles. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I also live with doubts. I like to think of it as being human.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Andy Whitmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04010130934552315074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991864.post-51348409039530497782019-09-18T12:45:00.002-04:002019-09-18T12:48:16.967-04:00No America, It's Not Gonna Be Okay<br />
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From Christian pastor John Pavlovitz:<o:p></o:p></div>
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"I am a newly retired optimist.</div>
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I used to believe that things would be okay: that no matter how bad circumstances seemed in the world, I trusted that people would do the right thing, that goodness would prevail, that the rational center would hold.</div>
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I used to believe that our system of checks and balances would protect us from overreaching parties and mentally-unstable presidents and political leaders lacking a working moral compass.</div>
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I used to believe that most people were basically decent, and that this decency would win the day, because our shared humanity was something we were all equally interested in protecting.</div>
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I no longer believe those things."</div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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I would add that I used to believe that it was a no-brainer
that people who identified as Christians would be interested in following
Christ, that there would be a well-understood consensus about the beliefs and
behaviors that would constitute what that would look like, and that it would be
better for people morally and spiritually to join a Christian Church in
America than to stay home on Sunday morning and do the New York Times crossword puzzle. I no longer believe these things either, and it saddens me beyond
words that I no longer believe these things. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://johnpavlovitz.com/2019/09/18/no-america-its-not-gonna-be-okay/?fbclid=IwAR3XW_RGk3U7iOOFtB9G2fAd4YItIXAu53Yq0jiiNikLOHBtgACIj2opp1w" target="_blank">https://johnpavlovitz.com/2019/09/18/no-america-its-not-gonna-be-okay/?fbclid=IwAR3XW_RGk3U7iOOFtB9G2fAd4YItIXAu53Yq0jiiNikLOHBtgACIj2opp1w</a></div>
<br />Andy Whitmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04010130934552315074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991864.post-54248311325141692182019-09-18T09:23:00.001-04:002019-09-18T09:24:23.309-04:00Rex Lex<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUf1aZ9qrQqUylVwkuJVTI8_67nR2rMVFNz65El3p_XIJbdUUTzN-tsXAWvoK__Gu_ASpV7kbBhzL8lA2qUZLZmpKc3qfFG6ieE27axiahnOnLb6X1st58zRXVuYN4wJfsY5bg/s1600/lex+rex.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="474" data-original-width="710" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUf1aZ9qrQqUylVwkuJVTI8_67nR2rMVFNz65El3p_XIJbdUUTzN-tsXAWvoK__Gu_ASpV7kbBhzL8lA2qUZLZmpKc3qfFG6ieE27axiahnOnLb6X1st58zRXVuYN4wJfsY5bg/s320/lex+rex.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Francis Schaeffer, onetime Christian leader/guru and author,
went to great pains to outline the differences between the way most of the
world worked and the way America worked. America, Schaeffer maintained, was
based on the notion of Lex Rex – the Law is King. That is, there were certain principles,
underlying rules and assumptions, that superseded the whims and opinions of any
one individual, no matter how powerful. This was in contrast to the way the
rest of the world worked, and indeed how Western Civilization™ had worked up until
the establishment of America, the shining beacon on a hill. “L’etat, c’est moi”
pronounced Louis XIV of France. I am the state. In the old Latin phrase, Rex
Lex. The King IS the law. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Yesterday provided an intimate glimpse of the way America
really works. It wasn’t always this way. As recently as 1974, even Presidents
were assumed to be subject to the laws of the land. Coordinate a burglary and
you could be and would be impeached. I didn’t watch the testimony of Corey
Lewandowski, Donald Trump’s former campaign manager. But from the transcripts I’ve
read, his testimony went something like this:<o:p></o:p></div>
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Hapless Democratic Stooge (HDS): Did Donald Trump authorize
you to pay off porn stars so they wouldn’t testify against him and reveal him
to be the lecherous sexual predator and serial adulterer that he is?<br />
Lewandowski: The President can do whatever he wants.<br />
<br />
HDS: You didn’t answer the question.<br />
Lewandowski: You didn’t answer MY question. What’s for lunch?<br />
<br />
HDS: Mr. Lewandowski, are you going to answer the question?<br />
Lewandowski: Nice weather we’re havin’. Maybe cooler this weekend, eh?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Don’t be fooled. Rex Lex. Donald Trump is above the law. Welcome to Amerikkka.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Andy Whitmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04010130934552315074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991864.post-4480008274509685482019-09-16T13:24:00.002-04:002019-09-16T13:35:45.615-04:00Country Music<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnZnOTsepPuLqG_ZXSNy6sC2T6zrNYS6t0IRyzLgwVZKYTRbNT1o6kk-gZavv3KNZUCvoYydGBfLCF0caMVjmVZHhV3rr9LLtM4TOkJUpM-msZtL6tR54bbPWxJzK-EP34_QwS/s1600/Carter+Family.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="430" data-original-width="500" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnZnOTsepPuLqG_ZXSNy6sC2T6zrNYS6t0IRyzLgwVZKYTRbNT1o6kk-gZavv3KNZUCvoYydGBfLCF0caMVjmVZHhV3rr9LLtM4TOkJUpM-msZtL6tR54bbPWxJzK-EP34_QwS/s320/Carter+Family.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The great documentary maker Ken Burns has his shtick, and by
now – almost two dozen documentaries into a life’s work – it’s readily
