"...If You Can't Have It Both Ways, Laughing At It Seems Like A No Go, Too..."

We have a problem with pounds in this country.

And I ain't talkin' spare tires, muffin tops, beer bellies or thunder thighs.

I'll "weigh in" shortly with a clarification.

Comedy, at least comedy as defined for our chit chat as the utterances of those who list "comedian" where any given form asks for an "occupation", had a pretty stressful week.

First, there was the photographic falderall of Kathy Griffin and the severed head. Not to be confused with any aspiring satanic leaning, grunge soaked, death metal garage band that might coincidentally be named Kathy Griffin and the Severed Head.

Then, Friday night on his live HBO show, Real Time, Bill Maher's medulla took a smoke break and left him alone just long enough for him to wander into the traffic of tastelessness and tell his guest he wouldn't be "working in the fields, because he was a house n***er."

By the way, not for nothin', but, boy, don't I wish that I had bought mucho stock in whatever companies manufacture asterisks. I would have leapfrogged right up to the tippy top of the tax brackets, by now, fer sure.

The "reaction" to Griffin's head and Maher's "ass"terisk (see what I did there?) was, if absolutely nothing else in existence, predictable.

Cries of outrage, calls for arrest and/or firing, depending, and the standard issue variety of flailing, wailing, hand wringing and threats of neck wringing that operate these days on a schedule so precise that they have become the envy of every single rapid transit authority from sea to shining sea.

Okay, let's amuse ourselves for a few minutes by wandering down that road, the riskiness of which I always enjoy reveling in, a little slippery slope I like to call "perspective."

First, controversy and comedy have been together longer than A has been with T and T. And we're not necessarily talking about intentionally comic provocateurs like Lenny Bruce or Andrew Dice Clay or Sean Hannity.

As far back as 1964 (I know, it doesn't seem like far back to me and my peeps, but, to the hip and groovy of today, it's practically Jurassic Park), comic Jackie Mason made hot water headlines by supposedly responding to TV host Ed Sullivan's off camera"two minutes to go" finger gesture with an on air gesture of his own. Hard as it might be to imagine, in those days, even the hint of that defining digit on air was considered a complete and absolute violation of socially acceptable behavior. It wasn't until 2008, give or take, that the middle finger went mainstream, in no small part, thanks to the pretty much hourly offering of it to Barack Obama by Fox News.  As a result of Mason's middle, meanwhile, Sullivan banned him from the, then, very influential weekly variety show and it took years for Mason's career to get even close to back on track. 

In more recent funny people faux pas presentations, Michael Richards, who endeared himself for ten years as the hipster doofus, Kramer, on the mother of all shows about nothing, "Seinfeld" self immolated his success by letting a couple of hecklers get to him during a stand-up and responded with a meltdown level spew of N-words that would have made my stock in asterisks jump twenty points, easy. As opposed to Mason, Richards' career became the stuff of cheesy Hallmark Card-esque poetry, "that which once burned so bright / hath now gone down-eth in flames."

Other comedy contributors, from Louis C.K. to Wanda Sykes to Dane Cook to Margaret Cho to Amy Schumer, even, again, all the way back to the Paleozoic era of  Joan Rivers have not only pushed envelopes, they've managed to turn more than a few of those envelopes into confetti.

America, by the dozens of millions, have giggled, guffawed, laughed and applauded, and applaud, them.

And don't bother coming back at me with the ridiculous notion that "that kind of so-called humor" is the kind of crap that "all you snowflake libtards" think is funny while "we, good, God fearing, freedom loving real Americans find it repulsive and offensive".

There simply aren't enough snowflake libtards in the universe to account for the total number of people who find these comics and their comedy funny.

If there were, it's a safe bet that Donald wouldn't have been selected to open the mail addressed to "Occupant" at 1600 Pennsylvania.

But, let's get back to our conversation regarding Kathy's severed head and Bill's appalling asterisks.

And the real issue in play here.

A perplexing and persistently pesky inability to determine, decide and declare, once and for all, no more exceptions, forever and ever, amen.....

...where to draw the line.

Common sense, you say?

Nice try. Common sense, like its currently M.I.A. cousins, common decency, common interest, common ground, common taste and common values, is undefinable without a ground zero to serve the function of being a starting point.

Which requires the...wait for it....drawing of a line.

And the X factor in any, and all, efforts to chart that starting point, name that ground zero, define the undefinable is an insurmountable and impenetrable circumstance.

Or, more accurately, condition.

The human condition.

You say potato and he says pahtahto.

She says tomato and I say tohmahto.

Someone says "tit for tat".

And someone else gasps audibly and insists on asterisks.

Let's just call a spade a spade. (No racial inference intended or admitted to).

There's a whole lot of people in this country who would proudly stand up next to her, defend her to this day and will follow faithfully any effort put forth to keep, or at least fake keeping, the promise to make America great again who spend a fair amount of their leisure time enjoying the old fashioned, family friendly, wholesome whole grain goodness of such contributions to comedy as....

