Reflections on the News About Dogs, Tigers, Blackface, Socialism, Messy Desks, the Autobahn

Oh so much news to digest. Racism in Virginia. Anti-semitism from a Democrat from Minnesota. Wall financing or not. Government shutdown or not. Venezuela. North Korea. Iran. Isis. China. 

Where to begin? How about a few of the stories that touched my life. 

A Dog’s Life: One of my regrets in life is never having a pet dog during my adulthood. Gilda and I had three cats at one time, but as anyone who is a dog lover will tell you, a cat is no substitute for a dog. 

Not just any dog. For me a dog cannot be small enough to pick up with one hand. It cannot have a pug snout. It cannot have a yappy bark. 

So why didn’t we have a dog? I could say it was because Gilda didn’t want one, or that Dan’s asthma would not tolerate a dog. Truth is, I’m picky and lazy. Which translates into, I don’t mind walking a dog (when it isn’t too early or too late and definitely when it is not raining, snowing or brrrrr-cold outside). And, most tellingly, I am not the type of dog lover who is OK cleaning up after them. 

That said, the day after the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show picked a wire fox terrier as its Best in Show, here are vintage photos of dogs in New York accompanied by a roundtable discussion of why we obsess about dogs in general, followed by an adorable video of golden retrievers making themselves indispensable to human pleasure:

https://nyti.ms/2E1Pxj2

https://www.facebook.com/788348771557632/posts/809584992767343?sfns=mo

From my own dog experience, here’s a link to a post from eight years ago: https://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2011/01/snow-dog-memories.html

Sticking with an animal theme, were you aware of a Hangover-like incident in Houston involving a tiger? https://www.click2houston.com/news/tiger-found-at-se-houston-home-hpd-says

Clairvoyant: In the wake of the Virginia blackface scandal swirling around the governor and state attorney general, three days ago in my last block I suggested yearbooks would be a new source of background checks of prospective hires. Well, it didn’t take long for yearbook checking to hit the mainstream news media. 

Consider this report from Wednesday’s CBS News (caution: some of the images are disturbing): https://www.cbsnews.com/news/colleges-launch-yearbook-audits-amid-virginia-governor-ralph-northam-blackface-scandal/ 

Socialism Bad, Right? Not necessarily. At least that’s one of the takeaways from Donald Trump’s support of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Gerardo Guaidó Márquez. Guaidó is seeking to displace Nicolas Maduro as the country’s president. 

Maduro has a well-deserved reputation as a socialist dictator who currently is denying humanitarian aid to his countrymen because it is from the United States. But as Ozy points out, the contest between Guaidó and Maduro is not capitalism vs. socialism. Read on: https://www.ozy.com/opinion/venezuelas-standoff-is-socialist-vs-socialist/92589

For another viewpoint on the duplicity in Trump’s antipathy toward socialism, consider former Labor Secretary Robert Reich’s analysis: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/11/trump-offers-socialism-for-the-rich-capitalism-for-everyone-else?CMP=share_btn_link

Don’t Mess With Me: Enter Gilda’s and my shared home office and you would immediately be able to identify which is her desk and which is mine. My desk is so cluttered that I do not compose these blogs there—too messy. 

During my decades as an editor and publisher my desk was, shall we say, a repository of facts and figures, large and small. To anyone who would ask I would aver that I knew exactly where any specific paper could be found. 

The company president was not convinced. During one of my business trips he ordered one of our assistants to clean my desk. Naturally, when I returned to the office I was aghast. Livid. I threatened to fire the assistant if she ever touched my desk again. A toothless threat—I promoted her to copy editor shortly thereafter. 

I don’t have that option with Gilda so every so often, when the papers start slipping off my desk onto the floor I clean up, mostly by stacking them neatly but sometimes throwing some out. But I am comforted by a recent article in Ozy supporting the argument that a messy desk if a sign of a creative mind: https://www.ozy.com/immodest-proposal/slobs-rejoice-why-you-shouldnt-clean-your-messy-desk/92331

Speeding Along: Last week The New York Times reported  Germans were incensed that some politicians were advocating a speed limit on their cherished autobahn (https://nyti.ms/2DR79Os). 

If you’ve never driven on the autobahn let me assure you it is a thrill-a-second. Here’s how I described my one and only time as a frightened passenger: 

“During my first trip to Germany, in 1996, to attend the EuroShop conference in Dusseldorf, I was invited by the team from Boston Retail to tour some stores. They had rented a car, a large Mercedes sedan, with a driver. I sat in the middle of the rear seat with an unobstructed view of the speedometer. German cars measure speed in kilometers per hour. It’s a simple computation to convert the number into miles per hour. Simply multiply it by 60%. 