apparent. Slowly pan in on a sepia-toned old photograph. Cue the narrator
(usually Peter Coyote), who waxes poetic about a bygone era. Cut to a talking
head, who brings a contemporary perspective on the old history. Liberally mix
with relevant music from the era in question. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The shtick is on full display in “Country Music,” Burns’
mammoth 16-hour love letter that debuted on PBS last night. You know what you’re
going to get. This time the subject matter is right in my wheelhouse, and as
the proud owner of several thousand country-ish music albums I expected to hear
and see a lot of very, very familiar material.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I did, and I didn’t. Last night’s episode, which essentially
covered the creation of the world through 1933, offered the expected summaries
of the origin of the Grand Ole Opry and the simultaneous discoveries and
ensuing careers of the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers, both the fortuitous
handywork of record producer Ralph Peer, who ventured off to God-haunted Bristol,
Tennessee in 1927 and basically launched a musical genre. This is fairly
well-known territory to country music fans, but there were still some surprises
along the winding mountain road. I particularly enjoyed the tale of the
blueblood denizens of Nashville, the “Athens of the South,” who were alarmed by
the hillbilly music coming out of their fair and enlightened city. After the
bluebloods insisted that an hour of highbrow opera should precede what was then
called the Saturday Night Barn Dance radio show on WSM, SNBD emcee George D.
Hay gleefully announced as he went on the air, “You’ve just heard opera. And
now it’s time for some grand ole opry.” The name stuck. The bluebloods, presumably,
went back to sniffing haughtily. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It’s a theme that I suspect will be revisited in the
episodes to come. Growing up, I was certainly led to believe that country music
was the exclusive domain of inbred cretins and racist rednecks. I still know
people who automatically dismiss the genre as music unfit for civilized humanity.
But, as Marty Stuart so aptly put it in a talking head appearance last night, “country
music is soul music.” And so it is. It is cornpone and bad puns, pickup trucks
and long-gone darlins, songwriting by the numbers (there is, in fact, a Music
Row where nameless, faceless Bards For Hire churn out the formulaic hits, one cliché
at a time). But at its best it touches the deepest of places. I first heard it,
really heard it, as a freshman in college when a country poet disguised as a hippie,
one Gram Parsons of The Byrds, sang “It’s a hard way to find out that trouble
is real/In a faraway city with a faraway feel.” That one burrowed deep. I’ve
been looking for and finding those connections ever since. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So I’m really psyched about this Ken Burns documentary. My
guess is that we’ll get to meet Hank Williams tonight. There’s some soul there,
too.</div>
<br />Andy Whitmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04010130934552315074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991864.post-82765688965105622182019-09-14T16:48:00.000-04:002019-09-14T16:48:39.552-04:00Donald Trump as First ResponderBy some calculations, Donald Trump is now approaching 13,000 lies during his tenure as President of the United States. The lies come via flapping lips and tweeting fingers, which is how they come with many people, perhaps most people, some of them the self-proclaimed best people. But nevertheless, they're a problem.<br />
<br />
Far be it from me to deny the specks and logs aspect of this. For those of you who may not be familiar what I'm talking about, here is Jesus on how to view this phenomenon: "How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' while there is still a beam in your own eye? You hypocrite! First take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."<br />
<br />
So, yeah. Ouch. In my defense as a sometimes liar, I'm going to maintain that a) I view lying as a problem, nay, as a sin (see the Ten Commandments for corroboration) and b) I strive not to lie, and when I do, I engage in an old-fashioned Christian practice known as repentance (it was once in vogue among Christians; you can look it up), confess my sin to God and to those I've lied to, and try not to do it anymore.<br />
<br />
You can quibble about the 13,000-lie figure if you'd like. Blame it on the Fake Media if it makes you feel better. So, cut it in half. Cut it by 90%. I don't care. But I'd still like to suggest that the frequency and the ridiculousness of the lies uttered by this man is staggering and unprecedented in the annals of American politics.<br />
<br />
Last Wednesday was the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a day on which Donald Trump again maintained that he was at Ground Zero shortly after the planes hit, in his words "to try to help in any little way that I could." He has said this before. He says it, in fact, on every anniversary of 9/11.<br />
<br />
Except he wasn't there. He wasn't there on 9/11 of 2001. And repeating the same lie in 2002, and 2003, and so on, right up until 9/11 of 2019 doesn't make it true. You may recall that on 9/11 of 2001 there were hundreds of police and firemen at Ground Zero. And the universal witness of the thousands of people who were on the scene and survived is that the police and fire personnel served heroically in ensuring that people got out, moved away, and far away, from Ground Zero. Other than the insistent, repeated word of Donald Trump, there is no one who states that Donald Trump was at Ground Zero on 9/11. This is because he wasn't there. And even if he had been there, the police and fire personnel would have been there doing their jobs, which was to ensure that Donald Trump, and anybody else, stayed far away from Ground Zero. But he wasn't there.<br />
<br />