"2 Broke Girls"...Laverne and Shirley for the T&A/it's okay to say "vagina" on national TV nowadays crowd, complete with an Asian supporting character who makes that "Seinfeld! Four!" guy seem like the dictionary definition of politically correct.....

" Family Guy"...the animated, warmhearted day to day adventures of the Griffin family, featuring misogynist, racist dad Peter, lisping homosexual Bruce, elderly pedophile Herbert, drug dispensing date rapist Glenn, whose dad, at one point, hilariously transitions to a woman and sleeps with the family dog, Brian....all of whom spring from the "cutting edge comedy" mind of Seth MacFarlane who, as I've suggested more than once, is really just the grown up equivalent of that kid in our high school class who got laughs by making fart noises with his armpit, but, much to his, and our, chagrin discovered that his only comic skill turned out to be the ability to make fart noises with his armpit.....

MacFarlane, by the way, is also the acclaimed arm pit-ster responsible for "American Dad" , "The Cleveland Show" and other slices of American pie that rationalize their putrid by labeling it "parody", as in "we're not showing you gross and disgusting, we're mocking gross and disgusting and showing you that.."

Songwriter Randy Newman used that methodology frequently in his 70's writing heyday, most successfully in the song "Short People" which brilliantly sounded like a ridicule of people lacking height but was, in fact, a vicious indictment of the cruelty of people who ridiculed people lacking height.

That said, I grew up on Randy Newman, I respect Randy Newman, I often feel like I almost know Randy Newman. And, Seth...you're no Randy Newman.

And among those who laugh heartily at the sophomoric Seth and laugh bigly at broke girls and their Asian fall guy, there are, bet the bwahahas, a sizable number of folks who would like to see Kathy Griffin end up like Donald did in the photo and Bill taken down to the big oak tree and shown what gets done to uppity white guys who make very bad jokes about an entire race of asterisks.

Because Kathy and Bill went over the line.

That line that either continues to move wherever and whenever, based on personal opinion or lack of, taste, or lack of, personal judgement, of lack of, from those who simply don't understand the principle of physics that explains the impossibility of placing a definitive, permanent mark on a constantly moving surface...or that line that doesn't exist in the first place. For the same reason.

No such thing, daddy used to wisely counsel us, as a little bit pregnant.

No such thing as a little bit offensive or inappropriate.

No such thing as a little bit tasteless.

There's a lot of people in this country who have a problem with pounds.

Not as in spare tires, muffin tops, beer bellies or thunder thighs.

As in "in for a penny...".

And, not for nothin', but the pretty much unnoticed irony that both Seth MacFarlane's much loved and enjoyed Peter and the much reviled and scarlet lettered Kathy have the same last name?

Now, that's funny.

"...Occam, All Ye Faithful..."

Today, for insight and perspective, we turn, as we have so often in these times of need for insight and perspective, to our friend Occam.

And his razor.

First, because we are a full service informational provider around here, let's put aside, for a few moments, our petty partisan rancors and share an NPR-esque ponder of the razor.

And the Occam.

Turns out, first, that Occam wasn't really Occam.

He was William. Of Ockham.

Ockham is a small, rural village located in the borough of Guildford, in Surrey, England, a nation which has given us, among other things, English toffee, English muffins, London bridge, The Beatles, Big Ben, a whole lot of various and sundry teas, Princess Diana, Shakespeare, Wimbledon and, once, a long time ago, in a just formed nation, far, far away....independence.

William, of said Ockham, meanwhile, was a Franciscan friar who studied logic in the 14th Century. He was also a philosopher and theologian who wrote on matters of logic, epistemology, natural philosophy, political philosophy, metaphysics and ethics.

Put in a more relatable context, the chances that he would have ever been asked to be a Fox News contributor are zip, zero, nada.

Oh...and he was also brought to court on charges of heresy in 1327, fled his teaching post and spent the rest of his life living among the friars who,also, weren't all that jiggy with the considerable power the Church had in the day.

Proving, once again, by the way, that Trump deserves to have a little slack cut in his direction because he's a long, long way from being the first narrow minded, overly self important, wanna be authority figure to be be-boppin and scattin' all over the the logical and ethical of their time.

But I digress into rancor.

One of William's contributions to the lexicon, meanwhile, was his oft quoted razor.

Again, for those who are heart broken at the cancellation of "2 Broke Girls" and are confidently sure that PBS is that attitude that women get every 28 days, give or take, the razor of William is not the razor you assume it to be.

It's not a blade, it's not sharp and it will neither cut you, nor remove hair from places where you prefer hair not to be. It does, however, have the capacity for doin' a little shaving.

In philosophical circles, a "razor" is a principle or rule of thumb that allows one to eliminate (or, "shave off", as it were) unlikely explanations for a given phenomenon. And while William's particular savvy shave is probably the best known, it is certainly not the only principle present.

There's Hanlon's razor...which states one should never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity.

Hitchen's razor...what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Alder's razor...if something cannot be settled by experiment or observation than it is not worthy of debate.

