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First Sentences

“When Sarah and Maynard Clover brought their seventh child into the world on September 12, 1896, they were evidently at a loss for a name.” Melissa L. Sevigny, Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon.

“It was hot. When Alice and Emma, the two white ducks, got tired of diving and swimming about the pond, they climbed out on the bank and looked over toward the house where Mr. Bean, the farmer, lived, and: ‘Oh!’ said Emma, ‘the house looks as if it was melting.’” Walter R. Brooks, Freddy the Detective.

“The free individual has long dominated the American political imagination.” Alex Zakaras, The Roots of American Individualism: Political Myth in the Age of Jackson.

“Shrill sounds split the air.” Susan Moore Jordan, The Case of the ‘Carousel’ Killer.

“People love dead Jews. Living Jews, not so much.” Dara Horn, People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present.

“I bet you didn’t know that bleach masks the smell of blood.” Oyinkan Braithwaite, My Sister, The Serial Killer.

“Samuel Adams delivered what may count as the most remarkable second act in American life.” Stacy Schiff, The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams.

“The Titans were gone.” Jane Gardam, Last Friends.

“The connections between mathematics and poetry are profound.” Sarah Hart, Once Upon a Prime: The Wondrous Connection Between Mathematics and Literature.

“Ask any Negro. They’ll tell you: a woman does not play a saxophone.” Charlotte Carter, Rhode Island Red.

“It was one of the early days of the third millennium after Christ.” Mustafa Akyol, The Islamic Jesus: How the Kings of the Jews Became a Prophet of the Muslims.

“Let me tell you about desert people.” Ruchika Tomar, A Prayer for Travelers.

“In the late spring of 1912, the graceful yacht Enchantress put out to sea from rainy Genoa for a Mediterranean pleasure cruise—a carefree cruise without itinerary or time-schedule.” David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East.

“‘Hell is empty, Armand,’ said Stephen Horowitz.” Louse Penny, All the Devils are Here.

“We live in the age of disinformation.” Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer, Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past.

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Snippets

I stopped at the roadside popup market to buy some vegan chili. It comes frozen. I like it, and I like having it in the freezer for a quick dinner when I don’t have the inclination to do my own cooking. I bought four. They are $8 a piece. Should I have been appalled or surprised when the guy who served me got a calculator to decide what I owed?

“In real life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra.” Fran Lebowitz.

We are considering selling our house and moving into a condo, but not surprisingly, the ones that seem desirable always cost a little more than we can afford. I am reminded of the wise words: “Thrift is a wonderful virtue—especially in an ancestor.”

The 120-year-old house in the country often needs work, but I have learned that at this time of year, I have to be tolerant of our workmen. They do a good job, but right now they can be hard to get. It is hunting season, or should I say seasons. There is regular deer season, bow-and-arrow deer season, black powder deer season, turkey season, duck season, goose season, bear season. . . . And on the first days of these seasons, as with first day of the trout season in the spring, the workmen are out hunting, or fishing, not working at my house. But a remember what I heard years ago, “If God didn’t want man to hunt, he wouldn’t have given us plaid flannel shirts.”

Did I miss them? I have not heard those who rightfully complain about America’s mass incarceration and long prison sentences deriding the twenty-two-year sentence given the Proud Boys leader.

A wise person said: “An excellent time to win freedom by means of good behavior is before you go to jail.”

I don’t know of any legislative accomplishments of Jim Jordan, Congressman from Ohio and Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, even though legislative accomplishments are supposed to be the reason why people go to Congress in the first place. Instead, Jordan, who as Lillian Hellman said about Norma Shearer, has “a face unclouded by thought,” seeks to block or discredit criminal and other investigations into Donald Trump’s activities. The FBI, the Justice Department, state law enforcement officials are partisan hacks, at least when they do things Jordan does not like. In The Devil & Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession David Grann describes another Ohio Congressman a generation ago who, from the floor of the House where his statements could not be used in a defamation trial, said, “Mr. Speaker, I have evidence that certain F.B.I. agents in Youngstown, Ohio, have violated the RICO statute and stole large sums of cash.” The speaker was James Traficant who was later convicted of ten felony counts, including racketeering and taking bribes. Also what comes to mind are the words of the FBI agent in charge of the Traficant investigation: “Every time we charge another public official, the media presents it as another black eye for the community. I’d prefer if they portray it to the community as another step in cleansing ourselves.” The agent concluded, “As long as they choose to put people in office who are corrupt, nothing will ever change.”