You may ask yourself why Donald Trump feels the need to announce, again and again and again and again, that he was present at Ground Zero on 9/11. It's a reasonable question to ask. You may ask yourself why he feels compelled to state that the crowd at his presidential inauguration was larger than the crowd at Barack Obama's inauguration, even though aerial photographs clearly reveal that it was not. Or why he feels the need to announce not once, not twice, not three times, but four times that his father was born in Germany, even though he was born in the Bronx, New York. What does this say about him? What does it say that some people actually believe such easily disprovable bullshit? These are good questions. I'd encourage you to ask them.<br />
<br />
It is worth noting that, according to the Washington Post, Trump has earned the dubious distinction of being the sole recipient of a new category of recognition, a sort of Lifetime Falsehood Achievement award called the "Bottomless Pinnochio." It's given to politicians who repeat the same lie at least twenty times. As of August, 2018, Trump had garnered 14 such Bottomless Pinnochio distinctions. Note that the "I was there at Ground Zero" whopper, assuming it is only repeated on 9/11 anniversaries, doesn't yet qualify for a Bottomless Pinnochio. But give him a couple more years. Better yet, don't.<br />
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I would also like to propose, gently, gently, because that damn beam hurts, that a propensity - and let's call 13,000 of them a propensity - to lie is a major character flaw. It's a major character flaw when I engage in that behavior. It's a major character flaw when presidents engage in that behavior. It erodes trust. It's a sign of moral and personal weakness. If you happen to hold to old-fashioned Christian notions, it's sinful. I try not to do it. It would be great if the Evangelical Dream President tried, even a little, not to do it.<br />
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<a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/09/14/760683504/opinion-president-trump-claims-he-was-at-ground-zero-on-sept-11-but-was-he?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_medium=social">https://www.npr.org/2019/09/14/760683504/opinion-president-trump-claims-he-was-at-ground-zero-on-sept-11-but-was-he?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_medium=social</a>Andy Whitmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04010130934552315074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991864.post-37411848963116974432019-09-11T16:35:00.001-04:002019-09-11T16:48:02.813-04:00Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi97yKWsa6sHP2jETG4TOdtQCgXPm7RbHdf4XJXvwYgMFYces1EW6ZcrYHQB_LCOvMNUKEUtpKPVkpG1J4TGd_QqFlnma-iPy18yy5w_H9D4a_csiKNgG2D24Gb36b32JX8LI58/s1600/French+Quarter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="896" data-original-width="1300" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi97yKWsa6sHP2jETG4TOdtQCgXPm7RbHdf4XJXvwYgMFYces1EW6ZcrYHQB_LCOvMNUKEUtpKPVkpG1J4TGd_QqFlnma-iPy18yy5w_H9D4a_csiKNgG2D24Gb36b32JX8LI58/s320/French+Quarter.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
We're back after an all-too-short four days. I love New Orleans.<br />
<br />
It was an absolute sauna; mid-to-upper nineties, with ridiculously high humidity. In the French Quarter, where we stayed, the smell of weed competes with the smell of vomit, and neither odor ever quite goes away, even though the fine citizens wash down the streets every morning. Musicians - most of them ne'er-do-wells lacking in talent - play on almost every street corner, looking for that one big break. On Bourbon Street, the tourists stumble around, glassy-eyed, and convince themselves they're having a good time. Massage parlors, tarot readers, bars, bars, bars, and some of the finest restaurants in the world compete for your hard-earned dollars. Go Bucks. And they do, quickly.<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, I genuinely love New Orleans. Tennessee Williams once wrote, "There are three cities in the U.S. - New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everything else is Cleveland." Tennessee is an asshole, but I know and understand what he was getting at. In an increasingly homogenized, franchised, big-box world, it's refreshing to come upon an actual place, a few square miles that are unlike anything else you might encounter in a big, big country. And New Orleans is such a place.<br />
<br />
We stayed in the French Quarter mainly because it's close to everything; the music clubs on Frenchmen St., Treme - the first African American neighborhood in America, downtown with its museums, the Garden District, with its antebellum mansions and snooty Old Money Republicans. But we mainly walked through the French Quarter on our way to other places. It's the ultimate tourist trap, Disney without the mouse, and with absinthe bars instead of lemonade stands, and with actual as opposed to pre-fab architecture. Still, I'm not much of a fan of the French Quarter. The ironwork was magnificent. Many of the restaurants are fabulous. Go, by all means. But keep going.<br />
<br />
I loved Treme, a wondrous, gritty neighborhood known as Backatown to the natives, the place where the Lyft and Uber drivers told us not to go, and where we encountered upraised eyebrows and smirks. It's rundown, more than sketchy, and sometimes downright murderous. It's the equivalent of hanging out in the housing projects on the south side of Chicago. But I'd go back in a heartbeat. My favorite moment involved crashing what appeared to be a party behind Kermit's Lounge. Kermit is Kermit Ruffins, a Grammy-winning trumpet player who runs a seedy bar in the seediest of neighborhoods, where a couple hundred African Americans and about six white people, including, yes, two 60+-year-old white people, listened to the raw, funky, and I do mean raw and funky, sounds of a hybrid brass/hip-hop band. It was a blast. There was a fistfight behind us. There was a thick cloud of weed smoke overhead, and all around us. And people could not have been kinder and more welcoming. It was, honestly, one of the musical highlights of my life, and I've seen more than my share of musical highlights.<br />
<br />
