tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37281372226474000092024-03-18T15:35:01.245-04:00Uncle Guido's FactsRon Parlatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377926161809667359noreply@blogger.comBlogger3163125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3728137222647400009.post-68530509998549057312024-03-18T07:01:00.008-04:002024-03-18T15:34:28.966-04:00Delaying The Last Supper - The Penance Of Inconsequential Dinner Guests <p>The Altons were a perfectly good, decent, and friendly couple. The problem was that they were an unmitigated bore - and why his wife insisted on inviting them to dinner was a mystery to Howard who was in the process of cleaning the basement, emptying closets, and finally attacking the attic - getting rid of his old Santa Claus costume, hardened grout, unreturnable gifts, and boxes of saved memorabilia which, after so many years, had become so much trash. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg2kPyF18uNrR5julpLIh3rbM7e-E7hWfL3i8uZl6vAfayhRd_-vxtsJ_V5dHT6ntbYum8htbjF8C7ukkxiYV1dv1fbc6lyAjlqvC9OwY1mgiWetiZt6-D0Zo3pCvCM_LVu5SiY6-BCspj9BIKJ65FqUzKoIumkrOk6BteLzC3A-nCuNvZUQ2CwKGewNUhv" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2592" data-original-width="3888" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg2kPyF18uNrR5julpLIh3rbM7e-E7hWfL3i8uZl6vAfayhRd_-vxtsJ_V5dHT6ntbYum8htbjF8C7ukkxiYV1dv1fbc6lyAjlqvC9OwY1mgiWetiZt6-D0Zo3pCvCM_LVu5SiY6-BCspj9BIKJ65FqUzKoIumkrOk6BteLzC3A-nCuNvZUQ2CwKGewNUhv" width="320" /></a></p><p>It was time, Howard insisted, to clear the decks for running, to make his life's last passage smooth sailing; and the Altons were included in his battening of hatches, furling of canvas, tightening of sheets, and running close to the wind. </p><p>His wife wondered at the energy of a man who had never done anything around the house, a live-and-let-live husband with a call-the-plumber approach to leaks and drips, an otherwise good soul who had a hardwired indifference to broken things and an irritating workaround attitude, who now was working like a demon at all hours of the night until the bins and dumpsters in the alley were overflowing. </p><p>If he wasn't sorting through accumulations, he was obsessively enforcing routine. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner had to be precisely and exactly the same. There could be no variation in the porridge, the salad, or the meat-and-potatoes - the same steel-cut Quaker oats, the same spring mix from the same supermarket bin, and the very same, exact cut of flank steak from the butcher. Bed time and rising were as regulated as on a marine base, and daily activities were ordered and performed with precision - all of which he said made the sailing easier, a kind of permanent trade wind at his back. </p><p>Now, Howard was no end-is-nigh evangelical waiting for the Last Judgement. He had grown up in an indifferently Catholic family who greeted Father Brophy warmly and cheerily on Easter Sunday but who otherwise gave St. Anthony's a pass. He had gone to Sunday school, did the occasional Stations of the Cross, but left home and church behind at an early age. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj37kIA2lQnSYTurzqq_uIGnt_d9bdzGEFhI1pXb5AcIsEjdr-w7f17zLfO23iAVgvM6B2e1ldxsaD1fSJ8gJwP1HasTIe3P5WR_n8uXsCBSfsuv3OIhRvZzjIyCgy9yiEpgIPLdIV4EhGCiNtzxbmYcxUebl_kCLEe-rO0xg6mz8PiwQGx8TsIgR4wy200" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1126" data-original-width="906" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj37kIA2lQnSYTurzqq_uIGnt_d9bdzGEFhI1pXb5AcIsEjdr-w7f17zLfO23iAVgvM6B2e1ldxsaD1fSJ8gJwP1HasTIe3P5WR_n8uXsCBSfsuv3OIhRvZzjIyCgy9yiEpgIPLdIV4EhGCiNtzxbmYcxUebl_kCLEe-rO0xg6mz8PiwQGx8TsIgR4wy200" width="193" /></a></p><p>So, this newfound attention to his final days was surprising. His wife had always assumed that he was no bell-ringer when it came to God, and that his death would be taken with the same disinterest as he had towards a leaky roof; but no. </p><p>He kept talking about Tolstoy and <i>The Death of Ivan Ilyich</i>, a story of a man who had badly misjudged everything, and who had no sooner resigned his post because of illness, than the crows began pecking at his leavings. </p><p>Ivan had built a comfortable, unengaged life, designed to keep insignificance and irritation far from his door, but had neglected to consider the ultimate; and when he did face the yawning uncertainty of life after death, he became completely unmoored. </p><p>'That will not happen to me', Howard said, and from the moment he woke up to the minute he closed his eyes, he channeled Ivan Ilyich. 'Too soon old, too late schmart', say the Jews, and he was bound and determined to figure out what was what before it was too late. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi7OWnufgkoWq5zSJc5sm77i2YxAdSPsUWyop5sNwXGrn3kj0ed-dFOLkHEU0WIrZMlmUdkI3tpXBeQzpl9FzmOsat6D-yQr79Tcs0Vng8rCz6hTIE-lgfHNPUyrVe8h7Cd4SmPZTZrHNuM0mDmiXqS8g2QcDC2eBwqWjjD_4_PGioHGdSXWjuZwM2Qh-m/s243/Ivan%20Ilyich.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="208" data-original-width="243" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi7OWnufgkoWq5zSJc5sm77i2YxAdSPsUWyop5sNwXGrn3kj0ed-dFOLkHEU0WIrZMlmUdkI3tpXBeQzpl9FzmOsat6D-yQr79Tcs0Vng8rCz6hTIE-lgfHNPUyrVe8h7Cd4SmPZTZrHNuM0mDmiXqS8g2QcDC2eBwqWjjD_4_PGioHGdSXWjuZwM2Qh-m/s1600/Ivan%20Ilyich.jpg" width="243" /></a></p><p>Easier said than done when the extraneous bits kept seeping through chinks in the timbers. He had nothing against the Altons or the Finches or even the Porters but demurred, deferred, and outright refused to consider anything to do with them. More unnecessary cargo in the hold, rusty containers on deck, sacks and barrels that took up space. Which was why his wife became worried about him. He might consider himself a latter-day Tolstoy, but he was hemming her in, a woman whose last decade was never meant to be a socially penurious time. </p><p>Her husband was becoming a hermit - no, not a hermit but a misanthrope, a nasty old man who wanted no part of life, of others. No marital split could have been more renting - it was a question of valuation, of moral philosophy, of, well, everything. </p><p>Yet there was Howard at three in the morning trucking the dolly out to the alley with waterlogged boxes, motheaten clothes, and ripped beach chairs. He was making progress, and the emptying spaces were satisfying even if his mind was still cluttered with images of old Father Brophy shaking the chalice as if he were fixing martinis; and mumbling <i>Domine, non sum dignus </i>as he went down the altar rail; or the bloody crucified Christ on the cross hanging above the tabernacle, or the choir, or the nuns. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi6iae4IiNcmMYUR6P_OgSzcM8l9OeyhAaiUMcY8GxDp4xTvbVzU9be5T-c7LD259JCbsKKUo1bURO7IymLxldn7AOPQvGLhhnTfVuEWaah-Y_2eG7lLqA4eML_LGazwo1ZH8D8VHKEStlknA2IktdE2rnLf94X2enO7J-VRBpcIPuTIKOiaJGJdDTvsaoc" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3456" data-original-width="5184" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi6iae4IiNcmMYUR6P_OgSzcM8l9OeyhAaiUMcY8GxDp4xTvbVzU9be5T-c7LD259JCbsKKUo1bURO7IymLxldn7AOPQvGLhhnTfVuEWaah-Y_2eG7lLqA4eML_LGazwo1ZH8D8VHKEStlknA2IktdE2rnLf94X2enO7J-VRBpcIPuTIKOiaJGJdDTvsaoc" width="320" /></a></p><p>Betty Alton clacked on about her great uncle Robert and his 100 acres in West Virginia, Lyme disease, and her latest recipe for blood sausage, and Howard at each sally fixed himself another martini until he was well boiled and numbed. '...so he sold them all', she rattled. </p><p>'Sold what?' thought Howard having lost the gist of the story long ago.</p><p>The Bob Bridgers were a catty, scratchy pair that seemed unhappy about everything under the sun from garbage pickup to Americana, a nasty couple with some connection to Iowa State and the Midwest in general; and the Albert Coughs whose son was a doctor at Beth Israel and would soon be Chief of Staff blah blah and their daughter, a beauty, etc. etc. </p><p>For Howard's wife there was a value in company, any company. Community, she had often said, regardless of its cast and composition, was the stuff of life and breaking bread was its communion. </p><p>And so it went until the last stalwart went by the wayside and the doorbell rang only when a sign-only delivery came. Silence is golden, and Howard's streamlining and trimming of sails could now go on uninterrupted. Thank God the Altons, Bridgers, and Coughs had disappeared. At Howard and his wife's age there would be no new crop of friends to eat their pot roast, so in a few years the attic and basement would be as empty as the day the foundation and roof beams were put in; and Howard would finally, happily at peace. </p>Ron Parlatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377926161809667359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3728137222647400009.post-71776337746002508192024-03-17T16:04:00.007-04:002024-03-17T16:04:45.396-04:00The Sybaritic Pleasures Of The East - Donald Trump, The Pasha Of Foggy Bottom <p>Donald Trump's accession to the White House was not exactly a second term when presidents coast through to the Constitutional end of their tenure. The former President, now the current President once more, was planning for eight years on Pennsylvania Avenue not four. Time to settle in and enjoy the full sybaritic pleasures of victory. He would be the ruler of all he surveyed, a shah of the new Persepolis, a Chinese emperor in fine silk; Suleiman, father of Turkey and lord of a thousand harems. He would be Cleopatra, queen of Alexandria, unmatched for her beauty, intelligence, and canny political rule.</p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjZrUG9UIAR-dh3tP0BOA_fQO5x5rL1w6eCtmcPFxaBeeMGTP3YP20M3L1Ckc-El_sIbT6rYJEEhJDPQstqbZ_Df3bl0FDaMLh0mD2eMvFcUWU9JGTsc0rSVNlJ59U35U9CIfUZgFj25QceHrZpYEktkZU7rWYDcF4aexHujwXTfE99cTT6SunFeZzm5cki" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjZrUG9UIAR-dh3tP0BOA_fQO5x5rL1w6eCtmcPFxaBeeMGTP3YP20M3L1Ckc-El_sIbT6rYJEEhJDPQstqbZ_Df3bl0FDaMLh0mD2eMvFcUWU9JGTsc0rSVNlJ59U35U9CIfUZgFj25QceHrZpYEktkZU7rWYDcF4aexHujwXTfE99cTT6SunFeZzm5cki" width="320" /></a></p><p>Enobarbus in Shakespeare's <i>Antony and Cleopatra </i>speaks of the Ptolemaic queen</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><pre style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #343434; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px; overflow: auto; text-wrap: wrap;"><a name="229" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;">I will tell you.</a><br style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;" /><a name="230" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;">The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,</a><br style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;" /><a name="231" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;">Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold;</a><br style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;" /><a name="232" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;">Purple the sails, and so perfumed that</a><br style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;" /><a name="233" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;">The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,</a><br style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;" /><a name="234" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;">Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made</a><br style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;" /><a name="235" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;">The water which they beat to follow faster,</a><br style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;" /><a name="236" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;">As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,</a><br style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;" /><a name="237" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;">It beggar'd all description: she did lie</a><br style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;" /><a name="238" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;">In her pavilion--cloth-of-gold of tissue--</a><br style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;" /><a name="239" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;">O'er-picturing that Venus where we see</a><br style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;" /><a name="240" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;">The fancy outwork nature: on each side her</a><br style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;" /><a name="241" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;">Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,</a><br style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;" /><a name="242" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;">With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem</a><br style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;" /><a name="243" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;">To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,</a><br style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;" /><a name="244" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; white-space-collapse: collapse;">And what they undid did.</a></pre></blockquote><p>'Ah, to be a queen', thought the President. </p><p>Now, in the runup to the election, in the infamous campaign of 2024, Donald Trump had been called Imperator, a Caligula, and a Nero - the worst of Roman imperial rule, one who would defy man and the gods to expunge every last trace of the Republic and to rise to divinity himself. A murderous, pitiless, Richard III. A Stalin, a Hitler. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjbrcG2AyYC_w5AySUgPAxrk5vp5pDXZghqS6PUaxwU4VPPD7N9FnymX9QruBMwSA4xRH9oYXFghCrw3onoyyXoQ0VO5aMxUeaDIDPZA5gKdDrGQDHKGQ28GmOcehNeKxyU7aRRv2yGKeN4Kj1dJJEOeEXvuPf020Tb9n5k3vx0U3UW7Py2T9BNKuJ9LykW" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1152" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjbrcG2AyYC_w5AySUgPAxrk5vp5pDXZghqS6PUaxwU4VPPD7N9FnymX9QruBMwSA4xRH9oYXFghCrw3onoyyXoQ0VO5aMxUeaDIDPZA5gKdDrGQDHKGQ28GmOcehNeKxyU7aRRv2yGKeN4Kj1dJJEOeEXvuPf020Tb9n5k3vx0U3UW7Py2T9BNKuJ9LykW" width="173" /></a></p><p>Of course Donald Trump had no such ambitions. To be a vicious, intemperate, bloody ruler takes a Nietzschean will, a Miltonian Satanic defiance, a pure, unadulterated amorality; and The Donald was nothing of the kind. He was a buffoon, a pretender, a second-rate vaudevillian, a clown and a Borscht Belt tummler. From him nothing was to be feared. Only the febrile Left took his bombast and braggadocio to heart, his words for meaning; and his outrageous personality for character. </p><p>The Left was not unlike Brutus, Cassius, and the Roman plotters who felt the urgency to kill Caesar before he arrogated imperial power to himself. He had done nothing, and as an epileptic believer in the supernatural, a weakling equally swayed by his wife, the mob, and soothsayers was no threat to Rome; but just in case his fanciful notions of kingship should mature into action, he should be assassinated. </p><p>The only imperial streak in Donald Trump was his temptation by the pleasures of the East. He was more a Mark Antony than a Caesar, an older man besotted by the indescribable comforts of Egypt and the warm embraces of its queen. Antony had had enough of battle, the internecine fights of the Triumvirate, the suspicions, doubts, and plots. He wanted nothing more than to retire in the arms of the incomparable Cleopatra. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj1KyNzdb-5HLjIrUXb5yoFnAM9aKRzWv86sq1YbTa8hII-Eq4Pjl8p-4spicC_6BRK00Yc3DyKxkEsQVw17SFEMheiwqCPFMSUPZoMgPtV1g31FIUo2yUEIm_lYFcbfGVDWAIeOa7WnskrDgZgbJinAUOBRpcahJh89LUZTIuPwKFcCaMViOssXSLN3Fs0" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1196" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj1KyNzdb-5HLjIrUXb5yoFnAM9aKRzWv86sq1YbTa8hII-Eq4Pjl8p-4spicC_6BRK00Yc3DyKxkEsQVw17SFEMheiwqCPFMSUPZoMgPtV1g31FIUo2yUEIm_lYFcbfGVDWAIeOa7WnskrDgZgbJinAUOBRpcahJh89LUZTIuPwKFcCaMViOssXSLN3Fs0" width="159" /></a></p><p>Trump never felt entitled. Against that fallacious notion he had railed for four a decade. No one is entitled to anything but in his case the spoils of war were deserved and merited. He was like Agamemnon who, victorious over the Trojans, took Cassandra back to Mycenae as his concubine and watched over the palace of the dead Priam as his officers and confidants divided and apportioned the wealth of the kingdom. </p><p>The republican regime of Joe Biden was a sagging, sorry, dismal affair - a deadbeat, musty, airless administration of cant and assumption. An old fool surrounded by a cackling Rasputin and his claque of political comers? How far America had fallen from the manorial greatness of Washington, Jefferson, and Hamilton - aristocrats, lords, rulers in spirit and enterprise. Biden would not retire to Mount Vernon, Hyde Park, or Monticello, but walking distance to the Ocean City boardwalk. </p><p>Installed in Washington for a second time, the White House would become an Ottoman palace, a Topkapi, Yildiz, or Dolmabahce; and he would be a Sultan as admired as Suleiman or Mehmed II. Melania could never make the residence palatial, but the appointments could add the measure of luxury and elegance that the old place had always lacked. Lots of gold filagree and embroidery, sconces and Persian carpets. Servants as elegantly attired as those of the emirs of Arabia or the maharajas of Jaipur, Bikaner, and Udaipur would would serve at the new formal White House dining room with a hundred-foot long table, gold and silver settings, crystal and fine linen, all arrayed before him, the Pasha of Foggy Bottom. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgWQaOUM-ixJvOf7vzS2sHH-AvrzHglMLK35dT753q6xHKeC8hzqGuCel4Tzcyrf52QD2Hv5A61QiPrYzRpgpVZkp3InBOJ2fOogJ2b3UjS90WDVLX9YG8lnIJCDvsW2ji5Cy8xsFDeYLOWc_npxS1oQCc5ePjZUY3mbgejizPTCZlBD2GYOeys_f8gLga6" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2396" data-original-width="3546" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgWQaOUM-ixJvOf7vzS2sHH-AvrzHglMLK35dT753q6xHKeC8hzqGuCel4Tzcyrf52QD2Hv5A61QiPrYzRpgpVZkp3InBOJ2fOogJ2b3UjS90WDVLX9YG8lnIJCDvsW2ji5Cy8xsFDeYLOWc_npxS1oQCc5ePjZUY3mbgejizPTCZlBD2GYOeys_f8gLga6" width="320" /></a></p><p>The Second Trump Inauguration was a magnificent affair - a Pennsylvania Avenue cavalcade reminiscent of Cleopatra's barges on the Nile, a procession of regal, imperial floats festooned with gold standards, rowed by Nubian slaves, adorned with urns of forest flowers, marshalled by the handsomest young men surrounding beautiful Grecian virgins. </p><p>Fitting of the investiture of a monarch, there were representatives of the governed- not the scattered, helter-skelter smattering of people of color, but separate arcades of cheering black, Indian, Latino, Asian peoples. The music was eclectic and grand, as resonant and heroic as that of John Phillip Sousa. There were horses, and carriages, and military phalanxes marching to the sharp tattoo of snare drums, timpani, and cymbals. </p><p>Of course it all didn't happen exactly this way - even the President's wildest dreams could never replace the dowdy reality of Washington - but enough of it survived, and the Nation's Capital once again became Camelot or rather Constantinople, a place of harems, maidens, and concubines; a palace of wealth, glamour, and glory. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgNMsun7fiRQvfb2oR9WlqXqhd37YwbMrN3nwYTyLYuNUETL3UYOr4VVsKEKT5XwSGoq-oeIAmhKpp3pag8N0CFu9Wd_xewWazRkyjYg8fPbHBVEpnAKZK7EMo3LUa4DUCM1cuBZ4WYDIB20r6QbxG6S5DkEzj-c5ghJs6nS98hak8z3hSDJvHqlkYzjY1M" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="494" data-original-width="600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgNMsun7fiRQvfb2oR9WlqXqhd37YwbMrN3nwYTyLYuNUETL3UYOr4VVsKEKT5XwSGoq-oeIAmhKpp3pag8N0CFu9Wd_xewWazRkyjYg8fPbHBVEpnAKZK7EMo3LUa4DUCM1cuBZ4WYDIB20r6QbxG6S5DkEzj-c5ghJs6nS98hak8z3hSDJvHqlkYzjY1M" width="291" /></a></p><p>The fear of a politically imperial Trump presidency were of course unfounded. He has had no interest in channeling Vladimir Putin and is content to serve out his term amidst the sybaritic pleasures of his Sultanate. </p><p>The Left, of course, after so many years of hatred of the man, are scurrying for cover; but Trump has no interested in slaying the defeated. They lost yet again in a devastating rout, and will cavil and hector from the wings, but are incidental irritations, nothing more. </p>Ron Parlatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377926161809667359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3728137222647400009.post-18310790909200305822024-03-16T10:10:00.005-04:002024-03-16T14:51:01.225-04:00The Gender Spectrum, DNA, And Designer Babies - LGBTQ+ Upfront And Real<p>There is a lot of talk these days about gender. The old standard of male and female sexuality has been dismissed in a 'who says?' populism, and everything in between has become an option. Social media sites have lists of nearly 100 points on the gender spectrum, and each week it seems, new ones are added. </p><p>Some are simple as saying the rosary - naming it makes it real - and there is an attractive fungibility built in to gender choice. That is, if you are not happy with one sexual identity, try another. </p><p>This to many undoes the seriousness of the choice. If gender selection is as easy as ordering from a Chinese menu it demeans the whole intention. As it is, the facile sexual self-definition and the whole discussion about pronouns has already deflected attention from the more fundamental issue of human sexuality. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgT12s57qt3MM2zrXddYPnbpqtO0BGPcj4ZexYyWRCl9dEPcuBTUYpHXoSHoDXyqiMk-87ta74Oq3tcrcxGemG7mdSznODGtMCM9AYgit2IPu4bpRbjhcIljxiJw7ir0W62VxXAiV-G7K3jzO7d-7AZwmuyNQyJsBGutVUf6_FbzONpGHXM0FbSmaW-fgEd" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgT12s57qt3MM2zrXddYPnbpqtO0BGPcj4ZexYyWRCl9dEPcuBTUYpHXoSHoDXyqiMk-87ta74Oq3tcrcxGemG7mdSznODGtMCM9AYgit2IPu4bpRbjhcIljxiJw7ir0W62VxXAiV-G7K3jzO7d-7AZwmuyNQyJsBGutVUf6_FbzONpGHXM0FbSmaW-fgEd" width="160" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p>On the other hand, opting for irreversible sexual identity requires more drastic measures. Surgical sexual reassignment is not for the faint of heart, and what man of a certain age can possibly forget Lorena Bobbitt and her straight razor? So if there were some way of avoiding that eventuality it would be welcomed. </p><p>Enter recombinant DNA and designer babies. Now that the human genome has finally been deciphered, and the process of relating specific bits of genetic material with human attributes turning up new associations every day, the DIY baby generation has arrived. The futures market is already active, and those attractive personalities who are still alive have already sold rights to their DNA; and the estates of those who have died have cleared legal hurdles for the rights to disinterment and gene harvesting. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPwSepfdRRvpgwG1cRbiLOFI8T-Axnm_2luIac02lvf2J1OelVlGrv2FyVMVvHDQmUjaeSS04pRguPC3tNqUjbjD53CYBrvd9Ry7fGZIw5HL41cCe-dMDqws_fhstaEXzzbe1tvcb-Yrf1b_hhyphenhyphenaKtryLbfLBZ9gJMksiiwOReghjgc3DcNpTFgm0106oD/s259/DNA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPwSepfdRRvpgwG1cRbiLOFI8T-Axnm_2luIac02lvf2J1OelVlGrv2FyVMVvHDQmUjaeSS04pRguPC3tNqUjbjD53CYBrvd9Ry7fGZIw5HL41cCe-dMDqws_fhstaEXzzbe1tvcb-Yrf1b_hhyphenhyphenaKtryLbfLBZ9gJMksiiwOReghjgc3DcNpTFgm0106oD/s1600/DNA.jpg" width="259" /></a></p><p>Soon online prospective parents will soon be able to purchase Michael Jordan's incredible athletic ability, Marilyn Monroe's sexual allure, and Albert Einstein's genius. Prices will vary.</p><p>It has been long contended that gayness is an inborn, innate, genetic trait. Although not yet pinpointed on the genome, it is only a matter of time before it is; and if gayness is genetic, then each and every one of its variations must also be hardwired. ABC News has recently published an approved list of 59 sexual options of which the A-C listings are illustrative and suggestive of the varied sexual array possible A<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">gender, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">Androgyn, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">Androgynous, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">Bigender, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">Cis. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">While some options like two-spirit and neutrois seem unlikely to have a spot on God's genetic palette, most others will; and if so, then future prospective parents - whatever recombination and sexual permutation they may be - will be able to order respective DNA. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">So, in addition to ordering beautiful blonde blue-eyed, seductively attractive, genius-brained, triple-event athletes, parents can have genderqueer ones as well. Diversity in this soon-to-come world will be beyond a progressive's wildest dream, a cornucopia of sexual choice, a banquet, a feast. </span></span></p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBOtlaewf3Q32SSf1WvaXVFa_RBld9MsYuJW4HU2SCn1cDVDDvKhbTc-EHJnIlnXls-ajkLuGBtfRbp7rUXV5d8WA8O_JHPU1S0vuC9X_WOaKvRqt6AdQ2G38Ms9f5MX-flwmMh3dfe9jILcMnzvY_iIjm0JJlD7yF0zhQXmxSjcDyPVV093-dhfi_MP2j/s778/Marilyn%20HOT%20II.jpg" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="778" data-original-width="552" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBOtlaewf3Q32SSf1WvaXVFa_RBld9MsYuJW4HU2SCn1cDVDDvKhbTc-EHJnIlnXls-ajkLuGBtfRbp7rUXV5d8WA8O_JHPU1S0vuC9X_WOaKvRqt6AdQ2G38Ms9f5MX-flwmMh3dfe9jILcMnzvY_iIjm0JJlD7yF0zhQXmxSjcDyPVV093-dhfi_MP2j/s320/Marilyn%20HOT%20II.jpg" width="227" /></a></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: inherit;">The only problem with all this is that no one can remain on the fence - once the embryo has been engineered to conform to the specifications on the order sheet, there is no going back. A queer Marilyn Monroe it is, like it or not.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">Of course like any other retail item, there will be a money-back guarantee period. The embryo can't be tinkered with forever, but within the first two weeks, retraction and re-modification will certainly be possible. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">Some cynics have claimed that the whole idea of sexual diversity will ironically disappear with genetic modification. When ninety percent of parents want the same birth outcome - the standards of feminine beauty have not changed in millennia, nor have those for intelligence and athletic ability - there is a risk of millions of identical clones, with only some deliberate leaking around the edges - shades of coffee skin tones, eye color, height, and symmetry - but generally all people will be grouped around the norm.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">The market, say conservative economists, will sort things out. There will always be innovators who diverge from the norm and pave the way to new standards and ideals. While popular culture will always be relatively homogeneous, there will always be deviance from the norm. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">God knows what future generations of human beings will look like. We can only imagine. More than likely the leather, chains, whips, and harnesses of Folsom Street will be things of the past and bi-sexual sadomasochism </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">undoubtedly passé . </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;"> </span></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjbIJK7IsiM1gSa9vTJUHRESdpOzJCYlBVuzozuUcMhrb8SU2VfrsG4CvbUSGS7ZauqJGnVUoayd7mg17-mIgI9C9uFwYW6tBKkCqVkNuPvgKizlFtcp9RUxSAjxQCJTSyQ4bGBT_Mfd-FB_huAa_h85zacdmT6lqhNfc1RGlW6fLQkp4YEttpawQNQetTC" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="291" data-original-width="474" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjbIJK7IsiM1gSa9vTJUHRESdpOzJCYlBVuzozuUcMhrb8SU2VfrsG4CvbUSGS7ZauqJGnVUoayd7mg17-mIgI9C9uFwYW6tBKkCqVkNuPvgKizlFtcp9RUxSAjxQCJTSyQ4bGBT_Mfd-FB_huAa_h85zacdmT6lqhNfc1RGlW6fLQkp4YEttpawQNQetTC" width="320" /></a></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yet and still, what happens to the gender variant, intersex man/woman who wants to go retro - back to the Fifties with bowties, crinoline, and oxfords, men and women? Will the future hold the possibility of DNA retrofitting? Genetic kitchen remodeling? Surely swishing and sashaying are not genetically determined, so DNA rewiring to turn back the clock to macho-man times should be possible. </span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">'Brave New World', warn social pessimists - not the dystopic, autocratic world imagined by Huxley and Orwell, but a chaotic nonsense. An anything goes world, unmoored from any traditional human values, a chaotic mess of sexual promiscuity, superficiality, and fantasy. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">Very likely, given America's proven taste for all the above. However the new world will be no better or no worse than any other, neither the best of all possible worlds nor the worst, but advocates will whoop and holler and cheer the eventuality of a diversity finally embedded in human nature and not just a political ideal. Conservatives are doubtful, and hew as always to the universal adage, <i>p</i></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #282828;"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">lus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. </span></i></span></p><p><span style="color: #282828;"><span style="background-color: white;">In any case humanity will be unrecognizable after the DNA revolution. Human beings recombined in millions of ways will constitute a new race, a highly evolved one. Even if the standard traits of human nature have been removed - aggression, self-interest, territorialism, etc. - others just as problematic will replace them. There is no such thing as Utopia, and there never will be. A nice ride on a carousel is about all we can expect, so enjoy it.