Popper's razor (better known as Popper's falsifiability principle)...for a theory to be considered scientific, it must be falsifiable.

And, among the lesser, lesser known, there's Kanye's razor.

No matter who wins any music or video award at any given time, it should have been Beyonce.

William, meanwhile, gave us the razor that winnows away the chaff of multiple options when it comes to choosing a "wazzup wit dat?" on any given question requiring a "wazzup wit dat".

And, by the way, not really sure why it's always been known as Occam's Razor as opposed to Willliam's razor although experience and instinct lead me in the direction of surmising that it took that label because "William's Razor" is nowhere near as sexy and/or mysterious and it sounds more like either a band that opened for Nine Inch Nails somewhere along the way or it sounds more like, well, just a razor. You know. Belonging, you know, to a guy named William.

Meanwhile, the razor, the whole razor and nothing but the razor cuts through the crap pretty simply.

"In any situation or occurrence where multiple explanations exist, the simplest explanation is usually the correct explanation."

This concludes our ponder of the razor. Let's resume our petty partisan rancor.

Chris Isidore and Julia Horowitz wrote the following piece for Apple News and published it online Friday afternoon.

Maybe the most amazing thing that occurred Thursday wasn't that President Trump pulled out of the Paris climate deal. It was the response from the corner office: A string of CEOs loudly voiced strong opposition to his action. 

"It's an absolutely bizarre and unprecedented moment in American history," says presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. He called the reaction a sign of just how damaged the Trump brand is in the eyes of corporate America.

"Donald Trump is such a pariah figure that companies want zero association with his brand," Brinkley said. "He's championing dirty air and polluted water. He's anti-science. Why would a Fortune 500 CEO want to be associated with that?"


Critics of Trump's decision worry that U.S. companies will miss out on opportunities to profit from a global move to reduce carbon emissions. Countries, businesses and consumers will spend trillions in the coming decades on greener vehicles, equipment and sources of power. 

More immediately, CEOs might be worried about selling their products abroad, where Trump's decision is overwhelmingly unpopular. 

"There could be a stigma attached to every U.S. firm," said Greg Valliere, chief global strategist with Horizon Investments. "If you're marketing a movie or a product in Western Europe, you've got to be worried about how this is being perceived. They can now say, 'Don't blame us, we came out strongly against this.' It's in their own self-interest." 

And it's not just people in the rest of the world who are upset with the president's actions. The decision plays well with his base. But a joint poll by the Harvard school of public health and Politico found 62% of Americans supported staying in the Paris agreement. 

"You can not run a major American corporation appealing to Donald Trump's 38%," said Brinkley.
Opposition came from Silicon Valley environmentalists like Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who was the first to quit a presidential advisory committee in protest. 

It also came from Wall Street bankers like Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein, who happens to be the former boss of Trump's top economic adviser. Blankfein tweeted for the first time to criticize the deal.


Jeffrey Immelt, who runs that quintessential industrial conglomerate General Electric , also tweeted his disapproval. And he did so knowing that GE depends on the federal government for more than $3 billion in sales and $600 million of government-sponsored R&D spending. 

Walt Disney  CEO Bob Iger also quit the president's advisory council in protest. And tech executives who head some of the most valuable companies on the planet also criticized Trump. Apple's Tim Cook, who said he had lobbied the White House not to pull out, denounced the move, as did Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft  president Brad Smith, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
In stark contrast, few executives voiced support for Trump's move. 

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has raised questions about the Paris climate deal, but it did not endorse or oppose withdrawing from the agreement. It issued a somewhat neutral statement after Trump's announcement. The American Coal Council issued a statement supporting Trump's action but did not immediately post it on its website or tweet it.


There's a key phrase, a very, very key phrase that comes and goes with barely a notice in that piece from Isidore and Horowitz. Just after "people in the rest of the world who are upset" and just before " a joint poll found 62% of Americans supported staying in the agreement."

"...the decision...plays well to his base..."

William of Occam, paging William of Occam, please stand by.

Trump has, basically, two speeds. Bully. bluster and blowhard forward. And reverse, back up, beep, beep, beep when and where necessary to avoid any possible contact, let alone collision, with blame or responsibility for anything. Ever. Eh.Vah.

Regardless of which of the two gears he's in, at any given moment, though, the destination is always, and ever, and only, the same.

It's all about the base, bout the base. No exceptions.

Making good on the promises. pledges and other poses and postures he offered up in his bid to become the sole United States distributor of snake oil to those whose buttons he pushed and, in return, flipped their voting booth switch on his behalf is all, and only what, he cares about.

In one context, it's actually a strategy. Not to better the nation, let alone the world, for heaven's sake, we're talking sociopathic narcissist here, not statesmanlike natural born leader, I mean, come on.