“Man is the only animal that laughs. He is the only animal that has a House of Representatives.”

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Educational Disconnect

Grade schools and high schools are back in session, but I sometimes wonder why. I hear again and again that our schools are a failure, so why send kids there? On the one hand, the schools do not teach. On the other hand, they teach the wrong stuff. Of course, this is a disconnect. If the schools are not good at teaching, it does not make much sense to get exercised over their curriculum. This, of course, is a bit like what Woody Allen said about a resort: The food is awful. And the portions are so small.

That many think that our schools fail our kids was confirmed by a recent Gallup poll on education. The polling organization asked how satisfied the polling participants were with the quality of education students received in grades K-12. The responses: 9% are satisfied; 33% are somewhat satisfied; 32% are somewhat dissatisfied; 23% are completely dissatisfied; and 2% had no opinion. In other words, the total of those indicating a dissatisfaction with the present American education were in a distinct majority, outnumbering the satisfied cohort by fourteen percentage points.

This question was about all K-12 schools. The results were even more depressing when respondents were asked about the quality of the education in public schools: 9% are very satisfied; 20% are somewhat satisfied; 28% are somewhat dissatisfied; and 40% are very dissatisfied. While the satisfied/dissatisfied split for all schools is about the same now as it was a decade ago, that split has widened for the public schools. Now 68% fall into the dissatisfied camp while in 2013 56% did.

So, K-12 education generally in this country sucks, and public education sucks even bigger time, or at least that is what the country thinks as indicated by the Gallup poll. But wait: There is more information.

The poll respondents were asked if they had a child in school, and what grade their oldest child was in. The responses indicated that 33% had their oldest child in K-5, 21% had the oldest child in grades six through eight, 44% had the oldest child in high school, with 2% not responding to the question. Overwhelmingly, these children were in public schools—82%, with 9% in private schools; 1% in parochial schools; 3% in charter schools; and with 5% home schooled.

Here comes the shocker: The poll participants were asked about the quality of the education their oldest child was getting. The responses: 32% are completely satisfied; 48% somewhat satisfied; 14% somewhat dissatisfied; 6% completely dissatisfied. The satisfaction group, now at 70%, was even a bit higher than in 2013 when the satisfied cohort was 67%.

So, there is a big disconnect between the general populace’s perception of our education and those with children in our schools. Over two-thirds of the parents were in the satisfied group, while only 42% of the general population fell on the satisfied line. I have been trying to figure out why this split exists, but I don’t have answers. I could give speculations but that is all they would be.

I was not a participant in this poll, and I don’t know how I would have responded. I do know some K-12 teachers, whom I respect, but I have no firsthand knowledge of the K-12 educational system. It has been a lifetime since I graduated from high school, and a quarter century since my son did. Whatever I think I know about our education comes from news stories, politicians, headline-seeking parents, and pundits (also seeking attention), and this is mostly negative. But I find it striking that those who have important contact with the system—parents with kids in school—report satisfaction with the quality of the education being delivered.

Can somebody explain this to me?

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Thoughts on Labor Day

“Labor Day symbolizes our determination to achieve an economic freedom for the average man which will give his political freedom reality.” Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Erik Loomis writes in A History of America in Ten Strikes (2018): “Labor Day was created as a conservative holiday so that American workers would not celebrate the radical international workers’ holiday May Day.”

“The employer generally gets the employees he deserves.” Sir Walter Gilbey.

“Under a capitalist society such as that of the United States, employers profit by working their employees as hard as they can for as many hours as possible and for as little pay as they can get away with.” Erik Loomis.

A wise person said, “The world’s work must be done by some of us. We can’t all be politicians, pundits, and financiers.”

“I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.” Jerome K. Jerome.

“We have too many people who live without working, and we have altogether too many who work without living.”

“We don’t teach class conflict in our public schools. Textbooks have little material about workers.” Erik Loomis.

Apparently, Henry Ford never worked on one of his assembly lines doing a repetitive task hour after hour, day after day, year after year, for Ford said, “Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.”

“To sneer at another man’s work is the special privilege of little minds.”

“If a laborer were to dream for twelve hours every night that he was a king, I believe he would be almost as happy as a king who should dream twelve hours every night that he was a laborer.” Blaise Pascal.

