The Leilani Reforms

I am actually very conservative. As far back as I can remember I identified with authority. I liked structure. The authority I knew as a child didn't constrain me it gave me the freedom to live openly and aggressively in my childhood world without horrible results. 

Not that there weren't problems, I should say, just no loss of limb. The benign structures of my family and milieu were good for me because I was incautious. Now, I didn't like the Beatles. How's that for conservative? I was disappointed in the girls who liked them. 

And the changes of Vatican II befuddled me. Why would anyone give up Latin and Gregorian Chant for a lot of instantly trite ritual and insipid, overly sentimental singing? Where was the respect? It all seemed rash to me and I was confused by the lack of continuity.

Art museums and banks and similar places impressed me, as cumulative results of something good, some frozen or stockpiled place and product of intelligent or creative or cooperative endeavor. My elementary school got a groovy nun somewhere in there, Sister Leilani. 

She had a vision. The students would work in little groups. It was all that mattered. Formal classroom instruction was considered passé. Other adults came to our school to see us sitting at tables in our beloved little groups. I, for one, didn't learn anything and played around.

The little groups were an end in themselves. Behold: the high school I had revered and looked forward to attending was Leilani-land on crack. In some classes, notably Freshman Algebra, they stopped teaching entirely in an attempt to get us to work at our own rate.

That was the new catch-phrase and buzz. My rate was zero. Stationary. They wouldn't fail you so I worked into the summer to complete the required units. Sophomore year I got into a structured geometry class for the losers who couldn't handle the new freedom.

I got a 99%. At registration, however, for my junior-year classes they were all closed. I left the scene feeling sick and transferred to the well-structured, forced-integrated, riot-zone public school in whose district I lived. I learned more there but we had several deaths.

Now you would suppose from this that I would condemn newfangled everything and love the Catholic fascists at Fox News but, no. I learned how dependent we are on circumstances and how determined our fortunes are by luck, so I want better circumstances for everyone.

That's exactly what the Fox News people don't want.

Depressed Mode

Oh, I'm so depressed. Donald Trump is running for president. Hillary will run against him. It's so depressing. Is this the best we can do?

Strangers in Paradise

It's our kismet. But we are strangers in our own paradise. It's not that we are new to it. Rather, we have been too lucky for too long. 

Woe to those who take their good fortune for granted. They are destined to lose it. We have presumed on our good fortune.

We are about to lose it because of selfishness and stupidity. Woe to us. 

Post Martini

Talking about movies recently with someone I remembered how a friend of mine had once gone on a Martini bender after watching The Thin Man.

Myrna Loy and William Powell made Martini-drinking look morally good. And enjoyable. Then I had to admit I'd never had a Martini, which seems ridiculous. 

My parents loved them. I don't like resolutions and bucket-lists but one of these days I am going to have me a Martini, I hope without an ensuing bender.

However, if you don't hear from me for a few days please check in. Meanwhile, Asta, fetch! Fetch me a Martini! Good boy! 

It Will be Ugly

For most of his life my father was lucky. He scrounged his way through college in the '30's, working constantly. He said he couldn't comprehend how some of his classmates didn't have to work.

He was in ROTC, naturally--anything to get by. He worked for a bookie. He worked at Frigidaire on a crosscut saw when refrigerators were wooden iceboxes with compressors stuck on top.

Graduating in '39 he was already in the army when the war started, in ordnance, having requested a transfer there because it made more sense for an engineer than the infantry, or so he said. 

Anyway, he was stationed at a bomb depot near Gallup, New Mexico, somewhat in charge of operations. He instituted games and competitions for the Navajo workers and productivity was high.

Towards the end of the war, probably around or after V-E Day, he was transferred to a depot near Tooele, Utah, where they were working 24/7, with no holidays, and getting further behind. 

There was a set of buildings and the rail-yard. The guys worked back and forth between them, with two short breaks and a longer one in the middle of their shift. My father suggested a deal.

If they worked six hours nonstop at the tracks and very hard he would pay them for eight. And he would give them a weekend off if they caught up. Productivity soared and they caught up. 

Woohoo! The workers loved it. The work went by quickly. Some got second jobs. My father had stumbled into something he could do well. That was his luck. He ended the war a lieutenant-colonel.

So this was his thing, for the rest of his life, to try to create productivity out of nowhere through empathetic intelligence and cooperation in the workplace. This is, on average, the story of America.

That and being awash in natural resources. On balance we have been practical people and committed to a better society for everyone. But now we are doing the reverse of what my father did.

We are replacing good systems with bad and ensuring that everyone loses. Those responsible reject the idea of a "society," a common entity, entirely and rationalize their selfishness as individualism.

They can get away with their wasteful ways only because earlier generations of Americans have lived better lives than the new guys are able, more responsible and productive and fair. There's a lag.

Our society is not a reflection of what we are, pigs and idiots, but a decent thing only because of the inheritance we now burn through. When the reality catches up with us it is going to be ugly.

The Blue Tent

Hillary has plenty of women in her tent but otherwise she has problems. And white woman are famously fond of Republicans so even that isn't as predictably good as it seems.

Fastidiousness is Hillary's most notable trait. It's unappealing. Bill has problems staying on the rails so he married a mistress his own age. Ideally she would have been older.