It's a strategy with, primarily, two purposes. To keep the base hap, hap, happy so that they will continue to want to vote for him, no matter what kind of shit he shovels out or how high that shit stacks up, again, not necessarily because he actually wants to do the job of being President or even keep the job of being President but because he "won" and in Trump's alternate reality, he's Vince Lombardi with a really bad hair style, "winning isn't everything...it's the only thing." Holding on to the power is what matters. Using that power for the greater good is irrelevant. Losing the power is to be avoided, prevented, ruled out at any and all costs. Because Trump doesn't lose. More to the point, Trump cannot lose. Losing, to Donald Trump, is like sunlight to a vampire.

The second purpose is even less noble than the first. Losing the power would be catastrophic to the man/child who was long, long ago anointed the boy king. Losing the love and adoration and worship of his peeps would be like that bucket of water on the Wicked Witch of the West.

Total meltdown, man. Metaphorical. And literal.

And, in the Ahab-esque quest to keep a death grip on the both the power and the pampering, Trump will say, do, commit, un-commit, join, un-join, build, tear down, spring forward, fall back, flip, flop and/or two and half, with a half twist, tuck position as needed for no other reason or purpose than to keep a death grip on both the power and pampering.

He promised the base he would pull America out of Paris.

So, he's pulling America out of Paris.

And it matters absolutely the aforementioned zip, zero, nada that the actual process of detaching from the Paris Accord will not bring American involvement to a conclusion until 2020. All that matters to Trump is that Trump promised the adoring, worshiping Donald devotees that he would pull America out of Paris.

That's why there's still a pretty good chance there will be a wall. Not even close to because a wall is either financially doable, let alone practical, or that it will actually serve any other purpose on the planet than symbolic or provide some walled states that don't have a Grand Canyon or a Mount Rushmore some of those ever pleasant tourist dollars as visitors show up by the carload to selfie the crap out of that concrete.

We should probably just count blessings and be grateful that he didn't promise the "come let us adore you" rally crowds anything really stupid like, say, putting somebody like Rick Perry in charge of the Energy Department or make his fashion peddler daughter a top advisor or, when in need of input and insight on making a key decision about the future of America's commitment, or exit from commitment, to a global initiative hoping to make it easier for our children and their children to breathe clean air and drink clean water, he turned to that noted expert on environmental and geopolitical dynamics, Kimberly Guilfoyle....thank the good Lord there has been none of that foolishne.....oh...wait.

William of Ockham said long ago that when faced with multiple explanations of an occurrence, the simplest is usually 'the' explanation.

Here's the simplest of the explanations regarding current occurences.

Donald Trump is not the President of the United States.

Donald Trump is the President of the Donald Trump Admiration Society.

Nothing more, nothing less.

And, at the same time, a lot, lot....lot less than this nation deserves.

No matter how you cut it.

Or shave it.

"...God Protect Us From Those Who Fell For...The Leader of the Pack...."

Two kinds of people in the world, the old saying goes.

Leaders.

And followers.


16 year old Destinee Mangum has publicly thanked the three strangers who intervened on a Portland light rail after a man hurled anti-Muslim slurs at her and her friend who was wearing a hijab.

Two of the men were killed. One is in the hospital after the suspect, identified as Jeremy Joseph Christian, 35, stabbed the three victims.

"I just want to say thank you to the people who put their life on the line for me," Mangum said, "Because they didn't even know me and they lost their lives because of me and my friend and the way we look."

On Friday afternoon, Mangum and her friend were riding the MAX light rail when the suspect allegedly targeted them. He yelled at Mangum, who is not Muslim, and her friend, using what police described as "hate speech toward a variety of ethnicities and religions."

"He told us to go back to Saudi Arabia and he told us we shouldn't be here, to get out of his country," Mangum said "He was just telling us that we basically weren't anything and that we should just kill ourselves."

Frightened by his outburst, the pair moved away to the back of the train. 

Then a stranger intervened, telling the man that he "can't disrespect these young ladies like that."

"Then they just all started arguing," Mangum said. 

By the time the light rail pulled into the next station, Mangum and her friends were ready to leave.

"Me and my friend were going to get off the MAX and then we turned around while they were fighting and he just started stabbing people," she said. 

"It was just blood everywhere and we just started running for our lives." 

Several passengers chased after the suspect and called 911, directing officers to his whereabouts, according to local media. 

The men who had intervened were viciously attacked, police said.

Ricky John Best, 53, of Happy Valley, died at the scene. The military veteran worked as a technician for the city of Portland and gravitated towards public service. 

Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche, 23, of Portland, died at the hospital. He had graduated from Portland's Reed College with a degree in economics last year and had just begun his career working at an environmental consulting agency.

The third victim, Micah Fletcher, 21, is being treated at a hospital with serious injuries. A GoFundMe account to pay for his medical bills showed a picture of him on a hospital bed with the visible neck wound that read: "Thank you for all the support." 

 

Christian was charged with two counts of aggravated murder and one count of attempted murder, all felonies. The aggravated murder charge has the death penalty as a possible sentence. 

He also was charged with misdemeanors: two counts of second-degree intimidation and a count of being a felon in possession of a restricted weapon, police said.

