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Isn’t this the best time of the year? I mean, after all, it is Fat Bear Week.

I have sometimes asked them for directions, most often to the restroom. And I have wondered about how wearying it must be for a museum guard to stand for hour after hour. But now, after reading All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me by Patrick Bringley, who was a guard at the Met for ten years, I will see them differently. The book is an outstanding meditation on grief and art and life.

Rob Bresnahan, a candidate for Congress running in northeast Pennsylvania, has ads indicating that he will make the border secure. I wondered how a first-time Representative would do that and went to his website. Under “Issues,” he has a border section, which states in its entirety: “We must secure the border, build the wall, and reverse the Biden/Harris failed policies to stop the flow of illegal drugs and criminals into our communities.” Under “Economy,” however, Rob plans “to stop reckless spending . . . and cut taxes.” I guess in his view a border wall is not “reckless spending,” but he does not explain how he would pay for the construction. Estimates vary widely, but ones I have seen say the wall would cost from $20 billion to $70 billion to construct with hundreds of millions annually to maintain it. But, according to the politician, we can have the wall and lower taxes.

Some people mistake having an opinion for having a sensible idea.

New York City government is awash in scandals. The mayor has been indicted. Many high-level officials have been served with subpoenas, had their homes and offices searched, and their electronic devices seized. Several officials have resigned. I have not followed this closely, but one factoid caught my eye. The twin brother of the police commissioner (who has now left office) has been described as a “nightlife consultant.” I’m pretty sure he doesn’t get paid for advising clubs to ditch the red banquettes and lower the lighting, but I am not sure what such a consultant actually does.

I would like some simple but significant changes to political ads. The identification of whoever is paying for the ad should be prominent enough so that I can learn the organization’s name and research it if I wish. In addition, all claims should give me a source for any of the ad’s assertions, and it should be large enough and long enough that I can write it down and check it out if I wish. Or perhaps, the sponsoring organization should prominently display a website that contains the source material or links to it.

Many of us after Hurricane Helene are giving money to relief agencies to assist those in distress. Surprisingly, however, I haven’t heard that Trump, who we are told is bigly rich, has donated such money. I guess he must do it anonymously.

“No man can be wise on an empty stomach.” George Eliot.

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Pharmaceutical companies advertise heavily on some of the television shows I watch. The ads almost always have a disclaimer or warning. There’s one in particular that I don’t understand. It’s the one that says don’t take the drug if you are allergic to it. How would you know about the allergy if you don’t take drug? And if you did take it and had an allergic reaction to it, why would you take it again?

“Have something to say; say it; and stop when you are done.” Tryon Edwards.

The history book group just read Mirage: Napoleon’s Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt by Nina Burleigh. I have read biographies of Napoleon, all decades ago, and remember little of his Egyptian foray. I did remember that he brought along scholars, savants, and that the French seized the Rosetta Stone, which ended up with the British. I did not remember, however, how much of a military fiasco the Egyptian invasion was for the French. Napoleon did not get his reputation as a great military leader from Egypt. But what surprised me most in Burleigh’s book was how much the French were decimated by the bubonic plague. I thought that the major effects of the plague were in the middle ages, but it devastated the French in Egypt from 1798 to 1800. (And while the trailer for Ridley Scott’s movie may show Napoleon firing a cannon at the pyramids, that never happened.)

“Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.” George Eliot.

In the “Is This Supposed to Be Good News?” Deparment: When tiny trash-can-looking containers were found in a local park, the word quickly went out that they had contained fentanyl. The authorities sprang into action and had a lab test them. The police reassured the nervous moms and reported that none of the containers had even traces of fentanyl. The police, apparently trying to be reassuring, said that the containers were just regular crack vials.

“If nobody ever said anything unless he knew what he was talking about, a ghastly hush would descend upon the earth.” Alan Herbert.

I missed the holiday again. November 25 is Evacuation Day, or least it used to be in New York City. The British occupied New York City for most of the Revolutionary War. They finally left on November 25, 1783, with a British flag nailed atop a pole. The first attempts to lower the offending cloth failed because the British had greased the flagpole. The American flag only replaced it after cleats were nailed into the pole. Evacuation Day became a New York City holiday, but it ended in 1916 as World War I made the U.S. especially close allies with the British and officials tried to erase ancient enmities. I think it would be nice to bring back the holiday, not because I care to commemorate again the Revolution or its end. Instead, various restrictive parking regulations get suspended in this city on holidays, and I am always in favor of that.

A wise person said: “It is easier to look wise than to talk wisely.”

I was paying for the cookie (or was it more than one?) at the fancy muffin and cookie place. Two teenaged girls poked their heads in. One asked, “Do you have vegan stuff?” The man sorting out my change replied, “No. Sorry.” The other girl persisted, “No vegan at all?” “No, sorry.” They huffed out. When I left a few moments later, I said, “No reason to be sorry.” With a gorgeous smile, he concluded, “I agree with you.”

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“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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Would you be whining about your work if you had an incredibly powerful job, could have it as long you wanted, work full-time nine months of the year, and make enough to put you in the top 2% of earners with the chance to make even more? And yet here is John Roberts, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, publicly bemoaning that Americans question the legitimacy of his Court. Apparently, he is so unhappy that so many see his work as illegitimate that he is going to resign. Just kidding.

“Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.” George Eliot.

