Selling the Sizzle, Not the Steak

Do you want the sizzle or the steak? 

Restaurateurs, I learned almost 50 years ago when writing for Nation’s Restaurant News, have been counseled that a profitable way to camouflage less than ideal food offerings is to enhance their dramatic presentations. In other words, sell the sizzle, not necessarily the steak. 

If you watched the Republican presidential candidate debate, as I forced myself to do Wednesday night, you were presented a choice of candidates selling populist sizzle with few meaty realities. Oh, you also observed stale beef at the center of the stage in the form of Ron DeSantis who looked like a junior member of a debate team going up against Daniel Webster (sorry, couldn’t resist inserting a reference to the great orator of pre Civil War America, a time many Republican conservatives would like to reimpose on our country). 

Vivek Ramaswamy played his Donald Trump clone (or was that clown) card, spouting populist angst that only the most avid MAGAmite would swallow, including closing down half the government, ending aid to Ukraine and Israel while authorizing seek and destroy missions inside Mexico against drug cartels. Vivek drew the most attacks because he was nasty like Trump and, as an outsider from career politicians surrounding him, represented the most current Trumpian incarnation, which Mike Pence skewered for his lack of governmental experience. Of course, that inexperience didn’t stop Pence from embracing Trump back in 2016, even after the Access Hollywood tape revealed the true inner Trump morality. 

Pence spent most of his time portraying himself as a religious true believer, but his signature moment was recounting his unequivocal allegiance to the Constitution and not Trump when he certified election results on January 6. 

Pence even got Chris Christie to praise his actions that day. Christie seemed the most relaxed of the candidates, and the most disappointed, that Trump was not present to confront. Vivek was an underwhelming substitute for his ire. 

If Pence cloaked himself in religion, Senator Tim Scott invoked the tropism of a Black man owing his success to being raised by a strong mother figure. 

Standing on one leg, so to speak, after suffering an Achilles tendon injury playing basketball earlier in the day, North Dakota governor Doug Burgum seemed like a good vice presidential choice with heartland values that would offset his lack of national experience. 

Nikki Haley stood out not only as the only female but also as a voice of reason in proposing a less extreme approach to abortion restrictions. The former ambassador to the United Nations also attacked Vivek for his rama-ding-dong foreign relations positions. 

Asa Hutchinson, with too many jobs on his resume to include here, though he did manage to mention them whenever he talked, was a voice of calm and reason, though not necessarily truth in advertising. He praised his eight years as governor of Arkansas which ended earlier this year. But based on US News & World Report’s analysis, Arkansas ranked 45th out of 50 states in overall excellence, including 49th for crime and corrections, 43rd for education, 47th for health care and 40th for infrastructure (https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/arkansas). 

So much for the candidates. Fox News, on the other hand, picked two patient and professional moderators in Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum. They asked intelligent questions and pointed out when candidates, particularly DeSantis, delivered stump speech responses without answering their specific questions. 

A Jury of His Peers from a Locale He Disdains

Here’s a delicious irony from the indictment of Donald Trump in Washington, DC, federal court:

Citizens of our nation’s capital, denied voting representation in Congress, will constitute a jury of Trump’s peers to assess his guilt or not (again, his “innocence” is not in question; a not guilty verdict means the government [he failed to supplant] failed to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt).  

Trump has been against extending voting representation to DC residents, much less adding the district to the number of states in the Union. He and his Republican cohorts fear, probably rightly so, that such moves would add Democratic members to the House and Senate. 

I am not suggesting jurors will vote guilty as retribution for Trump’s disdain. If the evidence is there they will vote accordingly. 

Speaking of evidence, I don’t know about you but I cannot wait to see the fabricator-in-chief’s promised 100-page document containing proof, real honest to goodness verifiable proof, that he won the 2020 election and is not liable for any illegal action he facilitated in trying to overturn Joseph Biden’s declared victory. Trump says he will release it Monday. But I believe his lawyers will advise against revealing any argument of his innocence that could be  easily refuted by prosecutors in Washington, Florida, Georgia and New York. 

Several recent articles have posited that the prosecution of Trump could have disastrous effects including his reelection as president. Yes, that would be beyond terrible. Disastrous. Tragic. Go ahead, add your own adjective. 

Yes, with each indictment Trump’s polling numbers go up, seemingly assuring him the Republican presidential nomination. But what’s the alternative to prosecution? A precedent-setting acknowledgement that a president is above the law? Surely, anyone who cares about our democratic republic, and who fathoms the threat Trump has posed and still does to its values and even existence, cannot let his transgressions go unchallenged. 