Police said detectives are looking at Christian's background, "including the information publicly available about the suspect's extremist ideology."

Videos have surfaced showing Christian at various events shouting at people, at one point saying the N-word, as police officers separated him from others.

 

Authorities are trying to determine whether Christian will be charged with federal hate crimes.

In addition to the videos showing the killer at various events, pictures of past tweets have surfaced showing him at one particular rally, American flag draped around his neck, defiantly extending one arm in a Nazi salute, his other hand carrying a baseball bat, the caption of the tweet remarking how he is screaming racial and religious epithets.

It will come as no great shock that the rally he was attending was in support of Trump.

Let's save ourselves some time.

And skip the very exhausting and, by now, very cliche and, ultimately, futile debate/argument/outright battle over whether or not Donald Trump is a reprehensible human being.

Let's just spend a few moments pondering concepts.

In particular, the concept of leadership.

The dictionary is scholastically direct but emotionless in its definition.

"...the action of leading a group of people or organization.."

For my money, defining leadership is accomplished by following the example set in 1964 by Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart who, when called upon to define obscenity, remarked that he couldn't define it, per se' but, "I know it when I see it."

Leadership, it its most authentic form, is very much like that.

Perhaps we cannot define it, per se', but we know it when we see it.

Meanwhile, there are the words of Voltaire to consider.

Or Spiderman's Uncle Ben, depending on your particular source for wisdom encrusted pearls.

"With great power...comes great responsibility."

When we think of leadership, we tend to lean toward the majestic, as opposed to malevolent, practitioners.

Moses, who, with a little assist from the director of locusts and flaming hailstones, convinced Pharaoh to let his people go.

Gandhi, hunger striking his way to inspiring an entire nation to put an end to generations of being ruled by another nation.

Franklin Roosevelt, who calmed fears by defining fear itself and delivered America out of a devastating depression.

You can practically hear the stirring John Williams soundtrack playing in the background.

Meanwhile, as the less erudite and articulate among us might chime in, "the list of leaders ain't all roses and daffodils, ya know?"

Ivan the Terrible.

Attila the Hun.

Various Kim Jongs of one Un or another.

Castro.

Stalin.

Hitler.

And, of course, the boo hiss villain who, even dead, still ranks right up there at the top of the charts these days.

Osama Bin Laden.

Old joke goes like this. Many people say that everything happens for a reason. 

No one ever says it's always a good reason.

Leadership is like that.

One can be led to safety, paradise or even just a place to get the best burgers in town.

One can also be led to rack and ruin.

Trump has made it clear, from the outset of his entry into the political portion of what will  be his someday self glorifying, surely ghostwritten autobiography, that his style of leadership is light on the inspiring and concrete block heavy on the inciting. Little or no effort put into calming a nation's concerns and daily, if not hourly, tappings into his faithful's fears, fears themselves, never wasting time on excessive, let alone eloquent, oratory when 140 characters or less will get the demagoguery done.

In a slapstick comedy romp or a even a weekly satirical Saturday night show, this style of statesmanship would be a literal mother lode of material.

Come to think of it, it is a literal mother lode of material.

But our day to day lives aren't slapstick comedy romps. And our hopes and dreams and urgent desires to find ways to keep family and friends safe, and alive, in a world where hate and violence and venom and, yes, insanity are in much too abundant supply are not the stuff of satirical Saturday night shows.

And while Trump is on record, via audio, via video, via printed interview, via thousands of hours of thousands of public pronouncements as declaring Islam an enemy and, as a result, even if only inadvertently owing to his ineptness and complete lack of ability, stirring the pot of passions and poison and predispositions to act out the rages within, he has yet, at this writing, to offer a single public utterance on the savage attacks on, or murders of, Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche, Ricky John Best and Micah Fletcher.

There are millions of people in this world who woke up on this Memorial Day Monday still appalled beyond measure at what happened in Portland on Friday.

There are, likely, millions of people in this world still appalled that one particular leader has had nothing to say.

But there are, at least, thousands of people who woke up in America on this Monday who believe in their leader and what he represents and what he has said.

And what he has not said.

Two kinds of people in this world.

Leaders and followers.

And that's the problem.

(ED.Note: since the publishing of this piece earlier today, Trump has tweeted the following:
"the violent attacks in Portland on Friday are unacceptable. The victims were standing up to hate and intolerance. Our prayers are w/them"

Hate and intolerance.

As in "found throughout the frenzied crowds last year at Trump rallies from coast to coast")

"...And, Suddenly, Portland Sees The Term 'Memorial Day' In A Cruelly Ironic Light..."

Enough nasty, bitter political back and forth for the moment.

Here's some instructive info to help make your Memorial Day memorable. Or, at least, factually correct.

First, a little something about knowing the difference.

In this case, between Memorial Day and its November cousin, Veterans Day.

Veterans Day is a Federal holiday held every November 11th to honor all military personnel who serve and/or have served in the armed forces of the United States.

Memorial Day, meanwhile, is a Federal holiday held on the last Monday in May each year that honors all those who have given their lives while serving in the armed forces of the United States.