She is older at heart. Parachute Hillary into another generation and she's pro-prohibition. She was born to keep a lid on things, firstly herself or maybe Bill. And now us.

Good luck with Bill. He wants to enjoy himself. As do we. Hillary should embrace her inner Carrie Nation. It's what she is. She has a worthy cause, stopping America's self-destruction.

We could use someone like Hillary to get us through our national adolescence in one piece. But be careful with the hatchets, Hillary. Don't bring the tent down on our heads.

No Witnesses

Nobody wants to screw up, by their own standards, but the witnessing is worse than the mess-up itself. Think of how much easier it is to move on if there are no witnesses. 

I remember my entire adolescence with shame. I felt like a ball put into play in the wrong place, utterly passive and wondering when it would end, the game or my role in it.

Individualism has its limits. The fight for individual rights arose in a context of oppressive social structures but humane structures are necessary to guarantee personal freedom.

Compassionate societies allow people to grow and develop with the humiliations worked through and left behind but too much or too little accountability causes problems. 

My long unpracticed Catholicism comes to mind. Confession, the sacrament, for all of its strangeness embodies the balance. You acknowledge your failings and then move on.

You move on with the intention of doing better. Admitting the failing is critical but so is getting past it. If God is willing to forgive us who are we not to forgive ourselves.

The Portable Redneck Shithole of Despair

There's something you have to understand about Southerners and life in general in the Southern United States. There is a stigma attached to working and to being intelligent and productive.

Work is for losers and reason is dangerous because it's a threat to an insane, bigoted social system. I ran into a familiar redneck the other day and realized that everything he touches turns to shit.

He's a portable shithole of despair. And that show has gone on the road. The tea-party rednecks are running things in Washington, making it a pit of despair, and bringing that mess to all of us.

Our "So What?" Moment

Hillary has won the primary battle. So what? What Hillary represents is more of the same and we need anything but. She's a woman. Great but who cares.

There are more important issues at play, such as the survival of our relatively rational, humane, democratic institutions. All of that is under attack.

The outcome is uncertain. It's time for Hillary to man up. Okay, it's a figure of speech but the person doing it the best, Elizabeth Warren, is a woman as well.

Hillary, it isn't all about you. Do the fucking job.

Pat McCrory is a Pussy

North Carolina's Pat McCrory is one big pussy. His state is the kowtow capital of the country. Such a degree of pussydom ought to be acknowledged. 

Someday they'll make a statue of him on his knees, or writhing around on the ground as he's doing now trying to placate two evil forces, racism and greed.

I hope he has a bathroom of his own. The men's isn't a good fit. Let's pass a bill to that effect, that he can only use the bathroom marked for pussies.

After all, Pat and his comrades cracked the door on all of that, the bathroom sectarianism. Instead of house-to-house conflict it will be stall-to-stall. 

We will contest every urinal and commode. This is more in the way of dignified government from the side on the right.

Whew!

Against my expectation I think I figured out what's up with Trump. You know how it's possible to make a show about making a show? Maybe a movie, let's say?

Donald is this in relation to running a country. He's not entertaining he's entertainment. It has nothing to do with running a country. Whew, I'm glad we figured that out!

It was making me a little nuts thinking there was a connection to reality. We wouldn't actually elect him any more than we would hire an actor for the job, right?

Uh-oh.

Room Available

It's easy to call Trump vacuous but it isn't very helpful. He's clearly full of something. He's devoid of the things normally considered presidential but lots of people want him.

They want whatever he's full of. Which is what? We better figure it out. It's now us. While we're at it let's consider what he's missing, like integrity, because we're missing it too.

An Argument for the Existence of George Bush, with Apologies to Everyone

George Bush was more terrible for his position and circumstances than anyone could have conceived of as having been possible, so it's natural to want to think that it didn't happen or that it wasn't so incredibly bad.

But the inconceivable terribleness argues against its being imagined or exaggerated and for its having occurred. People, we couldn't have thought up this kind of tragic failure, so it's an unlikely invention. Yes, by God.

It really happened and there are good reasons why those who wanted him in office now backpedal and rewrite and rationalize. The distance between the demands of the office and the uselessness of the man was too great.

Springtime for Hitler and Germany

A natural song and dance number for Donald. Enjoy.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmYIo7bcUw

Between Trump and a Hard Place

Anyone who thinks Hillary isn't as big a narcissist as Trump isn't paying attention. She has a different style but the ambition comes from the same wellspring of selfishness and vanity.

Shill Game

I'm a liberal Democrat and I find myself thinking about things like honor. It sounds strange and Middle Eastern or Medieval, with hints of duels and dependent women. 

So let's call it integrity: the idea that if someone has a job, for example, they are renting out bodies and brains, parts of themselves not including their souls.

But it's a buyer's market for souls these days. People give them away. And those most eager to unload their souls call themselves true believers and conservatives.

They are nothing but shills for the evil interests of money and power. They have no honor or integrity. I will duel with them, that's what I will do. I'll call them on it.

Choose your weapons, you cowards! Better yet, at my insistence and for my protection, we'll do paintball guns at thirty paces. I'll plaster their asses with color.