It is not a foregone conclusion Trump will be found guilty in any of the four indictments he faces. But as any caring, supportive parent has told a shy or reluctant offspring not eager to taste a new food or wary about participating in a sport or musical endeavor, “Try it, just try it.” (After typing those words of encouragement I realized it was a serendipitous, apt pun concerning Trump’s legal status.) 

Maui: Paradise Lost

Scenes of the horrific fire that has transformed the idyllic paradise of Maui into an inferno of Dantesque proportions are especially searing to anyone who has been to the Hawaiian island and the historic town of Lahaina, the former capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom in the early 19th century.

Gilda and I visited Maui in April a little more than 30 years ago to attend the annual convention of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores.  We mixed business with some pleasure by taking a trip to Lahaina one afternoon. Picturesque, Lahaina’s central attraction was an enormous banyan tree planted in 1873 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the town’s first Protestant mission. 

Banyan trees feature outstretched trunks that spread out horizontally from the central core. Standing 60 feet tall in a square in front of the Old Lahaina Courthouse, Lahaina’s banyan tree’s foliage was consumed by the fire. The main trunk and limbs appear to be charred. Its viability is uncertain. 

At a time when more than 65 people have perished, with scores more expected to be added to the fatality list, it might seem callous to bemoan the loss of a tree. But trees, whether they be Redwoods in California or the annual Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, convey a sense of permanence and solidity independent of transient conditions like war, pestilence and even fire. 

Far From Boring: Back in 2010 I described Hawaii’s weather as “borrring.”   

“Every day the temperature is 80 degrees, give or take a degree or two.”

During Gilda’s and my second trip to Hawaii, this time in January to visit Ellie during her seven months on Oahu after her college graduation, we listened to the weather report every day. It really was unnecessary, as it never varied: “Sunny, high 80 degrees with chance of scattered afternoon showers.”

Oh, sure, compared to a blizzard back in New York 80 degrees sounded appealing. It surely was a respite from bitter cold and snow. But as a steady daily diet, I’m not sure I could tolerate one season basically 12 months a year.

All that has changed with recent events. I can never again think of Maui as a tropical paradise. 

Civics Lessons Courtesy of Donald Trump

 And now a word or two in praise of Donald Trump. 

Perhaps no other person in our nation’s history—not Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr. or anyone else you might think of—has been as instrumental in providing a national civics lesson, time and time again. 

Think about it. For this exercise, remove from your mind any consideration of guilt or innocence. Just concentrate on what lessons Trump has provided through his involvement over the last eight years in the following areas instrumental to the proper and legal workings of our government:  

The impeachment process

Insurrection charge

Sedition charge

Voter suppression

The peaceful and orderly transition of power

Free speech

Trial by one’s peers

Grand jury proceedings

Election integrity

The Emolument Clause of the Constitution

The Rule of Law

Conspiracy charge

Obstruction charge

Border security

Asylum seeker

The role of state secretaries of state

Presidential pardon power

The role of a special counsel

The role of an independent counsel

The role of deputy attorney general

The role of a special prosecutor

The role of a real-life fixer

Top secret document classifications

The role of the National Archives

The Presidential Records Act 

The electoral certification process

Slates of Electoral College electors

The merging of church and state

Primary and presidential debate decorum

International alliances

White supremacists, Oath Keepers, Proud Boys

We owe a debt of gratitude to Donald Trump for beaming a spotlight on these 31 issues. No doubt there are more that we could be thankful for. 

Bewildering Times in U.S. and Israel

That Donald Trump enjoys a seemingly insurmountable lead over Ron DeSantis among likely Republican primary voters in a New York Times/Sienna College poll is not surprising. The Trumpster outpolls his main challenger among all demographic and ideological Republicans (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/31/us/politics/2024-poll-nyt-siena-trump-republicans.html?smid=url-share).

The most fascinating finding to me was their head to head scores on the question of morality. Forty-five percent think the Florida governor is more moral than Trump. I can see that. DeSantis projects a certain All-Americanism: married to the same woman, nice looking kids, nothing outrageous in the way he walks, talks, dresses, does his thick, dark hair. 

Compared to DeSantis, Trump has 30 more years of eating KFC buckets to explain his girth. He’s also used those decades for two more marriages and divorces, plus an unknown number of out of wedlock liaisons, failed businesses, countless civil lawsuits and now federal and state criminal litigations. All that and more. 

Yet, 37% think he is more moral that DeSantis.  

As Nate Cohen explained in an accompanying analysis in The Times, “The MAGA base doesn’t support Mr. Trump in spite of his flaws. It supports him because it doesn’t seem to believe he has flaws.” 