</span></span></p>Ron Parlatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377926161809667359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3728137222647400009.post-50742101154468249202024-03-16T06:04:00.001-04:002024-03-16T06:04:15.412-04:00Why America Will Always Be Deeply Divided - The Profound Fundamental Nature Of Political Belief<p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The first thing that diversity program facilitators ask participants to do is to choose the group that best defines them – white, black, gay, straight, male, female, or transgender. Since the purpose of these sensitivity training sessions is to teach straight, white people lessons of tolerance and the generous acceptance of minorities, it is no surprise that choices do not include intellectual interest, artistic sensitivity, athletic ability, or especially political philosophy. </span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yet political philosophy – the canon of principles on the basis of which one judges the world and makes personal, electoral, and economic decisions – is in fact who we are; and if ‘diversity’ were taken seriously, we should be sorted as such. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Liberals and conservatives do not simply differ on economic, social, or international policies; but on the values that underlie them. Liberals believe in progress towards a more ideal, equitable, and just world; and trust the state, as representative of the people and authorized to act in their behalf, to be the only institution capable of accelerated such progress.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Conservatives believe no such thing. Human nature – self-interested, territorial, acquisitive, and aggressively defensive and offensive – is a given, a hardwired, permanent, ineluctable, and powerful engine of human activity. Society may ‘progress’, but it has little do do with externalities and the the arbitrary interventions of the state than it does with individual competition.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It has always been the clash of civilizations and their armies which has resulted in cultural winnowing. Empires were created and extended, tribes have always been at war to secure and expand resources and territory, and families scramble for status and prestige.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img alt="Image result for images roland at roncesvalles" src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTpfxlTv7C2N55yna5gMY61NZpiWhHJyAZTAISXd1L4zhNed6yC" style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 4px;" /><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When a conservative votes for the dismantling or disassembling of government, the promotion of the private sector, he is voting less for the abolition of social programs and a restoration of free market competition than for the integrity of the individual.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Intense competition between individuals and groups will always result in the survival of the fittest – the best genes and the creation of institutions led by the strongest - and the culling of those weaker individuals, groups, or nations. No such philosophical conservative will ever argue that the victor will necessarily create a Persepolis, Athens, or Rome. History is not a record of social progress but the cultural change and benefits which – for better or worse – which result from conflict.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When a progressive argues for expanded social programs, a more extensive safety net for the poor, increases in spending on public education, or a a more generous and less confrontational foreign policy, he is arguing on the basis of philosophical principle. Individuals count less than than any collective. grouping. Communalism is always better than individualism. Negotiation always trumps war. Human beings are basically good, progressives say, and only through the nurturing and encouragement of that goodness, can the world evolve to a better place.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Everything boils down to political philosophy. A philosophical conservative will assume that marriage is no more than any other social contract, bound to come apart at the seams. Husbands and wives may talk of a harmonious marriage, but if true, it has come about through the same territorial imperatives which determine the behavior of tigers and wolves. Marital equilibrium does not come about because of a fundamental belief in equality, but according to the principle of countervailing force. There is nothing wrong with this at all, says the conservative. The goal sis a reasonably stable and civil relationship, and idealistic sense of romance should not get in the way.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img alt="Image result for images tigers" 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" style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 4px;" /><br /><em><br /></em>Family fortunes are never protected and guaranteed because of love, trust, and respect. The canny <em>pater familias </em>understands that children always fight over their inheritance, and will take measures that even surprise them to secure it. Poor relatives will always show up to fight for few crumbs; and unless the treasury is absolutely secure, the money will be wasted, spent, and lost. Progressives believe that while such greed and venality might occur, it can be avoided through mutual respect, concern, compassion, and a sense of the right and just.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Evangelical Christians believe in the personal relationship between the believer and Jesus Christ. While church and pastor may help mediate the relationship, it is only through individual faith in the Savior and a belief in his grace that one can attain salvation. The Puritan settlers of New England brought the same fundamental beliefs with them from Europe. America’s famous frontier individualism had its origin in religious belief. Only the individual was responsible for his salvation. Government had little to do with either one’s spiritual journey or economic trajectory. At best it provided the laws and regulative framework to facilitate individual enterprise.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img alt="Image result for images cotton mather" 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" style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 4px;" /><br /><em><br /></em>It is no surprise then that many of not most evangelicals are political conservatives. Their world view is comprehensive and complete. If the most important element of life – spiritual salvation – is an affair between the individual and his Maker, then why should individual enterprise be subsumed within any larger social context? While evangelism may be represented by individual confessions and churches, it is still only a collection of individuals striving for grace. While some churches and denominations have become political and have aggressively promoted their own conservative social agendas, in reality they are still individuals grouped under one aegis or another for identity, status, and recognition.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Progressives by and large are secular, humanists, intellectuals, and idealists. We may have many of the survival traits of our early ancestors, they say, but our intelligence, enhanced human sensibilities, and ability to reform the world despite human nature make us far different from them. The individual is not only less important than the groups to which he belongs, but denial of this fact is detrimental to everyone.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Progressives dismiss genetic determinism and refuse to accept inequality as an inevitable fact of life. Their support of the state in its programs to encourage self-esteem, respect for multiple intelligences, and absolute social, cultural, and intellectual equality is a logical expression of a fundamental political philosophy which devalues the individual and redirects investment to the collective state.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img alt="400+ Free Dna & Science Images - Pixabay" 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" style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 4px;" /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Progressives do not accept the fundamental nature of human conflict; and believe that despite the bloody history of the 20th Century, see hope for a more peaceful world. The way to international peace is not through confrontation but conversation. If only we are persuasive enough about the rightness of democracy and civil rights, we can convince even the likes of Kim Jong Un, the Grand Ayatollah of Iran, and Vladimir Putin.<br /><br />To defect to the conservative camp – i.e. to adopt the most aggressive, militaristic, and win-at-all-costs foreign policy – would not be so much a change based on current events and recent history; it would be a moral defection.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Can two people with radically opposed political philosophies ever be good friends? Unlikely unless the friendship began before social and moral convictions were formed and hardened. If two men have known each other since the age of 12 – a time when personality matters more than character – then the answer is yes. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Children like each other for reasons that have nothing to do with individualism or collective socialism. They find each other engaging, funny, spirited, quiet, thoughtful, or any one of a hundred more reasons to like someone. They can know each other on a primal level. The way you are at age 12 is a product of genes and family. If you are relaxed, at ease, nervous, afraid, happy, or withdrawn, you come by it naturally; and friendship is a matter of spontaneous, unexplained reactions.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yet few people know each other for so long nor have they based a friendship on such unspoken, unarticulated feelings. Adult friendship is a function of the intersection of political philosophy. In a few cases opposites attract; in most they do not, and likes tend to group together.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For the most part, then, political philosophy will determine not only votes but friendships and relationships with others and communities.</span></p>Ron Parlatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377926161809667359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3728137222647400009.post-6951919766555026052024-03-15T12:53:00.003-04:002024-03-15T12:53:25.135-04:00Put The Toilet Seat Down! - A Pound Of Flesh And Men's Retributive Thing With Jennifer From Accounting <p>Annika and Brad had been married a long time - so long in fact that they could anticipate each other's moves and rejoinders, block assays, divert feints, and do the balletic dance of a well-choreographed couple. They not only finished each other's sentences but found themselves capitulating or overpowering without words. What was the point of retort when the outcome was predetermined?</p><p>Theirs was not a bad marriage exactly, for neither Shakespeare, nor St. Paul, nor Petrarch who, in his last poems to his beloved Laura had misgivings, nor even Albee whose George and Martha, eviscerated and flayed to the bone but found something salvageable condemned the institution outright. It had staying power, and while modern secularism, feminism, nihilism, and just plain do-something-about-it boredom were taking their toll, it was still around.</p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_xHtMs-EOaNAJVkMbhHAxZkcvHyD03y-dL8lo_t-JmFVwKR5HnENqwM4nBBgKphiITjSiuuLCDFTEZ2uefYgY6qwzZLw51aJC7MePfLSoIo-rCv3ewtCmqRJtAjanVDjiXcxs9T0a1gGC1Xm8B-qvnAiMdo0NCNE2MQgODIkVO7p-Zes1WwVzGlCgt56j/s300/George%20and%20Martha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_xHtMs-EOaNAJVkMbhHAxZkcvHyD03y-dL8lo_t-JmFVwKR5HnENqwM4nBBgKphiITjSiuuLCDFTEZ2uefYgY6qwzZLw51aJC7MePfLSoIo-rCv3ewtCmqRJtAjanVDjiXcxs9T0a1gGC1Xm8B-qvnAiMdo0NCNE2MQgODIkVO7p-Zes1WwVzGlCgt56j/s1600/George%20and%20Martha.jpg" width="300" /></a></p><p>Not just around but alive and well with ice sculptures, dance music, crinoline, corsages, and church blessings. The naysayers, the cynics and the misanthropes were missing something. Marriage is a sacrament, a bond made in heaven and codified and recorded in the hall of records. </p><p>So how was it that marriage could be such a penance? An out-of-date stage show? A social convention, procreative insurance, anchor for dubious sexuality?</p><p>'Please put the seat down', shouted Annie, a deja-vu-all-over-again moment, a meme, a vaudevillian theme, an old, tired joke. Was there nothing new under the sun? </p><p>'Stop it!', Brad said to himself, feeling dragged in spite of himself into the most absurd sexual quid pro quo of all time. Did Josephine ever say this to Napoleon? Or Ann Boleyn to Henry VIII? No, but here we were all the same. </p><p>'You know your pee puddles', reminded Annika, attempting to defuse the issue, 'and sprays and...'; but the damage had been done. Entering into the predictable, tacky world of side-order innuendo, she got herself in only deeper. Now both of them were trapped in the most irritatingly predictable afternoon soap opera. The toilet seat?? Hadn't they both something better to do?</p><p>As intelligent as they both were - Yale, Harvard Law, Vassar and clerkships - they found themselves both on the very scummy rim of the tub without recourse or the ability to stop the bullshit. Trapped in a marriage which they both now regretted. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhjLeoYXK5C6zFDC3ueroE7ZXrAGKP-G7k8hd_SSZ1E4qGNsv-uDHAK-ecveKVY8Zgg3Ue98XC0-_ZUaK6ZkBP35XXsoZCgj7HjZrZaBdkaa7JHKaqIViXIz9QGRtTMonFFTUxrTySC4nVjpfg-meh875QO486q_F0kN4xp0r3M9c_0M12rGRp9bp600Vd6" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="412" data-original-width="354" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhjLeoYXK5C6zFDC3ueroE7ZXrAGKP-G7k8hd_SSZ1E4qGNsv-uDHAK-ecveKVY8Zgg3Ue98XC0-_ZUaK6ZkBP35XXsoZCgj7HjZrZaBdkaa7JHKaqIViXIz9QGRtTMonFFTUxrTySC4nVjpfg-meh875QO486q_F0kN4xp0r3M9c_0M12rGRp9bp600Vd6" width="206" /></a></p><p>'I'll show her', thought Brad; and in what was the most bourgeois and transparent move possible, invited Jennifer from Accounting to lunch. </p><p>A tricky deft affair it had to be, for like most men with Toilet Seat Syndrome, he did not want to jeopardize his love for his wife, as ironic and feeble as that might sound. 'Working late', 'unexpected business trip' were not enough cover for a wife who <i>had </i>to suspect something or else she would not be a partner at Klein Fabrikant & Cohen; but what more was there? A sick aunt in Bayonne? A failing brother-in-law? Nothing plausible, nothing embroidered and filigreed enough to fool; so like most men in a May-December dalliance he simply said 'Fuck it' and took a cab to Mt. Pleasant. </p><p>Annika was no slouch herself when it came to evasive sexuality. She had had her affairs at Vassar and well beyond - the Conte de Villiers-Rochefoucauld was the brightest feather in her cap, and the sharpest arrow in her quiver if so pushed to honesty by her husband; and yet she hoped it would not come to that, although God knew, she still had plenty left in store despite advancing sags and wrinkles. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiu_2g567vNmozIzECaqRXmRGGNG4I7x4UIsyC7Na9ei-yM6Zjof2e3QXV238TxUUbi8-BerdzyYjwAWUGI26zgMk47rH7_BFZy92vwTtKpU7OvPcSRMBX7WHj86ZY5jCZZ2ROdNR0McZ4eqcceyBrpkEDGX7Fptaaexm6c6VyuaArFm_Gmig3-fWbuK8qB" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="756" data-original-width="697" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiu_2g567vNmozIzECaqRXmRGGNG4I7x4UIsyC7Na9ei-yM6Zjof2e3QXV238TxUUbi8-BerdzyYjwAWUGI26zgMk47rH7_BFZy92vwTtKpU7OvPcSRMBX7WHj86ZY5jCZZ2ROdNR0McZ4eqcceyBrpkEDGX7Fptaaexm6c6VyuaArFm_Gmig3-fWbuK8qB" width="221" /></a></p><p>The frigid air of the newly contentious marriage was chilling, and the warm bed of William from Torts was enticing. Women, she knew, were not so adept as men as casting a line and reeling in a fish, but in the case of William little bait was needed. He had been looking at her 'that way' for months; but given his timid forays and adolescent back-seat innuendoes, she quickly lost interest. Oh, to be a man, she mused. One look, get it up, and get into bed. End of story; while women had to deal with consequences, the nature of true desire, compatibility, opportunity, and reward. </p><p>The hunt for lovers dissipated the bitchy toilet seat <i>pas de deux </i>of the marriage. She held off on hairs-in-the-sink, you-never-talk-to-me sallies and he kept his irritations to himself (her goddamned niggardliness, goddam it!) while he cooled off; and the status quo returned. Neither knew about the other's dalliances, for sunken costs were increasingly the name of the game. Too much invested to give it all up, and for what? Nada. So they buried their umbrage, forgot about toilet seats, Jennifer and William, banked until later, until needed. </p><p>But age and longevity took over and took its toll. The point of no return had been reached, no going back, no cinq-a-septs 'working late' dalliances, no extra-curricular paramours. What you see is what you get, and both of them simply put up with the niggardly questions about money, the hair in the sink, the unexplained silences and the bloody indifference. </p><p>'Marriage is the crucible of maturity' wrote Edward Albee. Without being walled in, Huis Clos, No Exit, one can never grow up. Dealing with it was part of the adult deal. </p><p>Enough said. As much as they tried to be civil and above all avoid pettiness, it was beyond them. No two people could possibly live together in close quarters for so long without some measure of intemperate bitchiness; so they accepted it as par for the course. One's final thoughts would not be about who did what to whom but where one was going; and that, <i>mon ami,</i> was that. </p>Ron Parlatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377926161809667359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3728137222647400009.post-71160472916336430972024-03-15T05:38:00.006-04:002024-03-15T10:54:48.064-04:00What Would Jesus Do With Donald Trump? Nothing - A Clown In A Devil Suit Is Still A Clown<p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The American Left is nonplussed, cornered by the possibility that Donald Trump will return. For four years they have vilified and immolated the former President to no effect. He is more popular now than ever despite the witch trials, hysteria, and righteous indignation. For every fevered sermon, every beartrap and wolf snare; for every word written about his lies, distortions, and manipulative errors; his insurrectionism, bald-faced capitalist greed, misogyny and homophobia, and his downright evil, his supporters cheer all the louder. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'He's our man!', they shout. A man for all seasons, a man of the times, a man to roll back the tide of queer woke socialism and make America great again. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3UIz9uMW7Ze9NY-QsfEKKDF_85hIuQn2Ym-KDhh8Jo8-GYpjDnD6oHxd8h_D7TnfW1LIpeNHotbwk5B4_LTVnjHufhG0QORLlFe6R2hVJ7yQLk-wfd6zRBOYScA3EgWyWZ3pkNqPudFUurn6_nhiJzbDj1dJhL2j1OnMOfuuiOh_TEh7BrZvDgs6hyphenhyphenVe8/s275/Trump%20defiant.jpg" style="color: #5588aa; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3UIz9uMW7Ze9NY-QsfEKKDF_85hIuQn2Ym-KDhh8Jo8-GYpjDnD6oHxd8h_D7TnfW1LIpeNHotbwk5B4_LTVnjHufhG0QORLlFe6R2hVJ7yQLk-wfd6zRBOYScA3EgWyWZ3pkNqPudFUurn6_nhiJzbDj1dJhL2j1OnMOfuuiOh_TEh7BrZvDgs6hyphenhyphenVe8/s1600/Trump%20defiant.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 4px;" width="275" /></a></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'String him up', shouted the most outraged at this imposter, this poseur, this interloper. 'Burn him at the stake'. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Of course ordinary progressives had no patience for such unhinged, cabalistic ideas within their ranks. While they encouraged the most far flung charges of treasonous malfeasance, Russian collusion, and downright anarchy; and while they used the terms ‘demonic’ and ‘Satanic’ to describe the devil in the Oval Office, they had always been used metaphorically. The suggestion of anything more...might one even suggest possession? ...was beyond the pale even for this...this Beelzebub. Trump’s maniacal, fascist insurrectionist role in the January 6th assault on the Capitol was far more than a putsch. It was Miltonian. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'Trump - What Would Jesus Do?' can be seen on lawns of a leafy progressive neighborhood of Washington, ironic given the secularism of the movement; but meant to call out the evil of the former President in no uncertain terms. Invoking <i>the </i>good man of history and juxtaposing his name on plea for decency and civility might have crossed some church-and-state borders, but it made the point. The country was not just dealing with an insurrectionist madman, but an evil one - a man not only without principle, compassion, and concern but out to destroy goodness, to corrupt as surely as Satan. </span></span></p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiiJj2tCHJgniCmXtisFX3WHjaX6B7JzOtUTRRqWtslr-kH5mhsxNFBNbgNs7L90d70BqlMkYxdTZ1MgX1onx_UbFUh4ETet0wHLlgJ04_d893jugpkgLya8Ko0f1ZCyUYPHYTn7iuNLsz111HhRtN3lpPZjhL6Hm1r8hU8OpU9WkMdh2OPvg7xDHQcTDad" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3861" data-original-width="2736" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiiJj2tCHJgniCmXtisFX3WHjaX6B7JzOtUTRRqWtslr-kH5mhsxNFBNbgNs7L90d70BqlMkYxdTZ1MgX1onx_UbFUh4ETet0wHLlgJ04_d893jugpkgLya8Ko0f1ZCyUYPHYTn7iuNLsz111HhRtN3lpPZjhL6Hm1r8hU8OpU9WkMdh2OPvg7xDHQcTDad" width="170" /></a></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Trump was branded as evil from the start. He was not simply an extravagantly outrageous politician, a man of the mean streets, of Las Vegas runways, and the show and glamour of Hollywood; a man who upended politics as usual and treated America to a one-man vaudevillian routine of bombast and braggadocio, but a dangerous, anti-democratic demon. He terrified the Left which had never before even imagined such a thing. The fight against him was a holy one, a crusade, a march to Jerusalem, the heroic struggle of Charlemagne at Roncesvalles to save Christian Europe from the Saracens. </span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He bears the mark of Cain, the 666 sign of the Devil, the black spirit of despair, the unredeemable soul of hideously barbaric enterprise. What would Jesus do? Damn him, cast him out into the eternal fires of Hell?</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img alt="Image result for images 666 sign of the devil" src="https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.RzAApzjHIjghHtWwIcD9lAHaEj?w=246&h=180&c=7&r=0&o=5&dpr=1.3&pid=1.7" style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 4px;" /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Despite what progressives may think, Jesus could care less about Donald Trump, a flash in the universe’s pan, a niggling thorn in the foot of the unrepentant, but a cipher in the scope of things. There is nothing remotely evil about the marvelously mischievous mind of a huckster, con man, Ponzi scheme artiste, and circus clown. He is simply one of the kind, not one iota 'presidential', cut from a very different, very American Hollywood and Las Vegas cloth, one studded with stars, woven of plastic and tinsel, worn like a movie hero's cape. A braggart, blowhard, braggadocio tummler, a Borscht Belt comedian, an insurrectionist only of cant. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">America, despite its Bible Belt fundamentalism, is a secular country. Jesus doesn't matter that much. 'We get him. He gets us' is the new Christian meme. Jesus the actor in a B-buddy movie, nice guy, grandfather, harmless, friendly, but insignificant. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Progressives of course are the ironic heirs of Jesus. Christ has had his day, a mythical white man, a thorn in the side of Romans and Jews but full of empty promises. We, say secularists, have taken the ideas of polity, democracy, civility, and compassionate co-existence from the history of oppression, colonialism, and racism. We don't need an old turncoat Jew for inspiration. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But there they are, claiming absolute right, permanent and universal and all but God-given, and playing the role of St. Paul, the front man for Christ, his marketing genius, his aggressive, ambitious soldier. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3fbcRzDTZ_sNpmRSeJeFtjWiCgHtu1tVw04o899_luVoH6GMqSjLMNtxlT8Ja_DxlHFqcGFKQGHtePDijeYDcerRZFKKobLiP18bFKcU_q1nYH3__-U2LKfWREziuMPzlowdB-Dh5w0sLGHxUf0XVqao7Ujpm8aIe9TGd7-YKh9IEIBAwuI2U_rlBl3Hj/s244/ST.%20Paul.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="244" data-original-width="206" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3fbcRzDTZ_sNpmRSeJeFtjWiCgHtu1tVw04o899_luVoH6GMqSjLMNtxlT8Ja_DxlHFqcGFKQGHtePDijeYDcerRZFKKobLiP18bFKcU_q1nYH3__-U2LKfWREziuMPzlowdB-Dh5w0sLGHxUf0XVqao7Ujpm8aIe9TGd7-YKh9IEIBAwuI2U_rlBl3Hj/s1600/ST.%20Paul.jpg" width="206" /></a></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Spiritual secularism’ was a term that came out of Liberation Theology, Latin American priests who took Jesus’ words about the poor seriously and literally, and became activists for the economically and politically oppressed. They were the self-appointed ‘deacons of poverty’ and were more often than not in the slums and not in church. “The slums are our church”, they said, following what they saw as Jesus’ example of working with, ministering to, and loving the poor.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Spiritual secularism appealed because it had no ties to the Church or organized religion but was Christian in spirit. The new activism concerning civil rights was exactly the right match of higher intent and ground-level ministry. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">So they ask without irony, “What would Jesus do?”, as if He really cared about the supposed warming of one of his planets, a dot in His Universe; or the glorification of the black man, one infinitesimal, insignificant speck among uncountable numbers of species; or the infernal logic of reverse sexuality in a universe so evolved that only mind and spirit occurred.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It is amusing that the Left claims that Trump is evil. Who says? If there is no Satan and no God to throw him out of heaven, then the world is without sin. Evil is a fabrication, a febrile, changeable, relative notion of no substance; so ours is just as good as the next guy's. There may be no Hell awaiting Donald Trump, but the stocks, exile, tar and feathers, and the stake await him in our secular Gehenna. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jesus would do nothing with Donald Trump - the same Jesus who let Hitler kill six million Jews will certainly not bother with a trifle like The Donald. The subject of evil has been bandied about for centuries and theologians like Augustine wondered how evil could exist in a world created by an all-good God? There is no such thing as evil, said Augustine, just the absence of good, thus kicking the can down the road for the likes of Kant, Sartre, Kierkegaard and Hannah Arendt to kick it further. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Progressives want it both ways. Trump is evil, but since in a secular, relativistic world there is no such thing what to make of his Satanic devices? Let's call him evil and see what happens. And so the Grand Guignol continues, a fiery crusade to destroy him, to incinerate him, to forget that he ever happened. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Good luck with that. Trump is likely to win the election, and then what? The rats are already scurrying from a sinking ship. </span></p>Ron Parlatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377926161809667359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3728137222647400009.post-38524784730318489012024-03-14T16:58:00.005-04:002024-03-14T18:29:17.329-04:00The Tale Of Harrison Peoples - How A Little Person Made It Big In Washington<p>Harrison Peoples was a little person, a 'deviant' in statistical terms, for at 3'8" he was well below the average. His parents had given him growth hormones when he was a child, but they simply triggered some other internal biological cocktail which shot him up two inches, then shut him down entirely. He was no dwarf, no cretin, but simply a small person - a very small person in fact with permanent need of high chairs, booster seats, and staggeringly high platform heels. He had objected to such prosthetics, for along the way he had become a very religious person, and if God had intended him to be small, even factoring in the hormone cocktail that had gone awry, so be it. </p><p>He suffered from no other particular deficiencies. He was as smart as a whip, had an uncanny sense of smell, and could balance on the head of a pin - somehow the cocktail had gone to his cochlea and he had an extraordinary sense of equilibrium. Other than that little Harry Peoples was as ordinary a human package as God had ever created. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyW2SQJuMfELlFjv3Jv5DaIYUG6lfR-_vUbI7nbn6NNHr0hP72OWjd4fipptsh3V53zDBg7mKIawiO5ohx8Dlg3gdBIEQLKZnaUuWjIUeb2wxiTvdfOgErwJ2Pp9yAl5D72Vy_H7pi5xHMQh9SGYh-Eg_q0ACahC8TuybpKFBcTeaI3m7cW3ue3saK4vL-/s960/Blake.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="674" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyW2SQJuMfELlFjv3Jv5DaIYUG6lfR-_vUbI7nbn6NNHr0hP72OWjd4fipptsh3V53zDBg7mKIawiO5ohx8Dlg3gdBIEQLKZnaUuWjIUeb2wxiTvdfOgErwJ2Pp9yAl5D72Vy_H7pi5xHMQh9SGYh-Eg_q0ACahC8TuybpKFBcTeaI3m7cW3ue3saK4vL-/s320/Blake.jpg" width="225" /></a></p><p>Human society being what it is - hovering around the norm and reluctant to accept any fluctuation let alone deviance - Harrison was considered an odd duck, a <i>rara avis; </i>and what to do with him, how to deal with his miniature little body, and most importantly how to include him in mixers, double-dates, and proms was a real issue for the considerate, progressive population at large. </p><p>Now, 'diversity' had long been a catchword in Americana - <i>the </i>meme of an age of compassionate inclusion - but his neighbors, teachers, and family friends were stymied when it came to Harrison. Most wanted to ignore his diminutive size, pretend that it didn't exist and that he was just as tall as everyone else. The booster seats at table, the specially-ordered, booty-sized shoes, and the toy suits were to be just as ignored as crutches, wheelchairs, and walkers. They were invisible, non-existent, and Harrison Peoples slowly but surely became the emperor with no clothes - a deliberately denuded cipher, a naked sylph, a sprite. </p><p>There was no oddity of knee-high Harrison mingling at Washington cocktail parties, gently pulling at the trousers of Senators and White House aides to get their attention; or mistaking him for one of the Great Black-Backed Gulls common on the Chesapeake that sometimes wandered north up the Potomac and perched on a piling on the Georgetown Waterfront; or missing him entirely as the Amtrak Metroliner disembarked its passengers at Union Station. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjb9bfD2vVAM8J9xxrbYTjiVnGyDj69vcCX8pSmF4-wQujaIqR4Fh6P84yMJbUY_QhrZJrDNVCL3s4qygXy4Kf3u9G9lJiidcnnp70VFZVutVg6jtFo-CCpJBvlY9-olZ2WAcU8W0aYZ0q-iB2kP6gna154LGNtXjzBk8iuAxg_u1ZX5b0FMSKVanjGy94h" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="715" data-original-width="474" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjb9bfD2vVAM8J9xxrbYTjiVnGyDj69vcCX8pSmF4-wQujaIqR4Fh6P84yMJbUY_QhrZJrDNVCL3s4qygXy4Kf3u9G9lJiidcnnp70VFZVutVg6jtFo-CCpJBvlY9-olZ2WAcU8W0aYZ0q-iB2kP6gna154LGNtXjzBk8iuAxg_u1ZX5b0FMSKVanjGy94h" width="159" /></a></p><p>He was the man who wasn't there, a Niels Bohr evanescent particle of indeterminate size, position, and speed. 'Have you seen Harry Peoples?' had become an ironic meme among his cohorts. </p><p>Given the natural tendency of human beings to assemble together, like with like; and given the rarity of anyone like Harrison Peoples, he had few friends and worse, fewer girlfriends. There were some like Alicia Markus who were sexually curious. Rumor had it that there were some genetic compensations for diminutive stature, and there were some very gamy, unsavory stories about him making the rounds, none especially kind to Alicia who already had a reputation. The thought of horny Alicia Markus spreading her legs and wondering where the devil Harry was<i> </i>had crossed everyone's minds; but Harry himself was unintimidated and unfazed. His time would come. </p><p>What was most remarkable about him - aside from his size - was his eloquence, a natural born ability to persuade, convince, and engage even the most diffident. Perhaps he got it from Father Brophy, the old, senile rector at St. Maurice's Catholic Church, who called Jesus Christ down from the cross every Sunday, or listening to wax cylinder recordings of Alfred Lord Tennyson reading his Charge of the Light brigade at the Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjiI8dQpmKSehODywxEcAfEU6bjecPwLzx9qHlObBhryOIoZmAEWM7gL1Q4h_wfS8deyviQo1rLDDqUHzp6kL4riLzRf8kEvjw375T8381-VQXnlWXkMHnAaxxpim9Ze3Q2fH0o6POoIkFFQQLY4RiiCax3fsCT5ZTRze2EVb_wzdXpgWhsGEijBRBuvp3Q" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1003" data-original-width="1700" height="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjiI8dQpmKSehODywxEcAfEU6bjecPwLzx9qHlObBhryOIoZmAEWM7gL1Q4h_wfS8deyviQo1rLDDqUHzp6kL4riLzRf8kEvjw375T8381-VQXnlWXkMHnAaxxpim9Ze3Q2fH0o6POoIkFFQQLY4RiiCax3fsCT5ZTRze2EVb_wzdXpgWhsGEijBRBuvp3Q" width="320" /></a><br /></p><p>Thanks to advances in audio technology, his voice could not only be amplified but given a deep, resonant basso profundo modulated to contralto, alto, and back down to a pure, resonant, stentorian rumble. And thanks to his equally natural born intelligence and quick-study intellect, he was equally at home at the pulpit, on the stage, or at the podium. In fact, he, without formal seminary training, was asked to address the the Sunday service of the Westover United Church of Christ, a bi-secular (progressive politics on a base of the Epistles of St. Paul) congregation of the wealthy and socially minded. </p><p>Hooked up to his synthesizer and boosted and hoisted to normal height, once he began his sermon, the worshippers forgot his tiny, birdlike gestures and his almost indiscernible head and neck, and were drawn in, captivated by his remarkable voice and the words he spoke. Never before had the letters of Paul had so much meaning, so much spiritual importance. When he spoke, his voice thundering up to the rafters, past the choir, down the nave, back through the clerestory, then, like the great organ at St. Sulpice, reverberating for what seemed endless minutes throughout the church.</p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0NtD4Lx9R_0QSuJjYF5hlecqATxSsBHUhpTaxm2YPAcng40y_W13G6N_yoyEk5C5OpxCMTSRbahg7RVi0ETWmgbpNNM2mZYyhLeTlf9ZHXNhA5LJyoWoHkdoO-1VbkHjhfe4CU-tnCF81I3GR1J9Q8_vwtS7JFr-zjumhBlRHOdcMuoqCu3dxbS0_4hup/s244/ST.%20Paul.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="244" data-original-width="206" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0NtD4Lx9R_0QSuJjYF5hlecqATxSsBHUhpTaxm2YPAcng40y_W13G6N_yoyEk5C5OpxCMTSRbahg7RVi0ETWmgbpNNM2mZYyhLeTlf9ZHXNhA5LJyoWoHkdoO-1VbkHjhfe4CU-tnCF81I3GR1J9Q8_vwtS7JFr-zjumhBlRHOdcMuoqCu3dxbS0_4hup/s1600/ST.%20Paul.jpg" width="206" /></a></p><p>His message was clear and insistent - the black man had to be restored to his position at the top of the human pyramid; capitalism had to be replaced by a kinder, gentler economic system; the oppressed peoples of the world could not wait for succor and salvation; and the doors of America should be opened to all. </p><p>Harrison was a ham, and meant little of what he said; but if people considered him a freak, no matter how respectful they were, then he would channel his brothers and sisters at Barnum & Bailey, not the baby with two heads or the bearded lady, but the carny barker, the huckster, the tummler who got rubes into the side show and into the big top. </p><p>He was a master of innuendo, eloquent colloquial end runs, marvelously embroidered faux compliments, seductive enticements, and persuasive illogic. He had the United Church of Christ's cash registers ringing, the Building Fund over the top, and the donations to the poor uncountable. The miracle of it all was that everyone in the congregation completely forgot his size. He was not Little Harrison, but a latter day apostle, an evangelist, God's trooper. </p><p>As he peeped his thanks to those leaving the service and enjoyed the warmest of greetings, he knew that Washington had more in store. He was, after all, a privileged person - a very special, unique, endangered minority, an outspoken eloquent progressive, and a man of high religious principle who fit nicely and evenly within the progressive pantheon - and his oratory, even as technologically assisted as it was, was beyond Mark Antony, John Gilbert, and Winston Churchill. He could charm the pants off a one legged pirate and convince the most reluctant backwoods cracker. </p><p>Congressman Fairleigh Arlen knew genius when he saw it, and invited Harrison to join his team as a speechwriter, and later who knew? His oratory would not be wasted on Sunday-only believers. His ability to make his size disappear and to transform himself from insignificant, toddling human oddity to spokesman for the deeply-committed Left made him a gemstone, the ruby of the House. </p><p>The two of them, the prolix, blowhard, impossibly self-important Arlen and the up-and-coming (puns about People's size were inevitable) supremely oratorically endowed Harrison Peoples were a tag team out of vaudeville, an unstoppable duo, high-end, high-priced showstoppers. They were the talk of the town. </p><p>As Washington life would have it, their stars dimmed quickly. Their Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy act had only so much staying power, but both knew how to cash in on popularity and to bankroll enthusiasm; so Arlen went on to the Senate and Little Harrison Peoples went elsewhere, spotted at the Grand Bassin of the Luxembourg Gardens sailing toy sailboats with nice, well-brought up Parisian children. </p>Ron Parlatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377926161809667359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3728137222647400009.post-4959255693877222342024-03-13T07:30:00.007-04:002024-03-13T14:39:10.606-04:00The President's Love Affair With AOC, That Girl From Queens<p>The press had noticed it first - the President had his eyes on AOC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. This, they first thought, was a gesture to the racial corner of liberal Democratic politics, giving a young Latino national prominence. Of course AOC was no shrinking violet, and she had managed to attract more attention than either her ideas or the political weight of her district merited, so there was something there more compelling than just electoral influence in the President's interest. </p><p>The President liked her. She was as beautiful as a tropical flower, as graceful and feminine as Venus de Milo, her smile as enigmatic and enticing as the Mona Lisa, her warm, cafe-au-lait skin and dark brown eyes irresistible. If only.....and there the President felt ashamed at what he was thinking. She's just a girl. She could be my daughter! but the images persisted well into the night when in a febrile moment, half-asleep and half-awake put his arms around his wife thinking she was Alexandria, and whispered, 'Darling'. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjZJ13M2GL5HKTzBSIr44suIsEPdxClkC3tyeVVdU77QD9xfZ7BWMuVPqwgS-9tIlpn9WyJXA9qX0olzOG1Q1u40iqI-vqlPRlbsZIFZDz0yMwbk6jIsne7-o6-sHSljf0MwrizOhkf96O94uJWBWmvPfpuUPfsJW8BxesdLjGXWRfabXkgJ2o_JEW3RHSv" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="731" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjZJ13M2GL5HKTzBSIr44suIsEPdxClkC3tyeVVdU77QD9xfZ7BWMuVPqwgS-9tIlpn9WyJXA9qX0olzOG1Q1u40iqI-vqlPRlbsZIFZDz0yMwbk6jIsne7-o6-sHSljf0MwrizOhkf96O94uJWBWmvPfpuUPfsJW8BxesdLjGXWRfabXkgJ2o_JEW3RHSv" width="210" /></a></p><p>'Why, Joe', Jill whispered back, surprised at an attention she had long forgotten. Ah, the good old days, she remembered, when they were young lovers stealing kisses in the back seat of his old Hudson Hornet; and here he was, the President of the United States with so much on his mind, reaching out to her, wanting her. </p><p>The President, at first unsure who this old woman next to him was - maybe the maid who had gotten her days mixed up - but realizing it was his wife of forty-five years, he mumbled something about Putin as he rolled over to his side of the bed, and tried to go back to sleep. Yet the horrible contrast of lovely Alexandria, so soft and patient, so silkily sweet and desirous, so beautiful! and Jill, her skin as dried-out as corn stalks, her hair in pin curlers, and the scent of Thursday's curry on her breath kept him awake. </p><p>Now, this desire for younger women is nothing new to men the President's age who resent God's most cruel irony - having given men a lifelong, irresistible sexual desire and only a few short decades to fulfill it. Be that as it may, cruel irony, or some Darwinian twist in survival of the species, it was a painful, frustrating thing. When every day you are surrounded by sweet, young things who never even notice you're there let alone give you the time of day, you feel diminished, a sexual supernumerary, a man in name only, even if you are President of the United States. </p><p>It was at that moment that he felt an even more despairing notion. Why was he still lying next to this desiccated old woman when every President except him had enjoyed the pleasures of younger women. He was sleeping in the very bed on which JFK had made love to Marilyn Monroe! Sexual adventure was a perk of the office. Can you imagine Vladimir Putin sleeping with an old crone? No, on every trip to Vladivostok, Crimea, Petersburg, or Irkutsk there was a blonde, blue-eyed woman waiting for him. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpfRfwVHnkKTPamIN6YVeEhzJUckzoWjKvPabfDsysby1mbrj5BlzZGoJCWSPcu3Pd9FjnIKopEHdNuaJAOuoZZ9whJxdHJAqYK37uTm2sAxfuMZcrrPgR-yFmYImrey9beRlW2lYqw8Etk_f7Oqvvnnl_ZJ4sbwbTddmzC9ihIMkKLtbuDGxJ1jyGDlol/s526/Marilyn%20young%20cute.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="526" data-original-width="526" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpfRfwVHnkKTPamIN6YVeEhzJUckzoWjKvPabfDsysby1mbrj5BlzZGoJCWSPcu3Pd9FjnIKopEHdNuaJAOuoZZ9whJxdHJAqYK37uTm2sAxfuMZcrrPgR-yFmYImrey9beRlW2lYqw8Etk_f7Oqvvnnl_ZJ4sbwbTddmzC9ihIMkKLtbuDGxJ1jyGDlol/s320/Marilyn%20young%20cute.jpg" width="320" /></a></p><p>Even that ugly old Kissinger had had 'em by the dozen. His 'power is the greatest aphrodisiac' wasn't just idle dreaming, the old fucker lived it. Things will have to change around here, the President decided. </p><p>He had always had trouble keeping his hands off younger women, and used electioneering as a convenient cover for his hugs, and when the young, blonde, Prime Minister of Italy came to the White House to visit, he gave her a kiss on the forehead, not quite the affectionate gesture he intended, one he might have given to a daughter. The scent of her perfume and the feel of her soft, nubile body near his was overwhelming, aroused pure desire. That contralto voice, that sexy flip of the hair, always slightly disheveled, never coiffed, young and insouciant drove him mad. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg1_oDn9Yd_yytoUDmOfVN_nW44V7SnNIzujc8UFF2YvY079u-6NvBynpOoW6dJSklz6nH1TK3a0iGzuw-pwLijNJE2ilt3tG7esl3oSBq8Zt4gnyIF9xZd6aYIqtL_4NwUQLU-50lmJvaVX8sM10Z-kyW2rVHsq0LN3J2S7d_LbgyWGbYsqfvplXbuLePc" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg1_oDn9Yd_yytoUDmOfVN_nW44V7SnNIzujc8UFF2YvY079u-6NvBynpOoW6dJSklz6nH1TK3a0iGzuw-pwLijNJE2ilt3tG7esl3oSBq8Zt4gnyIF9xZd6aYIqtL_4NwUQLU-50lmJvaVX8sM10Z-kyW2rVHsq0LN3J2S7d_LbgyWGbYsqfvplXbuLePc" width="180" /></a></p><p>'I am a eunuch', the President thought, 'a sorry do-nothing sexual dope'. The balm of the Presidency had no effect. At 81 death was staring him in the face, he was about to lose the election, and he was still as celibate as the day he was born. </p><p>'I'll just do it", he decided, and had his secretary call AOC for a meeting; and like a schoolboy, he couldn't sleep the night before. He practiced his opening, his smile, his embrace. Would he be able to move her from moments of political reserve to something more personal? Would he be able to charge innuendo with sexual purpose? Would he be able to dance without misstep?</p><p>Of course the last thing in the world the young woman had on her mind was any liaison with this old man. JFK, without hesitation; but this? This man who would soon be out to pasture, on a chaise lounge somewhere in Florida, erased from all but dull histories. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5wUxfm6QQoz_JJOSE1KC4yXTz5C7m1iJzW3VOqh5uJOZAOtjXcvE-h-TIF7RjlPhyphenhyphenzuB2DVfP-4D8zSA-WZoIYrdILN8lGV_d5-lzdxO-x7qPJ-KFVdH8OgbaPk_e9ZCXSRP9sVXzWdTy3zEEPTSzJZfg4jBNQmEwUk-ekRESP-WxhbtWQNk0qasyciEZ/s290/Kennedy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="174" data-original-width="290" height="174" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5wUxfm6QQoz_JJOSE1KC4yXTz5C7m1iJzW3VOqh5uJOZAOtjXcvE-h-TIF7RjlPhyphenhyphenzuB2DVfP-4D8zSA-WZoIYrdILN8lGV_d5-lzdxO-x7qPJ-KFVdH8OgbaPk_e9ZCXSRP9sVXzWdTy3zEEPTSzJZfg4jBNQmEwUk-ekRESP-WxhbtWQNk0qasyciEZ/s1600/Kennedy.jpg" width="290" /></a></p><p>So the meeting which had no real foundation, no purpose, and no sense was an awkward affair; and AOC on her way back to her Congressional office wondered what it had all been about? There had been none of the usual prepared agendas, talking points, or policy references. The President had just smiled, was very attentive and curious but wobbly. </p><p>She had tried a few gambits, "Your initiatives on women, Mr. President, are most appreciated"; and "You have my ardent and full support for your re-election, Mr. President", both sallies to derive some purpose out of the meeting, but nothing but that trademark goofy smile came of it. </p><p>'I'm such a jerk', the President shouted to a portrait of JFK after AOC had left, 'a real first-class jerk'. </p><p>And so it was that the last few months of the Biden presidency ended with a whimper. He had his claques and shills do his stumping for him. Not only was he a sexual eunuch but a wimp on the campaign trail, a zero compared to that freak, that circus performer, that braggart who still drew thousands to his every appearance. </p><p>A fait accompli, the President thought. I want out of this game, hang up the jockstrap, call it a day. If I can't have AOC as President of the bloody United States, I might as well.....Might as well do what? he wondered. Oh well, someone would figure it out. </p>Ron Parlatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377926161809667359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3728137222647400009.post-11243366600409783112024-03-12T06:47:00.005-04:002024-03-12T13:01:28.555-04:00Donald Trump Redux - The Return To Washington Of The Greatest Show On Earth<p>The paintings of Ralph Abernathy, Frederick Douglass, and Rosa Parks were the first to go, replaced by portraits of Adams, Jefferson, and Hamilton - actually retrieved, for the Biden Administration had put them out of the way, supernumeraries in the New Age, outmoded figures of no current relevance. Jill had said she would take one - 'It's the least we can do, Joe' - but the others were carefully wrapped in burlap and stored in a far corner of the basement. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheszTkPfJXDPBGq6B0YX0mkTGz3s6Pl4PLOdkb1P93KN4c2WnynyrQSMCulUW8Oh5abUlw43oNRzRQF6qis656eYPJzhu9lNSVHU7uVXAhggEyG3WgUuYKHGoTv6gC9ew13XH70_z0Jhh-ixzWjo4l2PaEfG-I-fSIFNvIXx5lgovEoJT5EIq2YX2emRGR/s245/Thomas%20Jefferson.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="245" data-original-width="206" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheszTkPfJXDPBGq6B0YX0mkTGz3s6Pl4PLOdkb1P93KN4c2WnynyrQSMCulUW8Oh5abUlw43oNRzRQF6qis656eYPJzhu9lNSVHU7uVXAhggEyG3WgUuYKHGoTv6gC9ew13XH70_z0Jhh-ixzWjo4l2PaEfG-I-fSIFNvIXx5lgovEoJT5EIq2YX2emRGR/s1600/Thomas%20Jefferson.jpg" width="206" /></a></p><p>'The White House will again look like America', said President Trump, sending the message that his Administration would return to first principles and first presidents. The new President's cabinet choices were reflective of that policy. Every last one of them down to the Secretary of Labor, a position Trump had vowed to abolish along with Education and Health and Human Services, was a Ronald Reagan conservative. 'Government is not the solution', said the former President. 'It is the problem', and the marching orders of the new Administration was to begin the dismantling process immediately.</p><p>The Cabinet was white, young, men and women equally represented. It was time to reset the pendulum, the President said, and after four years of enmity towards whites, they were to take their rightful place as America's racial majority - not overlords, but representatives. </p><p>Indifferent to the howls and moans of the Biden progressives leaving Washington, and typical of his now well-known provocative style, Trump repeatedly invoked the royalty of Europe and beyond. Louis XIV, the Sun King, and Czar Nicholas I were the archetypes of glorious imperial rule. The shahs, shoguns, and emperors of the East were stars in history's firmament, and the light of Plato, Aristotle, and Aeschylus shone brilliantly on all generations thereafter. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitUjVi_uvPs7SUrHQCR6zUQIITXBxNDy01z-IXs6Wk2-ldBm3tsuKT6keC5Ja6LdtTsYhtLcW-TYUuwNtoIktMzy9T90LOggg0jjScw92j06yfYuxCAyQwHjeINGmKwQTW3JAmuYRyhYnToMz9nAIFWPy8lZNTyZuhrbq0w_9iBLMbtL6nXAcEDK0ARB9j/s343/Louis%20XIV.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="343" data-original-width="248" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitUjVi_uvPs7SUrHQCR6zUQIITXBxNDy01z-IXs6Wk2-ldBm3tsuKT6keC5Ja6LdtTsYhtLcW-TYUuwNtoIktMzy9T90LOggg0jjScw92j06yfYuxCAyQwHjeINGmKwQTW3JAmuYRyhYnToMz9nAIFWPy8lZNTyZuhrbq0w_9iBLMbtL6nXAcEDK0ARB9j/s320/Louis%20XIV.jpg" width="231" /></a></p><p>In one fell swoop, with a bevy of executive orders, the new President set the record straight - the long arm of government was to be severed and never again would reach into the pocketbooks and handbags of the American people. Gone was punitive taxation, hobbling restrictions on business and finance, intrusive social policies, and race-based affirmative action. The table was being reset for the new American banquet of riches, all brought about through a reaffirmation of private enterprise, individualism, and traditional values of work, competition and free markets. </p><p>Perhaps the most obvious and watched transformation was a cultural one. Gone were the dowdy, hectoring claques of the past, no more somber shows of diversity, no more sanctimony and victimhood. The White House was to be once again American - the America of Hollywood, Las Vegas, prime time television, runways, yachts, mansions, sequins and low-cut dresses - the President's America; the America that voted him into office. </p><p>State dinners were frequent and invitations more in demand than ever before. The first honorees were men and women like himself - the irrepressible, young, beautiful, transformative conservative Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni and the Argentine firecracker Javier Millei both at home with populist ideas and good times. The events were like a Great Gatsby party - the White House overflowed with the glitterati of the nation, a crowd of the most beautiful, the most photographed, and the most sought-after. The women were all Taylor Swifts and the men all tailored squires of Hollywood. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgll8AZciCs_tB2wN6NQ94rMUebw7VOV_8xYHG0427SUvjS3-Fv2kd01nL4GYdo3Q2q1lB1hshqAIqReYw5YxrwFt9oVHhcmqHPMXtGVdmkpJQVu6kK2c0PCsWBlGI72djImevmxlJc6zBJ4xjaFkuOa7XEQDm_KrQ6O1L75ne_Kbm2YN5tZeXIr4tt2NEZ/s967/Taylor%20elegant.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="967" data-original-width="559" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgll8AZciCs_tB2wN6NQ94rMUebw7VOV_8xYHG0427SUvjS3-Fv2kd01nL4GYdo3Q2q1lB1hshqAIqReYw5YxrwFt9oVHhcmqHPMXtGVdmkpJQVu6kK2c0PCsWBlGI72djImevmxlJc6zBJ4xjaFkuOa7XEQDm_KrQ6O1L75ne_Kbm2YN5tZeXIr4tt2NEZ/s320/Taylor%20elegant.jpg" width="185" /></a></p><p>Old Washingtonians remember Jackie Kennedy's redo of the White House, all Currier and Ives originals, de Kooning and Rauschenberg, Revere silver, Townsend tables, and Shaker chairs - a place of old money, old taste, and old class. Pablo Casals played at state dinners, and Robert Frost read at the inauguration. So not surprisingly these old men howled the loudest when all traces of that America were expunged and replaced by lowbrow, impossibly tinselly, overdone, loud cheapness. </p><p>Everything was different, all reflective of the new President. Press conferences were back in business and as raucously aggressive as Trump's campaign speeches. Nothing was held back, both thanks to his natural ways and to send a message to a nation whose speech had been stifled, starched, and closed for four years. The President was outrageous, mocking, and hilarious - a tummler, a Borscht Belt headliner, a vaudevillian. </p><p>This is what Americans had missed. For four years they had been told that they were white racists, woman-hating, greedy individualists, deep state crazies, backwoods crackers responsible for the incineration of forests, the pollution of the air, the oppression of the black man, the patriarchal suppression of women's rights, and the promoters of retrograde, obstructionist Biblical injunction. Life was too serious for fun, they were told. Everything was a deadly serious affair. </p><p>And then came Donald Trump Redux where nothing was sacred, no shibboleth left standing, no sanctimony left unpunctured. The circus had come back to town and it was to be the greatest show on earth. Bible thumpers, revivalists, and call girls were back - the new diversity of the real America. The White House doors were open to all comers, the more the merrier - kings, courtesans, and bricklayers as welcome as at the Wedding Feast at Cana. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgTJfpZzGiQyn_UjctEeg9-ZJ9PPPgy_igyo3y4kZNmewT-w6xAQHs3904Tl_LLOR7XFrAbF6EtubAVb5M7nzDq9axAnPPhqYPfLz4oGNGcrXnFYHWIEsL-gX9z5645Lo74LZOVnVvTLjWPUh2ebI0PGuuVg3GZCYJetidht8us0oPy9RDG0nFMyKfjaOoe" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="781" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgTJfpZzGiQyn_UjctEeg9-ZJ9PPPgy_igyo3y4kZNmewT-w6xAQHs3904Tl_LLOR7XFrAbF6EtubAVb5M7nzDq9axAnPPhqYPfLz4oGNGcrXnFYHWIEsL-gX9z5645Lo74LZOVnVvTLjWPUh2ebI0PGuuVg3GZCYJetidht8us0oPy9RDG0nFMyKfjaOoe" width="315" /></a></p><p>As hoped for by his supporters and feared by his opponents, the new President came out swinging. Thanks to a Republican Senate as well as House, it was a Republican free-for-all, heady days of a stringent conservatism in a party atmosphere. Old, tired, progressive programs were dismantled and discarded. The Treasury was once again bolted tight, federal funds restricted to Constitutional requirements. The drunken sailor spending of the Biden Administration was stopped in its tracks. No state, county, or municipality got sanctuary funding, entitlements, or airy social programs. </p><p>The border was shut tight, the senseless war in Ukraine stopped, a militantly aggressive support of Israel was launched, Iran isolated, and conservative governments around the world courted. </p><p>'I'm back!', were the first words of Trump as he gave his inaugural speech; and that's all his cheering supporters needed to hear; for The Donald's words were always memes, indicative, suggestive of meaning, and these two meant a profoundly conservative four years if not eight were to come. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7b3xqvVyZntqCUt62IukOuSpXBts7c1F_IG4p-6c-AkSchLDRqe5o_S17O2efLnr0_z0fDWIEReqIn83amLPc5oEVThZ9PCO1Ax-kOeBDf-pDlAGLwb4a2IsYWrxb3yoWLEYTXlt_CNc1cIexAOp9wlZvhTLl7fXMQ_p0KG5pAtUKqx-IAaunlrv6wPHI/s275/Trump%20defiant.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7b3xqvVyZntqCUt62IukOuSpXBts7c1F_IG4p-6c-AkSchLDRqe5o_S17O2efLnr0_z0fDWIEReqIn83amLPc5oEVThZ9PCO1Ax-kOeBDf-pDlAGLwb4a2IsYWrxb3yoWLEYTXlt_CNc1cIexAOp9wlZvhTLl7fXMQ_p0KG5pAtUKqx-IAaunlrv6wPHI/s1600/Trump%20defiant.jpg" width="275" /></a></p><p>'And you ain't seen nothing yet'; and so the cheering and chanting continued up and down the National Mall. Biden progressives were licking their wounds, still disbelieving that this evil man, this Satan, this anti-democratic racist could possibly be giving an inaugural address; and yet there he was as foolish and obtuse as ever, flaunting the good people of the progressive Left, and leaving no doubt that the next four years would be unmitigated hell. </p><p><i>'Don-ald, Don-ald, Don-ald'</i>, the crowd cheered in raucous unison and when he was joined on stage by his wife, the cheering grew even louder. <i>'Me-la-ni-a, Me-la-ni-a, Me-la-ni-a'</i> the crowd chanted, delirious and overjoyed. The Donald, Donald Trump, their man was indeed back. </p>Ron Parlatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377926161809667359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3728137222647400009.post-79272199139116055352024-03-11T06:58:00.007-04:002024-03-11T09:13:33.947-04:00Bawds, Tarts, And Brothels - Bring Back The Good Old Days<p>Isaiah Jones hitched his mare to the post, adjusted his jeans, smoothed his hair, and made his way up the staircase to Mrs. Henry's parlor, a marvelously Victorian place with macrame Tiffany lamps, silk embroidered divans, Persian rugs, and an elegant cut glass Baccarat crystal decanter. The scent of lilac and a faint perfume of oleander greeted him as he walked through the beaded entrance. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhv1-yOr6t9qwREX-C_P7FUIvUTJmrCH_SmZLm9V_QHELY66p2WwCtThjiGnP_37FKh95BdjPsIqbPWH-V9SlLaa4TuDmxXAJZ11FZN80KPTlLijE3eMd8scoRjwX0h8GrXGI5XxhYlhuJ_JkfnGHsOen_yj3EG2z6ClmAmPbj11H-dqAtRdGhmUBINeuy1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="617" data-original-width="780" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhv1-yOr6t9qwREX-C_P7FUIvUTJmrCH_SmZLm9V_QHELY66p2WwCtThjiGnP_37FKh95BdjPsIqbPWH-V9SlLaa4TuDmxXAJZ11FZN80KPTlLijE3eMd8scoRjwX0h8GrXGI5XxhYlhuJ_JkfnGHsOen_yj3EG2z6ClmAmPbj11H-dqAtRdGhmUBINeuy1" width="303" /></a></p><p>'How lovely to see you', said Mrs. Henry. 'I hope the trip wasn't too arduous', and with that Lily March, the most beautiful girl in the house, a blonde, blue-eyed young woman, fresh as a daisy, coiffed and beautified as a Parisian lady, walked demurely forward and took his hand. </p><p>Isaiah came to Mrs. Henry's exactly because of all the pomp and circumstance, the fantastical do-dads and curlicues, the generous welcome, and above all the inimitable, unforgettable Lily. </p><p>He laid two gold coins on the silver tray Mrs. Henry had placed on the highboy next to an urn of long-stemmed flowers and sage. a touch of class, smiled, and walked off with Lily to the Hitchcock Bedroom, a simple room with Wild Bill memorabilia and a large portrait of Madame LaFourchette, the first matron of the establishment. The lace curtains on the corner windows luffed in a fragrant breeze floating in from the cottonwoods along the arroyo in the near distance. </p><p>Lily helped Isaiah off with his boots and spurs, sponged him with warm, scented water, and took her place beside him. They lay there like young lovers. </p><p>Mrs. Henry made thousands from the carriage trade as she called it - the better off, more refined cowboy, the men who appreciated women and fine things, took their time, sipped her sherry and paid well. She had invested wisely in grain, railroad stock, and cattle and planned to return to Baltimore in two or three more years. </p><p>She gave prostitution a good name, for she had made it into profession - the sale of sexual favors was no different than bodices and hoop skirts or saddles and long rifles. It was a matter of supply and demand, and nothing to do with propriety or rectitude. In fact the Sisters Of The Cross, suffragettes and temperance ladies had never picketed her establishment - it was too high-toned and respectable even though the same wares were traded as in the seedy, spit-and-scratch places by the saloon. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgxiNFqsCb5Ek8j9IKc1LprzLUywZ048HUT-CdCp0zG2fE22s8ArOpf2KWgFaaU6Rtx4ksrIzH49hdjX_rIhyR9qwhf87Jb44_dXA_VnG1upTe952pOSmC-ysJ45p-v_teu9v4I5F0YJmbk5sgvYUsUo6qII2w4X4jzrJ9zoFZrnHhOuiJBphzVaozO64IW" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="478" data-original-width="640" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgxiNFqsCb5Ek8j9IKc1LprzLUywZ048HUT-CdCp0zG2fE22s8ArOpf2KWgFaaU6Rtx4ksrIzH49hdjX_rIhyR9qwhf87Jb44_dXA_VnG1upTe952pOSmC-ysJ45p-v_teu9v4I5F0YJmbk5sgvYUsUo6qII2w4X4jzrJ9zoFZrnHhOuiJBphzVaozO64IW" width="320" /></a></p><p>'Respect for women!' the ladies shouted. 