Going to the 10 a.m. Jazz mass Sunday morning at St. Augustine Catholic Church in Treme was an absolute highlight. I was there, I kid you not, because I wanted to be at Mass, but yeah, also for the music. The choir was good, but there was one Aretha-level soloist who took it to another level. Holy Ghost Shivers down the spine great.<br />
<br />
The soulfood at L'il Dizzy's Cafe was extraordinary. Gumbo. Skip the omelets. Get the fried chicken and the mac and cheese and the gumbo.<br />
<br />
Treme, I love you.<br />
<br />
And the rest of the time was fine, and fun. We saw the big mansions in the Garden District. They were big, and it was hot. We ate po boys at Johnny's Po Boys, where we stood in line in front of a dive diner for forty-five minutes or so in order to experience the privilege of inhaling wondrous fried food. Yes, the diet took a hit over the past four days.<br />
<br />
We went to the big World War II Museum and Multi-Media Extravaganza. As museums go, it was fairly impressive, and we sat through something called a 4D Movie Experience where the big, big screen gave me vertigo and where our seats shook (literally) when the atom bomb detonated. It was kind of like being at Cedar Point in northern Ohio.<br />
<br />
And we hung out and talked to people. At church. In restaurants. On the street. On buses. Just walking around. They were, to a person, friendly and helpful. There's such a great vibe to this city. People are understandably proud of it, and they understandably have a bit of a chip on their shoulder after Katrina. To that end, people are crazy, absolutely nuts, about the New Orleans Saints, who played their first game while we were in town. And now I remember why they're crazy. In the weeks after Katrina, a drowned and destroyed city rallied around their football team, which ended up winning the Super Bowl that year. I'm not much of a fan of the NFL. For the most part, I don't really care. But you can mark me down as a fan of the New Orleans Saints because I'm a fan of New Orleans and what the team represents to the city. Who dat.<br />
<br />
I want to go back. Tomorrow.<br />
<br />
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<br />Andy Whitmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04010130934552315074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991864.post-27655064178084125332019-09-05T13:28:00.001-04:002019-09-05T16:42:13.228-04:00The Century of Merde<em style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><br /></em>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "bitstream charter" , serif; font-size: 16px;">One of the greatest 200-word stretches of the English language you'll ever encounter:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "bitstream charter" , serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /><i>"Today is my thirtieth birthday and I sit on the ocean wave in the schoolyard and wait for Kate and think of nothing. Now in the thirty-first year of my dark pilgrimage on this earth and knowing less than I ever knew before, having learned only to recognize merde when I see it, having inherited no more from my father than a good nose for merde, for every species of shit that flies - my only talent - smelling merde from every quarter, living in fact in the very century of merde, the great shithouse of scientific humanism where needs are satisfied, everyone becomes an anyone, a warm and creative person, and prospers like a dung beetle, and one hundred percent of people are humanists and ninety-eight percent believe in God, and men are dead, dead, dead; and the malaise has settled like a fall-out and what people really fear is not that the bomb will fall but that the bomb will not fall - on this my thirtieth birthday, I know nothing and there is nothing to do but fall prey to desire."</i><br />- Walker Percy, from <i>The Moviegoer</i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "bitstream charter" , serif; font-size: 16px;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "bitstream charter" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">I love this man. I love him because he could write that and still show up for Mass every week, which he did all through his life, and because he meant those 200 words and because he meant it when he showed up for Mass, too, and he didn't see any contradictions between them. The Evangelical world would be toting up the "merdes" and the "shits" and clucking disapprovingly, all the while completely missing the point, which is that it's tough to be alive and to stay alive in a world led by dunderheads, and that you need a whole mess of faith to get by. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "bitstream charter" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "bitstream charter" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Percy didn't spend his entire life in New Orleans, but he loved the city and was formed by it. He wrote:</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "bitstream charter" , serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "bitstream charter" , serif; font-size: 16px;"><i>“New Orleans is both intimately related to the South and yet in a real sense cut adrift not only from the South but from the rest of Louisiana, somewhat like Mont St. Michel awash at high tide. One comes upon it, moreover, in the unlikeliest of places, by penetrating the depths of the Bible Belt, running the gauntlet of Klan territory, the pine barrens of South Mississippi, Bogalusa, and the Florida parishes of Louisiana.” </i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "bitstream charter" , serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "bitstream charter" , serif; font-size: 16px;">That's where I'm heading, although I'll miss the build-up by skipping the surrounding Klan territory and flying directly in to Louis Armstrong Airport. I wouldn't mind searching out Percy's old home in Carrollton, making a pilgrimmage to celebrate and honor the man who proclaimed the century of merde. He wasn't wrong. I'm also looking forward to attending the Jazz Mass at St. Augustine Church in Treme. He wasn't wrong about that, either. </span><br />