In 1919, the average work week in dangerous conditions for steelworkers was 68.7 hours.

“To do great work a man must be very idle as well as very industrious.” Samuel Butler.

“It’s always been and always will be the same in the world: the horse does the work and the coachman is tipped.” Anonymous.

“We work not only to produce but to give value to time.” Eugène Delacroix

The 1963 March on Washington, famous for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, was the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Among other things, it advocated for a $2-an-hour minimum wage (about $20 in today’s money) and expansion of the Fair Labor Standards Act to agricultural workers. When King was assassinated, he was in Memphis to support a union strike.

Adam Cohen reports in Supreme Inequality: The Supreme Court’s Fifty-Year Battle for a More Unjust America (2020) that in a recent election cycle, political action committees supporting business interests outspent PACs aligned with labor 16 to 1.

“With all their faults, trade-unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that have ever existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty, for education, for the betterment of the race, for the developing of character in man, than any other association of men.” Clarence S. Darrow.

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Snippets

I have watched HGTV shows where a couple are looking to buy a house. We learn what the husband desires. We learn what the wife wants. There are conflicts in these wishes. We watch them visit homes for sale, and, of course, the husband likes one house and the wife another. At the end of the show is “the big reveal” where we learn which house was selected, which almost invariably is the one the wife preferred. I am not surprised by this dynamic, but I have been surprised by the fact that even though many of these couples have children, neither husband nor wife ever asks about schools. I expect that any concerned parent would ask how far away is the school. How would the kids get there? How would they get home from afterschool activities? How does the quality of the schools vary from one place to another? These couples ask none of that. Is this another piece of evidence that indicates the decline of America?

“Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don’t.”  Pete Seeger.

I liked a line in the Royal Shakespeare Company production of Wolf Hall, which I saw quite some time ago. A character explained why Thomas More was so hard to understand: “Everything he learned growing up, he still believes.”

Polls galore. Some may be meaningful, but I don’t understand the point of asking, “Do you think the country is headed in the right or wrong direction?”. The results routinely proclaim that many more people think the country is headed in the wrong direction than the right one. The direction question is so open-ended that I can’t imagine that the poll results tell us very much. I, for example, think that our country is tugged in the wrong direction when it pays college football coaches $10 million a year. You might think we are not headed correctly because more people report they have no religion. She might not like that the country is too woke. He might think the price of a six-pack is too high. Others might be sad to see that too much of the country denounces trans people. And so on and so on. What is the point to asking about whether the country is heading in the right direction?

State officials ordered Floridians to evacuate their homes in advance of a hurricane. I expected big-name conservatives to let out the Big Government cry or perhaps even the Socialist denunciation when people are ordered from their homes. That has not happened. Why not?

At that Republican get-together, Mike Pence labeled another attendee a “rookie” whome we should not elect. He said this without any irony I could detect, and yet he was on the ticket in 2016 with what almost anyone would label a rookie.

“Either heaven or hell will have continuous background music. Which one you think it will be tells a lot about you.” Bill Vaughan.

People talk about the likelihood that Donald Trump will go to jail. I hope he does get imprisoned. Wouldn’t it be great that while there, he converts to Islam?

“I have no use for lawyers,/That I have I won’t pretend,/I admit, though, one comes in handy/ When a felon needs a friend.”

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A Random Act

I took a one-day trip from the Pennsylvania summer home back to NYC for a—oh, this is a big surprise at my age—a doctor’s appointment. I need a knee replacement of my human left knee. My right knee was replaced eight years ago. After x-rays and a chat with the surgeon, a time was arranged for the procedure that fit my schedule. All went as well as I could have hoped for from this visit.

I then drove back to the country and decided to stop at Marshall’s, a farmers’ market about four miles off the highway forty minutes from the summer home. The goal was to buy a fried green tomato mix that the spouse loves. The stand was stocked up on Original Whistle Stop Recipes Brand Fried Green Tomato Batter Mix, which is also “Great for Eggplant, Onion Rings, Zucchini, Squash, and More!”. I bought enough to last for quite a few green tomatoes.