I have listened to the summer sounds. I take my coffee and reading material to the porch as the light is dawning and pause periodically to listen to the bird songs, even though I cannot identify any of the calls. After dinner and dusk, I take a book to the porch and pause in my reading to hear the symphony of the cicadas. During the daylight I hear deer, chipmunks, squirrels, and rabbits rustling the dry leaves in the woodlot next to my reading spot. But, unfortunately, during the day I also hear the summer sounds of lawn mowers, weed whackers, leaf blowers, and backhoes.

It must be a sign of age: I think of my youth as all the time before I was sixty-eight.

A fact that surprised me: The first medal awarded to an American at the 1936 Berlin Olympics was for art. Art competitions were part of the summer games until 1948.

Another fact that surprised me: Iceland has no ants.

A recurring question that mystifies me: Why are Americans so besotted with the un-American institution of the British royalty?

Sometimes when conservatives rail against critical race theory they betray complete ignorance of what it is. Perhaps they oppose it because they think that it is a system for picking horses.

 “In the middle of the twentieth century, any Mississippi schoolchild who achieved an eighth-grade education had been exposed to a state history textbook [Mississippi through Four Centuries] that told of the glories of the Klan. In discussing Reconstruction, it said the Klan whipped and even killed Blacks ‘who had been giving trouble in a community. . . . The organization helped the South at a difficult time.’” Curtis Wilkie, When Evil Lived in Laurel: The “White Knights” and the Murder of Vernon Dahmer. (2021).

Tony Horwitz, in Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War (1998), reports that a visitor to a civil war battlefield asked a park ranger why so many Civil War battles were fought on national parks.

The philosopher said, “Half of wisdom is being silent when you have nothing to say.”

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His ex-wife said a Republican seeking a senate seat had physically abused her and their son. Previously, he had left office when it was learned that he had taken pictures of his naked hairstylist without her consent. Am I being sexist if I think that it should disqualify any male from being elected to office if he has a hairstylist?

We have honored people by naming parks, craters, stars, mountains, prizes, streets, buildings, campuses, and more after them. Doctors, however, often have maladies named after them. Do they like that?

The Supreme Court justice was hospitalized for an infection. He stayed in the hospital longer than first predicted. We were told that he did not have Covid, but there was nothing said further about the nature of the infection. How many of us were hoping that it was related to an STD?

Nearly 90% of American students attend public secondary schools. Only three of the present nine Supreme Court justices did. None of the justices attended a public college, university, or law school.

The Final Four is alliterative. Did the NCAA phrasemongers also think Elite Eight and Sweet Sixteen were alliterations?

I have been trying but failing to understand who comprise “the elites” conservatives rail against. Are the Elite Eight in that group or do they comprise it?

I received a letter “signed” by Donald J. Trump urging me to become a member of the Republican National Committee. It did not offer me any membership benefits but urged a money contribution. The letter pointed out Biden’s less than stellar poll numbers and continued, “And my polls are at an all-time high.” I wondered about that and went to RealClearPolitics, which aggregates polls. It reported that Trump’s favorability number was 44.6 and his unfavorable rating was 50.8. They are a bit better than Biden’s, which were 42.5 and 52.0, but would you brag about polls that show the majority of the country views you with distaste?

The letter’s salutation from the RNC signed by Trump was “Dear Fellow Patriot.” And I have thought that “Trump, the patriot” was a very short joke.

Why is it that some jokes are painful if told by the comedian but make me laugh when told by a ventriloquist’s dummy?

“A different taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.” George Eliot.

Even though the book review interview stated that the author had written many books and I have not, I felt as if I were the same as the writer when the interview reported that the novelist can’t read Proust anymore.

Proper perspective. After that incident that got a lot of attention at the Oscars, a Brooklyn news source had the headline, “Brooklyn Man Gets Slapped on National TV.”

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          Before this March, when was the last time you put “social” and “distance” in the same sentence? Social distancing seems to be an oxymoron, but perhaps there is no better term. Keep a respectful separation from others, but “a respectful separation” sounds like a divorcing couple trying to convince friends and relatives that everything is amicable. If there is social distancing, is there a remote intimacy? That sounds like many relationships in their tenth year.

          Do you think Melania has barked, “Social distance! Social distance!” so often, she now just utters, “SD! SD!”?

          Are there controlled scientific studies that support six feet as the proper social distance? I have not seen them cited. If good science backs up that amount of separation, I think the study would have been in the metric system. What is the proper social distance in Europe?

          Does anyone do a drinking game where a shot must be downed every time Vice President Pence mentions Trump in one of those briefings? Participants would be drunk within thirty seconds. After two minutes, they would have to be taken to an ICU that would not have open beds and need a ventilator that might be found by bidding on ebay.

          Only “essential” businesses are open in New York. Liquor stores are classified as essential. Only essential businesses are open in Monroe County, Pennsylvania. Liquor stores are not labeled essential there. Make of that what you will.

          I had the horrifying dream that during a coronavirus briefing, I lost a pound every time the president referred to himself. I saw myself shed weight and quickly I was at a desired poundage, but I sped past that into appearing anorexic. In a few minutes, I was a skeleton. I woke up in a cold sweat.

          Is Greenland free of the coronavirus? If so, maybe Trump should have bought the island after all.

          While COVID-19 has clusters, it is a national problem. However, the Trump administration has only lackadaisically tried to increase the production and distribution of personal protective equipment for healthcare workers and ventilators for those who get seriously sick. As a result, life-and-death choices will have to be made as to who gets protected and treated. Where is Sarah Palin and all those who were entranced by her as she ranted delusionally about Obamacare death panels? Now we have planning for the life-and death decisions. And they should be called TPDs—Trump Death Panels.

          “He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow.” George Eliot [Mary Ann Evans].