He is truly the Teflon Don. “Only 19 percent of the electorate said Mr. Trump’s behavior after his 2020 defeat threatened American democracy. And only 17 percent see the former president as having committed any serious federal crimes, despite his indictment by a federal grand jury on charges of mishandling classified documents and his receipt of a so-called target letter in the separate election interference case being brought by the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith,” The Times reported. 

Which begs the question—have these Republicans forgotten what they learned, or what they were supposed to have learned, in school? 

My friend Arthur, who served our government for more than three decades, had the following comment after watching a CSPAN newscast of Trumpsters on line to attend Trump’s rally in Erie, PA, Saturday night:

“All I could think is that civics has not been taught in the American educational system for the past 30-years. These are decent people, many veterans. So clueless about what a Republic is; what Federalism is; what is checks and balances; how Trump is a threat to their receiving Social Security, a pension, and Medicare benefits. 

“So clueless that immigrants pick the vegetables that  they buy in Walmart; so clueless that immigrants work the Tysons poultry line, the chicken they buy at Costco; so clueless that immigrants work the take out coffee window at McDonald’s.

“What is so ironic is that many on line in Erie are veterans and don’t understand that Trump is such a threat to American democracy—the ideal for which they fought and bled overseas!!”

These indeed are bewildering times. Not just in America but in Israel, as well. Anti-Bibi observers, as I am, denounce his government’s watering down the power of the Supreme Court to use “reasonable judgement” to overturn government actions. Massive demonstrations, including threats by reservists to boycott military duty, could not prevent Bibi’s right wing and religious coalition from passing what it considers to be judicial reform legislation. 

On the other hand, there’s an argument to be made that opposition to Netanyahu’s forces is a form of military coup. Take a few minutes to read the following: (https://open.substack.com/pub/melaniephillips/p/the-real-coup-against-israels-democracy?r=8sxnm&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web).

Now that you’ve absorbed that point of view, here’s a lawyer’s analysis of Israel’s predicament first published in The Algemeiner: (https://www.algemeiner.com/2023/07/27/balance-of-chaos-a-lawyer-explains-israels-judicial-reform/). 

A Witch Hunt? A Catskill Festival; Bird Talk

Even as we wait to see if Donald Trump will face additional federal and state charges, an unsettling quote appeared in an article dealing with the trial of a defendant associated with The Donald’s presidential initiative to build a border wall. There in black and white was the cringeworthy nightmare special counsel Jack Smith, along with his legal team and all who seek convictions of Donald Trump in any litigation, must fear. 

“Eleven jurors told Judge Torres that the 12th had refused to deliberate, called them ‘liberals’ and referred to the trial as ‘a government witch hunt’” (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/25/nyregion/shea-trump-border-wall-fraud-sentencing.html?smid=url-share).

That quote alluded to the first trial of Timothy Shea that ended in a mistrial. A second trial convicted him of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to launder money and falsifying records. 

To achieve a conviction for the federal offenses lodged or to be lodged against Trump, a unanimous verdict is required. If any one of the dozen of Trump’s “peers” shares his belief in a government witch hunt, no amount of evidence will produce a guilty verdict. 

Oy!

Oy Gevalt: How is it that organizers of the 1st Annual Borscht Belt Fest celebrating Jewish comedy, cuisine and culture in the Catskills chose July 29–a shabbat!!!—for their festival?

True, many patrons of Catskill hotels during their heyday of the 1940s-1970s were less than religiously observant. Still, it is more than slightly chutzpadik to hold the festival on a Saturday, the Jewish sabbath. 

Do you think they did that so attendees wouldn’t have to contend with the Sunday traffic back to the city, as our parents and grandparents did? 

“Dirty Dancing” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” are trigger points for reconstructing the Catskill experience. For my money, however, three other films provide more fulfilling depictions of summer life “in the mountains:” “Sweet Lorraine,” “Taking Woodstock,” and “A Walk on the Moon.” 

A Little Crowing: The other day I lamented the fact that other media, especially The New York Times, often beat me into print despite my having the same news hook a day or days before. 

Well, here’s a little celebratory crowing—The Times ran a story last week about birds building nests with the very metal spikes property owners lay down to discourage their presence (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/13/science/magpies-birds-nests.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare).

Readers of my blog back on March 26, however, would have already been apprised of metal spike inefficiency in warding off bird nests (https://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2023/03/battling-for-patio-supremacy.html). 

Is there a universal bird language?  How is it that within minutes of my putting out fresh food birds descend on the feeder? Not just sparrows, but cardinals, blue jays, woodpeckers, morning doves, and chickadees? 