So, simply put, on Veterans Day we honor all military personnel and on Memorial Day we honor military personnel that have died for their country.

Of course, on Memorial Day, there's also some minor fiddle faddle having to do with cookouts and beach parties and several days off from work and great deals on sheets and/or towels and/or mattresses, but few people pay much attention to those trivialities on such an important day.

The respective purposes of the holidays get juxtaposed frequently, with many somber, solemn tributes finding their way to social media and common conversation on Veterans Day, while more celebratory, Yankee Doodle Dandy moments, memories and memes are liberally sprinkled on what is, as we've already discussed here, the more solemn Memorial Day.

You might think that the word "Memorial" would be of some use in cluing people as to the difference but, golly gosh gee willikers, Mr. and Mrs. America, we do live in a beautiful land of amber waves of grain, spacious skies, purple mountain majesties and an attention span that can barely be measured with conventional time pieces, so, we should probably toast with the half full glass that most people observe either one, or the other, of the two days without stuffing a turkey or decorating a tree.

If that seems a smidge strident, it's only because little things really do mean a lot. Little things like the difference between things.

Memorial Day. Veterans Day.

Here's another one that nudges the line of being picky, picky but, still (allowing for the attention span thing) say it with me....little things really do mean a lot.

Daylight Savings Time. And Daylight Saving Time.

The former is incorrect. The latter is correct.

And, of course, there's the difference between former and latter, but there's a larger point to be made with this piece and so many cookouts and beach parties and several days off from work and great deals on sheets and/or towels and/or mattresses, so little time.

Here's an example of a more subtle difference but proof that, like little, subtle things mean a lot, too.

The difference between responsible. And accountable.

First, some stage setting is required.


Two men were fatally stabbed Friday on a crowded commuter train in Portland, Oregon, when they confronted a passenger who was "yelling a gamut of anti-Muslim and anti-everything slurs," a police spokesman said.

The suspect may have been targeting two girls who were described as Muslim. One of them was wearing a hijab, Portland police Sgt. Pete Simpson reported. 

Police are considering the man's remarks as hate speech, the department said in a statement.

The stabbing occurred on a Metropolitan Area Express (MAX) light-rail train. 

One man suffered injuries and first responders attempted to save his life, but he died at the scene. A second victim, also stabbed, died at a hospital, police said. Witnesses said one of the victims was stabbed in the neck. 

A third passenger, who also tried to intervene with the shouting man, was injured but is expected to survive, police said.

The victims didn't know the suspect and were trying to protect other passengers in the train, police said. 

Police say it's unclear what might have led to the confrontation. 

"We do not know if the suspect was drunk, on medication, had mental issues or anything else," Simpson said.

The stabbings happened as the start of Ramadan, a Muslim holy month-long period of fasting, approached at sunset. 

The Council on American-Islamic Relations called on President Donald Trump to denounce "against rising bigotry" and acts of violence against Muslims following the stabbings. 

"President Trump must speak out personally against the rising tide of Islamophobia and other forms of bigotry and racism in our nation that he has provoked through his numerous statements, policies and appointments that have negatively impacted minority communities," said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad. 

Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley took to Twitter to talk about the stabbings.

"Terrible tragedy on Portland's Max Train. Champions of justice risked and lost their lives. Hate is evil," he wrote.

 Lily Mercer is an accomplished screenwriter and Facebook friend whose post of this horrific news story first brought it to my attention. This is Lily's accompanying post caption to the news story.


This is beyond sad. We are entering into a phase of life we are not prepared for - where where truth, love, and understanding have been trumped by... Trump. Don't tell me he has nothing to do with it. He gave these people a voice. And then he gave them permission to act out.


Couple of quick thoughts.

First, bet the beach blanket, that Trump will not be speaking out personally against any thing even remotely resembling a rising tide, let alone the "rising tide of Islamophobia" unless, of course, it is, in some manner or another, yet another opportunity to fan some flames in order to keep his "beloved base" all warm and toasty.

Second, that "beloved base" will be loud, proud and prodigious in both their defense of their boy and praise for his promise to "bomb the shit out of them", the them, of course, never really so much clearly defined as generally imagined. And, as has been the case thus far, a group that includes folks who don't know the difference between "to" and "too" will suddenly display stunning skill at articulating that this obscene murder of two decent human beings who simply tried to help other human beings in distress was the result of "psycho towelheads", "bat shit craziness", "failure to take his meds", "watching too much MSNBC" and some very creative faithful will totally find a way to blame the attack on either Obama (known affectionately in those Mensa member heavy social groups as Obummer), Hillary, a combination of the two or they'll just drop back in the pocket and fire off their go-to Hail Mary, "those damn libturd snowflakes".

In short, anything and everything under the sun that, for the moment, still shines down on all of us, everywhere, will be to blame for what happened in Portland.

With the exception, of course, of the guy who put the d to the e to the m.a.g. in demagogue last year.