Although the day had gone well, I still felt stressed from the doctor’s appointment. You might think having had one knee replaced, I would have less anxiety this time around, but I feel as I did on my second marathon. I did not know what to expect before the first marathon. It was a new experience, and I was curious about it. However, I learned from that first marathon how hard the run was. Before the second marathon, I now had experience to tell me that the race was going to be especially arduous if I was to meet my goal of finishing in fewer than three hours. I was much more nervous before my second marathon than I was before the first.

So. I have gone through one knee replacement, and I remember the post-operative and rehabilitative pain, discomfort, and exhaustion. I am more nervous about the second replacement than the first, and on my drive to Pennsylvania, although I tried to distract myself with old rock ‘n roll, my mind kept returning to how hard it would be getting into a car to go home from the hospital and where to have the physical therapy and how to avoid the constipation from opioids. These thoughts led me to conclude that I was entitled to a little self-indulgence. I bought a ring baloney made for Marshall’s market, a purchase I had made only once before. However, ring baloney brings back a pleasant childhood memory when our local butcher took me into his smokehouse and cut me a piece of his just-smoked baloney. I still remember its warmth and juiciness and the smokey smell all around.

I should have been satisfied with that self-indulgence. The day had not been that stressful, but it was early afternoon, and I had not had lunch. I decided to indulge further at Humpty Junior’s, a short drive from the farmers’ market. With its red and white vinyl booths, black and white checkerboard floor, and white tables, it looks to be a throwback to an earlier era, which appeals to me. Think “Happy Days” but not as big as Arnold’s and without the jukebox. Although the sign in quaint typography out front proclaims, “Burgers, Steaks, Shakes, Dogs, Fries, Ice Cream & More” and another sign says, “Voted the Best Burger in Warren County by NJ. Com: True Jersey,” to me this is a place to get a milkshake. 

I was contemplating the board listing their more than fifty milkshakes, when I heard a young man who had been sitting in the booth by the door. “Excuse me,” he said, and then added the “Sir” we aged folk sometimes get. He continued, “May I pay for whatever you are going to order?” Not what I had expected, and I was flummoxed. I asked why, and he said he just wanted to. My usual mode of dress is not fancy, but I did not think that I looked homeless or destitute. I replied that I probably had more money than he did, but he just smiled as did the mother and daughter in the booth he had just vacated.  Perhaps I intuited the words of Sophocles: “One who knows how to show and to accept kindness/ will be a friend better than any possession.” Perhaps because I did not want to disappoint the hopeful looks the three smiles showed, but probably just because I was curious, I said, “Sure.”

He stuck out his hand and asked my name and then said he was John. After I inquired, he said that he lived nearby and worked for his church, one of those with “Bible” in its name. I asked what shake I should order. He asked what flavors I liked, and I said, “No, what would you order?” He said a Motor Oil, which he allowed had a funny name but was chocolatey with bits of Oreo. I gave that order to the young woman behind the counter. She asked, “Large or small.” He immediately said, “Large.” I knew this was more self-indulgence than I needed, but I demurred.*

After getting the drink, I stopped at his booth and found out the mother and daughter were from Pittsburgh, and they were visiting friends, gesturing towards John. I asked if they met through church activities, and the mother said no. She had watched John’s mother on YouTube. “She is a great speaker.” The girl told me that she was entering her senior year of homeschooling. I asked, “If your mother allows you to graduate, what do you plan to do?” “Interior design.” “Do you plan to study somewhere for it, or plan to get a job in the field?” “I hope to get an internship and take courses online.” The mother said she was a homemaker while homeschooling four children. The oldest had finished two years ago and now works for Panera. John, too, had been homeschooled and did not mention any higher education hopes. After a few minutes more chatting, I went on my way with my paid-for Motor Oil milkshake.

I am in my eighth decade, and this was a new experience, and unlike many new experiences these days, a pleasant one. However, the shake did dribble down on to my clean tee shirt as I drove, and with my little will power overwhelmed, I drank it all. I got back to my summer home looking a mess and with a bloated belly.

A good experience, but I was sorry that I did not ask how to watch a video of John’s mother and that I did not give them a card so that they might read this blog.

* The spouse had a similar experience a few years ago when, traveling back alone to NYC on Mother’s Day, she stopped at a diner for lunch. The diner was very crowded, full of families celebrating Mom. Having finished her grilled cheese sandwich and chicken noodle soup, she went to pay the bill but was told that a patron had already paid! Had they found her forlorn — a handicapped woman alone on Mother’s Day? Sometimes people are just nice.