<br />Andy Whitmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04010130934552315074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991864.post-19433597314535367212019-09-04T09:19:00.005-04:002019-09-04T11:13:09.664-04:00Intellectual Humility and the Assault on Truth<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #111111;">I change my
mind. This happens relatively frequently, and for all kinds of reasons. My wife
hands me a dessert that is supposed to taste like chocolate but is made from zucchini
and something called goji berries. In my mind I tell myself, “This cannot
possibly be any good.” But I take a bite and, to my utter astonishment, it
tastes okay. It doesn’t really taste like chocolate, but it’s not bad. It’s
edible. It’s more than edible. So I change my mind. The concept “zucchini/goji
berry concoctions are bad” undergoes a transformation to something like “zucchini/goji
berry concoctions aren’t as good as chocolate, let’s not get crazy here, but
they’re okay.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #111111;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #111111;">It happens. I
adapt. I change. So I’m wondering what the zucchini/goji berry equivalent might
be in modern American political discourse. Here is an article that argues for
intellectual humility. And here is a cogent and well-mannered sentence from the
article that serves pretty well as a thesis:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #111111;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #111111;">“We can
similarly view intellectual humility as the wisest balance between, on the one
hand, the belief that truth exists and is objective, and on the other, the
knowledge that our access to the truth is subjective and therefore partial.
Understanding this balance suggests that the search for the truth we revere is
best undertaken in recognition of our limitations and in collaboration with
others.</span>”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #111111;">Who’s going to
disagree with that? Not me. But when I drill down a bit, and when I try to
apply the concepts to present-day American life and culture, I get stymied. For
instance, I encounter on one side the contention offered by seventeen U.S. intelligence agencies and reported by The New York Times and The Washington Post that Russia
directly interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and on the other
side the contention offered by Donald Trump that Russia did not interfere in
the 2016 presidential election. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #111111;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #111111;">Intellectual
humility, or the sorry version of it that exists in my heart and mind, insists
that I don’t really know, that my access to the truth is subjective, colored by
biased sources and hampered by my own limited understanding. Also, it insists
on noting that I’ve been wrong before, about all kinds of things more important
than healthy desserts, and that I could be wrong about present-day American
life and culture. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #111111;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #111111;">Duly noted, my
intellectually prideful side tells my intellectually humble side. But try this on
for size, you quivering, prevaricating mass of spineless non-convictions: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>while you shrug your shoulders and whimper, there
are fundamental tenets of what it means to be an American, and what it means to
be an adherent of Truth with a capital T at stake. Seventeen, count ‘em,
seventeen U.S. intelligence agencies offer remarkably consistent testimony about
Russian interference. The New York Times and The Washington Post, winners of
multiple Pulitzer Prizes for journalistic integrity and excellence, report the
same findings. Against them you have Donald Trump, who literally lies about the
most silly and easily disprovable things, including the country where his
father was born, the size of the crowd that attended his presidential
inauguration, the notion that he won the popular vote in 2016, the belief that Mexico
is paying for a border wall, and that somewhere deep in the unrecorded and
hidden annals of U.S. history there was something known as “the Bowling Green
Massacre.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #111111;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #111111;">It’s not a fair
fight. It’s not. I am all in favor of intellectual humility. I am not in favor of turning off one's brain. I am not in favor of denying what can be objectively verified. I am not in favor of calling truth lies or lies truth. I am against those things. I think they’re
bad ideas, and I always will think so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #111111;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #111111;">I will try to
keep an open mind. Really, I promise. And zucchini/goji berries? Not bad.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #111111;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
https://www.the-american-interest.com/2019/08/28/ten-ways-to-defuse-political-arrogance/?fbclid=IwAR2zr1JgkAina6h2Sc5crFubRcljtwYwzhQXbWBBBtzhRCF7pkIlZbBnlHo<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Andy Whitmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04010130934552315074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991864.post-61229206640754536542019-09-01T13:04:00.001-04:002019-09-01T13:07:45.947-04:00Norman Fucking Rockwell<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpiHhsrxvthts3cHgHXOuZTz1iEx8OevJQvG7e-suY8D3eVJZreSTCdUMi_d_5tVAMZbRmGteztf8Kalch-mfzUnJ3BrjbV6nFFsZ9udZrvbm-bLsQdI8nYZxDCSN87eh9Pluo/s1600/normanrockwell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="410" data-original-width="618" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpiHhsrxvthts3cHgHXOuZTz1iEx8OevJQvG7e-suY8D3eVJZreSTCdUMi_d_5tVAMZbRmGteztf8Kalch-mfzUnJ3BrjbV6nFFsZ9udZrvbm-bLsQdI8nYZxDCSN87eh9Pluo/s320/normanrockwell.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Lana Del Rey's new album "Norman Fucking Rockwell" is the perfect soundtrack for our MAGA times; an instagram of the apocalypse, as vapid and as revealing as a tweet from the presidential commode.<br />