'Prostitution is a sin and damnation awaits!' The thought of lying there, opening their legs to a horse-smelling, rancid, randy man, and then doing it again and again was unfathomable, despicable, and wrong; and yet there was something gracious and very acceptable about Mrs. Henry's establishment that they couldn't help admiring. </p><p>All this is history of course. The days of saloons, cheap whores, rotgut whiskey and cowboys have long passed. Women and men have evolved and society is now based on sexual commonality and respect. Prostitutes represent the worst sort of female abuse - a degrading, soulless, abject submission to to base, uninhibited desire. Women should never again be subjected to such indignity; and so modern, feminists haven taken up their place in latter-day solidarity with the Sisters of the Cross, stuffy, mean old men-haters. </p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Prostitution was common in Elizabethan times and only occasionally prosecuted. In the main prostitution was a profession like any other, subject to supply and demand, a living for those living on the margins.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Moral eyebrows might have been raised, but no universal opprobrium. Prostitution was simply a way of life. Nell Quickly is not a victim, nor a sexually abused, enslaved woman, but lively, bawdy, and as vital as Falstaff. Those who criticize Mistress Overdone’s profession were no more than sanctimonious fools - men who in contrast to her and her women are dishonest. Men whose tenuous authority turns </span>them into moral panderers, righteous bawds.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhsdUe79OrSiOgAK84913scr5hQKKckvlbrSgZvXJJ5nub7XqZfOfeGWvdXbBxfgthWE_tb9iBwLrWVSjxATFMcDlFCXN6h7cNPBqP_eJx55pOCQxcPDeCedhb84qt4K7s4gLck-HifAq8RedcJwkK2aT8f6JCHsbMZuZK-4ThfZzGmhNw87hB9OFTOleMP" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="143" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhsdUe79OrSiOgAK84913scr5hQKKckvlbrSgZvXJJ5nub7XqZfOfeGWvdXbBxfgthWE_tb9iBwLrWVSjxATFMcDlFCXN6h7cNPBqP_eJx55pOCQxcPDeCedhb84qt4K7s4gLck-HifAq8RedcJwkK2aT8f6JCHsbMZuZK-4ThfZzGmhNw87hB9OFTOleMP" width="153" /></a></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">How different from the current era where moral panderers and righteous bawds are universal. These guardians of female virtue are far worse than Don Angelo, the Governor</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><em style="font-family: inherit;">pro tempore</em><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">of Vienna in</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><em style="font-family: inherit;">Measure for Measure </em><span style="font-family: inherit;">who closes all brothels in the city, condemns to death an innocent man for promiscuity, but who attempts to seduce a novitiate, the sister of the condemned man, by offering to free him for a night in bed with her. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Today’s latter day arbiters of of morality have not simply decried ‘unwanted’ sexual activity, but have raised sexual innuendo to a crime. Women, despite the militant feminism of their defenders, have become victims; and they, regardless of circumstance, enabling environment, or even willingness will always be so. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sad it is that we live in such a censorious, Puritanical age. Public health advocates once tried to legitimize prostitution by calling prostitutes 'commercial sex workers', women engaged in a trade like any other; but that of course was empty promise. Prostitutes were not dressmakers, hairdressers, or nurses. Rutting was not trimming and tailoring. Opening the holiest of holies to any and all comers was tantamount to living in Dante's Ninth Circle and performing tricks for Satan.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In Abel Ferrara's movie, <i>Welcome to New York, </i>he fictionalizes the French politician and financier Dominique Strauss-Kahn. For him sexual<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span>libertinage, promiscuity, or addiction – whatever the press might call it – was in his eyes morally neutral. Prostitution has always been tolerated if not legal in France, and women are as much commodities as those he has always traded on world markets. The fact that his sex drive is more insatiable than others is not the point.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The penultimate scene – that of the Strauss-Kahn character propositioning the maid – is the moral closure of the film. He is virile, irrepressible, contemptuous of the bourgeoisie and its myopic values, and subversive of them. He is reminiscent of Fyodor Karamazov, the father of the brothers of Dostoevsky’s novel, who is as sexually driven, condescending, and irreverent. Both men are attractive in their will, defiance of the meek, timid, and sexually repressed.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Promiscuity - or rather libertinage, or even better sexual license - has gotten a bad name. Men who have serial partners - from Casanova to JFK to Martin Luther King - are cast as predators, human wolves who treat women as fleshpots, vessels, things and nothing more. LBJ and Bill Clinton were no different, whoring and fucking whomever, wherever, chippies or trailer trash, didn't matter to these </span>horny boors. </p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjzkMRocwUt_qK9AAemB2y-RmmbmgzCnUZ8OpgM0PHcdz6QBkBxL3VDtAWgKz46jnctxr36BWHTeY0O8daIMOe7jIRM9b-ij4k4iY4qMp2waDdJYg83wZKa_8ZTxcqJ6_lYpUOfbWMYTeAHgY5dRYoGmVuXMyKlxksT_KxF6Sdk1GyCNb29jfRY4btCQCrv" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="266" data-original-width="474" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjzkMRocwUt_qK9AAemB2y-RmmbmgzCnUZ8OpgM0PHcdz6QBkBxL3VDtAWgKz46jnctxr36BWHTeY0O8daIMOe7jIRM9b-ij4k4iY4qMp2waDdJYg83wZKa_8ZTxcqJ6_lYpUOfbWMYTeAHgY5dRYoGmVuXMyKlxksT_KxF6Sdk1GyCNb29jfRY4btCQCrv" width="320" /></a></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Prostitution - according to Eliot Spitzer, former disgraced Governor of New York caught in flagrante delicto in the bridal suite of the Mayflower Hotel with a high-class call girl - is simply a quick and easy way to relieve the tension of one's demanding job; and besides, the call-girl trade gets hookers off the streets. Saloons and Mrs. Henry's establishment acknowledged demand and institutionalized it - everyone made out, and no one left unhappy. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Two self-evident truths - men have always pursued women, and in dry spells turned to prostitutes; and women have always been willing to turn a trick for money, the perfect storm of human biology and the marketplace. Why mess with it? </p>Ron Parlatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377926161809667359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3728137222647400009.post-34001812067112415702024-03-10T07:32:00.005-04:002024-03-10T13:36:10.218-04:00The Presidential Campaign Circus Of 2024 - Old Guys Fighting To Get It Up One More Time <p>Old guys fighting is not a pleasant sight. They should be shuffling around the house in their PJ's and slippers and not trying to get it up in public. Florida, the chaise lounge, bed tea, and a few crumbs on the sheets is about all one should expect of Joe Biden; and yet here he is, coming out swinging, feisty and throttling, showing his Presidential mettle but really a wind-up toy that is wound far too tight to last the eight months until November.</p><p>In fact in his first campaign appearance after his State of the Union address, the President looked as though his springs had already come loose. He was back to Poor Old Joe, stumbling and bumbling his way through prepared speeches, looking adrift, but trying to gin up the gumption to go on. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhzl1t4IWOayPly-n2YoYbJuKHi48Q2vE5tzkVAqEcepHvtslJDe0paHEQSmoJTqFC6ixKi_e7Ifo_EjskfBrS0T1kUIVwgDzpC0HQUiakwPm-InOVIk-pQxg_Ffd5SD7vgGeo3TM4QE39PhkN99PjmjB5CigAH1TkgONCcK7I_NY-sstOWzYNALZNeFxL/s474/Biden%20clueless.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="319" data-original-width="474" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhzl1t4IWOayPly-n2YoYbJuKHi48Q2vE5tzkVAqEcepHvtslJDe0paHEQSmoJTqFC6ixKi_e7Ifo_EjskfBrS0T1kUIVwgDzpC0HQUiakwPm-InOVIk-pQxg_Ffd5SD7vgGeo3TM4QE39PhkN99PjmjB5CigAH1TkgONCcK7I_NY-sstOWzYNALZNeFxL/s320/Biden%20clueless.png" width="320" /></a></p><p>My Uncle Harry was a bit like Biden, active way past his prime, sagging into his soup until Aunt Betty set him back upright in his chair, adjusted his bib, and retrieved his spoon now sticky with cat fur from the shag carpet still under the table after fifty years. </p><p>"We have to get rid of that thing", Betty muttered, realizing that anyone within earshot might confuse the rug with Uncle Harry; so she smiled, gave him a peck on the cheek and went back to carving the roast.</p><p>That had been Harry's job until last year when he first made a mess of it, hacking it to pieces before he got one good slice of breast meat on the platter. When Betty tried to get the knife away from him, he threatened her with it, and it was at that moment that she knew that her husband had gone around the bend. </p><p>Harry's decline was not a pretty sight. Many old folks go gently into their dotage, spilling things, forgetting things, and rambling; but Harry who had always been cantankerous, became a caricature of his old self, bitching, moaning, and shouting so loud Betty had to shut the windows so the neighbors wouldn't hear. Harry was becoming a pain in the ass, and although he was still loved by his children and grandchildren, he had become as scary as a demented patient in the loony bin. </p><p>Now, the President has not come to this yet. True, his wife does have to prop him up at inconvenient times, and the job of his White House staff is to do all the heavy lifting, but his batteries are still charged, and until his lights dim, he will soldier on. </p><p>The State of the Union speech took quite an effort, for it not only required resolve, energy, and attention, but will; and lately he was becoming more interested in a chaise lounge in Florida than the Jefferson Chair at the Lincoln Desk in the Oval Office. He felt dissipated, drained of his 'stuff' as he called it, that indefinable something that kept him upright and moving through God knows how many years in public service; so many in fact that they all began to run together and fade into dreamy images of childhood on a Delaware beach. </p><p>'Keep it up', Mr. President said his chief campaign advisor, immediately regretting the slip - the President had been musing recently about his sexual desuetude and the sweet young things that were dancing around the West Wing like so many sylphs and fairies. He looked longingly at them, hungrily if he was honest with himself; and for his own equanimity he should have heeded Jill's advice and hired ugly older women, but there he was, just like every other man playing out God's supreme irony of having created men with lifelong sexual desire and only a few short years to do something about it. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiHqrYSAgfuC_IZL7u2841kV_cAuc6bin-LwMQt78Dw_lXGFOrgqtBgzLi8fUyMg-mPjUiLyNdnbMtep17eUiYF-QPLLsMW7sbHaczg-89vni3jSBTwUMzdI4GiFtunujQrKN_1ncwllBaX012fX-Usbd_dmK5--vWrAZ9j6DzA43Fy5CnMlrHxhKDkAx6I" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="840" data-original-width="564" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiHqrYSAgfuC_IZL7u2841kV_cAuc6bin-LwMQt78Dw_lXGFOrgqtBgzLi8fUyMg-mPjUiLyNdnbMtep17eUiYF-QPLLsMW7sbHaczg-89vni3jSBTwUMzdI4GiFtunujQrKN_1ncwllBaX012fX-Usbd_dmK5--vWrAZ9j6DzA43Fy5CnMlrHxhKDkAx6I" width="161" /></a></p><p>'Mr. President', said LaShonda Evans, his campaign women's liaison, 'time for the...blah, blah... group from...blah, blah...'. The President led the words drift over him and down the Hamilton corridor, joining the light breeze from the French doors to the portico that the butler had opened to let in the scent of the first flowers from the Rose Garden. </p><p>Philadelphia was his next campaign stop, and his campaign staff knew that it would be trouble. Anyone who had ever attended a Phillies game knew how liquored up fans could get - all diesel smoke, greasy cheese steaks, and cheap beer - and this was MAGA country, as hostile a place that ever could be. </p><p>Biden's staff had tried to persuade him to speak on the Main Line, the more sensible, tolerant, Democratic wing of the city; but he refused. This had been his old stomping ground, Irish pubs, Mickey Finn, and barroom brawls, and dark-haired, blue-eyed colleens. In his mind nothing had changed and he would be welcomed as one of the community's own. </p><p>'Courageous', wrote the New York <i>Times, </i>'Daniel in the lion's den...a show of strength...indomitable presidential fiber...' but in fact it started off with heckling and ended up with so many catcalls and jeers that the President's handlers gave him the hook and pulled him to the wings of the Knights of Columbus hall. </p><p>Now, at the same time Donald Trump was standing in front of a crowd ten times the size of Joe's, the same raucous, drunken crowd of pipe-fitters and plumbers that Joe had tried to address, but was applauded and cheered like a returning Roman hero. Here was an old man, full of vim and vigor, as pissy as he had ever been, in his element, fearless, dismissive of 'Little Fanny Farmer', the Georgia DA who was getting schtupped in the anteroom of her courtroom chambers and the Democratic plant in New York who was accusing him of 'the high treason of doing business'. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjN8oqX5BQl1FfEEDIIBWpOWJwLBv5JgceuWCe21g8MPkpydlBy11rjkJ4Sfb2COAwisbf7ejXciph8uOJQEzqhh_qtEzw_YdWr6N2KYBLAq465Vi5ut3P4Zq7jRWyMVEU1w7sULE-_fE_iKJrREOW2K0HvK4madF-CysSuQIVFUoWYEAZ1pteWwKjUp51I" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="976" data-original-width="1484" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjN8oqX5BQl1FfEEDIIBWpOWJwLBv5JgceuWCe21g8MPkpydlBy11rjkJ4Sfb2COAwisbf7ejXciph8uOJQEzqhh_qtEzw_YdWr6N2KYBLAq465Vi5ut3P4Zq7jRWyMVEU1w7sULE-_fE_iKJrREOW2K0HvK4madF-CysSuQIVFUoWYEAZ1pteWwKjUp51I" width="320" /></a></p><p>When the former President got warmed up, he started in on his opponent, 'a doddering old fool who wets his pants and walks like a three-legged dog'. The Squad - that specialized Congressional group of women of color and ethnicity - was nothing more than a bunch of bitchy, ugly women. At that moment he held his hand out to his beautiful wife, Melania to which the crowd whooped and hollered, stood up and shouted Me-la-ni-a over and over again until the rafters shook. </p><p>Biden's aides thought they could hear the cheering and wanted to jump ship. Their man could be wound up only so many times and before long he would be just a deflated lawn ornament Santa Claus, flattened, creased, and airless. 'Too fucking old' was heard far too often on the campaign bus. </p><p>Of course it wasn't age alone. Trump was just a few years younger, headed for 80, but full of himself, confident, out front, and as bullying and loud as he had ever been. Far smarter than Biden whose public career was one of goofy sinecure, Trump was a billionaire real estate mogul, investor, Hollywood superstar, and a brilliant orator. He was one part Southern preacher, one part showman, and many parts canny politician. </p><p>It was only the beginning of the campaign but the dice had been cast. The President came out swinging but had lost his mojo after the first round. Every attempt to reignite the fire his aides had set under him, every angry gesture of commitment and purpose, every Mussolini sneer flipped and flopped right after the State of the Union. Old Joe was back to being Old Joe, a man of tired ideas trotted out and banged around every election year, then put back in the sack leaving him to smile, and go home. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgy3IkCPl9jBJt3KrETWDZBgBgGnYSke1pVw-nBmU214sDLMZtsh5Owdg_C4EtXdYD5eZxWPvSiD-liMu3hZohtzqkPia6tFAu6rRdNcBSRenmJzq1QcJHUo5KQyA0qAZecQOaV97Bqa9-W6UiUJR6dTIe7e_987S4UBiWeTRTmmzsQiPA_SIYlrmHHcoJi" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="750" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgy3IkCPl9jBJt3KrETWDZBgBgGnYSke1pVw-nBmU214sDLMZtsh5Owdg_C4EtXdYD5eZxWPvSiD-liMu3hZohtzqkPia6tFAu6rRdNcBSRenmJzq1QcJHUo5KQyA0qAZecQOaV97Bqa9-W6UiUJR6dTIe7e_987S4UBiWeTRTmmzsQiPA_SIYlrmHHcoJi" width="320" /></a></p><p>By the time November rolls around, Joe will no longer know what's what, the thought of Florida and the chaise lounge will be the only things on his mind, and his bags filled with floral shirts and Bermudas will be ready to go. </p><p>Meanwhile the Donald, as full of it as he was in March will sound the trumpets one last time and wait for the convincing results on November 5th. </p>Ron Parlatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377926161809667359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3728137222647400009.post-85612046499360419222024-03-09T11:53:00.011-05:002024-03-10T01:40:26.617-05:00Sex At Yale - A Social History Of Getting Laid<p>In the old days when Yale was true blue - New England aristocratic pedigree, universal talent, shared culture, and an all male camaraderie - sex was hard to come by, or at least a few hours ride away. Men from Davenport, Trumbull, and Jonathan Edwards made the trek to Boston, Poughkeepsie, and Northampton to meet the right sort of girl, invite her to New Haven and with any luck spend a night at the Taft hotel. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgT7gbzMOhxOFRI4UAzqySiAr2LoPkJbTsbow1talOWptBK0kEM8x3i98_EYYo8uMTSmNzKRUG9f-HfLMDzA3Ak6OavuPlNKZZmV9O9Ij2zzCGuMBEmtlaZkbxRgIiK4mJs2EW5mmR8agerCh5tMkvh-uUy5XH-Xc7yGZX5d9jWnUFrOUBEawW0CTDmGJf_" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="497" data-original-width="474" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgT7gbzMOhxOFRI4UAzqySiAr2LoPkJbTsbow1talOWptBK0kEM8x3i98_EYYo8uMTSmNzKRUG9f-HfLMDzA3Ak6OavuPlNKZZmV9O9Ij2zzCGuMBEmtlaZkbxRgIiK4mJs2EW5mmR8agerCh5tMkvh-uUy5XH-Xc7yGZX5d9jWnUFrOUBEawW0CTDmGJf_" width="229" /></a></p><p><br />The Class of '64 was on the cusp of the Old Yale and the new. Women were yet to be admitted, a few Italians and Jews were trickling in, drugs and rock 'n' roll a few years away, and yet there was a restiveness. Fence Club and Skull and Bones - august Yale redoubts of privilege and breeding - seemed somehow anachronistic, old-fashioned, and a bit stuffy and antiquated. Still, all in all, Yale was much as it had always been, a place of academic honor and social prestige. </p><p>There were of course 'townies', Italian girls from Wooster Square who gave it up in hope of some future other than pasta fazool, mothballs, and coal oil, but Yalies were interested in the carriage trade, the girls from Wellesley and Smith who could be seduced and still talk Kant and dance with the best of them. The Palumbos and Pozzis from across the tracks were neat little diversions, hardly worth the effort, but easily had. These dark, mustachioed Angelas put out, went back to Olive Street and came back for more. </p><p>Every Yalie had sex, or so the story went. Tall, blonde, blue-eyed, patrician Bostonians descended from the Northumberlands and Plantagenets were sure to be bedding the debutantes of Park Avenue, Rittenhouse Square, and Shawnee Mission with a little Sicilian nookie on the side. This was one university myth that was true and a confirmation of historical truth - looks, family, and education are guarantors of breeding rights. It was the Jewish nerds from Brooklyn college who had to scratch and scrap; and no matter how much they may have wanted the silky, flaxen-haired beauties of Vassar, they were stuck with frizzy-haired socialist labor activists. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjERBC9rk-QT_9UxDT80ocPeyeBVca-IRO-uKhWFKgp8kqQ-e8Xp0IwNrDB99o4E3Bu2L4K4BVE0zoZmWQH93Ehrh-sUKLmcqhZbwRdNdr6HJx2cNLXGFNFm4EqQ9whUWBQaRpK7Wjp8nd7Qlb7hqfN2_TknPA8Em0_MEVfJnrRgQDUeb1ZUCRwvCmoVU2S" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="748" data-original-width="626" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjERBC9rk-QT_9UxDT80ocPeyeBVca-IRO-uKhWFKgp8kqQ-e8Xp0IwNrDB99o4E3Bu2L4K4BVE0zoZmWQH93Ehrh-sUKLmcqhZbwRdNdr6HJx2cNLXGFNFm4EqQ9whUWBQaRpK7Wjp8nd7Qlb7hqfN2_TknPA8Em0_MEVfJnrRgQDUeb1ZUCRwvCmoVU2S" width="201" /></a></p><p>Of course even at Yale there were inconsistencies - oddities who even after four years were still consulting advice for the lovelorn and having their horoscopes cast by Madame Zora on Whitney Avenue. Choate, let alone Loomis, was simply not St. Paul's, St. Mark's, or Groton and the second-raters who went there felt the social bite. Rumor had it that Jonathan Edwards, one of Yale's residential colleges, was the gay one, but out front, above board homosexuality was still many years off. </p><p>So on weekends half the college headed north for dates at the Seven Sisters, and the other half entertained them in New Haven. </p><p>The Class of '74 was of a different era. Ten years made all the difference in the world. Women were admitted, although not in one fell swoop, and male students for the first time had to adjust to lingerie hanging in the bathroom. In one submission to the Class Book Of Nineteen Seventy-Four, a woman wrote that she felt like a bitch in a cage while wolf packs of sexually aggressive men circled hungrily. This was not representative, however, for most women in those early co-ed classes were quite happy with the sex ratio. One woman wrote:</p><blockquote style="border: medium; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">I was quite happy with the bitch-in-heat role, and made the best of it. I was Rosalind, Viola, and Portia with my pick of the lot. I could be choosy and horny at the same time. Boys from Marblehead to Charleston came sniffing around, wanting a taste. After triage, I entertained the best - the best schooled, the best pedigreed, and the best hung. It was a cornucopia of sexual delights. </p></blockquote><p>There was a self-triage among the men as well. There were those who were happy with Old Guard courtship, treks to Holyoke and Smith or to schools of looser sexuality and lesser intelligence like Briarcliff; those who enjoyed the challenge of tough odds and joined the wolfpack at home; and those few who were flummoxed by the proximity of women and demurred if not retreated from the chase. </p><p>By the time the Class of '84 rolled around, the sexual revolution had changed the campus forever. Yale was admitting all ethnic comers, and family, legacy, and upbringing went out the window. Women now made up half the student body so demand for Seven Sisters' sex dropped precipitously. '84 was the best of times, a time of sexual collegiality before the era of race-gender-ethnicity rolled in. Although sex was more 'diverse' on campus - everyone it seemed was giving cunnilingus top billing - the beginning of a more cloistered era of sexual identity was at hand. You were something or you were not and were expected to behave accordingly. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEipOIOo__urPZnXkFNH3vGo-VRd4DuKdD_AnsDLxW3RGwkCW6SiTHR_vnjlUdv7ah4W7v6O67WxMgwqANdZWIp_0tX1tk-6Y6O4FaWz7uSabxtK_5WQ49MVI435ItPfLWCwmVc00RruhwIbeni-aC7O83yb_4wSy54wxxg7coASYzutHEBNj0-pGhf3a54e" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="363" data-original-width="645" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEipOIOo__urPZnXkFNH3vGo-VRd4DuKdD_AnsDLxW3RGwkCW6SiTHR_vnjlUdv7ah4W7v6O67WxMgwqANdZWIp_0tX1tk-6Y6O4FaWz7uSabxtK_5WQ49MVI435ItPfLWCwmVc00RruhwIbeni-aC7O83yb_4wSy54wxxg7coASYzutHEBNj0-pGhf3a54e" width="320" /></a></p><p>The class books of each decade's reunion are markers of the way sex at Yale has evolved. There are no more The Hooker Of Davenport chronicles of sexual abandon and adventure, and many more about identity and all that goes with it - No Means No, male predation and boorish pursuit, and the magnificence of gender transformation. </p><p>The question less and less answered is the perennial one - Are you getting laid, how often, and with whom? But of course even posing the question these days is tantamount to misogynist abuse at best and prejudicial profiling at worst. The very question is dismissive and abusive of asexual Yale students; so no one will ever know who's doing what to whom, whether rooms at the Marriott are fully booked, and whether or not I-95 is still a sexual highway. </p><p>A classmate of mine remarked that if everyone was having sex at Yale all the time, the famed collegiality, ethos, and traditions of the university would begin to crack. Sex has never been a love-the-one-you're-with affair. Lovers bitch, fight, and exact their pounds of flesh all to the detriment of the old college try. Better some measure of circumspection than letting all hell break loose. </p><p>Actually there is no danger of that. Progressivism has provided a natural brake to sexual behavior. In today's censorious, neo-Puritanism it is better to avoid sex than to be caught in a string of lawsuits, censure, and the stocks. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjak0LfjHZdO-CrRX7UutEKUYNMrecWtOo0r8IodiD587EPN5bVqiTvRpgyBAc9KCsiiNmZCR8UhG5zcl3A7EthS0L-AvL5AfpbApFfVsJ-QZNyRdwnbA4BjIWbwtGjNwPJJlp-YwZ6-k20CSuhgAjOWOvU5kbn3VqfNUAGMxk-SJCBt_mn_lsggjkvsxqZ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="876" data-original-width="1280" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjak0LfjHZdO-CrRX7UutEKUYNMrecWtOo0r8IodiD587EPN5bVqiTvRpgyBAc9KCsiiNmZCR8UhG5zcl3A7EthS0L-AvL5AfpbApFfVsJ-QZNyRdwnbA4BjIWbwtGjNwPJJlp-YwZ6-k20CSuhgAjOWOvU5kbn3VqfNUAGMxk-SJCBt_mn_lsggjkvsxqZ" width="320" /></a></p><p>The good old days are long gone, and those of us who enjoyed delightful sex up and down the Eastern Seaboard are bits of archival material, nothing more. </p>Ron Parlatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377926161809667359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3728137222647400009.post-77773828919417580332024-03-09T07:01:00.003-05:002024-03-09T09:38:41.870-05:00The Great American Election Circus - Two Buffoons And Bad Tuba Players<p> 'Ooo-la-la', said Antoine de la Villiers, Duke de Gralonde, latest in a line of French nobility that dated back to the Third Crusade, the final victory of the French over the Muslim invaders of Jerusalem. '<i>Troisieme Croisade', </i>he explained to anyone noting his gold ring, engraved with the crest of Pope Gregory VIII.</p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhS9SkPY-DGhk7TrB3CZo6UJukrBx7HeV1dD-ADBhGDRkx7zCnrdVu1swM4FaJWerbiybmooT9ZE0Z92_qf2tV03la2a_0CiXIHWAXr-MwngSXWb_O_Unf3PVpUmKI_pOWFWjEmDFEEslRP-7iFFDbqSY9bKICZnC3yeXuObI9a17TVMloeweMlooBs_9T6" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="788" data-original-width="1400" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhS9SkPY-DGhk7TrB3CZo6UJukrBx7HeV1dD-ADBhGDRkx7zCnrdVu1swM4FaJWerbiybmooT9ZE0Z92_qf2tV03la2a_0CiXIHWAXr-MwngSXWb_O_Unf3PVpUmKI_pOWFWjEmDFEEslRP-7iFFDbqSY9bKICZnC3yeXuObI9a17TVMloeweMlooBs_9T6" width="320" /></a></p><p>Antoine was reacting to the American presidential campaign, an episode which never ceased to amuse him. 'How American', he mused thinking of his ancestors, the long line of aristocrats which had ruled the country nobly and well until the unfortunate happenings in 1789. Not a few of his forbears' heads had rolled during the Terror, but happily those that escaped <i>La Veuve</i> returned to their chateaux and continued to govern France if not in power, in influence. </p><p>They were the legatees of Charlemagne and Charles Martel, responsible for saving Europe from the Saracen invaders, caretakers of French culture and language. Charles de Gaulle said, <i>La France, c'est moi', </i>but it was Antoine's ancestors, the royalty, nobility, and aristocracy of France who were the true Frenchmen. De Gaulle was only a commoner, an upstart soldier and bourgeois arriviste. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhphjWHXUL8-jgiZkG9HwqWMx_OZpO3MojbYmKB8-7JIMAH3iqN_CSweNApG1yHTi265tYDhOVFQsbRKoNp2CHLPg6-JCu9VMxdxCBVw0Z88RT7G3DSPhzdadd0Fapr4-vE3J55uXQ0FgSYENWQPsvNkeIAiA9t6oH8GdWDHKrqjqDuWTiznfk6aUtMz7rD" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="286" data-original-width="500" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhphjWHXUL8-jgiZkG9HwqWMx_OZpO3MojbYmKB8-7JIMAH3iqN_CSweNApG1yHTi265tYDhOVFQsbRKoNp2CHLPg6-JCu9VMxdxCBVw0Z88RT7G3DSPhzdadd0Fapr4-vE3J55uXQ0FgSYENWQPsvNkeIAiA9t6oH8GdWDHKrqjqDuWTiznfk6aUtMz7rD" width="320" /></a></p><p>It was within this context that Antoine reflected on the buffoonery, charlatanism, Grand Guignol, low-life absurdity of the American electoral process; but his observations ranged further. The whole country was a freak show. How and why a country founded on good European principles - Voltaire, after all was French and the Enlightenment illuminated France as well as England - was a mystery to him. </p><p>After the sophisticated, temperate, intellectual and philosophical brilliance of Jefferson, who had been Ambassador to France and honored the King for his support of America's Revolutionary end to British rule, and given the wisdom of Hamilton, Adams, and Franklin, all steeped in the intellectual tradition of Europe, how could this new nation have so quickly become a land of rubes, brawlers, cowpokes, and crackers?</p><p>The American electoral campaign, therefore, was only the most obvious expression of a persistently low-brow plebian culture. Tocqueville had seen something remarkable in America - a can-do, enthusiastic optimism - but was as chary as Hamilton about the majority, as unwashed, undependable, and ignorant as 'the people' anywhere. Shakespeare and Rabelais were chroniclers of this fickleness. Americans might make good bakers, butchers, and candlestick makers, but never would coalesce into the greatness of empire. </p><p>Antoine drove to his chateau, Le Planchat, a 14th century medieval fortress turned 100 room residence and 10,000 acre property for the Villiers since its inauguration. There he would be met by a familiar phalanx of retainers, cooks, chambermaids, grooms, stablemasters, wardens, and guardians - a trusted staff whose families had served at Le Planchat for generations It would be a respite from the hectic life of Paris and his many engagements - there was always someone who wanted him to open this or that, break a bottle of champagne over a ship or a cornerstone, make a speech about Europe, or simply show up in formal, aristocratic dress. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjd7KVMQ4mXEjbdEZEUR0qX89Vbt7UopRZ4TV-fKY2QxsJx1P2iRnScmIdNrC2ZpyPzpeLGToDLdunUZUpGNd819ePv06KuJQ5UGKkGYvoiRucdP0lwB3DreBMeTFYxMpH_hcSev9Lc90t9YUMj-NTKJWIp-k8ORRg5ITR0WXu4tyc6CV-2q43uKLnD0_yh" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="355" data-original-width="474" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjd7KVMQ4mXEjbdEZEUR0qX89Vbt7UopRZ4TV-fKY2QxsJx1P2iRnScmIdNrC2ZpyPzpeLGToDLdunUZUpGNd819ePv06KuJQ5UGKkGYvoiRucdP0lwB3DreBMeTFYxMpH_hcSev9Lc90t9YUMj-NTKJWIp-k8ORRg5ITR0WXu4tyc6CV-2q43uKLnD0_yh" width="320" /></a></p><p>Political observers have noted that this particular election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden is one of the worst in American history - an old, doddering, half-senile political hack versus a vaudevillian, a crass, low-brow wild man. The voters deserve better, they say, but there is not canny Tocqueville among them. Few understand that Donald Trump <i>is </i>America, and that Joe Biden is his twin, as American as apple pie - his persistent Utopian fantasy has been a feature of the American cultural fringe since Whitman, the Oneida Colony, and transcendentalism. </p><p>There is no historical imperative to cite, no empire to recall, no storied mythology in America; so it is not surprising that both Trump and Biden are simply square dance callers, auctioneers, hucksters, and intellectual poseurs. Utopianism was never a serious enterprise and still isn't. For all of Biden's calls for a better, more verdant, more understanding and compassionate America, progressivism is an opium-induced pipe dream, a long-ago discredited notion of a world of peace and harmony that has never existed. </p><p>Unlike Biden's whistlin' Dixie, Donald Trump's calls for nationalism, militant patriotism, fiscal and financial restraint, individualism, and social conservatism resonate with a large segment of the population. Moreover Trump is not only the message but the medium. Americans at heart are just like Trump or would like to be - bigger than life, wealthy beyond their dreams, squire of the world's most beautiful women, a macho man of the mean streets, a Hollywood icon, owner of mansions, yachts, and resorts. An unapologetically crass man who loves American culture - starlets, Las Vegas runway girls, sequins, glitter, and arm candy. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQpB4HMfVHj8S_47d_lIUlLpNoB4HZaz_Crmfq41x3VBkQQGnB8-Ar0RCn2GCmygH49epaKkOSwi72_qrQgDMVm34qF7O_TYc29UgaSNuLZDNivKMxEvECnbbD92UDml3MLMSYXWpPf6YT5T6eIe7utXV8g0NXkVrLQPjkkWZokkIRhkg-ufGBKHw6mdEU/s960/Trump%20and%20Miss%20Connecticut.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="960" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQpB4HMfVHj8S_47d_lIUlLpNoB4HZaz_Crmfq41x3VBkQQGnB8-Ar0RCn2GCmygH49epaKkOSwi72_qrQgDMVm34qF7O_TYc29UgaSNuLZDNivKMxEvECnbbD92UDml3MLMSYXWpPf6YT5T6eIe7utXV8g0NXkVrLQPjkkWZokkIRhkg-ufGBKHw6mdEU/s320/Trump%20and%20Miss%20Connecticut.jpg" width="320" /></a></p><p>The election is predictably more about image than substance. Let <i>Apostrophes, </i>a French prime time television program which featured a round table of intellectuals discussing art, philosophy, and literature, be profound. No one in America has the patience for such pointy-headed intellectuals. 'What you see is what you get' is the American meme, not on-the-one-hand-on-the-other or resolute probing for the truth. We know better. </p><p>'Still', said Antoine to the Duke de Guiche over <i>Lapin Bourguignon </i>and a '72 Chateau Lafitte, 'it's fun to watch'; and that summed up the general European view of American politics. Which is also why the most savvy Americans love the presidential matchup - it is the great WWE American World Wrestling Entertainment fight of the century, all hyped-up, faux body slams and circus antics. Two buffoons, freaks, and bad tuba players. </p><p>The campaign is Shecky Greene and the Borscht Belt, the Carnegie Delicatessen, bosomy girls and jack-booted feminists, boa-feathered drag queens, cowboys and Indians. In America voters only say they care about policy and purpose. What they really and always care about is the show, the side show, and the three rings. </p><p>The world is becoming more and more like America, like it or not. France is no longer <i>La France </i>but some amalgam of Algeria, Cameroon, and Mali - Tuaregs, Moors, Arabs, ISIS, Islamic fundamentalists - fewer and fewer old-style <i>syndicalistes </i>and demi-liter meal ticket lunch crowd; and even fewer '<i>une de la devant et une grosse fortune derriere' </i> aristocrats. </p><p>Italy has always been the most politically American country - Berlusconi was an early Trumpist, and Meloni is not far behind - and Argentina has finally come to its senses with a mop-haired, radical libertarian comedian at the helm; but it is to America that vaudevillian, Barnum & Bailey lovers must turn. And every four years the very best of America is on display. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhZYZkO_q58sjkBpYPOb_KHMA9wFPPRkY-Ea6NTsNm8gsRXwETcKv8bneMOrjETWo27DPjONr1vA_7PikcYYSJK4azbRdkQNWEcLkB-bkr0tmHgsgDuZq6m_2Ls9OG2n2VaBqeeQDBXMXFBq5-WzhYyDaZDLlFwJnZ_BO5Nu86Zi7QIpE8ilPR8SfkQVC8z" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1500" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhZYZkO_q58sjkBpYPOb_KHMA9wFPPRkY-Ea6NTsNm8gsRXwETcKv8bneMOrjETWo27DPjONr1vA_7PikcYYSJK4azbRdkQNWEcLkB-bkr0tmHgsgDuZq6m_2Ls9OG2n2VaBqeeQDBXMXFBq5-WzhYyDaZDLlFwJnZ_BO5Nu86Zi7QIpE8ilPR8SfkQVC8z" width="320" /></a></p><p><br /></p>Ron Parlatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377926161809667359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3728137222647400009.post-10615236031887258432024-03-08T09:18:00.006-05:002024-03-08T12:51:52.441-05:00Con Men, Pimps, And Little People - Shoring Up The Biden Diversity Wagon Before Election Time<p>The Biden Administration was already awash in diversity - and as a final move to fill in the cracks, a small person was added to the Cabinet as a deputy to the Secretary of the Interior. Why should he, recently retired from the circus industry, winner of the Maryland lottery, and journeyman WWE wrestler, be included in the portfolio of Interior, asked many. 'Because of our national parks' was the reply from an Interior spokesperson, a non sequitur end run that had become familiar as the Biden Administration continued to 'pack' his administration with diversity. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiPEmr4b9LYXx9lQPXQonEj3UWOQojGfPjc6VlK1DGgIJIiJRFydRb9toRwTx7omDSsd_ji0RJyqxQMrE5jr33S4c68sczjLhnyPJkRgoQHGR6fb7QmIRxqxCRMX9KYa6FrF72-zcZkSa9g15rNKnQF69dwZi-3P24-3zLxSdcM3n2nZItLar1BzuCbV1JN" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2400" data-original-width="2400" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiPEmr4b9LYXx9lQPXQonEj3UWOQojGfPjc6VlK1DGgIJIiJRFydRb9toRwTx7omDSsd_ji0RJyqxQMrE5jr33S4c68sczjLhnyPJkRgoQHGR6fb7QmIRxqxCRMX9KYa6FrF72-zcZkSa9g15rNKnQF69dwZi-3P24-3zLxSdcM3n2nZItLar1BzuCbV1JN" width="240" /></a></p><p>So Elmer Fiddie took his place at the table, tastefully and inconspicuously boosted, and was called on in the first few meetings, to comment on the height of accommodations throughout the National Park system. Was the Administration doing enough for little people, and did they feel comfortable at places of national heritage? </p><p>"Well", Elmer began, "Can't rightly say", adding that he had yet to undertake a survey, but was in the process of putting together a team of little people to do just that. 'No high doorknob, stool, ticket window, or entryway will stand', he said, raising himself from the booster seat to make the point. Applause followed, appreciative nods in the direction of the Secretary of Defense who was chairing the session on that day. </p><p>The whole idea of this former third rate circus act sitting in <i>his </i>Cabinet room had always been irritating for the President - a weirdo experiment to open the door to the underrepresented - and he wanted to focus more on the truly needy and socially important, especially the black man. Yes, he had plenty of them in his Administration but not a <i>real </i>black man, one from the inner city, the ghetto, the slums</p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqKaoGOWQ6aYCqbWBDlYKu60_Jl5pWg7r5WQOuJOys3l9KRAPO-se04XsErWealCa7V2uu1Xv-IyShPbUfVFOVUUcNi_vbbDv0RGHZbsm2tU_ZsXmBENpJKCLDyUugem9ljBQT0Ac3XBfjbQy2nsQz2BYkkPQGHgwbMXIpkMaZfqjHIrM4IaruvJ1-kcfo/s600/Ghetto%20grill.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqKaoGOWQ6aYCqbWBDlYKu60_Jl5pWg7r5WQOuJOys3l9KRAPO-se04XsErWealCa7V2uu1Xv-IyShPbUfVFOVUUcNi_vbbDv0RGHZbsm2tU_ZsXmBENpJKCLDyUugem9ljBQT0Ac3XBfjbQy2nsQz2BYkkPQGHgwbMXIpkMaZfqjHIrM4IaruvJ1-kcfo/s320/Ghetto%20grill.png" width="320" /></a></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-family: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures;">LaShonda Phillips, a voluble, excitable woman from Detroit with few credentials of her own, had been on the front lines of Black Lives Matter, and had come to the attention of the White House always on the lookout for edgy black women who could give it some street cachet. She would need some tailoring and sanding, but was exactly what the President had been looking for. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-family: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures;">A longtime black wannabe, Joe Biden had envied Bill Clinton for his ease and familiarity with black people, and secretly wanted to shed all his altar boy, shanty Irish whiteness and become a homeboy. Barack Obama had been too white for him, and for eight years he wanted to be from Anacostia, the black slum across the river. </span></p><p>‘We've got to do more', said LaShonda Phillips, now Chief DEI Advisor to the President and 2024 campaign insider. 'We've got to expand our reach'. <span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-family: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures;">LaShonda never forgot her own, and explained to the President that reviving the post of White House Spiritual Advisor, held by none other than Billy Graham, would go down well with the black population more used to Jesus and the apostles than any white congregation. Secular as the Administration was, it would benefit from a black, inner city </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures;">preacher. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-family: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures;"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhZdXFHiFKnvQ-TfXWpcTreuwVkXM8mMlRHIVWieL-7Lldy8VPqBbifYtJUJ1zzAAcslQ4qQ2LqHxtSl7jnYSHPrLjTCfvDQE6WAwdY5VFK8_fz3Hw6CGg0ODgU1L7uSETxv3rMbEvNlxibu6VtlUgEhmFYo-vZJlpuJzeRJabZnpZWrMrGLM2iS9D7H_O9" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="712" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhZdXFHiFKnvQ-TfXWpcTreuwVkXM8mMlRHIVWieL-7Lldy8VPqBbifYtJUJ1zzAAcslQ4qQ2LqHxtSl7jnYSHPrLjTCfvDQE6WAwdY5VFK8_fz3Hw6CGg0ODgU1L7uSETxv3rMbEvNlxibu6VtlUgEhmFYo-vZJlpuJzeRJabZnpZWrMrGLM2iS9D7H_O9" width="320" /></a></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-family: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">She had someone in mind, and quickly and easily recruited the Reverend Billings Johnson. Added to his spiritual portfolio, he was also made the Ambassador to the Inner City, a position for which he was perfectly well qualified, coming as he did from the nastiest neighborhood of Baltimore where he became known as The Great Facilitator, a man who had relieved social service agencies, non-profits, and </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-family: inherit;">small businesses of millions for his community and of course himself. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-family: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures;">He seemed a shoo-in for political office, but the 'remunerations' he enjoyed from his preaching and social activism were more than enough incentive to keep him in Baltimore. Only when the President called him, did he agree to leave. Regardless of the term of his White House service, his visibility and cachet would be worth millions when he left. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-family: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures;">LaShonda of course knew him for what he was - a canny, agile, brilliant con man who could bilk the most circumspect donor out of thousands in a minute. He was a racial acrobat, talking pimp talk on the streets, equally fluent when preaching Mark, Luke, and John, and as Park Avenue as could be when applying to Gates, Bezos, or Buffett. All he cared about was feathering his own nest, getting his due, and especially bilking The White Man - all legitimate enterprises given the long American history of slavery, Jim Crow and persistent racism. He was the Ur black man, the one who outhustled, out-conned, and out-maneuvered everyone. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-family: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures;">So the two of them became an item, a savvy, streetwise, team of con artists who knew exactly how to play the full deck of race cards while gaining plaudits for their diversity. The President's Infrastructure, Social Welfare, and Inflation Reduction programs, worth billions of dollars and dispensed with little oversight and even less accounting, were exactly what they were looking for. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-family: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures;">Millions of those dollars were intended to raise the black man from dysfunction and poverty to his proper and appropriate place atop the human pyramid and no expense was to be spared to do so; so it was a bounteous feast. Side deals that ensured everyone down the line got paid were their stock in trade. They became heroes to the inner city and champions of the progressive Left. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-family: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures;">It was in President Biden's fantasy home district, Anacostia, that LaShonda and the Reverend Johnson found the ideal partner - The Blade, a Cadillac-driving, clown-suited, pimp-walking, macho procurer, the talk of the town, wealthy beyond his dreams, and a figure of admiration and imitation. His empire had extended far beyond prostitution - there was only so much nooky the community could bear - and profited from the District of Columbia's generous entitlement programs, walkin' around money, and non-profit grants. More importantly he was a 'facilitator' in the drug trade, never a cash player, but an important one out of the reach of the law, and banked thousands every week in Aruba. </span></p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhc8XWDGDb13sZBZyeUzyimNIVlGR8X5OQNeDJcGVuVGcR2v_Zt1HWhF_yhrcL_MuvANVkUCXrlZ3l_KnxN1Ae2c48Tas4NOrAvInHeH0LUvQY82Hn4fL8G0vKZxMoe4q4Q7dKodl76tmtmmBkevMBHzInMIIyMmF0-SeHzwXt6tsxa0bRQ4vaULRLKP-vQ" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="360" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhc8XWDGDb13sZBZyeUzyimNIVlGR8X5OQNeDJcGVuVGcR2v_Zt1HWhF_yhrcL_MuvANVkUCXrlZ3l_KnxN1Ae2c48Tas4NOrAvInHeH0LUvQY82Hn4fL8G0vKZxMoe4q4Q7dKodl76tmtmmBkevMBHzInMIIyMmF0-SeHzwXt6tsxa0bRQ4vaULRLKP-vQ" width="180" /></a></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-family: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Blade, more than LaShonda or the Reverend Johnson was what the President was looking for - a real black man, no Oreo Uncle Tom - and he was delighted with the news of his recruitment. To be fair, the President had not gone </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">that </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">far around the bend, and the thought of a rainbow-suited, gold chain, Patek Phillippe watch-wearing, pimpmobile-driven bawd standing in front of the nation was never a consideration, but a tamed, spit-shined young man with impeccable credentials, with not a trace of white in him, would be right and proper - and would assure votes that not even the blackest member of Congress could muster. </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-family: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures;">It took far more tailoring, sanding, and polishing to get the Blade ready for duty, but he, like LaShonda and the Reverend, knew how to make the most of a good thing. The President was just another rube to be had, and if the Blade had to lose some of his baubles and rides, he would for the good of the nation. </span></p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEghhyskYxQvETGtFTyhtlgWwaqAsr6wdk-CbwmJe0SSN1kXj8D9JSBd4AZClWAdpAZ2nSjTKeKkh_GeOc6EWD5-LVHJ3tRCYdDf7NVhxC0KJSgTCDOBAIdLWiNMBTgLURxGb7EJ5ZUy5pPJ9Eskr7QTu7CM_QA-FKWB7JzPb09Bq9cGhSlFII6lCFntPJr5" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2440" data-original-width="4163" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEghhyskYxQvETGtFTyhtlgWwaqAsr6wdk-CbwmJe0SSN1kXj8D9JSBd4AZClWAdpAZ2nSjTKeKkh_GeOc6EWD5-LVHJ3tRCYdDf7NVhxC0KJSgTCDOBAIdLWiNMBTgLURxGb7EJ5ZUy5pPJ9Eskr7QTu7CM_QA-FKWB7JzPb09Bq9cGhSlFII6lCFntPJr5" width="320" /></a></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-family: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So when the first campaign busses headed out from Pennsylvania Avenue, the DEI cabal was on board, ready to stump for their patron, their Sugar Daddy, their man. It was easygoing, for the President and his shills did all the heavy lifting. It was just like the old days, their granddaddies' day when Negroes were given street front offices to be seen by the passing crowds and be responsible for nothing in particular. The first of many scams on the way up and out of the ghetto.</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-family: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures;">The election is a few months away and the campaign just really getting underway, their man behind in the polls and facing a strong opponent; but they didn't care. Even if Joe lost, they still had plenty of time, exposure, and influence to pad their bank accounts and prepare for the next gig. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-family: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures;">'This DEI shit is something, ain't it!' said the Blade to LaShonda, as they relaxed by the pool at the Four Seasons. </span></p>Ron Parlatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377926161809667359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3728137222647400009.post-20569999905461759342024-03-07T09:44:00.005-05:002024-03-07T12:17:44.881-05:00The Electoral Value Of The Oppressed - Biden's Milking Of Victimhood For All It's Worth <p>'There are simply not enough, Mr. President’, said one of his closest advisors, referring to people of color, LGBTQ+, and Mexicans. 'The numbers don't add up'.</p><p>Yet the President was running on a platform of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and he knew absolutely that his commitment to the oppressed would bring them out of the woodwork in droves. How could any one of them turn their backs on his generosity, the open border that let Mami and Papi in, the billions in social welfare perks for the ghetto, ridding America of the white man and placing the black man on his rightful place atop the social ladder? </p><p>Oppression politics, as his opponents called it, was not just an electoral gambit, but a deep-seated, righteous policy; and if it was a zero-sum game, so be it. It was about time that the pendulum be reset, that the black, brown, and mulatto millions rise up while the discredited white man consigned to the margins, dismissed, and ignored.</p><p>All of this had stuck in the President's craw when he first took office. He had been distinctly proud of his white heritage despite his lace-curtain, shanty Irish background. It didn't matter that most of his ancestors had never made it out of a watery, thatched roof peasantry. It was whiteness that counted, the legacy of Louis XIV, the Hapsburgs, Romanovs, Plantagenets and Tudors, some of whose glory must have dripped and seeped his way.</p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgoOoEXzDevFyxR77qlmNbOHIG4gODWuRHIjbHJngHOZCFneHDttxUv0wUjTUAjLEdzP7VNVVqpO7H5W01yIxAxVDyGKi_j8tmBs-2l29IDXh0mGNwdwSSXt2a50EuQyBPBmUoJJhqEkGzGSjDPsOZX19GK5MHGN54ff8KNmNje4tiqZkp4N1telRBjhvBr" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="669" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgoOoEXzDevFyxR77qlmNbOHIG4gODWuRHIjbHJngHOZCFneHDttxUv0wUjTUAjLEdzP7VNVVqpO7H5W01yIxAxVDyGKi_j8tmBs-2l29IDXh0mGNwdwSSXt2a50EuQyBPBmUoJJhqEkGzGSjDPsOZX19GK5MHGN54ff8KNmNje4tiqZkp4N1telRBjhvBr" width="161" /></a></p><p>European civilization was responsible for the greatness of th human race, and no cant or febrile progressive hysteria could change it; yet here he was running on just that platform. Every time he went to the podium to limn the praises of the oppressed he couldn't help thinking of limp tacos, collard greens, and cotton fields. He had tried for his almost four years in office to rid himself of these awful, hateful, racist thoughts, but there they were, hardwired, set in concrete, unassailable. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiCzuYdVzzinwf-Y4e7WmvsW4z_Bqnog__IrxF7HjQwdRhVCxygivTm93wdxre1CtSuPIL_vffqB7EHPMVOXf_1mPODzBeHKZw1r-TZH-l4ldp9PWY04ryzkdG4IQ3ICr1LD0f7xvGnQcjL-nkOx8PEyiwyNlHTT-jVfRsaQEveUb05yxRycn06-XZkNKHx" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="473" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiCzuYdVzzinwf-Y4e7WmvsW4z_Bqnog__IrxF7HjQwdRhVCxygivTm93wdxre1CtSuPIL_vffqB7EHPMVOXf_1mPODzBeHKZw1r-TZH-l4ldp9PWY04ryzkdG4IQ3ICr1LD0f7xvGnQcjL-nkOx8PEyiwyNlHTT-jVfRsaQEveUb05yxRycn06-XZkNKHx" width="320" /></a></p><p>No one noticed - not because of his rambling anecdotes about boyhood summers on Rehoboth beaches, or stories about this grandmother's fondness for rum cake - but because the power of assumption, suspension of disbelief, and the downright credulousness of the electorate were all working in his favor. Thanks to his shills in Congress, and the drumbeat of the media, the country was well attuned to issues of diversity, oppression, and exclusion. He, as leader of the country, could only be a man of sincere progressive belief.</p><p>Ah, those were the days, he dreamed. The Hall of Mirrors, the palace gardens, the elegant men and women dancing in the great ballroom of the palace of Versailles or listening to Newton at Kings College, Cambridge or studying with Hardy, or tea with Nicholas II of Russia. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg6TcXAuyhAvQYhFElIJ29hgX4fFPF_kYJGe0M0EONne7Gbi1cmOfzzKY-lQxOFWxbrlZvSmXtdSz8NoJ37oaqfGhW6vI3LiDBXYHugqlRIkg5PvX8Sil4LbFU67OwYib93KIYP5RTQIxjtiLyn5qYuCL43Jvz1Si0OXGTSzLjXwWEhS6Ya9-ZpP58dbGpz" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2560" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg6TcXAuyhAvQYhFElIJ29hgX4fFPF_kYJGe0M0EONne7Gbi1cmOfzzKY-lQxOFWxbrlZvSmXtdSz8NoJ37oaqfGhW6vI3LiDBXYHugqlRIkg5PvX8Sil4LbFU67OwYib93KIYP5RTQIxjtiLyn5qYuCL43Jvz1Si0OXGTSzLjXwWEhS6Ya9-ZpP58dbGpz" width="320" /></a></p><p>'Snap out of it, dear', said his wife when she saw that unmistakable smile of reverie. 'There's work to be done'. Now, Jill, with no better pedigree that the President, shared most of his reverence for the European past - and even extended her monarchist leanings to the shahs of Iran, Ashoka and the Maurya emperors. It wasn't so much whiteness, but Caucasian-ness, but the principle was the same. </p><p>The country might do well with some of this kind of diversity - kings, queens, and courtiers would be good things to flavor the salad of low-hanging fruit - but the President and his campaign staff could not let up race, gender, and ethnicity; and must keep banging on how Donald Trump had upset the applecart during his four years, and it took a Biden presidency to put them all back in and...</p><p>Here the President shook his head to get rid of the vision of Shecky and Abe pushing a rag cart through the Lower East Side, Jews who sewed a few rags together and made a dress and then bought up the entire West Side, moved to Hollywood, and became rich. Not quite <i>his </i>Europeans, but white and enterprising nonetheless so due must be given. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhZmGn663vc1gLCDL-ukvV_a_hjs_1kHwPqjQJbwVsIk0L_Lk7EKxdUYvffwSuLB7CXSY0hsY2vIm99Xxxb8S14jAtxdiUAmhtYYxtCFSPZk7spxD2t7887e8IgGotDaHlaJf4NCSrTnGxjTAzMn27Do5ZFuHHKkybhqpMatH0VKdts6xipy6GEfxQY8pAA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="898" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhZmGn663vc1gLCDL-ukvV_a_hjs_1kHwPqjQJbwVsIk0L_Lk7EKxdUYvffwSuLB7CXSY0hsY2vIm99Xxxb8S14jAtxdiUAmhtYYxtCFSPZk7spxD2t7887e8IgGotDaHlaJf4NCSrTnGxjTAzMn27Do5ZFuHHKkybhqpMatH0VKdts6xipy6GEfxQY8pAA" width="320" /></a></p><p>'We must never forget the travails of our black brothers and sisters', the President read from a prepared speech, 'for they have given us the wealth of nations. Out of the forests and savannahs of Africa they came in chains to be finally freed in this great land of ours, this land of limitless opportunity....'</p><p>Here the President paused. This was not right. 'Opportunity', 'great land' did not belong here. The message was suffering, oppression, indignity, the zero-sum game of white supremacy and black enslavement. Yet, he knew he was a bad ad-libber and hesitated to go off message, so he finished this neo-conservative speech and fired the speechwriter, a Republican plant, a mole, a traitor; but the deed was done, and the press quickly took up 'the President's newfound conservatism'. </p><p>His inner circle closed around him and insisted that he go back on the stump and renew his core message of oppression. This is what we are all about, sang the chorus; and so the President with renewed energy returned to form and hammered on about the black man, the abused woman, the homeless refugee, and the rightness of the gender spectrum. </p><p>'Donald Trump will take away all our generosity, our compassion, our heartfelt embrace of democracy and the place of everyone within it...', and again he paused, thinking of the fright-wigged Viking-horned Mardi Gras crewe of revelers who stormed the Capitol, gave those buggers something to think about, no insurrection this but a bawdy group of frat boys and backwoods crackers with nothing to do on a Friday night. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjmnvH1Cg947QWUdGOVqUZIInWmGQbIxTgOFZb4SLmaJmRltiZsixx2qA4-z3UL2tu58dKlWT_NYj1sARqZRv9e34bvEUsuUyNKgsgwDe03jqBWAzCWIpIexLtQFJIJvtusHtxHnacAHdSX9ETqUboHP43oah-bCoYt7CAR7GZ4XeBhfJULlVQSEks8bAKc" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1054" data-original-width="1581" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjmnvH1Cg947QWUdGOVqUZIInWmGQbIxTgOFZb4SLmaJmRltiZsixx2qA4-z3UL2tu58dKlWT_NYj1sARqZRv9e34bvEUsuUyNKgsgwDe03jqBWAzCWIpIexLtQFJIJvtusHtxHnacAHdSX9ETqUboHP43oah-bCoYt7CAR7GZ4XeBhfJULlVQSEks8bAKc" width="320" /></a></p><p>He shook his head again, got rid of the fog and cobwebs and returned to his fulminating speech. 'Pregnant pauses', commented his supporters, 'lapses' said his critics; but his coterie knew that as long as the message of the oppressed rang loud and clear, he would remain in the Oval Office. </p><p>Unfortunately the only voters listening to the President's harangues were members of the choir - the white, liberal true believers who believed every word that came out of their President's mouth. As for the so-called 'oppressed', they were having none of it. Black enterprise, visibility, and opportunity were increasing, no thanks to his demeaning positions on affirmative action and 'diversity'. Wetback labor was putting pressure on the legitimate, long-standing Latino community; putting ugly transgender women in the West Wing did a disservice to drag queen beauty; and prices of gas, fatback, and prepared enchiladas were rising. </p><p>So oppression politics aside, Joe Biden is likely to be out of work come next January. The time of wheedling, hectoring, race-bating, divisive politics will be over. The King Is Dead, Long Live The King....but this time, the palace will be a very, very different place indeed. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFEJ6q6gmnVXritqh-jXbQoToyvZMWauow6m7bgTUc__jWFNvhucVAi8ngDVpwm5h5tsKyH6aRvhVuUApSeOrLfUkE7MpLO3ww0_xkJeti1ncqaMwvL6WGH9O-0PhQTGF6dJIlnt9AHGUr-yH7bIBQFzggqjITSWoCwjPla1Did6CjMrncwb-C3mYB-IrU/s275/Trump%20defiant.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFEJ6q6gmnVXritqh-jXbQoToyvZMWauow6m7bgTUc__jWFNvhucVAi8ngDVpwm5h5tsKyH6aRvhVuUApSeOrLfUkE7MpLO3ww0_xkJeti1ncqaMwvL6WGH9O-0PhQTGF6dJIlnt9AHGUr-yH7bIBQFzggqjITSWoCwjPla1Did6CjMrncwb-C3mYB-IrU/s1600/Trump%20defiant.jpg" width="275" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Ron Parlatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377926161809667359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3728137222647400009.post-48543519831651585472024-03-06T05:37:00.010-05:002024-03-06T11:03:14.470-05:00Oppressing Us To Keep Us Safe - Big Brother, Censorship, And The New Orwellian Dystopia <p><span style="font-family: inherit;">In a seriously disturbing move, the Governor of New York has said that she will launch a new, aggressive program to monitor and control free speech, all to ensure that New Yorkers feel safe. Not in recent memory has there been such an arrogation of power, a transparent attempt to center and consolidate government power, and a hypocritical defense of it. </span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">W<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">e’re very focused on the data we’re collecting from surveillance efforts — what’s being said on social media platforms...Our media analysis, our social media analysis unit, has ramped up its monitoring of sites to catch incitement to violence; direct threats to others, and all this is in response to our desire, our strong commitment, to ensure that not only do New Yorkers be safe, but they also feel safe.</span></span></p></blockquote><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhAMS6Zk7ILk_WbreXE_VI4wn4XCmRO55NFBEedMCCr3pDOiBIx3l2vCDH4EItvkaoDXVL7Dy4Yo57Ys22i1AIWT7kqAtVklKkPFzfrcKkLPw-QOYqEWsAt8OG1WXlZcYWVraK5UyjyhJHecvHDEu1C-H_WSTWlIaZQ0W7CI2TEFKcjwY-kOKnUiAqgCYVv" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="985" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhAMS6Zk7ILk_WbreXE_VI4wn4XCmRO55NFBEedMCCr3pDOiBIx3l2vCDH4EItvkaoDXVL7Dy4Yo57Ys22i1AIWT7kqAtVklKkPFzfrcKkLPw-QOYqEWsAt8OG1WXlZcYWVraK5UyjyhJHecvHDEu1C-H_WSTWlIaZQ0W7CI2TEFKcjwY-kOKnUiAqgCYVv" width="158" /></a><br /></p><p>The Governor's initiative is all the more craven and self-serving because she couched it in pseudo-moralism. 'Hate has no home here' say suburban lawn signs, thinly disguised, arrogant statements of moral identity and political righteousness. Governor Hochul has placed this febrile cant front and center, and raised the specter of Orwell's <i>Nineteen Eighty-Four, </i>a chilling tale of a future dystopian, authoritarian regime whose contradiction - oppression is freedom - is the ethos of governance. </p><p>Intrusive, universal surveillance, identification, arrest, and punishment - the tools of Stasi, Sevak, and the KGB - will be applied in New York State. The reach of government will be universal and permanent. Every keystroke will be monitored, every word, every line parsed for intimidating intent; every post, every article, every reference will be read, reviewed, analyzed and judged by government standards by government censors.