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First Sentences

“I must confess that I did not witness the ship strike the rocks or the crew tie up the captain.” David Grann, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder.

“It was one of those Tuesday afternoons in summer when you wonder if the earth has stopped revolving.” Benjamin Black (John Banville), The Black-Eyed Blonde: A Phillip Marlowe Novel.

“I found Gotham City one night when I was about seven years old.” Maya Phillips, Nerd: Adventures in Fandom from the Universe to the Multiverse.

“It started with a phone call, deceptively simple and easy to ignore.” Megan Miranda, All the Missing Girls.

“History books will teach that the Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional right to abortion on June 24, 2022.” Stephen Vladeck, The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic.

“Two young women climbed a narrow set of stairs toward the sound of laughter and music, Florence Darrow in front, dragged her hand along the blood-red walls.” Alexandra Andrews, Who Is Maud Dixon?

“The number lay there, brazen, taunting me from the tatty piece of paper that sat neatly on the ancient oak table: zero.” Antonio Padilla, Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them: A Cosmic Quest from Zero to Infinity.

“’The thoughts of all present tonight,’ said Mr. Birley, ‘will naturally turn first to the great personal loss—the very personal loss—so recently suffered by the firm, by the legal profession and, if I may venture to say so without contradiction, by the British public.’” Michael Gilbert, Smallbone Deceased.

“On 20 July 1794 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe heaved himself into the saddle and rode from his house in the centre of Weimar to Jena, where he planned to attend a botanical meeting of the recently funded national historical society.” Andrea Wulf, Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of Self.

“O Mighty Caliph and Commander of the Faithful, I am humbled to be in the splendor of your presence; a man can hope for no greater blessing as long as he lives.” Ted Chiang, Exhalation.

“It’s hard to say exactly when PG&E Corporation began its fall.” Katherine Blunt, California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric—and What It Means for America’s Power Grid.

“Everyone who knew Benjamin Ovich, particularly those of us who knew him well enough to call him Benji, probably knew deep down that he was never the sort of person who would get a happy ending.” Fredrik Backman, The Winners.

“You learn to live with shame.” José Carlos Agüero, The Surrendered: Reflections by a Son of Shining Path.

“The Jebel es Zubleh is a mountain fifty miles and more in length, and so narrow that its tracery on the map gives it a likeness to a caterpillar crawling from the south to the north.” Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.

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Education and Tolerance and Discernment

“The highest result of education is tolerance.” Helen Keller.

“Education, properly understood, is that which teaches discernment.” Joseph Roux

Those accused of book bannings are often vilified, but maybe they just have bad public relations. Book banners often say that they are not banning books but only restricting them to appropriate ages. That seems noncontroversial. We can all agree that A Brief History of Time is not appropriate for second graders, at least not any I have ever known. But the parents searching bookshelves are not concerned with the difficulty of the text. Instead, no matter the ease of the prose, they seek to remove books that present certain ideas, observations, opinions, facts, or concepts. This, too, might be something all can agree upon or at least discuss. All topics are not appropriate for all ages. Perhaps we are only differing on the details: When is the suitable time to introduce certain ideas, observations, opinions, facts, and concepts?

However, that is not really what is going on. Those yanking books off shelves only remove books containing certain subjects — ones with ideas, observations, opinions, facts, and concepts that they do not agree with. These books primarily address nonheterosexual relationships and race. Apparently the subject matter touching on these issues is inappropriate no matter what the age of the student. Certain advanced placement courses in high school have been banned even though students taking such courses are mature enough to seek college credit. Indeed, some states have even limited the presentation of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) topics to college students. While these students are assumed to be fully adult, they are, apparently, not mature enough for such topics. Indeed, some states have gone even further and seek to limit these concepts being presented by corporations to their employees.

Even so, I may have something in common with those seeking to hide books. By their actions the censors indicate a belief in the power and significance of books. Why restrict access to a book if you don’t believe it can affect ideas and behavior, thoughts and actions? As an avid reader, I, too, want to believe in the importance and power of books.

But I suspect that the book restrictors act not just with a concern that students will learn “too early” about same sex couples, our history of slavery and continuing racial oppression. The book removers act out of a rigid worldview. There is right, and there is wrong. There is morality, and there is immorality. There is good, and there is evil. There is male, and there is female. The censors fear books because they can cause readers to question such inflexible categories. The censors do not want readers to conclude that the world is nuanced and complex.