<br />
And life couldn't be better, you know?<br />
<br />
They're still shootin' 'em up in Texas, boys; little 17-month-old kids, along with assorted men and women, so it was time to pass a new law that means guns for teachers and guns in foster homes and guns in churches. Thoughts and prayers. It had been a couple weeks, so Texas was due.<br />
<br />
The hurricane's gonna sink the coast, but Disney's still open, and the stock market is tanking, but college football is underway, and you didn't really count on Social Security and Medicare anyway, did you, and the big election is still open to the highest foreign bidder, and no we don't need to reform a damn thing, and everybody's pro-life until somebody's born, and the Christian Church is in bed with racists, holy fuck indeed, and everywhere there is winning, winning, winning.<br />
<br />
God bless Amerikkka. Norman Fucking Rockwell.<br />
<br />
I miss Long Beach and I miss you, babe<br />
I miss dancing with you most of all<br />
I miss the bar where the Beach Boys would go<br />
Dennis's last stop before Kokomo<br />
<br />
Those nights were on fire<br />
We couldn't get higher<br />
We didn't know that we had it all<br />
But nobody warns you before the fall<br />
<br />
And I'm wasted<br />
Don't leave, I just need a wake-up call<br />
I'm facing the greatest<br />
The greatest loss of them all<br />
The culture is lit and I had a ball<br />
I guess I'm signing off after all<br />
<br />
I miss New York and I miss the music<br />
Me and my friends, we miss rock 'n roll<br />
I want shit to feel just like it used to<br />
When, baby, I was doing nothin' most of all<br />
<br />
The culture is lit and I had a ball<br />
I guess that I'm burned out after all<br />
<br />
And I'm wasted<br />
Don't leave, I just need a wake-up call<br />
I'm facing the greatest<br />
The greatest loss of them all<br />
The culture is lit and I had a ball<br />
I guess that I'm burned out after all<br />
<br />
If this is it, I'm signing off<br />
Miss doing nothin' most of all<br />
Hawaii just missed that fireball<br />
L.A. is in flames, it's getting hot<br />
Kanye West is blonde and gone<br />
"Life on Mars" ain't just a song<br />
I hope the live stream's almost onAndy Whitmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04010130934552315074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991864.post-41003604021688244782019-08-29T18:36:00.003-04:002019-08-29T21:07:26.822-04:00Trickle Down, Way Back<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc5UC60U3ex4KAozBCIhax43jmqu2SwSfqyG8dmsSRaJEYLIgEVQ3DhRnMEAA9aBESA_j1W-sBN8a0koM724jSPik2Kh949Q8JAk5M_Sj635KiSgfm5lDnJWxK4MNWQqNbM7TS/s1600/medieval.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="207" data-original-width="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc5UC60U3ex4KAozBCIhax43jmqu2SwSfqyG8dmsSRaJEYLIgEVQ3DhRnMEAA9aBESA_j1W-sBN8a0koM724jSPik2Kh949Q8JAk5M_Sj635KiSgfm5lDnJWxK4MNWQqNbM7TS/s1600/medieval.jpeg" /></a></div>
The recent PBS series on the Gilded Age of America (roughly 1870 to 1900) was illuminating. Unless you're an astute student of history, it's one of those eras that most Americans tend to gloss over. Lots of industrial growth, right? Railroads and steel mills and big banks, J.P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie and the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts. Lots of ostentatious wealth. Robber barons might be in there somewhere, too, which probably wasn't good. Waves of immigrants - the original wretched refuse and their teeming shores - doing the backbreaking labor to construct the Biltmores and the Breakers. Maybe some strikes and some union busting and some head busting. That was all part of it, too.<br />
<br />
What I didn't know, and what was particularly interesting, was that trickle-down economics originated with the plutocrats of the 1880s and 1890s. All that newly generated wealth was supposed to find its way to the hands of the laborers. It didn't happen, of course. While Morgan and Carnegie became the richest men in the world, 20% of Americans were out of work. They lived through the worst economic depression that the country had seen, or would see, until the 1930s. But trickle-down economics was the campaign message of Grover Cleveland and William McKinley, and they convinced enough poor laborers to vote for them that they were elected President of the United States.<br />
<br />
It turns out that Ronald Reagan (and many conservative American politicians after him) was preaching an old, old sermon. It was smoke and mirrors then. It's smoke and mirrors now because it discounts the fundamental greed and selfishness of human beings, and the role of government in enforcing a safety net that ensures that citizens - all citizens - will be fed, and housed, and provided with medical care, and supported through indigence and old age.<br />
<br />
We haven't learned. Much of the rest of the world has. But we probably never will.Andy Whitmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04010130934552315074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991864.post-40409980512840500022019-08-25T17:37:00.002-04:002019-08-25T17:55:34.609-04:00All the News Not Fit to Print<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglIyMRcq4CqBzgA8C5hZYR8JTO-jmaq0ugfk3nDbJ7tlBcLYcdXvsnrUVGo45Pqvn6rGXVFnxFjGg3mwQClQOHOrAR9kizGi5WmAGeDVQHKfeZsOdDFg_rxT8TU_0h2mFrRzp1/s1600/Not+Fit+to+Print.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1230" data-original-width="1600" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglIyMRcq4CqBzgA8C5hZYR8JTO-jmaq0ugfk3nDbJ7tlBcLYcdXvsnrUVGo45Pqvn6rGXVFnxFjGg3mwQClQOHOrAR9kizGi5WmAGeDVQHKfeZsOdDFg_rxT8TU_0h2mFrRzp1/s320/Not+Fit+to+Print.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I periodically check in to State Media (TV and website) to see what's being covered. I do this because I've long maintained that State Media is its own private infotainment universe, pitched unerringly to the Cult, and that there would be no way to maintain the vicelike grip on the Cult if the three-way shuttle between White House staff, State Media reporters, and Dancing With the Stars contestants was ever interrupted by reports of what the rest of the world was talking about.<br />