“When the speedometer needled its way toward 160, I could barely contain my anxiety as I also had an unobstructed view of the traffic in front of us, which at that moment was no more than two car lengths ahead. It wasn’t that our driver was a tailgating daredevil. Every driver on the autobahn was spaced the same one to two car lengths behind the car he was trailing. To travel less than 96 miles per hour would endanger all. 

“Of course, that means when a car slows down, because of snow, fog or some other reason, there is a chain reaction should any one vehicle not brake to the precise slower speed. Large pile-ups are common in Germany.”

Much to my relief we did not encounter any trouble. But I do not look forward to my next trip on the autobahn.

Trump's Next Constitutional Crisis?

Buried amid all the sordid revelations of backbiting, incompetency and corruption in “Team of Vipers,” Cliff Sims’ first person account of life within the Trump campaign and White House, is the nation’s next and potentially most catastrophic constitutional crisis. 

According to Sims, former director of White House message strategy and a special assistant to the president, as returns were coming in election night 2016 Trump was ready to declare via Twitter the results a fraud if he did not win. 

We were saved from this crisis, Sims relates, by Steve Bannon, of all people, and the failure of Hillary Clinton to win sufficient votes in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Florida. Had he lost, Trump would have gone on a Twitter tear, but no amount of tweeting or fulminating in public or in the courts would have ensconced him in the Oval Office.

But with 2020 looming and his polling numbers down, Trump is now in a position to do real damage to the republic should he lose reelection. He would continue, after all, to be president for more than two months until January 20, 2021, a lame duck in name but not in power to respond to emergencies. 

It is not a far reach to think Trump would invoke executive powers to declare a rigged election created a national emergency. Consider the border wall contretemps a potential test case before the Supreme Court of his authority to enact executive rule. 

The orderly transition of authority has been a hallmark of the United States since George Washington voluntarily stepped down after two terms of office. The Trump presidency, however, has been anything but an affirmation of political norms. 

To be fair, almost all administrations are populated by competing personalities and interests. Abraham Lincoln’s “Team of Rivals,” as portrayed by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, united in their combat to defeat the South. Trump’s cadre of conspirators, on the other hand, seem particularly vile, ineffectual, dumb, vengeful and venal. 

Sims is but the latest to reveal the innerds of a dysfunctional organism. With each expose the question of how long Republicans can abide a Trump presidency becomes more focused. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6642039/Trump-p-ed-ex-aides-tell-book-lifts-lid-White-House-chaos.html

If I am right about Trump’s post-election-emergency-powers-executive-action it would be up to Vice President Pence and the Cabinet to remove him from office, that is, if they are not first removed from their positions by Trump. Then it would be up to the military to enforce the Constitution. Maybe Putin would send private Russian military contractors to protect Trump as has been rumored he has done recently in Venezuela to bolster security for embattled President Nicolas Maduro.

Sounds like a geopolitical thriller novel, doesn’t it?

The Bankruptor-in-Chief Gambles on Healthcare, N. Korea, and Dumping Mueller

If there is one thing Donald Trump knows how to do it is bankrupting a business. So even though the Republican controlled Congress has not been able to repeal Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act is still in jeopardy because the bankruptor-in-chief is committed to shutting it down without so much as a thought to the tens of millions whose lives would be placed in financial and physical jeopardy from illness that could lead to poverty and/or death. 

The irony in all this is that a healthier America is better for business, which is what Trump claims to be all about. 

For more irony, Trump is touting invigoration of the coal industry—a dying segment of the energy sector with dying companies that provide lethal work for coalminers—at a time when solar, wind and other alternative energy sources have far surpassed coal’s attractiveness as a resource and employment prospect, not to mention its environmental concerns. But then what do you expect from a businessman who could not turn a profit from gambling casinos?

Behaving like a spoiled child holding his breadth because his parents deny him an extra portion of dessert, a ticked off Trump has threatened to curtail subsidies that underpin many insurance providers. Without the subsidies insurers may abandon markets, leaving individuals without insurance options or with drastically higher premiums many couldn’t afford.

Trump is gambling his threat will force Republicans and Democrats to come back to Washington to vote to repeal and replace Obamacare. But keep in mind, four of Trump’s six bankruptcies came from his inability to run a successful gambling casino. Should anyone with such a sad, sorry record be playing with the health and safety of our citizens? 