This has made me think about Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi. This best seller, published in 2003, is about the author’s experiences during the Iranian revolution of 1979 and its aftermath. The book is interlaced with stories from a book group of seven women reading banned Western literary works led by Professor Nafisi.

Although she writes about works of fiction, what she says often applies to works of history and children’s books. Nafisi says about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, “You don’t read Gatsby to learn whether adultery is good or bad but to learn about how complicated issues such as adultery and fidelity and marriage are. A great novel heightens your senses and sensitivity to the complexities of life and of individuals, and prevents you from the self-righteousness that sees morality in fixed formulas about good and evil.” This, of course, is what some don’t want. Their rigid categories of right and wrong should not be questioned.

Perhaps most worrying for the censors is that books might lead to a sympathy and understanding of those whom the book removers despise and fear. Nafisi writes, “The respect for others, empathy, . . .is the quality that links Austen to Flaubert and James to Nabakov and Bellow.” Children with empathy are a threat. They may reject the rigidity of self-righteous adults. Nafisi writes, “This, I believe, is how the villain in modern fiction is born: a creature without compassion, without empathy.” Elsewhere she says, “Evil in Austen, as in most great fiction, lies in the inability to ‘see’ others, hence to empathize with them.”

The censors wish to stifle the natural curiosity of children, afraid of the possible empathetic results that could lead to questioning the censors’ moral authority. But, as Nafisi says in Reading Lolita, “Humbert [Humbert] was a villain because he lacked curiosity about other people and their lives, even about the person he loved most, Lolita. Humbert, like most dictators, was interested only in his own vision of other people.”

It is not really the specifics of the books that animates the censors’ actions. Instead, their fundamental concern is to prevent challenges to their rigid, authoritarian world view.

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Snippets

“But how aboutism” is rampant. Trump is indicted. And indicted again. And again and again. A constant response from the right: But how about the Biden family? But how about Joe Biden’s lies? But how about Joe Biden’s being on vacation? A response to the right’s how aboutism is, How about the Trump family? Questions are raised about Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. A response: How about Sonia Sotomayer’s book deal? And so on. Such how aboutism is just another way for us to talk past each other. Perhaps the how abouters address legitimate issues about Hunter Biden’s sleaze, but that says nothing about Donald Trump’s behavior. The concerns about the Trump family’s grifting are important, but it says nothing about the appropriateness of the behavior of the Biden family. We should address the important issues that confront us, not just try to deflect attention from them.

The liberal cable-news host was talking about the vacations and other things very, very rich people have given to Clarence Thomas. The host insinuated that if Thomas wanted to live like the extremely wealthy, he could do that if he left the Supreme Court for a position in a private law firm. Thomas, however, the host said, wants to retain his power, and so do some conservative richies. Thus, in what are extremely friendly gestures that almost none of us will ever encounter, Thomas has taken vacations regularly not on his dime, but on the tens of thousands, no, hundreds of thousands, of others’. What struck me, however, in this report was not only the slippery ethics of donor or donee, but also the host’s comment that Clarence Thomas gets only “a middle class, an upper middle class” salary as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. He makes $265,000 a year. The median household income in this country is about $70,000 per year. Clarence Thomas alone, even without considering what his wife Ginni Thomas procures,  makes more than 95% of what other households make. Please, let’s not call this middle class of any sort.

“Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.” Woody Allen

“Money really isn’t everything. If it was, what would we buy with it?” Tom Wilson

Did you ever wonder how the fool soon parted from his money got the money in the first place?

“When I was young, I used to think that wealth and power would bring me happiness. . . . I was right.” Gahan Wilson.

In the small-town bar, as I waited for my beer, a picture of Donald Trump came on the television. Without stopping to think, I said, “Trump is a horse’s ass.” The guy on the next stool socked me in the nose and stalked out. As I was stuffing paper napkins up my nostrils, I somewhat apologetically said to the bartender, “I should have realized that there could be Trump lovers in here.” The barkeep replied, “He’s not. He is a horse lover.”

“He was like a cock who thought that the sun had risen to hear him crow.” George Eliot.

A wise person said, “A windbag is a person who is hard of listening.”

Another wise person said, “The more you speak of yourself, the more you are likely to lie.”

“There is only one rule for being a good talker; learn to listen.” Christopher Morley.