We hear there's even some talk about Lee Harvey Oswald being involved at this point, but that's just speculation and we don't want to add fake news to an already formidable fire.

And then there's Lily.


Don't tell me he has nothing to do with it. He gave these people a voice. And then he gave them permission to act out.


Yeah. What she said.

Except we all know that those who agree have been agreeing all along and will continue to agree, today, tomorrow, forever and ever, amen. And those who disagree will be among those standing in Times Square approvingly watching Donald shoot that kid he mentioned in the not so distant, while they eagerly calculate that it's only three and half years, give or take, before they get the chance to vote for him again.

Which brings us back to differences.

Memorial Day. Veterans Day.

Daylight Savings Time. Daylight Saving Time.

Responsible. Accountable.

Cue a couple of dictionary definitions here:

Responsible... "being the primary cause of something and so able to be blamed or credited for it."
 
Accountable..."...required or expected to justify actions or decisions;..."

Here's a practical application of the difference between those two definitions as it applies to our little chit chat here.

Trump's demagogic politics of fear, complete with bigotry, prejudice, racial and religious slander, the stench of which was almost, but not completely, masked with heavy spritzes of the campaign slang equivalent of Febreeze, "populism", accomplished what it set out to do. Get him elected President of the United States. And because there's no such thing as "a little bit pregnant", once the cork was out of the bottle, fear, bigotry, prejudice, racial and religious slander spread then, and continue to spread, into every single crack, vent and air hole in the American breathing apparatus. It's not an attack or an accusation, it is, in fact, simply a dispassionate fact that the release, the freeing, of those toxins was the result of that method of campaigning. That was the method of campaigning that Trump freely chose. And, no matter how much DeVos mucks up the educational system before she goes back to rich white woman la la land, one plus one still equals two. The Trump methodology of campaigning was the primary cause of the nationwide release of the toxins, therefore, by dictionary definition, he is "responsible" for that toxic release.

And, just because it makes his defenders crazy when a point is stretched but not snapped, there's a case to be made that while he wasn't anywhere near that MAX train Friday, he is "responsible" for the
obscene murder of two decent human beings who simply tried to help other human beings in distress.

Legal precedent?

Not irrefutably sure, to be honest.

Pretty confident there's at least a dozen or so episodes of "Law and Order" where I can find some backup, though.

Accountable, meanwhile?

"Required or expected to justify actions or decisions?"

Well, satirically ironic as it might sound given the toxicity of the national atmosphere these days...

Don't. Hold. Your. Breath.

Trump is never, ever, ever, ever, ever (can I get an "ever"?) ever....going to feel a wispy hint of intention to justify a single, solitary, ding damn thing he has ever, or will ever, ever, ever say, do, think, want, expect, demand...

You get the idea.

And on this weekend of commemoration of those who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country, it's one, probably, trivial thing to not know the difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day.

Another trivial, even silly, thing to not know the difference between Daylight "Savings" and Daylight "Saving".

Not knowing the difference between "responsible" and "accountable", though?

Indefensible.

Don't take my word for it.

Ask the families of two decent human beings who simply tried to help other human beings in distress.

Oh...and that opening comment about "enough nasty, bitter political back and forth for the moment"?

Moment's over.



 

"....Want The Truth From The Media? You Got It...One Condition...You First..."

It's one of my favorite moments in any given episode of "Law and Order".

Jack McCoy, questioning a resisting witness, pivots suddenly to a question that comes more in the form of a sucker punch that exposes the transgression, falsehood, flaw in the alibi, etc of that witness, instantly bringing the defense attorney to their feet, objecting strenuously to the inappropriateness of the question itself.

And the judge, begrudgingly, but, professionally, with an almost palpable weariness, mixed with a little tone reminiscent of a parent admonishing a child responds.

"...you opened the door, Mr (or Ms. ) Defense Attorney...objection overruled."

I always find myself doing a little quick fisted "yessss!" when that happens. Probably because I get an admittedly too gleeful enjoyment out of watching someone being hoisted on their own petard. And, along with it, most likely, an appreciation for he, or she, who has pulled off the hoisting.

I was reminded of my keenness for comeuppance today when a friend of mine forwarded me an op/ed written by a broadcasting colleague of mine.

Rick Jensen is, his syndicated column blurb reads,  Delaware's award-winning conservative talk show host on WDEL, streaming live on WDEL.com from 1pm ---- 4pm EST. Contact Rick at rick@wdel.com, or follow him on Twitter @Jensen1150WDEL.

I've been privileged to guest host for Rick a few times, albeit from a studio in a different part of the state. Just recently, though, circumstances had me guest hosting for another host from the WDEL studios in Wilmington, providing me the opp to meet and chat with Rick. Although the "meet/chat" actually only lasted three or four minutes of a five minute commercial break, Rick offered graciously kind words of praise for my work, coupled with the good natured snark I couldn't help but appreciate, given our pretty much polar positions on pretty much all things political. I had, and have, the feeling that he and I could have some great fun and make some great radio if fate and fortunes ever put us in the point-counterpoint position.