</p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgtCxYd_51SlHUZ6EvOekRTLQgnuLt2iS8U2dTMzlq2oL2kYf_F3Hy8Tn60h3oIzcmayOjaWpR7uVoxMvCCpscDpJeL8ybwOZ7kp42I3q0lIk60g7IJ8uzgmg2YSj93NwViISeVoP0goIG8SoGY20jjO7wA1rHuazJgJ6LxTM1E5yfEg70tdcMONZWAs_e3" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="749" data-original-width="500" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgtCxYd_51SlHUZ6EvOekRTLQgnuLt2iS8U2dTMzlq2oL2kYf_F3Hy8Tn60h3oIzcmayOjaWpR7uVoxMvCCpscDpJeL8ybwOZ7kp42I3q0lIk60g7IJ8uzgmg2YSj93NwViISeVoP0goIG8SoGY20jjO7wA1rHuazJgJ6LxTM1E5yfEg70tdcMONZWAs_e3" width="160" /></a></p><p>There will be no room for interpretation - satire and humor are no justification for the words themselves. It is the most obvious, venal, and transparent tautology - hate speech is wrong because it is hateful. You'll know it when you see it because of the lexicon, a dictionary of words, terms, and phrases that must be eliminated. All speech is suspect speech, no assumption of innocence can be made when the words appear.</p><p>This appointed group of government censors and their newly-written AI algorithms are now the arbiter of social morality and ethics. It is Hochul's crewe who will determine what can or cannot be said. They will be definers of intent, and any infraction of the rule of righteous intent will be summarily punished. </p><p>American jurisprudence is based on the principle of intent. First or second degree murder? Juries, not appointed councils must decide. Perception is a tricky business as the inconsistencies of eye witnesses and the art of Browning, Kurosawa, and Durrell have shown. Even with sophisticated electronic tools, determining intent is a dubious affair; but governments like Hochul's in New York have assumed an ability that no one else has - the ability to know hate speech when they hear it. It is hate speech because it is hate speech. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi-69HhMO7qoD4hvUagff1-mGMYGkk7lp8LvcbR_z67TSlEyV4_VMmVLmpHtqFlqYqTs2lfSiqV6AyOIN1huEML8JkuQzgdKh5E4gMDVWvs-g110deKLi0ZSiaq8Rl_me9FseU7WRgvlLOuOdkD4rI8ikuxq3-43mskDSc3O45vsYs7lPA2QXYymqWxk4RW" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1480" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi-69HhMO7qoD4hvUagff1-mGMYGkk7lp8LvcbR_z67TSlEyV4_VMmVLmpHtqFlqYqTs2lfSiqV6AyOIN1huEML8JkuQzgdKh5E4gMDVWvs-g110deKLi0ZSiaq8Rl_me9FseU7WRgvlLOuOdkD4rI8ikuxq3-43mskDSc3O45vsYs7lPA2QXYymqWxk4RW" width="320" /></a></p><p>Progressives have deliberately, consciously used the aftermath of the October 7th massacre of Israeli civilians and the consequent IDF action in Gaza as a cover for this renewed assault on free speech. There is too much hate in the world, say progressives, and we know how to rid American society of its pernicious, anti-Utopian effects. Under such a calculated cover, the Left has removed 'offensive' statues to historical figures, changed the names of streets, schools, and public buildings, all in the name of creating a 'safe space' in which Americans can live. </p><p>The whole idea of safety has been twisted, deformed, and co-opted by progressives in its attempt to consolidate power. It is <i>their </i>speech which must be protected, and their ideas which the words express that matter </p><p>It is discouraging to see how a nation created on the principles of freedom and enshrined in the Bill of Rights - a nation of rugged individualists who have always sorted out their differences, fought or colluded, compromised and cooperated, and through the natural course of normal exchange created wealth, prosperity, and a satisfactory life - could be so easily co-opted. Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, and Franklin never anticipated a state which was the arbiter of right - only the adjudicator of disputes. There would always be disputes, and fairness in hearing both sides was the only principle therein. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgcXc48s7pfwzXDEKQkjzUzJW2xn-2yOrhxWSjl5TCVA_uJKDDhSISk1pE8SOrMndkQdZI7fc-ic1m2_xgTnOZruiD7sVD9VwZ8s4eshxk8LH_-rukB44hL8gS1K90o88hAj9uSuWHfGuR9OahH9isptXw5zB2sfM_jB1VJcZkxje57a0u_Aw1KapoXHAIh" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2281" data-original-width="1711" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgcXc48s7pfwzXDEKQkjzUzJW2xn-2yOrhxWSjl5TCVA_uJKDDhSISk1pE8SOrMndkQdZI7fc-ic1m2_xgTnOZruiD7sVD9VwZ8s4eshxk8LH_-rukB44hL8gS1K90o88hAj9uSuWHfGuR9OahH9isptXw5zB2sfM_jB1VJcZkxje57a0u_Aw1KapoXHAIh" width="180" /></a></p><p>Out of chaos comes order, the age-old principle of social behavior, accounting for human nature and the need for cooperation to ensure self-interest, has never been doubted or dismissed. We are a nation of individuals warned by Jefferson to consider social consequences in the pursuit of happiness. </p><p>Why was the culture of victimhood, so encouraged by the Left, so quickly adopted by the electorate? Since when did we abandon the sense of individual responsibility and hand it over to government caretakers? Why were we so gullible to have accepted every word and apocalyptic warning about the demise of democracy, the rise of the hate state, the fear of re-enslavement of the black man, the gulag incarceration of the gay one?</p><p>It is this particular arrogation of moral authority which has fomented the divisions in America. The Left has been autocratic in its approach to American society - a society which, according to them is rotten to the core and in desperate need of reform. Only under their tutelage and with their guidance can the evils of individualism be expunged and a new, collegial, verdant, peaceful world come about. </p><p>The whole idea of Utopianism is falsely premised. There is no such thing as Utopia nor will there ever be. Human nature is antithetical to enforced compromise. The Soviets learned this the hard way; and yet the progressive Left in America still marches to that old drummer. </p><p>The Presidential election coming up in November 2024 is likely to put a halt to this arrogant government intrusiveness. A conservative presidential nominee who has made it clear in his first administration that he has no patience for the patently idealistic codes of race-gender-ethnicity, diversity-inclusivity and one world hyperbole will be the much-needed brake on Orwellian presumptions of righteousness. </p>Ron Parlatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377926161809667359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3728137222647400009.post-56622805369157039452024-03-05T05:36:00.002-05:002024-03-05T05:40:13.640-05:00Diversity And The Thorny Legacy Of White Wolf, Bloodiest Indian Chief In American History<p>Sarah Parker Fields, granddaughter of Quanah Parker, 'White Wolf', Comanche Chief who wrought fear in every Union soldier who crossed his land was proud of her Native American heritage but refused membership in Native Americans For Reparations, a militantly political group demanding restitution for the genocide of her people.</p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi7QDT71IZ4U4hJJ64smD4wLq3tKCI7VYQwpBySuuwGfM8AAGojNsne_EnfYPwL0MNeydMvcIVFBiMwRs9zoByoVa_RQ9vyvIv0ai9cV5lkr_ITBYxIyPY9r94Bh2oe8J8nAnYaB0FAr864lhZ3qNznQ5YkpzwfZBlTDe6Vd5OuyTH_sg9yQZ8i-vCqJMKo" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="263" data-original-width="250" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi7QDT71IZ4U4hJJ64smD4wLq3tKCI7VYQwpBySuuwGfM8AAGojNsne_EnfYPwL0MNeydMvcIVFBiMwRs9zoByoVa_RQ9vyvIv0ai9cV5lkr_ITBYxIyPY9r94Bh2oe8J8nAnYaB0FAr864lhZ3qNznQ5YkpzwfZBlTDe6Vd5OuyTH_sg9yQZ8i-vCqJMKo" width="228" /></a></p><p>White Wolf was no victim. In fact he was a true American hero, defending his land against foreign intruders, brilliant chieftain, and as bloody a warrior as Genghis Khan. White Wolf knew that a purposeful barbarity would intimidate the enemy. Just as Genghis Khan posted severed heads on roads leading to conquered villages, gruesome warnings to the next settlements in his sights, so did White Wolf use unconscionable savagery as a tool of war. He knew that the Christian soldiers would see his tribal, animist, ferocity, understand that they were up against a frightening, unfathomable enemy with no moral restraint and would turn tail. </p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jonathan Foreman, writing in <em>The Daily Mail (12.8.13), </em>said:</span></p><blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 1.3em; margin: 1em 20px;"><p style="margin: 0.75em 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">S C Gwynne, author of Empire Of The Summer Moon about the rise and fall of the Comanche, says simply: ‘No tribe in the history of the Spanish, French, Mexican, Texan, and American occupations of this land had ever caused so much havoc and death. None was even a close second.’</span></p><p style="margin: 0.75em 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He refers to the ‘demonic immorality’ of Comanche attacks on white settlers, the way in which torture, killings and gang-rapes were routine. ‘The logic of Comanche raids was straightforward,’ he explains.</span></p><p style="margin: 0.75em 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘All the men were killed, and any men who were captured alive were tortured; the captive women were gang raped. Babies were invariably killed.’</span></p><p style="margin: 0.75em 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘One by one, the children and young women were pegged out naked beside the camp fire,’ according to a contemporary account. ‘They were skinned, sliced, and horribly mutilated, and finally burned alive by vengeful women determined to wring the last shriek and convulsion from their agonized bodies. Matilda Lockhart’s six-year-old sister was among these unfortunates who died screaming under the high plains moon.’</span></p><p style="margin: 0.75em 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Not only were the Comanche specialists in torture, they were also the most ferocious and successful warriors — indeed, they become known as ‘Lords of the Plains’. They were as imperialist and genocidal as the white settlers who eventually vanquished them.</span></p><p style="margin: 0.75em 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When they first migrated to the great plains of the American South in the late 18th century from the Rocky Mountains, not only did they achieve dominance over the tribes there, they almost exterminated the Apache, among the greatest horse warriors in the world.</span></p></blockquote><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgXqEQctTazObvTcnLylybEGgrN_IbX-3-EOwKFsEqBONfNJcsx0blSLmPtmR5Aw4qFmlTvXO-gwjnkeqNLDzp790lWM6ei8XQjG_esuTW9knteY0oJ7j_rYEGtD0mrbCFxSRYSfNLdKGuCqh4riUAcr48fdxvl6xp3dx-BMQC-iO2ETXV5qoOq6SRPfD6S" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="431" data-original-width="642" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgXqEQctTazObvTcnLylybEGgrN_IbX-3-EOwKFsEqBONfNJcsx0blSLmPtmR5Aw4qFmlTvXO-gwjnkeqNLDzp790lWM6ei8XQjG_esuTW9knteY0oJ7j_rYEGtD0mrbCFxSRYSfNLdKGuCqh4riUAcr48fdxvl6xp3dx-BMQC-iO2ETXV5qoOq6SRPfD6S" width="320" /></a><br />So Sarah, now a young adult, fought hard for recognition of Indian valor and the imposition of the insulting claim of victimhood. Her grandfather and other tribal chieftains were far more deserving of recognition than the black man, servile and complaisant from the very beginning to the end. Mandingo, Yoruba, and Igbo were taken as slaves by tribal victors, sold to Arab middlemen who in turn sold them to Portuguese and English traders. Sold on the block in Savannah and Charleston, these Africans were bred for strength and reproductivity, dismissed, and disregarded. </p><p>White Wolf, the Comanche, Apache, and Piute were proud, rebellious, militantly defiant warriors who refused to be subjugated and fought with terrible ferocity against the Union Army, mercenaries, and white settlers. Although they were outmanned, outgunned, and outmaneuvered by the invading armies of the east, the fought the good fight. The American Indian was noble, proud, and dignified. His savagery, condemned by the white soldiers crossing his land, was to him nothing of the sort. There was no such thing as 'savagery', a term implying amorality, primitivism, and an unevolved cultural core. Savagery was no more than a legitimate expression of honor. </p><p>Sarah had been approached by many progressive groups anxious to use her in their cause for reparations and most importantly an admission of guilt by the white man for the genocide of Native Americans. Such an admission would lead to similar confessions about his equally amoral, profoundly barbaric role in the slave trade; and by extension his complicity in the subjugation of women, gay men, and the poor. Coming clean about the Indians would be the first step to cleansing the Augean stables of white supremacy. </p><p>Not only would Sarah's storied heritage make her the ideal spokesperson for deprived Indian rights, she, a stunningly attractive, raven-haired, classically Indian-looking beauty, would be the movement's poster girl. <i>This </i>is what Indian removal and wanton slaughter of the red man meant - it deprived white Americans of true natural beauty - a beauty borne of the land, the environment, and the big sky. </p><p>The progressive movement for Native Americans was of course lily white. Most Native Americans wanted nothing to do with the neutering of their ancestors, reducing them to 'people of color' and linking them with black slaves, gay men, and transgender women. They saw white liberal hysteria as destructive, the last straw, the final burial of the American Indian's storied past. They were nonplussed at the removal of Indian icons, mascots, and images - another attempt to remove them from sight, to marginalize them in a baldly transparent and politically venal program of 'inclusivity'. Indians were once again being railroaded by the white man, corralled, and forced into cultural isolation and reservation. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj4bXhViFyEQyWe7dq0gPa4plQlGcj6N621kSAkjrDZ_tXN3CWjf1s0J1GGBiAoBjY6mNd8LwwjU_Gwyv052wPuj5jyikAL8aqFn9kzVYUN9IYQJXVDG0PLJEslW82cJV6aAcf-v8dCeHyxh0QplNHOm5Kovn0x2dg-Tr_gT2YUR7Yo1kLx7_ZqGG-AyOq0" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="415" data-original-width="628" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj4bXhViFyEQyWe7dq0gPa4plQlGcj6N621kSAkjrDZ_tXN3CWjf1s0J1GGBiAoBjY6mNd8LwwjU_Gwyv052wPuj5jyikAL8aqFn9kzVYUN9IYQJXVDG0PLJEslW82cJV6aAcf-v8dCeHyxh0QplNHOm5Kovn0x2dg-Tr_gT2YUR7Yo1kLx7_ZqGG-AyOq0" width="320" /></a></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">So instead of being the progressive movement's shill, Sarah Fields became its fiercest, most outspoken opponent. She championed the American Indian for their valor, their courage, and their indomitable, fierce attachment to the land. They were the first American anti-imperialists, the American anti-heroes, the Nietzschean <span color="var(--promtxt)" style="background-color: white;"><span>Übermensch. They in their native patriotism, and all-out defense of their territory, were the forerunners of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, enemy cities leveled to help end the war and as importantly to show all American adversaries that the United States meant business. </span></span></span></p><p><span color="var(--promtxt)" style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Of course she ran into opposition, for the cult of the oppressed did not account for such unmitigated savagery and conquest. In order to castrate the white man, a trail of his victims had to be shown. He was a creature beyond redemption. His armies rolled over innocent Native Americans, moved them across the Mississippi and into reservations, unmanned them, dismissed and forgot them. The occupation of native lands could not be cast as struggle between opposing interests and forces - that would simply be a reflection of general imperialism. This was genocide, pure and simple. It had to be to fit within the liberal canon. </span></span></p><p><span color="var(--promtxt)" style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Needless to say, Sarah's was a losing battle. Her cohorts were too few and far between to coalesce into an activist movement, and the progressive ethos showed no signs of weakening. Unless and until a new conservative government took power - an administration which admired and honored native courage, ferocity, and will and applied the ethos to its foreign policy and military strategy. Such a change was on the horizon, and no one was more pleased than Sarah Parker Fields. </span></span></p><p> </p>Ron Parlatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377926161809667359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3728137222647400009.post-48152584753485333992024-03-04T08:13:00.008-05:002024-03-05T03:19:01.706-05:00Bilking The White Man - Fatima Shabazz, Hero Of The Oppressed<p>Fatima Shabazz, nee Letisha Davis, was the leader of a Congressional claque of progressive women of color and ethnicity who were the self-appointed watchdogs of America's moral direction. They were its compass, barometer, and sextant. They were the keepers of the flame, the guardians of the hearth, the sentinels of justice. </p><p>Now, these women had all been born and raised in the inner city, children of dysfunctional homes and incarcerated fathers, raised by grandmothers, sisters of pimps and pushers, but who had had enough uppity gumption to get out of the ghetto. Letisha had been favored by the Reverend Isaiah Jackson, pastor of the Second AME Zion church of Brentwood, a former colleague of Mayor for Life Leon Derby who did time with him in Stillwater, but since reformed leader of the community. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhKwhwL_Yjghh9l0JlcX0xTdsEqa-YpBGtgRYa9GKkvDApNPESHPSYZFCPbLFDRTBEg54bY3IfcXiPY0RpFshJGel_hwHOaPmQRyuvBiI3mIQ6OqXc8ITLwZBMb5ehxLjx0y7Czi2MmpeJEZi6uaXzYd8Q6kwr2HXZ4Mmmm1-6qQZVTSnP1TJlA066NNP8Y" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="893" data-original-width="600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhKwhwL_Yjghh9l0JlcX0xTdsEqa-YpBGtgRYa9GKkvDApNPESHPSYZFCPbLFDRTBEg54bY3IfcXiPY0RpFshJGel_hwHOaPmQRyuvBiI3mIQ6OqXc8ITLwZBMb5ehxLjx0y7Czi2MmpeJEZi6uaXzYd8Q6kwr2HXZ4Mmmm1-6qQZVTSnP1TJlA066NNP8Y" width="161" /></a></p><p>His meme was 'White Man Done It', a tag which was his alone although the sentiment in the neighborhoods that the crime, drugs, drive-bys, and lock-ups were due to white supremacy, Jim Crow, and capitalist manipulation added salience and depth to the line. </p><p>In any case, thanks to white liberal generosity, millions of tax dollars got siphoned through the municipality to the ghetto as walkin' around money, entitlement grants, and reparations. The City Council had voted one of the country's first Black Reparation Laws, and every black man, woman, and child east of the river received a generous 'Racial Bonus'. Some of this money went to Letisha who, as mistress of the Reverend Jackson, benefitted from his political connections, and thanks to him was put up for Councilmember in the all-black Tenth Ward. </p><p>It didn't take much to become elected. Governance was a weakly understood concept in Ward 10 and as long as 'generosity money' kept flowing, no one cared what the city council was up to; so without much experience or education, Letisha took her seat and did the needful, draining the city treasury for phantom 'enrichment' and 'development' programs. Thanks to her energy and unwavering loyalty, she was reelected every two years. </p><p>Of course, once she got a taste of the perks and benefits of elected life she set her sights far higher than the City Council, and thanks once again to the Reverend Johnson who was a de facto, honorary member of the Congressional Black Caucus, helped paved the way for Letisha's rise to national prominence. He found her a safe seat in a nearly all-black district of Maryland, poured in plenty to help her campaign, and after a hard election - every candidate knew that the gravy train was just around the bend - she won.</p><p>To add cachet and authority she became Muslim, changed her name to Fatima Shabazz, and joined the claque of progressive women of color and ethnicity in the House. </p><p>Her sisters in the group were all like her - daughters of the inner city, ambitious women who knew how to play the race card, who had been the beneficiaries of white liberal guilt, and who were out to get theirs. There was one legitimate Muslim woman in the claque, an immigrant from Yemen who resented Letisha for her facile, Muslim-in-a-day conversion, but quickly realized that to the white liberal establishment any association with Islam meant immediate inclusion, respect, and support. Conservative Republicans saw right through the scam-sham, but in the minority, they could do nothing to get rid of the con. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgUyZ5G58Kq9NDacldTv4NZNuB-06vvA3-VAQjOeva4je0A03tniJGI6P0aY8v-WpTW_2_woXQ-HBuUpQAYB98nqfYTtaWOVL0tUrksx5OUM9NaXU61l84Hyzs3j_cJhOxqGcDqrkjwDw4JxH_Va172nvgVGWFTClnVAtwcyl1rJWhhb5sLPLOvRRUsw8nL" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1068" data-original-width="1600" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgUyZ5G58Kq9NDacldTv4NZNuB-06vvA3-VAQjOeva4je0A03tniJGI6P0aY8v-WpTW_2_woXQ-HBuUpQAYB98nqfYTtaWOVL0tUrksx5OUM9NaXU61l84Hyzs3j_cJhOxqGcDqrkjwDw4JxH_Va172nvgVGWFTClnVAtwcyl1rJWhhb5sLPLOvRRUsw8nL" width="320" /></a></p><p>So thanks to Letisha, her crewe, and the progressives who fawned over them, they became perennial thorns in the side of the white establishment and heroes of the progressive Left. They were representatives of the new, diverse, multi-racial and multi-ethnic Democratic America. Gone were the old Jewish, Samuel Gompers, Saul Alinsky Upper West Side liberals whose political allegiances were to philosophy - most had never forgotten the halcyon days of Marxist-Leninism and were still championing the lost cause of labor - and in their place were the new, young men and women of color and alternate ethnicity. </p><p>Letisha/Fatima had found her place and her voice and became the face of the group. A woman of particular eloquence and persuasive, gospel cadence, she was in demand everywhere. White college students couldn't get enough of her and her finely honed message of The Militancy of the Oppressed. She was an advocate for very stripe of social victim, beginning with the Palestinians who were suffering genocide at the hand of the Jews, the Muslim immigrants of Europe who, forced into ethnic and religious ghettoes by their white Dutch, French, and German masters, were rallying together as part of the movement for a universal Islamic caliphate. </p><p>The black man was not only to be paid reparations and restored to full citizenship, but raised to the pinnacle of the social pyramid where he belonged. The African American, child of the forest, inheritor of the greatness of the Ghanian, Malian, and Nigerian Empires, innately superior to the white man with a higher consciousness, genetic history, and a highly evolved tribal culture, was atop all others. </p><p>What a great ride, chuckled Letisha and her sisters, as the donations to the charities they set up reached unexpected levels as the coffers filled to overflowing. Thanks to some creative accounting - here the women broke ranks and hired the best Jewish CPA firm in Washington - and thanks to some very sophisticated schemes reminiscent of Enron and Bernie Madoff, they became wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. </p><p>The demand for their invective was insatiable. The more they howled and attacked the white man and the 'international cabal' (read Israel and its supporters); and the more they called for the demise of white supremacy, the more donations poured in. </p><p>They whipped the crowds to a frenzy, hopped them up, turned them from nice liberal white folk to foaming radicals. 'Hate has no home here' say the signs in liberal neighborhoods of Washington, but hate was the women's stock in trade. The more bile, venom, and vitriol they spewed, the more the cash registers rang. It was Christmas every day. </p><p>Nothing in politics is without consequence, and sooner or later the radical progressive color-minded juggernaut was stopped. Donald Trump kept rising in the polls, and conservative candidates who called out the corruption and animus of racial/ethnic hatred got more visibility. Ordinary Americans formerly intimidated by the thought of being branded racist began to shed their timidity and speak out for justice, temperance, and respect. Enough black this, black that; back to basics, Jefferson, Hamilton et al. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjhRndN1wb5VncqGTI_77Vhgs_rL_ctWVS8xCb2GvtkfM3t8hb05nPf-RhIDQZXgxgdZdlfhz0JBf7WcgaRE2_OxOlii-62bfFxeVvXITNocgee4VPNHoknFx-nc8sZmoXECRhDVnXmfLfapb89F3kHfyyqOH4J2lYF0Byh60CmUCQInYMEnXtxJ2nCXz4V" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="688" data-original-width="474" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjhRndN1wb5VncqGTI_77Vhgs_rL_ctWVS8xCb2GvtkfM3t8hb05nPf-RhIDQZXgxgdZdlfhz0JBf7WcgaRE2_OxOlii-62bfFxeVvXITNocgee4VPNHoknFx-nc8sZmoXECRhDVnXmfLfapb89F3kHfyyqOH4J2lYF0Byh60CmUCQInYMEnXtxJ2nCXz4V" width="165" /></a></p><p>It is hard to remove incumbents in American politics, so Letisha and her crewe, although increasingly marginalized by both Republicans and especially Democrats who had wised up to their shenanigans and worried about scandal and exposure, kept up the drumbeat. They were all from secure districts, so the only hope was for them to shut up, and restive members on both sides of the aisle did due diligence; and before long the Progressive Women Of Color shut their charities, kept their own counsel, and like everyone else in Congress had to be content with bringing home the bacon.</p>Ron Parlatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377926161809667359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3728137222647400009.post-44015665383426177662024-03-02T06:58:00.006-05:002024-03-02T08:58:12.123-05:00Whose Democracy Matters? America The Banana Republic<p><span style="font-family: inherit;">The lawns of Baldwin Park, a
leafy neighborhood of Washington, are festooned with signs - Hate Has No Home
Here, Black Lives Matter, and especially Democracy Matters. </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiD4EhbCNlqWZTQc7CgzT-cjS7OTGC2tMrp0YRMLsEF_Wpio7KHvASHUSHahR3zI0sFETVJSX_7IFSajRNQvOVeSOhCqWjaazlFPblMpJZ8dOJZd3tu1EPyBk3AnYawlo4ZIRq0RWKUbyqKiVkErBKvnCMJdVtT5QzlMQaMvZDmdaZo-gKbVUva00El79a8" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="400" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiD4EhbCNlqWZTQc7CgzT-cjS7OTGC2tMrp0YRMLsEF_Wpio7KHvASHUSHahR3zI0sFETVJSX_7IFSajRNQvOVeSOhCqWjaazlFPblMpJZ8dOJZd3tu1EPyBk3AnYawlo4ZIRq0RWKUbyqKiVkErBKvnCMJdVtT5QzlMQaMvZDmdaZo-gKbVUva00El79a8" width="240" /></a></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">T</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">o whom?" I asked and got a nonplussed, quizzical look, for the sign was
a coded anti-Trump message which the neighbor who planted it assumed was
common knowledge - Trump the insurrectionist, the arrogant, deep-state manipulator,
the misogynist, etc. etc., the political anti-Christ, </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">ad infinitum ad
nauseam. </i></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">The question implied division in the ranks, a break in the wall, so no wonder the reply was curt - "To
everybody", the neighbor huffed and went back to his garden.. </span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">Baldwin Park is a lockstep
neighborhood, tightly wound, impervious, and of universal liberal
credentials. The environment, women, gays, the border, Wall Street - all
verses from the same hymns, hymns from the same hymnal. Received wisdom,
absolute commitment, defiance, and persistence are </span>universal, accepted truths.</p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgEQaK_0WFcS6Luw7rtIWGsPIdExTG-g_Qdn1mJfvmBSOy1k_R6Ij4w2vAQXgwMgBGhqk7mCQtE7aAENNnaTd5cPONKKryDLNgLujxANo1Bv3s_Bn0kSruMnWrjyqY_lDSlUme-lx2tsLJdkJN-UNOdUOUzk8zDb6YvQVvkrNDczPg0L4STGjiKIM6wzYZY" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1920" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgEQaK_0WFcS6Luw7rtIWGsPIdExTG-g_Qdn1mJfvmBSOy1k_R6Ij4w2vAQXgwMgBGhqk7mCQtE7aAENNnaTd5cPONKKryDLNgLujxANo1Bv3s_Bn0kSruMnWrjyqY_lDSlUme-lx2tsLJdkJN-UNOdUOUzk8zDb6YvQVvkrNDczPg0L4STGjiKIM6wzYZY" width="320" /></a></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Their democracy was not everyone's yet. "Takes time", said another neighbor
referring to those who had not subscribed to the agenda and who had obstructed
justice, social reform and progress. They were deliberately ignored and
dismissed as political supernumeraries - crackers and rednecks whose contribution to the commonweal was insignificant at best and dangerous at worst. </span></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">Democracy not only doesn't
matter to them, say progressives, but they have no clue what it's about - no sense of the reformed
principles of liberalism, the new perspective of race-gender-ethnicity, the new
revisionism, and the new dynamic of aggressive integration. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">Of course Hamilton would be
appalled at the progressive take on democracy - that highly evolved amalgamated
product of the Enlightenment, Augustine, Aquinas, and Aristotle of the new
Republic. Even Jefferson, a man for the people and the inherent wisdom of the
majority would be taken aback at the ruthlessness of the deformation and the dangerous arrogance of American progressives.</span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgWw0G_ESqddv0yshB3gvMuTjV7oeElNbBiGJjj1F_y83QTTOhu-f7ueelMSZv9g_iAaVlwcYn7uBW9YAnxcCGyNkIxG-5xnAuT0DaaZqdR6yAy2Y2XBoTGqDyO7XxtIzWP9X79LUMZHlYWjYrVQmXaolRP14q5wn_4vAy5BZfmr2rkk5dNfvO_3BH8LfhD" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="743" data-original-width="485" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgWw0G_ESqddv0yshB3gvMuTjV7oeElNbBiGJjj1F_y83QTTOhu-f7ueelMSZv9g_iAaVlwcYn7uBW9YAnxcCGyNkIxG-5xnAuT0DaaZqdR6yAy2Y2XBoTGqDyO7XxtIzWP9X79LUMZHlYWjYrVQmXaolRP14q5wn_4vAy5BZfmr2rkk5dNfvO_3BH8LfhD" width="157" /></a></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There was never a his-and-her
democracy, a special needs democracy, a democracy of political purpose.