<br />
The news, of course, is very much up for grabs. This is how we've ended up with the parallel but diametrically opposed universes in which we now live and move and have our being. The news consists of not only whatever spin is given to the common stories shared by State Media and the rest of Planet Earth, but also in what is never covered at all; what is never reported and acknowledged as being newsworthy. And this week has been a doozy for what has not been covered by State Media.<br />
<br />
Donald Trump tweeting reports by a wackadoodle conspiracy theorist that he is viewed as "The King of Israel" and "The Second Coming of God" and looking to the skies and proclaiming himself as "The Chosen One" a couple hours later? Non-news, according to State Media. Nada, to use a word sometimes spoken by immigrants that Donald Trump probably doesn't like. While the rest of the world was looking worryingly at Trump and conjecturing about Messiah complexes and mental illness (yes, the non-State Media is also sometimes given to hyperbole), State Media gave us sub-National-Inquirer stories entitled "Attorney Accused of Killing Man with Mercedes After Golf Ball Hit Car" and "Why a Woman Was Furious Her Sister-in-Law Gave Birth on Her Wedding Day." You have to cover something, I suppose. The Cult would simply never know that much of Planet Earth views the so-called leader of the free world as dangerous and unhinged. It simply wasn't news.<br />
<br />
None of this should come as a great surprise. It's the same trend that has been evident for years. It was just particularly glaringly apparent this week. But if you can stomach it, I do recommend that you spend some time with State Media. It's a good lesson in how propaganda works, and how silence still speaks volumes. The question is, and always should be, "Can what I don't know hurt me?" The answer is still Yes.Andy Whitmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04010130934552315074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991864.post-30190767927062906972019-08-22T13:06:00.001-04:002019-08-22T13:06:29.985-04:00Caligula<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLn0xI7EZjdNW9Ho8QVAVLQjdSDVPHh3JxcQ1aC6wmuZklyRFEQ5FD0jV4F5yLVGG28quyOgBwTlkrRmI2YZ2YYZFt85Jr3Rp8RmFRrIJrCxb7cZgJ-tF4MU8hGOpWn2TX8gES/s1600/Caligula.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="435" data-original-width="550" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLn0xI7EZjdNW9Ho8QVAVLQjdSDVPHh3JxcQ1aC6wmuZklyRFEQ5FD0jV4F5yLVGG28quyOgBwTlkrRmI2YZ2YYZFt85Jr3Rp8RmFRrIJrCxb7cZgJ-tF4MU8hGOpWn2TX8gES/s320/Caligula.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The cray-cray is strong with this one. 25<sup>th</sup>
Amendment time, anyone? Or, maybe not. Maybe Caligula-level self-references to divinity
– specifically, to the King of Israel, the Second Coming of Christ, and the
Chosen One - are meant to be cynical plays to the Evangelical base, which grows
more and more base by the day, and more and more removed from historic
Christianity. Up until 2015 or so all of this would have been readily recognized
as utterly blasphemous, idolotrous shit. But it’s hard to tell quite what’s up
in Trump/Evangel World these days. In Trump/Evangel World, they probably just
call it Wednesday.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are those of us – Christians, or so we would like to
think – who will not bow the knee. You may recall what happened to the original
bunch who responded this way. Don’t expect it to be much different this time. It
was bread and circuses then; it’s bread and circuses now. We have the consolation
of believing – naively, sweetly, no doubt – that we are faithful to Christ.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Andy Whitmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04010130934552315074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991864.post-53747114880040112002019-08-21T08:29:00.000-04:002019-08-21T10:57:05.991-04:00Everyday Antifascists<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKTZ4icqnAy8b5I2HG9pjUDlb3QBvxYz4t8PCeIXimdbTRZ30ri7duuTp5MFmVOIP8WPOCe2uev8FzkR1beHPa-5yrK8PTz9X9o0gTWopA7Dq9uDAMn4WUSYskDSgGyRsDBstG/s1600/Fighting+Fascists.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="417" data-original-width="600" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKTZ4icqnAy8b5I2HG9pjUDlb3QBvxYz4t8PCeIXimdbTRZ30ri7duuTp5MFmVOIP8WPOCe2uev8FzkR1beHPa-5yrK8PTz9X9o0gTWopA7Dq9uDAMn4WUSYskDSgGyRsDBstG/s320/Fighting+Fascists.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: "inherit" , serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“If you oppose racism, white supremacy,
homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and the
xenophobic, ultranationalist ideologies of the far right (and our current
administration), you are an EVERYDAY ANTIFASCIST," according to the flyer
distributed last week in Portland — ahead of the marches and counter-marches —
by a group called the Popular Mobilization. It added: “If you are not a fascist
— then you are Antifa."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: "inherit" , serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: "inherit" , serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I am an everyday antifascist. I would like to
think that this is one of those "duh" kinds of responses that comes
with being a caring human being who is aware of my relationship with other
people on the planet, although I also recognize that my "duh"
response is far from automatic and frequently not shared by others, which
explains the existence of racists, white supremacists, homophobes, transphobes,
misogynists, Islamaphobes, anti-Semites, xenophobes, and ultranationalists.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: "inherit" , serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: "inherit" , serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I am not, and have no desire to be, associated with a non-organization
called Antifa. And this is where it gets tricky. I am happy to march with them.