These aren’t birds of a feather that flock together. So why do they congregate en masse within minutes of the first bird finding today’s meal? Perhaps they have a secret method of communication. Here’s a playlist of bird calls from The Times: (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/07/21/science/bird-calls-songs-quiz.html?smid=url-share).

Twitter-less: Shortly after Elon Musk bought Twitter I stopped posting on the medium. Not that my presence on Twitter made the site must reading. Nor did it do anything for my blog’s readership.  

I simply registered my personal disagreement with Musk’s policies. I am even more convinced my action was correct with his latest decree to strike the blue bird insignia in favor an “X.” Here’s an analysis of why an X has been incorporated into various brands: (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/25/style/gen-x-elon-musk-new-logo.html?smid=url-share). 

We Can't Afford to Forget

 “When it’s finally over.

When the nightmare is done.

When he’s finished.

When he is gone.

I don’t EVER 

want to hear 

his name again.

NEVER EVER!”

Those words appeared on a friend’s Facebook page next to a picture from the back of a black-suited Donald Trump walking slightly hunched over through a doorway. 

Those words reflect a sentiment many anti-Trumpers feel. And yet, as much as I want to see him disappear from the public discourse, I felt obligated to contribute my reaction to the posting: 

“As much as I usually agree with you, we need to keep his name in our vocabulary as an example of someone who would pervert our nation for his own ego and benefit at the expense of our fundamental constitutional rights,” I wrote.

Sadly, Trump no longer is an anomaly among Republicans. He has managed to instill in Republican elected officials and party regulars a loathing of the truth, for what their eyes clearly saw happening January 6, for what they said at the time. Trump has been their vessel for disbelief in the sanctity of the electoral process, of our belief in the legitimacy and objectivity of our judicial system, of our appreciation for law enforcement organizations, of our dedication to precepts that have guided American supremacy for the last century. 

Just as we label disgraced Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy as a blight on our national heritage back in the early 1950s, so too must we designate Trumpism as a cancer on our country. 

How devilishly ironic that 70 years later another McCarthy, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy of California, has attained a position of responsibility in our government that he has squandered in pursuit of power. He has forsaken the truths he expressed during the Trump-inspired insurrection at the Capitol.

We cannot afford to forget the evils Donald Trump has dumped on our country, even at the expense of saying and hearing his name over and over and over.

Day of Reckoning: Monday is sizing up to be a day of reckoning in Israel. As I write this, it is still uncertain if Bibi Netanyahu’s government will vote for the required third and final time to overhaul the country’s judicial system. 

There is something repulsively unseemly when the prime minister of Israel takes his leadership cues from the likes of Viktor Mihály Orbán of Hungary, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey, Donald Trump, and Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin of Russia. Each of them have undermined democracy in their countries including neutering their legal systems. 

There is no disputing the fact that Bibi’s government has the legal right to act. Its majority in the Knesset is four votes. The debate has been about the moral legitimacy of the vote and subsequent actions it could engender. 

If passed, the legislation would make it less likely that Israel’s Supreme Court could invalidate laws and action Bibi’s hard right and religious coalition wants to implement that would stifle dissent, approve unrestrained settlement in the West Bank, deny religious freedom to non Orthodox Jewish sects, possibly strip Arab citizens of their voting rights and, most important personally to Netanyahu, quash criminal investigations of his actions. 

Even as the West anguishes about the return of anti-women rules in Afghanistan and Iran, occurrences that no knowledgeable, realistic observer should be surprised about as they are repressive regimes anchored in 8th century thinking as it applies to half of their populations, there are troubling vibes about how Israel’s judicial changes would affect women.

The Israeli left wing newspaper Haaretz recently reported, “Protesters warn that the government’s plans to strengthen the Chief Rabbinate’s authority will damage the status of women in Israel. These plans include a bill that would expand the powers of rabbinical courts to adjudicate in civil matters, and a bill which would strip municipal rabbis of their independence” (for more details on proposed rules to control women, click on this link: https://us18.campaign-archive.com/?e=fa3f110eca&u=d3bceadb340d6af4daf1de00d&id=931540d607). 

Monday will be the sixth day of the Hebrew month of Av. Three days later, the 9th of Av, commemorates the day in 586 BCE and again in 70 CE that the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, first by the Babylonians and then by the Romans. To many Israelis and friends of a liberal, democratic Israel, the 6th of Av might well be imbued with an equal sadness if the Knesset passes judicial reform they believe will strip Israel of its soul and standing as a light unto all nations.