God-given rights were the way Jefferson had expressed his commitment to the new
constitutional rules. Nothing was up for grabs - there was no give
in a democracy established on the basis of divinity and the supreme tests of
human intelligence. </span></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">So the automatic exclusion of large segments of American society would be anathema to America's forefathers; and the
radical, deliberate divisionism seen as the worst kind of foul enterprise. It is this political
absolutism which gives rise to the fringe Left and Right - the racist Black Lives Matter white haters and the wild bunch of frat boy
drunks who stormed the Capitol on January 6th. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">Conservative heirs of the
Founding Fathers are tarred and feathered by progressives who, in their desire to reformulate governance dismiss them out of hand, spawning a
cycle of resentment and hatred. There is no need for the
Constitution, they say, old parchment drafted by old men, ignorant of life's
real lessons; no need for the organs of justice, designed to serve the
privileged. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">The Year Zero proclaimed the
Cambodian dictator Pol Pot at the beginning of his program to establish a
Maoist regime, and in so doing killing of millions of 'apostates' and forcing
millions more into re-education camps. Progressives claim the same notions
- not only an exclusive democracy, not even a </span>democracy for whom, but no democracy at all. </p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiykP0aOMtvlj3ESR54nYQJEsHBzJ8Mz3JOaIG8KWOWpgSnXXWl2Car__MVrAgAavgXdn0CcABA4QezOOOvjN8PpeJ8QMRM9oUCZP5DYvPUnBITKWu90C1c73Wf64_LPbOqMql3sXbgANEwWhyywIr2CuhSW25byUsjWcNLobEgARQdpHvIAlHREUdhTytT" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="299" data-original-width="399" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiykP0aOMtvlj3ESR54nYQJEsHBzJ8Mz3JOaIG8KWOWpgSnXXWl2Car__MVrAgAavgXdn0CcABA4QezOOOvjN8PpeJ8QMRM9oUCZP5DYvPUnBITKWu90C1c73Wf64_LPbOqMql3sXbgANEwWhyywIr2CuhSW25byUsjWcNLobEgARQdpHvIAlHREUdhTytT" width="320" /></a></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Which is why the whoops and hollers over the supposed insurrection of January 6th, the storming of the Capitol, and the terrorization of the House is so ironic. This, progressives say is the beginning of the end of democracy; but in reality it was nothing more than than a ragtag bunch of </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">carnival misfits, a rolling freak show of crazies that had come out of every crack in the woodwork. Mardi Gras float-riders in fright wigs, Viking horns, crinoline, stage prop boots, and linked-chain faux mail armor. A legion of losers wound up, spun, and let loose with some cockamamie idea of 'democracy'</span></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiGneBa6Z0FUMS475DGC5iydZtIXqtLumO0I56g0kw2OT0W2qaCtHcmx8DWvxCMpCGlSmjOL8H2TLFQl2WgKHyrcBhBLJhmmNwRbpeJYoZS5ylZHm-aZhC5xLoGPGQYLkl9brni1YVt-7-qUjKoR_u1QruIKk1wQnYs1WSNG2E2OLAvCZVUoiSz6NfK-0mD" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1801" data-original-width="3200" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiGneBa6Z0FUMS475DGC5iydZtIXqtLumO0I56g0kw2OT0W2qaCtHcmx8DWvxCMpCGlSmjOL8H2TLFQl2WgKHyrcBhBLJhmmNwRbpeJYoZS5ylZHm-aZhC5xLoGPGQYLkl9brni1YVt-7-qUjKoR_u1QruIKk1wQnYs1WSNG2E2OLAvCZVUoiSz6NfK-0mD" width="320" /></a></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">The real revolutions had happened in Angola, Mozambique, Nicaragua, and Salvador; were happening in Yemen and the Malian Sahara - bloody, nasty affairs. Thousands of heads rolled during Robespierre's bloody Reign of Terror, and the Russian Revolution was no pretty sight. History is nothing but a chronical of bloody uprisings, vengeance, and sadistic violence. Ever since once Paleolithic tribe battered another with clubs and jawbones, men have slaughtered each other in the name of territorial right. </span></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></p><p>So it is with some confoundment that the modern observer sees the events of January 6th cast in a revolutionary light. How could this ragtag group of good ol' boys, crackers, hopped up meth freaks, and dropouts be anything but white, credulous homeboys with nothing better to do?</p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">In all this America resembles a banana republic where the concept of sane governance has never taken hold, and where political chaos is the perennial normal. In those nations coup follows coup, putsch after putsch, one venal, self-absorbed power-greedy autocrat after another. </p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Bangladesh has elections, but the party that loses refuses to take their seats in Parliament and government is disabled. Central America is an isthmus of misrule and oppression. Africa, from top to bottom, side to side, is a mess - a desperately poor, mismanaged, shithole of economic ruin and political asymmetry. </p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhp5V-7PamnVbNFhqUJX65WZr-dbnv5BWOeIvt4Wc6WiilZ679Q-TiXEI1N1TE_SrkpwiXn2dkOXKiglqJP06a-UGgMYr0eRUJhLHm-5H63fAZHHq9ShWoNpdLJObExfkmiXpiqjwp5gEN6FcPxdSEb52JyoAwgtTiPlES7eASfw3oV0x91YOe-tE-j6qnI" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="474" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhp5V-7PamnVbNFhqUJX65WZr-dbnv5BWOeIvt4Wc6WiilZ679Q-TiXEI1N1TE_SrkpwiXn2dkOXKiglqJP06a-UGgMYr0eRUJhLHm-5H63fAZHHq9ShWoNpdLJObExfkmiXpiqjwp5gEN6FcPxdSEb52JyoAwgtTiPlES7eASfw3oV0x91YOe-tE-j6qnI" width="320" /></a>Oh</p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Some observers say that America, for all its chaotic governance is what Churchill meant when he said that democracy was the worst form of government except for all the rests. Chaos is the rule, not the exception. Democracy is a reflection of human nature - aggressive, territorial, and self-interested. Darwinian evolution cannot happen without competition, the victory of the strong over the weak, the endless, progressive changes which result in better adaptation of the species. A government that mulls is not a government of reach and authority. </p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">America is exactly what Darwin would have imagined as an organic political unit. Its culture and its government are perfectly matched - both have the same contentious, impatient, confrontational side. Gunfights are the meme, not coffee klatches; brawls, bar fights, and donnybrooks not tea parties and reasoning together. </p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgbQxAZLmIyEP9cP9Ooy873MX0JsOQdVdYql2nKz7cDnxKcIEUIirWFE392OyRrWr29J-ZQ4xmkZoeqZOnJIF2uIhvi4xazg6kOnGJEJRxyEVySI0y-8pe0B3QabELYAobO_C1t83bN9MV_JsPo8NsN7hvVCEtOHbuDWA8G9yCVDuST8lLMJADHL4gLOmdi" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1993" data-original-width="1287" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgbQxAZLmIyEP9cP9Ooy873MX0JsOQdVdYql2nKz7cDnxKcIEUIirWFE392OyRrWr29J-ZQ4xmkZoeqZOnJIF2uIhvi4xazg6kOnGJEJRxyEVySI0y-8pe0B3QabELYAobO_C1t83bN9MV_JsPo8NsN7hvVCEtOHbuDWA8G9yCVDuST8lLMJADHL4gLOmdi" width="155" /></a></p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">America is unmatched for economic vitality, entrepreneurial genius, and international influence because of this easy confluence of culture and governance. Everyone wants to come here, and only the politically irritable want to leave. 'If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen' said Harry Truman, expressing a pride in the American blast furnace. We are meant to blaze away at OK corral, have beefs and playground fights. Bullies are to be faced down. America is still a raw, inchoate country, still trying to fit the barroom ethos into English order. It will never happen. </p><p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Whose democracy? Everyone's. Pretty? No. </p><p></p>Ron Parlatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377926161809667359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3728137222647400009.post-71557777770317243042024-02-29T05:19:00.005-05:002024-02-29T16:57:50.484-05:00A Wetback Odyssey- A Salvadoran's Dream Of Meeting Joe Biden <p>It had been an easy trip north - camaraderie, collaboration, and collegiality - despite the distance from Chiltepe, his hometown in El Salvador. He was travelling with his two brothers, an aunt, and a whore from the capital who exchanged her favors for safe passage to the border,</p><p>Jose did not have to leave Chiltepe. He had a decent enough living repairing mufflers and catalytic converters that couldn't make it over the sierras. He, his blowtorch, and his soldering iron patched the flatbeds, F-150s, and pickups headed back and forth, empty of one contraband and overloaded to the struts for another - coke, Uzis, dollars, emeralds, and Nayarit terracotta.</p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgaTf2rYIvwpPSOX64oLwdS3v3tJOBgExLSz0AESfO26QsNd_CZX-XwBEjX36Z1QMpabnPUgkmshnMlF14UzE2qStiIIHn-M885d885bAvvudUYsaWxJxPTNbo34fQaFOeTLNEuRxLnrieZ90tZoRVyd1WPV35us7j7nUDWt7nGWS3_NjSgjGvAikN9zqyW" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="858" data-original-width="500" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgaTf2rYIvwpPSOX64oLwdS3v3tJOBgExLSz0AESfO26QsNd_CZX-XwBEjX36Z1QMpabnPUgkmshnMlF14UzE2qStiIIHn-M885d885bAvvudUYsaWxJxPTNbo34fQaFOeTLNEuRxLnrieZ90tZoRVyd1WPV35us7j7nUDWt7nGWS3_NjSgjGvAikN9zqyW" width="140" /></a><br /><br /></p><p>His work was quick and easy - he never bothered to drain the gas tank, forewent the expense of a hoist and got underneath on an old warehouse dolly, and was out from under in a half and hour. Yanquis always thought of Escobar, yachts, cigarette boats, and armed flotillas when they thought of the drug trade, but it happened this way, in huaraches and huipils and beat-up Toyotas. </p><p>Jose was a modest man, never greedy for the big payoff, content with parts and labor and a thousand for his silence, not that he would have ever gone afoul of the Obregon brothers; and then after years of pitted exhausts and loose bearings the idea came to him - El Norte. </p><p>In the past the trip would have been risky. Not every American president had been as generous and welcoming as Joe Biden, and ICE border guards regularly sicked their Dobermans and took pot shots at wetbacks crossing the river. Now, under the new president, they were no longer sitting ducks but welcome guests. </p><p>'Why bother?' asked Jose's cousin, Adalberto, thinking of Rosalita<i> </i>and the tropical beaches of Las Lajas - ceviche de concha, palm water baths, and maracuja. </p><p>'Because it's there' said Jose, and like every man south of the border he had dreamed of white, blonde women since the first 'Dallas' reruns, pirated and replayed on YSLA after midnight util the tape wore out; and there they would be, available and lovelier in the flesh than in his dreams, waiting for him - that and the air-conditioning and the money. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgrJ6sH5RQEwwrLVOAUbo_enc3jfHJRH7AhB0BYJ71uvD55ysFZgYX1X6JudjKEsiGsMNq_-ELLHcx-EuaoIEDUVNTrCZAWPdmAjbe_2L13H__gwNV93c-gx1VL3UsQu5WkhfgWdCKvdSxraISeiyNe6Rs-FwGDZ9wCaT5AqDN681sTVn2qePZMGrflkXJa" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="362" data-original-width="408" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgrJ6sH5RQEwwrLVOAUbo_enc3jfHJRH7AhB0BYJ71uvD55ysFZgYX1X6JudjKEsiGsMNq_-ELLHcx-EuaoIEDUVNTrCZAWPdmAjbe_2L13H__gwNV93c-gx1VL3UsQu5WkhfgWdCKvdSxraISeiyNe6Rs-FwGDZ9wCaT5AqDN681sTVn2qePZMGrflkXJa" width="270" /></a></p><p>So he and his crew set out one November day, all five of them in one of the trucks that one of Obregon's runners had left at his garage, that he had patched up with wax and baling-wire but knew would make the trip through Guadalupe and Sonora to the border. </p><p>Now, the road north was nowhere near as bad as the bottlenecks at the summit of Everest but was still a long, inching caravan, busloads of Cholos and deported braceros he could do without. The only happy one was the whore who made her rounds of the Bluebirds, got paid in dollars, and treated Jose and his brothers to tequila and mezcal. </p><p>Jose never touched her. He would wait for the beauties of Venice Beach, so sick and tired was he of black-eyed Indian cooch; but he was glad for the schnapps and the company, and they all slept well. The caravan moved slowly, but Jose was in no hurry. El Norte would wait. </p><p>They stopped in Chiapas to say hello to the Obregon brothers, and Hermione prepared them a meal of chicharron, mole, quail eggs, and black beans. </p><p>'Stay awhile longer' said Andres Obregon when he returned from Chihuahua with a truckload of cash and a diamond necklace for his wife. Business is good, he said, and now with the border wide open, it would be even better. "Leave the caravan", he said, and so it was that Jose, grease monkey from Chiltepe became part of the Obregon cartel - not in a big way, just a carter, chauffer, and mechanic for the jefes; but in a way big enough for him. </p><p>There were always shoot-outs in the border towns, but there was always a rhyme or reason for the killing and gunmen would never target him, a minor player, never more than a private in the Obregon's army, a Caesarean legion in the Sonoran desert. </p><p>So after three weeks of tight quarters, rest stops, and close quarter work by the whore, Jose and his crew arrived at the last stop before the river, a dump to abandon old cars, trash, and everything of no use in El Norte. Jose was sorry to lose the old pickup and the whore who had decided that she had made too much money to give it up; but cross the Rio Grande he did, was taken into custody by La Migra, housed in a very pleasant Best Western in El Paso, given meal tickets, spending money, and passage to the sanctuary city of his choice.</p><p>'I want to meet El Jefe', Jose said to the officer stationed in the lobby of the hotel, but the man said that La Casa Blanca was far from El Paso, maybe three days ride; but what else did he have to do except contact Mara Salvatrucha and start his new life? And so, after paying his respects, he made his way to Washington, stood outside the gates of the White House for days on end, but came up empty handed, disappointed in his new country, and made his way back West. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi0YA_2wI-W6Lr4nfoTCjdGMGKn49Z4fasmgw4sbChycaz9fKw12G8BHN3QJExgECr6znPo_fJ1NRHWy5D_Ihjy2kSy49jzTwddb_hy4EmWVymH_Ws-Q8eDoKModp-z1Y_-j5Zh5YKt-lKb4U4rUlmTWSoCr3payHsZ4_pR5J3KXltW95aKpV91sllr4lb-" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2440" data-original-width="4163" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi0YA_2wI-W6Lr4nfoTCjdGMGKn49Z4fasmgw4sbChycaz9fKw12G8BHN3QJExgECr6znPo_fJ1NRHWy5D_Ihjy2kSy49jzTwddb_hy4EmWVymH_Ws-Q8eDoKModp-z1Y_-j5Zh5YKt-lKb4U4rUlmTWSoCr3payHsZ4_pR5J3KXltW95aKpV91sllr4lb-" width="320" /></a></p><p>Life with the gang in LA was good. Drugs were not necessarily Jose's thing, but the trade and the women were just fine. Before long after dutifully driving, fixing, and cleaning, he was given an Uzi. Every night along with saying his rosary he thanked President Biden, and he had only incidental thoughts about Rosalita and Chiltepe. </p>Ron Parlatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377926161809667359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3728137222647400009.post-37545707473975671672024-02-27T06:56:00.004-05:002024-02-27T10:57:59.935-05:00Blowhard - The Nature Of American Business And The Witch Trials Of Donald Trump<p>Hiram Pickens sold snake oil, laxatives, nerve pills, and aphrodisiacs - a patent medicine pharmacopeia of cure-alls, feel-goods, and balms which, laced with enough codeine, morphine, and alcohol to 'adjust' the system, loosen the ailment's hold, and give a sensational effect, had customers coming back for more. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEihfabPMfL1uzsn_2rt2KnZZulCI5LcIEmIRULlZYJufWvFk_pScFBOooZkDlZxSP61eFnCwcNyKObKxfpZsjApH_U2okSZbX4IYY6lXQNQQqfn91OzUTVGoJirtncwxVnSvV_M7ksvH-8JM5mZRjHUWNRTa6s-2A_-7lD069PrjITv9VJiSOOK2iXfyJRN" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1984" data-original-width="896" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEihfabPMfL1uzsn_2rt2KnZZulCI5LcIEmIRULlZYJufWvFk_pScFBOooZkDlZxSP61eFnCwcNyKObKxfpZsjApH_U2okSZbX4IYY6lXQNQQqfn91OzUTVGoJirtncwxVnSvV_M7ksvH-8JM5mZRjHUWNRTa6s-2A_-7lD069PrjITv9VJiSOOK2iXfyJRN" width="108" /></a></p><p>The snake oil business was a masterpiece of concoction, advertising, and human credulousness. Enough of Dr. Doolittle's Health Tonic, and aches and pains would miraculously disappear - the alcohol and barbiturates did the trick, the natural desire to believe what was bought was worth the money and the potent natural human tendency of self deception did the rest. The huckster's silver tongue simply shined a bright, glittering light on dull lives and for a dime, the vision came true. </p><p><i>Caveat Emptor - </i>Let The Buyer Beware - was the meme of post-colonial America, a nation created on the presumption of individual, intelligent authority, the God-given right of independent enterprise, and the natural, ineluctable laws of competition and survival of the fittest. The idea of today's all-important government, caretaker and guardian of the people was never considered. At best it would be the arbiter of last resort, the administrator of Constitutional duties, and the armed protector of the nation.</p><p>The disagreement between Jefferson and Hamilton was profound. While Jefferson trusted the intelligence and wisdom of the people, Hamilton knew they were uneducated rubes roaming unchecked and following their own self-interest with little interest in the commonweal. A buffer, said Hamilton, between the mob and true governance was necessary, and the Senate was created. As everyone knows, ignorance seeps through the cracks of any institution, and before long the Senate, America's Upper House was as infected with the same venality as the crowd banging on its doors. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi6I-UGwlDeee1lEdVmE6ZF_DeFnOZsjNjFfTFgVB7YttqDe88VEREZ8d2p4YhsCFD0Km64YPCEoKIrcNgSEQELQ56fKmyhomanRle1p2fptX152Cg9nhqdjell-rq0pV3UsC2rkaqi7KkHVbZc68X79foSqAZq7kZo6euG2HFnn63kJbnfil3fFuQv_rL8" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="900" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi6I-UGwlDeee1lEdVmE6ZF_DeFnOZsjNjFfTFgVB7YttqDe88VEREZ8d2p4YhsCFD0Km64YPCEoKIrcNgSEQELQ56fKmyhomanRle1p2fptX152Cg9nhqdjell-rq0pV3UsC2rkaqi7KkHVbZc68X79foSqAZq7kZo6euG2HFnn63kJbnfil3fFuQv_rL8" width="288" /></a></p><p>So the free-for-all in the public, matched by the same chaotic mess in Washington, was let ride. In fact, opined the political philosophers of the day, such raw competition, such untrammeled buying and selling was a good thing, winnowing the chaff from the wheat, culling the weak, and creating a stronger society. </p><p>Snake oil sale was the best example of the new economic meme. 'A fool and his money are soon parted' said Thomas Tusser in 16th Century England and the aphorism took root quickly and easily in the New World. 'A sucker is born every minute', coined by P.T. Barnum in the mid-Nineteenth Century consolidated the American hold on buyer ignorance, and at all levels of economic enterprise - from the itinerant hawker to the barons of industry - the art of exaggeration, manipulation, and chicanery became the business model of the land.</p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYQkwV_E1S42yKgd_TqHrP1sKo-KzU5XANlBLkwgOiLJZ6KsK8fEJZXfSC3OEBcyBnvvrDIROY6at0sDD64JfGN4Hh9AV4K2EjzRdi1VJBEA_NGly-osXuVmuqpF-oB-s5uXq3bV9qd-H2yVIERb48oV6FUlGxRedrsjCvkiWdXHz1KibPvlKYYCmKkhTf/s259/Barnum%20and%20Bailey%20II.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYQkwV_E1S42yKgd_TqHrP1sKo-KzU5XANlBLkwgOiLJZ6KsK8fEJZXfSC3OEBcyBnvvrDIROY6at0sDD64JfGN4Hh9AV4K2EjzRdi1VJBEA_NGly-osXuVmuqpF-oB-s5uXq3bV9qd-H2yVIERb48oV6FUlGxRedrsjCvkiWdXHz1KibPvlKYYCmKkhTf/s1600/Barnum%20and%20Bailey%20II.jpg" width="259" /></a></p><p>Early Twentieth Century reformers were outraged and the predatory nature of American business, and they fought long, hard, and ineffectively for a modicum of protection; but the business model was too entrenched and too founded on human nature to be changed. Human beings have bartered, exchanged, and sold on false premises since cowrie beads, and only the savvy buyer worked the system to his benefit. </p><p>After Darwin the idea of <i>caveat emptor </i>became even more received wisdom - raw, unfettered competition, the tooth and claw approach to the marketplace, assured not only the survival of the fittest but the reign of the fittest. </p><p>The great American capitalist empire was built on this principle; and there would be transcontinental railroads, steel mills, oil fields, refineries, and Wall Street without J.P. Morgan, J.D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, or Cornelius Vanderbilt. Their inspiration was vast, their ambition unalloyed, and their persistence unstoppable. Sure enough reformers were as insistent on halting the predation and bullish roughriding of the 'Robber Barons', this time with some success; and the foundation of the nanny state was laid. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgSDBMbeH9t2IIkQqL4EEVFx9wa-4weGMg8j2F-Hn1xrh2YeqJcZKJZIYMS5vQknq2CweT0s3Tx0K88B_NFnV4vessaucSuh0cYxetcuoqqKDnALA8OQlpHxIj3fImqndQJtPgVv4TWFf8E9vbN1bunTF1pYWvMeN3jVn3IuexEE8co4HwyxnJlrK1sLw5B" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3993" data-original-width="2626" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgSDBMbeH9t2IIkQqL4EEVFx9wa-4weGMg8j2F-Hn1xrh2YeqJcZKJZIYMS5vQknq2CweT0s3Tx0K88B_NFnV4vessaucSuh0cYxetcuoqqKDnALA8OQlpHxIj3fImqndQJtPgVv4TWFf8E9vbN1bunTF1pYWvMeN3jVn3IuexEE8co4HwyxnJlrK1sLw5B" width="158" /></a></p><p>New York real estate was no different than steel, oil, or railroads, and the city was built on the same principles. The market was not based on cooperation, consideration, and generosity but on exaggeration, arrogance, and absolute, unshakeable confidence. Of <i>course </i>land and property values were inflated by sellers and downgraded by buyers, and only after the street fights and brawls were won and lost, was a final agreed-upon value reached. </p><p>There is no such thing as absolute value in economics. All is relative, and so it is with the selling price of real estate. While metrics, big data, and sophisticated analytical tools have narrowed the playing field, buying and selling is still an open venture. How can cachet, name, clientele, and design have absolute value? How can the quality of a view be measured? Subjectivity, never an incidental factor in commercial exchange, is as important as facts and figures. </p><p>Enter Donald Trump, real estate mogul, survivor <i>par excellence </i>of the mean streets of New York, king of vaudevillian exaggeration, master salesman, big top blowhard, canny negotiator, and fearless legal battering ram. 'So, sue me', the song of the streets is the first verse of a Trump epic. He revels in it, plays it, loves it. Threats, intimidation, and will are the twins of estimated value and subjective valuation. Together, they are the invincible armaments of real estate warfare. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU1vPQ6eQaByrEJKnZa-UsKMPWegq3OQxpJBCr91yOz4gKRmC4NkAW19tIkXKPltBJqQyXzNzplIFErAjLtsEjkulxrkPezh9lfOAEvTxojqumEe9ZLelANa4-NFJBicu8KHuQpkZRWEkj9epXc5yxEptGZ_XmxzbifpIH2p8KF9G7_hHcmL9zpxlkRZ1p/s275/Trump%20defiant.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU1vPQ6eQaByrEJKnZa-UsKMPWegq3OQxpJBCr91yOz4gKRmC4NkAW19tIkXKPltBJqQyXzNzplIFErAjLtsEjkulxrkPezh9lfOAEvTxojqumEe9ZLelANa4-NFJBicu8KHuQpkZRWEkj9epXc5yxEptGZ_XmxzbifpIH2p8KF9G7_hHcmL9zpxlkRZ1p/s1600/Trump%20defiant.jpg" width="275" /></a></p><p>Of <i>course </i>Trump exaggerated the value of his holdings, but in the give-and-take of the real estate market, no one cried foul. Buyers thought they got a good deal, banks loved the borrowers, and Trump made millions. All as it should be and always has been. </p><p>The New York fraud trial, therefore, is nothing but a witch trial - a political move to discredit the former President during an election year; a transparent, bald-faced swipe at Trump's credibility while fining him crippling sums. </p><p>All this of course is but a side show to the center ring - the electoral campaign and November 2024. Trump has handily swept all the Republican primaries, is the presumptive Presidential candidate, and tops the incumbent, Joe Biden, in all recent polls. In fact, the more fake trials and false accusations there are, the higher his numbers. His faithful cannot be budged from their support, and those on the cusp, shocked by the unconscionable political manipulation of the courts, have swung to his side. </p><p>Donald Trump is a real American - low-brow, unashamedly bourgeois, crass, opinionated, and a bare-knuckled bar-fighter. Americans have finally got one of their own, not the hi-falutin' Pablo Casals, Robert Frost Kennedys, not the insipid, faux inclusive, Biden, not the Eastern Establishment progressive fantasists, but an outsized Colossus. Of course he is feared and hated, and that animus is all his opponents have. They harp and whinge and whine to no avail. Americans are sick and tired of a hectoring, self-righteous party that demeans, dismisses, and ignores them. </p><p>Despite the show trials, the punitive awards against him, and the virulence of the progressive press, Trump is likely to regain the Oval Office, and the gobbling naysayers will be shut up once and for all. </p>Ron Parlatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377926161809667359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3728137222647400009.post-78578480966668175522024-02-26T10:10:00.004-05:002024-02-26T13:54:19.760-05:00Climate Change? No Problem - Genetics, Enhanced Evolution, And Man's Infinite Ability To Adapt<p>'Whew, it's hot', said Elmer Suggins to his buddy Ralph during work break laying tar on a Macon County road. </p><p>'Climate change', replied Ralph somberly. 'Democrats were right'; but Suggins was unmoved and unconvinced. ‘They’ve never laid tar in a Georgia summer', and so the two of them talked climate to pass the time, although they got well distracted when Janey Fitz drove by in her old Skylark convertible.</p><p> 'Hot enough for you?', she said as she went past, blonde hair floating like golden silk in the wind, reminding the two men of life's business not this jabbering nonsense from Washington. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg0G2jBRFAUQ0uLYz6iYodsx_4PcHPepnW-UPcDcV7OU92QR3er4_4VoDrXQ9zjIkFMZNs3cuMZdVQagoiIDuiiA1Xd4DzK_Tx743Xu8_VXh59cyuFrJ4wGZI_TVeDfQtyAhp8qlDLiIFWORr0OnJ8XI_fVKQdjOICSTA4U7HSU08y5wFjBh62pNzzS2QzE" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg0G2jBRFAUQ0uLYz6iYodsx_4PcHPepnW-UPcDcV7OU92QR3er4_4VoDrXQ9zjIkFMZNs3cuMZdVQagoiIDuiiA1Xd4DzK_Tx743Xu8_VXh59cyuFrJ4wGZI_TVeDfQtyAhp8qlDLiIFWORr0OnJ8XI_fVKQdjOICSTA4U7HSU08y5wFjBh62pNzzS2QzE" width="320" /></a><br /></p><p>Elmer Suggins was a coon hunter, kept three blue dog hounds, a drying and curing shed for the pelts, and a meat locker for the rest. Years of coon hunting had given him historical perspective. The raccoon was one of nature's most adaptable animals, and come a nuclear Armageddon, it would be the most likely to survive. </p><p>Coons were not particular about what they ate - leavings were just fine, and they had moved from forest to back alleys thanks to garbage cans, dumpsters, and trash bins. They were agile, strong, and intelligent, thrived in their new environment, and lived in backyard trees, attics, and basement stairwells. Heat and cold were incidental. </p><p>"Take the cockroach", Suggins said, settling into a groove. "The cockroach hasn't changed in 235 million years, perfectly adapted to every environment, no need for improvement. The roaches on your toothbrush and down your drain are the same that roamed with the dinosaurs."</p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhf5PzkfMgYJXPg-zUiWKWZyyKO2gdeXF53OjxIptjrBphzWM97l-HLl-0CUvRFsXr7GVq_v1xdTZyhz8HSIMNuomzF_6lZsV71XxWMz2qKSChmNU8DP680nym11zYOrrQOh5H1tyNeJauNtOhMxf5Yb6X11c9AyRHkIYn8tqpyQnBPNXInKoEA7gUS_ccj" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="2100" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhf5PzkfMgYJXPg-zUiWKWZyyKO2gdeXF53OjxIptjrBphzWM97l-HLl-0CUvRFsXr7GVq_v1xdTZyhz8HSIMNuomzF_6lZsV71XxWMz2qKSChmNU8DP680nym11zYOrrQOh5H1tyNeJauNtOhMxf5Yb6X11c9AyRHkIYn8tqpyQnBPNXInKoEA7gUS_ccj" width="320" /></a></p><p>Human beings had indeed been around for a geologically short time, but atop the food chain from the very first. Not only that, they suddenly developed a brain a million times more powerful than anything needed to hunt wildebeest on the savannah. Some missing link, some powerful but unseen environmental influence must have been at work; and soon enough, all that computing power would come in handy. If there ever were an adaptable creature, it was man. </p><p>Climate change? A matter of adaptability, not hysteria. New York will become the new Venice, Miami a luxurious city with waterways, swamps, and glades above which thousands will live in high-rise luxury. Agriculture will move north, the geopolitical map will change, but life will go on as productively as before.</p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiYIDR-txvLRndn8kk9sfgsi6LLVLk_GHg34yNOgwEl8-fZYUYUXR7u7VM6zWT_nXsqMG514ZWYRSWyssJYyRGCq1Ek-SFlWS36Z8X1LIogvGqAyNBh34IR6HPsB_c87kvCPhl1sAhdGOTaTNvi90D1bj9CoVwWjY8H2eIloQO-OGtZGLMT6-PCvqAJhGqH" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiYIDR-txvLRndn8kk9sfgsi6LLVLk_GHg34yNOgwEl8-fZYUYUXR7u7VM6zWT_nXsqMG514ZWYRSWyssJYyRGCq1Ek-SFlWS36Z8X1LIogvGqAyNBh34IR6HPsB_c87kvCPhl1sAhdGOTaTNvi90D1bj9CoVwWjY8H2eIloQO-OGtZGLMT6-PCvqAJhGqH" width="320" /></a><br /></p><p>Climate activists are appalled at what they see as these facile assumptions. There can be no adaptation to a climate warming at disastrous rates. Unless such climate change is arrested, the earth will die, burned to cinders in a fiery, universal environmental Armageddon. No amount of survivalist idealism will change that.</p><p>The arguments of people like Elmer Suggins have been lost in the is-it-or-isn't-it debate about climate change. True believing activists have neither a geological, evolutionary perspective nor a futuristic one, for anyone paying attention to the advances in genetic engineering can see that within a few generations at most, human beings will for the first time not resemble their ancestors. </p><p>Recombinant DNA engineering can modify human adaptability in both short- and long-term. Digestive, nerve, musculo-skeletal, cognitive, and physiological systems will all be in play. Lungs will be adapted to high levels of carbon dioxide, thinner oxygen, and thicker methane. Hearts and arterial systems reconfigured to take on newly-moderated blood flow. Brain power will be augmented to parse the slightest fissure in knowledge and make sense out of it. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiClRqJTKO6skMPJpy8aKtlz4ZvhyphenhypheneoYKHQnCwYkujtKq979-1lddWim27A8S0-jHeYgj80bP34SdGEKyblz8TOgHWyPp83AMu8XziqRinfAmfIooHSo_popI-lDqUaJzTX5OUtbkn7nI1EoMr-rjnaIjFD6TvnSEjOeAK7h5SVQgnjXgae7iYuaXVZpEu8/s259/DNA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiClRqJTKO6skMPJpy8aKtlz4ZvhyphenhypheneoYKHQnCwYkujtKq979-1lddWim27A8S0-jHeYgj80bP34SdGEKyblz8TOgHWyPp83AMu8XziqRinfAmfIooHSo_popI-lDqUaJzTX5OUtbkn7nI1EoMr-rjnaIjFD6TvnSEjOeAK7h5SVQgnjXgae7iYuaXVZpEu8/s1600/DNA.jpg" width="259" /></a></p><p>As importantly the interface between the human brain and the computer will soon be seamless. Virtual reality is but the embryonic phase of perceptual evolution. When the electro-chemical network of the brain is finally understood and the nature of thought deciphered, working at home will take on a whole new dimension. Computer-mediated minds will have all of the world's information available at a mental click and will have the computing power of a million mainframes. </p><p>A hot, unpleasant 'real' world will become insignificant. Food will be processed and easily assimilable, health diagnostics will all be done online, and treatment, thanks to genetic modification will be increasingly unnecessary. Intimate relationships - love affairs of limitless possibility - will thrive in this new, completely cybernetic world. </p><p>'Frightful', said most who heard this theory of adaptability, for it was not just a sci-fi dream of a Georgia cracker, but a profoundly sane evolutionary one. Even the most cursory glance at genetics offers powerful insights into the revolutionary changes to come. </p><p>Who ever said that human beings would not evolve? Of course they will, perhaps not in the environmentally incremental way that Darwin envisioned, but in quantum leaps. Whoever said that the cockroach and the racoon, and all other species that have navigated their way through millennia of changing environments should not be the model for human evolution? </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhoYoqk9D4t8kwFUK5izAfRvkD-GuJ8oliMzC2Kd0v5yIzTKcZBVgdUNbC4vPu4ahLzK2qF90TQKQ52XvH3XdBHpAHrRIYFywNkhjXo6ncVBDqAoRDeyOJVvr_dvL2L9i-D8CfR1_sRrelUqU3VIsRX_VhmLMplImFbjYuMRh-h1ouMiPGm_k-Jxwk-Nc-C" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1993" data-original-width="1287" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhoYoqk9D4t8kwFUK5izAfRvkD-GuJ8oliMzC2Kd0v5yIzTKcZBVgdUNbC4vPu4ahLzK2qF90TQKQ52XvH3XdBHpAHrRIYFywNkhjXo6ncVBDqAoRDeyOJVvr_dvL2L9i-D8CfR1_sRrelUqU3VIsRX_VhmLMplImFbjYuMRh-h1ouMiPGm_k-Jxwk-Nc-C" width="155" /></a></p><p>And yet the climate change juggernaut keeps rolling, and with each new ground covered those who are pushing it become more more insistent, less open, and more rabidly passionate. Even if climate change is happening and is a result of human activity, no one is likely likely to stop it. Most importantly, man, even more adaptable than ever and part of a dramatic, revolutionary biological alteration, will survive easily and well. </p><p>Man is not the environmental destroyer that climate activists insist. He is an integral <i>part </i>of the environment as much acted upon as acting. The world is not as easily divided into villains and victims as many would like to think. Better see it as Hindus do - one universal place of permanent, never ending cyclic change - the world of Siva the Destroyer and Brahma the Creator. </p><p> 'Whew, it's hot', said Elmer Suggins once again, wiping his brow, waiting for quittin' time. Such equations were not that difficult, he reasoned. Common sense. Why, the Sugginses had been around for five generations and when you took into consideration the bits and pieces scrambled and reassembled over time to produce Uncle Henry, an old fool but at 100 a man still to be reckoned with, a man millions of years in the making whose own bits and pieces would go into the genetic soup to continue the line for a million more, you just could not get your dander up over yet one more climate doomsday tale. </p>Ron Parlatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377926161809667359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3728137222647400009.post-38464015250885025262024-02-25T11:44:00.008-05:002024-02-25T12:03:48.610-05:00The Sad Tale Of Edgar Sommers, The Last Progressive In America<p>Edgar Sommers was a thoughtful, dutiful, and thoroughly engaged man - a good man, one dedicated to principles and purpose, and one never tempted by irrelevance. That was for lesser men, and ever since he had been chosen for service, he had never once demurred. The fate of the world was simply far too important for desultory interest. </p><p>He was a member of Americans For Concerned Environmental Action, The Southern Conference for Racial Equality, the League of Professional Women, and many others. He had walked with giants, tended the sick, fought the right battles at the right time, but now, <i>horribile dictu, </i>the time for social justice was coming to an end. </p><p>As unconscionable a thought as that might have been a decade ago when progressivism was in full flower, and when its advocates and supporters were everywhere in the land in a <i>Je seme a tout vent </i>existential miracle, something had happened. The oomph had gone out of the movement, the fire out of its loins, the passion, the desire, the absolute rabid righteousness gone with the wind. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiHYqJAEVK_oH8yniT3HNUkkrv3jbmMGkpJ6EyoluoT3PSR3kGX2DPluxllkhFE4QUv0cOqpZLGhgCgGpabUhldwv-uH8BWRInFVRAB-up05p0cyGgN5zRFL4phQUuHs5pZRcBEYJS7mYVFBUC_TWKbB6YReojgYRfxsLg6p8PVul6k906kU8Fj21bOesql" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="605" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiHYqJAEVK_oH8yniT3HNUkkrv3jbmMGkpJ6EyoluoT3PSR3kGX2DPluxllkhFE4QUv0cOqpZLGhgCgGpabUhldwv-uH8BWRInFVRAB-up05p0cyGgN5zRFL4phQUuHs5pZRcBEYJS7mYVFBUC_TWKbB6YReojgYRfxsLg6p8PVul6k906kU8Fj21bOesql" width="320" /></a></p><p>It had to do with Donald Trump, his first and second victories, and the seditious spread of viral conservatism, but the movement had continued increasing, multiplying, and splitting as fast as a chick embryo until it had become the ethos of the nation, a unifying principle, a political oneness. How could this be, wondered Edgar as he saw the bastions, fortresses, and embankments of progressivism eroded by successive waves of radicalism? </p><p>One by one the shibboleths of liberalism were falling. Confederate statues were re-erected, forts, streets, and schools renamed for Southern heroes; the Black Man's notice of racial and cultural supremacy removed, the transgender movement stunted, redirected, and consigned away. Biblical injunction replaced Lacanian exegesis. Churches were built on a monumental scale, Chartres and Notre-Dame replicas, stone books of the new religious age. Raw enterprise, industrial laissez-faire, and the law of the marketplace displaced communitarianism, compassionate consideration, and the redistribution of economic wealth. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjnxXcuP1flUb7pKr1ov_wR0iNmpkBctyZh39g447FCH7EgeIU6K5mKS3CMUJBRLoNxxLOLDWqgywAheBy4LENGrrKnP7Dtt8qv7e2n7gljPS2vRNV_bH0iDtLzGjhOM9fp-n4Azhy13NEGlZPbntoaG4AeuhYMKf5YC218mOjGq9QRg6odS2k9nbJSb5lG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="899" data-original-width="557" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjnxXcuP1flUb7pKr1ov_wR0iNmpkBctyZh39g447FCH7EgeIU6K5mKS3CMUJBRLoNxxLOLDWqgywAheBy4LENGrrKnP7Dtt8qv7e2n7gljPS2vRNV_bH0iDtLzGjhOM9fp-n4Azhy13NEGlZPbntoaG4AeuhYMKf5YC218mOjGq9QRg6odS2k9nbJSb5lG" width="149" /></a></p><p>Edgar remained in Washington, almost alone, awash in a sea of conservatism, gasping for air in an atmosphere of me-first, whites-only, male idolatry. He was still among his claques and shills, squads, caucuses, and crews but he felt the tide ebbing. Soon he and his brothers and sisters would be washed far out to sea. </p><p>What had happened? How had the heady vision of Utopia faded so quickly, tarnished by insult and innuendo - 'falsity, claptrap, Dodoism'. It was a time of insular patriotism, xenophobia, and Mighty Joe Young primitivism. No one seemed to want even the crumbs of what Edgar and his fellow reformers had worked for for decades. It was every white man for himself, lord of the manor, patriarch, pasha, and grandee. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhxErSoOnNu6zROzoC7xI8Ix1sPMiZsCBAQUdB2rZiQh191AehfwAmJTM8DXL-fpGQvtbNQ6zEyK9qjr_12HV77jFMrkZtJUCioyh2Yz3HeEPcjtfrm3AKDQCLSyCrOkMhxBQ7vVMUHYx6ouEWNVGGnuSPjM3FxP_CLvnOvboUOoqFqKGxjWcjofQrSWv99" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2100" data-original-width="1400" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhxErSoOnNu6zROzoC7xI8Ix1sPMiZsCBAQUdB2rZiQh191AehfwAmJTM8DXL-fpGQvtbNQ6zEyK9qjr_12HV77jFMrkZtJUCioyh2Yz3HeEPcjtfrm3AKDQCLSyCrOkMhxBQ7vVMUHYx6ouEWNVGGnuSPjM3FxP_CLvnOvboUOoqFqKGxjWcjofQrSWv99" width="160" /></a></p><p>It wasn't so much that conservatism had made a comeback after so many years in the anterooms of power as second fiddles, acolytes, intellectual drifters, and lost boys. Conservatism had become the ethos of the land. Where Edgar and his like had been championed in years past, progressives were now paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue like slaves to the new Emperor. He was a voice crying in the ever-widening wilderness. </p><p>Glitz and glamour were in. Comfortable, broken-in shoes were replaced by Italian leather; and rumple gave way to silk suits, cheap chic, and the Las Vegas, sequined look. </p><p>Americans scrambled for it all like Jews at a wedding buffet, so much to eat and so little time. It was a cultural <i>grande bouffe </i>of major proportions. There was no polite bites of the salmon mousse and Quiche Lorraine, but a wholescale gourmandize of the pastrami, lox, and bagels. </p><p>Edgar was blindsided. He should have seen it coming with the successive conservative victories following on the Trump presidencies. President after president came from cracker- and MAGA-land, the bayous, backwoods, and cypress swamps and sagebrush of America. Conservatism became no less the secular religion that progressivism had. Right and wrong were filtered through a political prism. A new litany of God and country was recited as often as race, gender, and ethnicity had been in Edgar's day. The turn of the screw, what goes around comes around, the Dawn of a New Age. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjqSe-3_jZzH6xBFbcZdT4h0QXWICUNqjIZgb2JpoyrOS31m9CaE5w18ks1liA4xaLxZhsQTjTLWB8Ui2Up2vp6HbU2izDKYQJL7P_K-QBENTeBY16f4q8F6gIXKaiNU24_s6KNgoPCrj-RBWLFk2TxGZM-5BU7kl8g_O8IkihLvcXfXIIvlnD4mgb5jvWR" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="488" data-original-width="474" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjqSe-3_jZzH6xBFbcZdT4h0QXWICUNqjIZgb2JpoyrOS31m9CaE5w18ks1liA4xaLxZhsQTjTLWB8Ui2Up2vp6HbU2izDKYQJL7P_K-QBENTeBY16f4q8F6gIXKaiNU24_s6KNgoPCrj-RBWLFk2TxGZM-5BU7kl8g_O8IkihLvcXfXIIvlnD4mgb5jvWR" width="233" /></a></p><p>Progressive numbers dwindled, but Edgar's staying power was still intact although fraying at the edges. His commitment had never been deeper or more intense; but whereas in the past he would have been attacked and censured for his political fantasies and obtuse intentions, now he was laughed at. He had become a clown, a freak, a bearded lady, a dwarf. </p><p>Yet he felt himself still Jesus on the Potomac, the savior, the prophet, the Chosen One. Cassandras have always been ignored, so be it. Cultural heroes must ride insolently above the herd, Nietzschean Supermen, God's anointed; and so it was that this, the last progressive in America, kept his footing till the last. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgKNwxPkb-PreiBnSoBCfbA80cIVanZIfBxQDmxoIP_qbR17S5z0yGMdUP9cxAzSkSqp5ZywtYDU2EFi3m__PDAv-289jTTnjAsnHQ4_FvB9JTmlg7qJ579LSlG4HFIcy6S3Ca5B_1K2hqTSi6rxeioETcxR8QyE3yQO7HZ93c6iTlNTaX8QjN6iBExo9gK" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1223" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgKNwxPkb-PreiBnSoBCfbA80cIVanZIfBxQDmxoIP_qbR17S5z0yGMdUP9cxAzSkSqp5ZywtYDU2EFi3m__PDAv-289jTTnjAsnHQ4_FvB9JTmlg7qJ579LSlG4HFIcy6S3Ca5B_1K2hqTSi6rxeioETcxR8QyE3yQO7HZ93c6iTlNTaX8QjN6iBExo9gK" width="314" /></a></p><p>Of course the end did not come quickly, but slowly and painfully. Give me 'a soldier's death' says Marcus Aurelius to his assassins. It was hard for Edgar to watch the conservative juggernaut, a new Sherman's March to the Sea, a Genghis Khan-like sweep from east to west until the entire country was under its yoke. </p><p>Of course Edgar was disingenuous at best, naive and credulous at worst. He of all people should have seen the revolution coming. Liberal progressivism, a nouveau political philosophy based on European deconstructionist idealism, Socialist cant and Communist inspiration could never take hold in the Wild West, Robber Baron, Gunfight at OK Corral individualism of the United States. Hippies, free love, communes, and the let-it-be ethos of the Sixties were not the avant-garde of the new America, but a sorry aberration. </p><p>So Edgar rattled on until he was too old to stand, bullhorn in hand, fingers on the Internet, on the pulpit, the podium and at whistle stops; but he was increasingly a cartoon figure, a distorted side show escapee. Progressivism had had its day, and it was pitiful to see this poor old codger hanging on with his nails. </p><p>There were Trumps galore after the real Donald Trump. His show was just the beginning. America had finally had enough of the Left's cant and <i>faux logique </i>and looked forward to generations of burlesque, vaudeville, and big top governance. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRFe4TEF0o_FYgv1ExO3sQMH1Tto_UuFcJACOZsinhsRbPojcMW9k_qcyWY2_-M396xsqn3HsU8rbJgDRVP2WYojc05agkg1Y_O0LRBZFosQILTLvoGHNt7w6rM4U-z7vUc7S-U1HqRurithZUfj2BfYoe3yWRYNSsHxSVNSB2UHVrPfziZpyPLkuChFmj/s275/Trump%20defiant.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRFe4TEF0o_FYgv1ExO3sQMH1Tto_UuFcJACOZsinhsRbPojcMW9k_qcyWY2_-M396xsqn3HsU8rbJgDRVP2WYojc05agkg1Y_O0LRBZFosQILTLvoGHNt7w6rM4U-z7vUc7S-U1HqRurithZUfj2BfYoe3yWRYNSsHxSVNSB2UHVrPfziZpyPLkuChFmj/s1600/Trump%20defiant.jpg" width="275" /></a></p><p>As far as Edgar was concerned, there were plenty of old people's homes around where he could spend his final years with like minded troopers - a kind of veterans lodging - and go out with fond memories of the way it was. Only occasionally when news of the new conservative president filtered into the game room did Edgar wonder if it all was worth it. That is, if decades of tireless effort, good will, and serious commitment to a righteous cause could be swept away in one fell swoop, how important could it have been?</p><p>Not at all said the young conservatives who were were no sitting in his chair. Not whatsoever at all. </p>Ron Parlatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377926161809667359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3728137222647400009.post-77364633991667863002024-02-25T06:13:00.002-05:002024-02-25T09:17:09.149-05:00The End Of The War Between The Sexes - Thanks To Transgenderism, Men And Women Are History<p>Perhaps the most famous literary work about the war between the sexes is <i>Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, </i>an excoriating play by Edward Albee in which George and Martha 'flay each other to the bone' and destroy every last bit of the ego and identity which has made their married life sheer hell. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiGAe0unhe7mF1KT-q45rRy0ol4DIBmVfieSoVir-LqE06Mv8qyAwt-P90VxFlZf_5-oACV6ou8ZjaOZASFI0-9MtgJ9G-f18VWyXo4kwykLVDdB6o41MO_oo6CqN5cE_CNp-F12FNlLzY8Yz2ssUDSAFVCMKFTVY08rgOJRRbynlNU3zlEUfq_chDL6CmY" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="2000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiGAe0unhe7mF1KT-q45rRy0ol4DIBmVfieSoVir-LqE06Mv8qyAwt-P90VxFlZf_5-oACV6ou8ZjaOZASFI0-9MtgJ9G-f18VWyXo4kwykLVDdB6o41MO_oo6CqN5cE_CNp-F12FNlLzY8Yz2ssUDSAFVCMKFTVY08rgOJRRbynlNU3zlEUfq_chDL6CmY" width="160" /></a></p><p>The play in unremitting in its harshness, its slashing wounds, and its mercilessness in its attack on the assumptions of marriage and their wicked falsity. </p><p>At the end of the play, George and Martha, spent and empty, say that they now can start again, but the theatregoer wonders if after such a life of bitter vindictiveness, reconciliation and love are really possible. </p><p>Shakespeare's <i>Taming of the Shrew </i>is another acerbic look into sexual relationships. Kate is a shrewish, bitter woman who hates the idea of men and the presumption of female complaisance. She is crude, angry, and dismissive of them all except Petruchio who sees that her misandry is simply an emotional defense, a cover for the treatment she received as a child from her father. </p><p>Petruchio sees in her the very spirit, lively intelligence, and independence he has always sought in a woman, and she sees him as the one man who knows and appreciates her. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgBPhTC98nw33yWcBnrxzMEg87ov7Gf8F7mu4cwX_X0yL-LL2VGLyWIQu7QAUSiCz2GIdzBbW_jaB1F_RiZrIvdWsdEXV9qkFU5b3MfRszXaW9HK7bcS_QZNm1695rDvWf0MKnIXdDCyStVSLjs8WVJVnQzFeA8Kyy1gU6Cp2wcV-KG4e97nGaDp_dOQRK0" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="648" data-original-width="432" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgBPhTC98nw33yWcBnrxzMEg87ov7Gf8F7mu4cwX_X0yL-LL2VGLyWIQu7QAUSiCz2GIdzBbW_jaB1F_RiZrIvdWsdEXV9qkFU5b3MfRszXaW9HK7bcS_QZNm1695rDvWf0MKnIXdDCyStVSLjs8WVJVnQzFeA8Kyy1gU6Cp2wcV-KG4e97nGaDp_dOQRK0" width="160" /></a></p><p>The battle between the two equally matched opponents is engaged, and after tearing at each others vanities, they come together. </p><p>Shakespeare's Comedies are all about women who run rings around men. Each of them, Rosalind, Viola, and Portia are far superior to the troupe of courtiers who come to the gates; but each woman, given the nature of the times, must marry for status and money. All's well that ends well is the comedic meme for marriages that are sure to fail once the happy wedding celebration is over. </p><p>The literary list of sexual dramas is endless. Every deception, resentment, hope, disillusionment; every drab, tired bedtime, every pound of flesh has been chronicled, dramatized, and replayed. Men and women simply do not get along, these authors, poets, and playwrights say; accommodation is the rule, and only the weak submit to it. </p><p>This is all background for the real story - the coming revolution in sexual affairs that will remove the millennia-old canker between men and women. When society is pangender - that is when most former men and women have given up assigned-at-birth sexual identities and become androgynous, sexually fluid, and of indistinct sex, the world will be a less contentious, more congenial place. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhxsiLtgYhphPyYQwCgCNM9_O4FOoiOLXczatPooKQdmCRW3_vKuwbMexskyVBtBfOJ7P1dHSBczt3XRcLllMQJ20Ly_6Al1fo5QE8OmYYSiuwIYRPUxu6vLufnn8BwrBru8yXPHaSh7P3lYipoyivcHaQx0N-Mql1SvUjPJ7fluhcIBgUv2R2mCFd2MJe1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="736" data-original-width="736" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhxsiLtgYhphPyYQwCgCNM9_O4FOoiOLXczatPooKQdmCRW3_vKuwbMexskyVBtBfOJ7P1dHSBczt3XRcLllMQJ20Ly_6Al1fo5QE8OmYYSiuwIYRPUxu6vLufnn8BwrBru8yXPHaSh7P3lYipoyivcHaQx0N-Mql1SvUjPJ7fluhcIBgUv2R2mCFd2MJe1" width="240" /></a></p><p>This revolution has nothing to do with gay pride. Two men in a couple can be just as bitchy, demanding, and controlling as a man and a woman. Gay cat fights may be only scratching, biting affairs but they are just as deadly serious. Hell hath no fury like a woman - or gay man - scorned; so looking to gay marriage as an anodyne, is simply whistlin' Dixie. </p><p>When sexuality is floating, fungible, and not harnessed and bound, there is far more give and less take. Sexual demand - the central issue in straight marriage - is gone. Men want sex constantly and irrevocably while women are diffident. For them the rooster's contribution is enough. </p><p>Laura in Strindberg's <i>The Father </i>who dismisses her bullying, weak husband, good only for reproduction and nothing else, is the model. Of course even with such desultory sexual interest, women demand some sexual attention; and knowing that they have become little more than a bag of laundry to their husbands, they have ways of shaming them to their beds and out of other women's. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiKaoH2iN8dR6EulVbHrruNPawMsZX2LgZgscuZ-lCUy-YiXb9Zt-9BCoLVTsR1VtZH82ENl0vxuvUNJJeCmOyyr39YhQKl8X73qEAJXdlHyPHteUv9n_4ciRtFEDUWYtLr_mY9xNK7TQ5uxjUkEkjGoJqF4VsLf7qJ5mJitwBK81PgG8wcqrOAfBcqdMqr" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="579" data-original-width="360" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiKaoH2iN8dR6EulVbHrruNPawMsZX2LgZgscuZ-lCUy-YiXb9Zt-9BCoLVTsR1VtZH82ENl0vxuvUNJJeCmOyyr39YhQKl8X73qEAJXdlHyPHteUv9n_4ciRtFEDUWYtLr_mY9xNK7TQ5uxjUkEkjGoJqF4VsLf7qJ5mJitwBK81PgG8wcqrOAfBcqdMqr" width="149" /></a> <br /></p><p>Easier said than done, for the dalliances and errancies of men are the rule. Men for whom God's greatest irony is condemning them to sexual desire and frustration for their four-score-and-twenty years, can't help tomcatting, and when eventually and ultimately caught, are in the dog house. </p><p>None of this will happen when society is pangender. Once untethered from the two old, tired, useless sexual categories; when there are no such things as men and women but everything in between, a million combinations and permutation of sexual identity, all available, and easy to engage, marriage will be less of a pain.</p><p>While some men who have transformed into women will hold on to that transgender identity with purpose - high heels, pearl earrings, and perfume - they will soon realize that once natural sexual identity has been replaced, one size does not fit all, and many sexual shoes are in the shop. </p><p>In other words, why not be fluid and pick and choose on the gender spectrum as the mood dictates? The new sexual revolution is all about fungibility - if you can identify as a woman, then you can identify as any one of a hundred gender options on the spectrum. If sexual identity is a matter of will, not biology then anything is possible. To the point, if you are never sure who will turn up in your bed, you have no reason for gall. Love the one you're with takes on a whole different meaning. </p><p>How many husbands are tired of the hair-in-the-sink, toilet seat, you're-not-listening-to-me routines? And how many of them sneak their way to Annette from Accounting, 'stay late at the office' or extend their business trips with a stopover in Copenhagen?</p><p>All of this tiresome stereotypical sexual behavior will be out the window when the new, true sexual revolution becomes universal. The commercial implications are of course staggering. Unisex shops will be things of the past. For each men's or women's shop there will be fifty come-as-you-are, go-as-you-please fashion smorgasbords, high-end gender novelty shops catering to the new fluidity</p><p>All the now unnecessary signage will go - Men's, Ladies', Laddies, Lassies, 'M', 'F' nothing will be gender specific, and gone will the questions and political divisiveness. One nation, indivisible will take on a whole new meaning. </p><p>What about reproduction? Oh, that...Well, in this brave new world fertility, an inconvenient necessity will be handled the new way - in vitro with genetically engineered embryos. Fluid couples will opt for starter babies of more predictable genders, but when older, they can and will be as sexless and gender-optioned as their 'parents'. Parenthood, too, will be completely redefined and will be more like a sexual kibbutz. Again, the choices will be delightful if at first somewhat bewildering. </p><p>So, for all those gender stick-in-the-muds reading this, get over it. The sexual genie is finally out of the bottle, and the new sexual age has dawned. Try it, you'll like it. </p>Ron Parlatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377926161809667359noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3728137222647400009.post-51649346775316731602024-02-24T07:06:00.003-05:002024-02-24T13:59:29.851-05:00January 6th - Diary Of A Deep State MAGA Crazy<p>Henry Lofton lived in a cabin in the north woods of the Idaho panhandle. He and his three friends - Billy Bob Frank, Kissy Marden, and Upton Blair - had lived there since Sleepy Joe Biden had stolen the election from their man in 2020, and since then had plotted and planned and conspired to do whatever they could to see that the faux president would never stay in the Oval Office. </p><p>Henry was a Westerner, born and raised in Livingston, Montana, an old railroad town turned quiche and post office box income. His father had worked as a telephone lineman and part time on the cattle cars when the Union Pacific needed extra help. His mother, originally from Wyoming had come to Montana with Henry's father whom she had met at a Cody rodeo. </p><p>Henry had worked since the age of eight when he swept out the barber shop on Saturday mornings when the cowboys came in to get a trim. Life was hard, especially in winter when it was hard to heat their railroad flat by the tracks; but he never resented it, and in fact felt it made him the tough hombre that he was now.</p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEivBoF7fZlUa4VaAtBOccjSQ0WU0FUEy3xVaoVShjjClZ6Utqhs6UGySyo6Ie3Psln2dAR97ygqoIouk0TYmIWKT1IAJ4enyU31ZB4pList7LCmemI-ANIxWMwdaW58cd2967rBMU9qWrTZowH-efXXn7Q_yguqlLhGvdfFA5q52Up8_BJ4XM7iB-gIfL2S" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="771" data-original-width="674" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEivBoF7fZlUa4VaAtBOccjSQ0WU0FUEy3xVaoVShjjClZ6Utqhs6UGySyo6Ie3Psln2dAR97ygqoIouk0TYmIWKT1IAJ4enyU31ZB4pList7LCmemI-ANIxWMwdaW58cd2967rBMU9qWrTZowH-efXXn7Q_yguqlLhGvdfFA5q52Up8_BJ4XM7iB-gIfL2S" width="210" /></a></p><p>Billy Bob was a Georgia cracker and proud of it, native of the backwoods hill country, Southern as shit, Confederate to his boot tops, mad as a bit cougar at the Washington fools who had been after him and his family since the War. His father was a moonshiner who had upped the ante and got into crystal meth, got busted in Macon, spent eight years at the federal pen at Baldwin, and got right back into business, this time armed and ready. </p><p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgfaTqcMG5GUn6FUFkfI9q-8-jyZJ0pONaavg3qOLeMiHX114ug322unXNfJGa1YQ9FsKuRr9zAdlL_TLPLOHKj_euIgtEjxwVzx_rJmmSHJYKfEhFEQmxjuVI3YcpYcVv-vNemC0qzSvIXhfxmbbJmae-3UAF7sfGOwnJCxKhAIOz0tVGlPXP3-vcW8Kgq" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="492" data-original-width="829" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgfaTqcMG5GUn6FUFkfI9q-8-jyZJ0pONaavg3qOLeMiHX114ug322unXNfJGa1YQ9FsKuRr9zAdlL_TLPLOHKj_euIgtEjxwVzx_rJmmSHJYKfEhFEQmxjuVI3YcpYcVv-vNemC0qzSvIXhfxmbbJmae-3UAF7sfGOwnJCxKhAIOz0tVGlPXP3-vcW8Kgq" width="320" /></a> <br /></p><p>Kissy was a groom on a Central Florida horse ranch owned by his uncle. The uncle had done two tours in Nam, came back completely fucked up, took his army pension and disability and put a thousand down for three horses and five acres in Ocala. Kissy had been on his own since his own father had been killed in Khe Sanh and his mother ended up in West Texas with a trucker. Ever since the government repossessed the ranch and evicted his uncle, the stink of horses, old leather, and rat poison were the only things he remembered - that and a visceral hatred for Washington. </p><p>Upton Blair was the son of itinerant street preachers who had moved from North Carolina to Philadelphia with the notion of converting the North Philly slums into havens of God; but after beatings, robberies, and years of insult, they returned home to piece work, tarpaper shacks, and chicken feed. </p><p>The four of them just happened on each other at Pete's Bar in Coeur d'Alene, broke, drinking cheap beer and looking for the shit, but it was an alliance made in heaven. Four rejects with nothing to lose and an abiding hatred for the government that had wronged them all independently decided to migrate north. </p><p>Trump was their man, their hero, their Achilles, their surrogate who would not only drain the swamp but build a bastion of righteousness against the socialist bottom-dwellers who had spawned and bred there; and here he was, robbed of a second term and determined to get his job back and save America from the buggering fools trying to take it over, and needed all the support he could get to make America Great Again.</p><p> . <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgYiNKe0PCjvEwMgihkO-tYTewJT61YkxvZ1IAWdw0p_IGH3K6zq4-hUS2e2rXzLUPQPKJ1xKUiyH3eWOb1NeD2kq7dslnU_HmPOfo6qGIvYFEmp4rTz9KvSGgJzhGuW-PngyXwxS01MCE0RkNx1fGwjeRDtB0g-dAu5QCjJEjX_5kzdtq03J0V6vXb1zvM" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgYiNKe0PCjvEwMgihkO-tYTewJT61YkxvZ1IAWdw0p_IGH3K6zq4-hUS2e2rXzLUPQPKJ1xKUiyH3eWOb1NeD2kq7dslnU_HmPOfo6qGIvYFEmp4rTz9KvSGgJzhGuW-PngyXwxS01MCE0RkNx1fGwjeRDtB0g-dAu5QCjJEjX_5kzdtq03J0V6vXb1zvM" width="240" /></a></p><p>Henry had heard of some kind of march on Washington, and without a second thought decided to go. They would ride the rails, cadge their way East on big rigs with American flags, and come hell or high water make it to the so-called Capital. Money was no object because they had none, but the Deep State was a community, and would take care of its own. </p><p>It was a thing of passion, this ride East, and the first time they had felt anything like eagerness, let alone hope; but there it was, picking up steam and comrades every hundred miles, men as angry as they were scuttling about, picked on, forgotten, and resented their whole lives. They were the true bottom of America. Forget the inner city. That was a place of order, and purpose. Women, dope, bling, and power; and the communists in Washington gave tax dollars to <i>them</i>? while Henry and his buddies had gotten nothing but swill and leavings, shit from straw bosses, and beatings from railroad bulls. If there was a disenfranchised, beset upon, relegated group of Americans, it was them.</p><p>Henry, his crewe, and the pick ups from Boise eastward had no idea about the workings of government, the tripartite division of powers, the Constitution, or the machinery of government. They knew nothing about interest rates, debt ceilings, or the stock market. They had no clue about enterprise, start-ups, or the working of the economy. They were headed to Washington with nothing but a rabid, inchoate anger in their heads. A colony of losers, a nation of incoherent, unfortunate semi-beings.</p><p>Like the doped-up child soldiers of Sierra Leone, they dressed in fright wigs, crinoline, and stockings and added Viking helmets, Irish shillelaghs, and Vatican robes. They had raided dumpsters and trash heaps and found wild treasures, and by the time they had reached Pennsylvania Avenue they were decked out in discards from tattoo parlors, brothels, dance halls, and pawn shops. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGGWe6KDYDxT9tzy_j5PKv2ve_dTAHzsRJgWJRNWcS3X8-VeR49tYqXf636SJid8fgds5XBRV-Drgg8KOSI3qkGKSrNQstrX9NNK6kSKP1mA6pF8h_ceVidMtu27mh8APvv4JtV5cM6MDXUYMg4T0IPxi-c1O3CK4OiBzAUMdQ4H9s5ScEl9QXtN4fEvz6/s512/YOUNG%20AFRICAN%20FIGHTER.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="327" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGGWe6KDYDxT9tzy_j5PKv2ve_dTAHzsRJgWJRNWcS3X8-VeR49tYqXf636SJid8fgds5XBRV-Drgg8KOSI3qkGKSrNQstrX9NNK6kSKP1mA6pF8h_ceVidMtu27mh8APvv4JtV5cM6MDXUYMg4T0IPxi-c1O3CK4OiBzAUMdQ4H9s5ScEl9QXtN4fEvz6/s320/YOUNG%20AFRICAN%20FIGHTER.jpg" width="204" /></a></p><p>The rest is history. This wild bunch of crazies marched on the Capitol in their wigs, Viking horns, clown suits, and Frankenstein masks and they called it insurrection. Insurrection? Revolution? Where had 'they' been hiding? Where were they when Jonas Savimbi took on the Angolan military, or when the Right Wing death squads in El Salvador disemboweled the entrenched bureaucracy, or when the Sandinistas ran amok, or when one African tribe after another slaughtered each other? 'They' - the whole lot of government shills and do-good wannabees who had never been outside the Capitol or their safe districts - ran at the first sign of a crowd. </p><p>Henry, Billy Bob, Kissy, and Upton were in the middle ranks of the clown parade on the Capitol on January 6th. They got pushed to the curb by Alabama hillbillies with dildo clubs, lost in the shuffle of ten-gallon hatted bullies from Abilene, and kicked aside by white hoodlums from Gaithersburg. They had done their bit, the Capitol was a long way off, and there was still no money to be had. </p><p>By the time the affair was over, and the campus police had jackbooted their way into the crowd and locked up the front runners, Henry and his crewe were on their way back to Idaho; but their interest in returning there was nil. They had shot their wad and wanted to fish someplace nice and quiet, maybe have a girl and some home cooking. Someplace flat. </p><p>And so it was that they stopped in Bolivar, Ohio, made a go of farm life and as far as anyone knew, had given up politics altogether. </p>Ron Parlatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11377926161809667359noreply@blogger.com0