I've done it before, and I'll probably do it again. We share similar goals. But
I don't want to beat up neo-Nazis, although I like them no better than do
"official" Antifa non-members. I think hating one's enemies tends to
lend strength and credence to one's enemies, and thus pounding the heads of
neo-Nazis is ideologically contradictory and ultimately self-defeating. On the
other hand, I don't think being nice to them stops them either. Basically, I
think Dietrich Bonhoeffer was right, although I wish he was wrong. I do feel
comfortable if anybody wants to call me an everyday antifascist as I attempt to
sort it all out. That will always be true. Every day of my everyday antifascist
life.</span><br />
<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: "inherit" , serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: "inherit" , serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/what-is-antifa-trump-fascism-domestic-terrorism-20190820.html?fbclid=IwAR2YVv5Q3uoTbxEC3_eRel5eHWndB4s4-3hH3qGBgOwjaTzkpowHYgyMWOo" target="_blank">https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/what-is-antifa-trump-fascism-domestic-terrorism-20190820.html?fbclid=IwAR2YVv5Q3uoTbxEC3_eRel5eHWndB4s4-3hH3qGBgOwjaTzkpowHYgyMWOo</a></span>Andy Whitmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04010130934552315074noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9991864.post-47358329613913020792019-08-19T17:48:00.000-04:002019-08-19T17:48:28.368-04:00Antifa<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvCR6xfRu2ZXh5EUtwTu7AvIxtj-BDNdTxplJ8jAKD-kQlK8IPOI6HvfK6pRag1JzmfFJy6n4yIX4o_xNXeX7jHEK3fCfRu9pMd1qhxdngCB8faQdzGSS8gqKNB_HQpIDVe5PW/s1600/Antifa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="443" data-original-width="621" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvCR6xfRu2ZXh5EUtwTu7AvIxtj-BDNdTxplJ8jAKD-kQlK8IPOI6HvfK6pRag1JzmfFJy6n4yIX4o_xNXeX7jHEK3fCfRu9pMd1qhxdngCB8faQdzGSS8gqKNB_HQpIDVe5PW/s320/Antifa.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I am ambivalent about Antifa, which stands for anti-fascist, the non-organized, non-led, loosely affiliated bunch of people who oppose fascism. I don't like the violent actions that sometimes accompany their anti-fascism. I wish, fervently, that they had not beaten up a conservative reporter in California. I wish that they had not thrown milkshakes on the poor skinheads and neo-Nazis in Portland.<br />
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On the other hand, I am clearly and unambiguously against fascists, and thus I sympathize with Antifa. They've got it right, and they've got it right in their name. And I am with them. Antifa, which dates back to the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, had their hearts in the right places eighty or ninety years ago, and they have their hearts in the right places in 2019. I don't like everything I see, but, in general, count me in. I am anti-fascist. We fought a World War over this shit. Back in the day we called Antifa G.I.s. They stormed the beaches of Normandy.<br />
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As a point of comparison, Antifa is responsible for zero deaths in America in the past 20 years. According to the Anti-Defamation League, white nationalists and neo-Nazis were responsible for 18 of the 34 extremist-related murders in the U.S last year. Two weeks ago, a white nationalist killed 22 people and injured 26 more in his efforts to "stop a Mexican invasion" (his words, not mine).<br />
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In response, the President of the United States has vowed to label and prosecute Antifa as "a terrorist organization." Good luck with that. First, they are not an organization. They have no head, no acknowledged leaders. You can't go to antifa.com and get the lowdown. Second, it boggles my mind that Trump continues to coddle and ignore extreme right-wing groups that literally kill people while focusing his ire on groups that oppose them. Hmm, I wonder why that is.<br />
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By the way, I'd encourage you, too, to be anti-fascist. It's the human and humane thing to do. Even Jesus - the brown one from the Middle East - would approve. Go for it.<br />
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<br />Andy Whitmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04010130934552315074noreply@blogger.com0