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Ten Cartoons a Day

Ten cartoons a day. I was flabbergasted when I read that. I considered myself a bright person, but one with little creativity. Right after reading about ten cartoons a day, I paused and tried to dream up a cartoon. Nothing at all. I tried again two hours later. Zilch. In the afternoon I created nada. In the evening niente.

I could not come up with one idea for any sort of cartoon in a day, but Bill Mauldin said that while learning his craft, he forced himself to create at least ten new cartoons every day. That remarkable regime stuck in the recesses of my mind long after I had read about it in his bestselling book, The Brass Ring. However, it popped to the surface again when I recently saw a two-hour documentary about Bill Mauldin, If It’s Big, Hit It. The directors Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce were in attendance and said that their film had not yet found a distributor. They had bad timing, having finished the movie at the beginning of Covid. They explained further that few people today knew of Mauldin, and memories of World War II had faded.

Mauldin had gained fame for his World War II cartoons, meticulously drawn, featuring Willie and Joe, the unshaven, cigarette-dangling, front-line infantry dogfaces. First published in military newspapers, the cartoons were later syndicated in the United States. I knew from my reading that Mauldin was with the Army as it slogged north through Italy and was frequently at the front lines. And I knew that after the war, he was an editorial cartoonist for the St. Louis Post Dispatch and later for the Chicago Sun-Times. I had seen many of his cartoons before but saw them regularly in the Sun-Times when I lived in Chicago in the 1960s.

However, I learned much more from the documentary. I learned about a hardscrabble childhood in America’s southwest. He moved out of the house when barely a teenager; his cartooning began with a high school newspaper even though he did not graduate from that school. (He was given an honorary diploma many years later.) He enlisted in the National Guard before the attack on Pearl Harbor, at least in part because it was the only job he could find. The syndication of his WWII cartons made him a wealthy young man and a darling of the media. He had multiple marriages and had children from each of those unions. He drank too much and died of Alzheimer’s disease.

I did not know that the title of the film — “If it’s big, hit it” — was his own quote. It fit; His cartoons often lampooned and skewered the powerful. His World War II cartoons often satirized the brass, getting Mauldin in trouble with George S. Patton. (Mauldin’s work continued to run in the military papers because Patton’s boss, Dwight D. Eisenhower, maintained they were good for morale.) His satirization of the Bigs continued in civilian life; one of his post-war cartoons caused the FBI to open a file on Mauldin, under the frequently applied theory that if someone criticized the United States, he was communist inspired. He not only advocated hitting the big, he also, quite literally, got hit in return. When the police, instead of giving tickets, protected illegally double-parked cars of friends of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, Mauldin took pictures of the license plates. The cartoonist was rewarded with a fist to the nose, and photographs of his blood-smeared face ran in the papers.

The movie showed many of Mauldin’s cartoons. Some were classics that had burrowed into my memory, but others were new to me. Many of these were frightening; cartoons about racism, homophobia, suppression of rights, and other topics published a half-century ago could run unaltered today and be equally relevant and insightful. The United States has changed, but not as much as it should have.

I was impressed with Bill Mauldin before watching the movie, and even more so after the screening. Mauldin was unique, but he also fits into that category of creative people who amaze and mystify me. First there is the drive. Writers write; painters paint; and as Mauldin showed, cartoonists cartoon. They may desire and even achieve wealth and fame, but that is the byproduct of their creative urge. Ten cartoons a day. That came from a drive to be a cartoonist, not from a drive to be rich.

I understand that such creative drive exists, but as a non-creative person, I wish I better understood the source of creativity itself. How did Brian Wilson create “Pet Sounds” or Gabriel Garcia Marquez create One Hundred Years of Solitude? I know that creative people almost always work hard at honing their craft (ten cartoons a day), just as Usain Bolt spent much effort at perfecting his craft of running fast. While I feel as though I can grasp the concept of the ability to run fast, I can’t fathom artistic talent. For stretches of his career, Bill Mauldin published editorial cartoons six days a week. How is that possible? Maybe you could figure it out for me if you could see If It’s Big, Hit It. It is well worth seeing, but since it does not have a distributor, you won’t be able to. However, with a little effort on the internet or a little more looking for used books, you can still find Mauldin’s cartoons. Do it not to keep his memory fresh, but because it will help keep your mind and sense of humor and outrage more alive.