How Big a Gamble: To get his way Trump has shown a willingness to gamble with the health of millions. He now has an international dilemma with even more certain deaths if he places his money on black and the roulette ball lands on red.

What should he do with North Korea’s relentless march to nuclear warhead and ballistic missile capability? Does North Korea pose an existential threat to America or any of its allies? Should he order a pre-emptive strike on the missile staging area?

Even if we could knock out the missile development region, we probably could not prevent massive conventional retaliation on Seoul with massive loss of life and physical destruction of the South Korean capital. Are we willing to sacrifice the citizens and capital of our ally so easily?

I’m inclined to think we should not. Here’s an analysis from the Centre for Research on Globalization worth reading: https://shar.es/1TwcYz

  

Breaking the Silence: In the war on Islamic terrorism it is often asked, where are the moderate Muslim voices? Sadly, under threat of actual death, they remain all too silent. 

But one can equally ask, where are the voices of reason within the Republican Party? How can they let this misfit of a president stand for the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan? 

To be fair, many conservatives have spoken out and written about their disdain for Trump and his co-opting of the Grand Old Party and conservative values. Even some religious leaders have expressed consternation that their brethren have forsaken Christian teachings by supporting Trump’s extreme positions, including his stances against Obamacare, immigrants, Mexicans, Muslims and voting rights. 

Until recently, the real silence, however, has been heard in the halls of the Capitol. For eight years Republicans decried the power of the executive branch under President Obama. Now that a so-called Republican sits behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, watching their reaction and their determination to express congressional authority is a study of evolving expectations. 

Now that he has removed Reince Priebus in favor of John F. Kelly as his chief of staff, commentators are saying Trump has severed his strongest ties to the Republican Party establishment. Will he try to push through an agenda without care or consideration for traditional GOP values, or will he try to work with an increasingly independent Republican controlled Congress?

Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and John McCain showed profile-in-courage independence by voting down the last ditch GOP effort to repeal Obamacare. But others who privately did not like the “skinny repeal” bill voted for it anyway, a true example of profiles-in-cowardice.

Meanwhile, The House and Senate overwhelmingly voted for more sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea along with a proviso that Trump could not unilaterally lift sanctions on Russia. Trump has indicated he will sign the bill as he doesn’t want to risk the embarrassment of having a veto overturned. 

Republican senators have also been out front warning Trump not to dump Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Sen. Charles Grassley, chair of the Judiciary Committee, has threatened not to hold hearings on any replacement for Sessions nominated by Trump. 

The end game for Trump is to get rid of Robert Mueller III as independent special counsel. Aside from the investigation into possible collusion with Russia during the election last year, Trump fears Mueller’s probe into his finances. Trump well knows that developers are ripe pickings for investigators looking for shady deals. 

Trump might be looking alarmingly at Pakistan where the Supreme Court last week removed from office Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif because of alleged financial corruption. 

On the other hand, he might be gazing longingly at Vladimir Putin’s strong armed rule in Russia where opponents are jailed (“Lock her up”) or mysteriously die, or to the Philippines where President Rodrigo Duterte conducts summary executions of alleged drug dealers and users (Trump last week suggested police treat suspects more roughly), or even to Venezuela where President Nicolas Maduro has rammed through the election of a constituent assembly that will rewrite the country’s constitution more to his liking (Trump wants the Senate to abandon filibuster rules that he views as constraining his legislative agenda). 

He definitely won’t look for inspiration to Poland where President Andrzej Duda vetoed two proposed laws that would limit the independence of the judiciary.

This Isn’t Funny: OMG, how are we supposed to survive the Trump administration if our favorite foils keep getting whacked? First Sean Spicer resigns, no doubt moments before he would have been axed by his new boss, communications director Anthony Scaramucci. Then a short 11 days later Scaramucci is dumped by new chief of staff Kelly. 

Spicer and Scaramucci were made-for-TV-satire-comedy. Melissa McCarthy made Spicer into an Emmy-nominated caricature. And it was impossible not to be amazed and amused by Stephen Colbert’s spot-on mimicry of Scaramucci. 

It will be tough replacing these comic inspirations. Ex-Marine general Kelly just doesn’t have the same je-ne-sais-quoi. I guess we’ll just have to be content with Alec Baldwin’s Saturday Night Live send-up of Trump and Kate McKinnon’s portrayal of Kellyanne Conway.