"Rick...you ignorant slut...."

We should both just start clearing a place on the mantle for the multiple Peabodys, ya know?

The op/ed he wrote, forwarded to me by another friend, appears on the website home of the Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. 

The full text can be found here:
https://www.caglecartoons.com/column.asp?columnID=%7BF1D0FF9A-1A3C-4F80-8E61-01A12443FA81%7D 

For my purposes, though, here's Rick's opening salvo.

Which is worse, President Trump allegedly sharing a piece of classified intel with the Russian ambassador or insider bureaucrats leaking classified information to journalists, all hell-bent on unseating a president they just don't like? *

When asked, in the context of a live radio show, my guess would be that Rick would be asking, and expecting, literal answers to that question.

In the context of a printed piece, meanwhile, one would assume the question to be more rhetorical.

To no one's great surprise, I'm gonna forego the rhetorical and go with the literal.

After the initial gauntlet of Rick's premise has been thrown down, he goes on to elaborate on the media's treatment of Trump, taking to task a plethora of pundits for their prejudicial presentations.

"...CNN, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CBS, the New York Times...and all of the papers in ink and online that republish those outlets..." * are taken out back to Rick's woodshed for their "reporting of conjecture", in particular, their conjecture(s) regarding Trump's Kremlin Krisis. It should probably be mentioned, here, that, in Rick's piece, Fox News is obviously, and obviously, conspicuous by its absence from the indictment. In fairness, because it's a safe bet that Fox isn't taking Trump to task for the Kremlin Krisis. 

Of course, it's an even safer bet that Fox News wouldn't take Trump to task for, say, kidnapping, even if the skeletal remains of the Lindbergh baby showed up buried in the moldy basement under Mar A Lago.

But I digress.

Rick uses up a fair chunk of his written words with an example of  what I've affectionately referred to, in my own work, as "but what about(s)?". In this case, "they accuse Trump of ________, but what about when Obama________...or what about when Hillary_____?"

In Rick's piece, Obama is the what abouter du jour.

And that's okay or, at least, that's to be expected because no conservative worth their salt, or their Hannity decoder ring, would fail to take the opportunity to whip up a fresh batch of equivalency when cooking up a big ol' dish of defending the Donald.

And, again, in fairness (I was going to say in fairness and balance, but Ailes just did pass away and even smart ass libturd snowflakes like me have enough class to stay away from punch lining the newly dead), Rick does endorse comments made by Tom Brokaw, a veteran journalist of the journalistic integrity era and someone who could never be indicted for, let alone convicted of, being a conservative voice.

So, there's that.

But all of that and, I'm a thinkin', meanders away from the "ah-ha" moment in the plot of this episode of Jensen vs SEP- The Rhetorical Reckoning.

And here it comes.

Rick is absolutely right. More accurately, I couldn't agree with Rick more. At least insofar as his foundational assertion that mainstream (read: liberal) media has it in for Trump and ain't all that concerned about playing fair. As those, once upon a time, insightful political pundits Rowan and Martin would have put it....

"...you bet your sweet bippy, they want to bring Trump down....and they've got ammo belts chock full of conjecture...and they ain't afraid to use it..."

The fly in the ointment, though, the barb in the rhubarb, the kill in the buzzkill is that this is where the petard makes its dramatic appearance in our story.

The petard that comes in the shape of the notorious "but, what about_____?"

There are certain truths in this life, no matter how we bend, flex, smash, shatter and/or mutate them.

One of those truths is that two wrongs don't make a right. And, in the higher scheme of things, one lie never justifies the telling of another lie, either in support of the first lie or, worse, in retaliation or response to the first lie.

But we don't live in the higher scheme of things. We live in the America where Donald Trump lives at 1600 Pennsylvania (at least one or two days out of the week).

And there's that pesky business about where the bar is set.

Passionate partisan politics aside, policy disagreement understandable and notwithstanding, even simple, basic, primal dislike of a particular individual taken into account, in this case, an individual who, arguably, has set a standard for polarization that may not be equaled in our lifetimes, if ever, there is one irrefutable fact in play.

The 45th President of the United States is a liar. A fibber, a fabricator, an obfuscator, a deceiver, a teller of untruths, a taradiddler.

And you can put Jeffrey Lord and Kellyanne Conway and Scottie Nell Hughes and Kayleigh McEneny and Sean Hannity and throw in a newly re-furbed and re-booted edition of the Mike Curb Congregation, if you want, on 24 hour spin patrol and it will not change, alter or disprove the fact that Trump is not an honest man.

And, if the court please, the evidence submitted in support of this assessment is not rumor, nuance, obfuscation, slander, libel, interpretation or insinuation.

It is factually based truth, available to any and all who wish to confirm it, via hundreds of hours of audio and video and other "recorded live as they happened" statements by this president, himself, his own self and nothing but himself.

And let's don't even get started on the Tweets. Both old and new. But especially old. Contrasted with the new.

For that reason, if only that reason absolutely alone, that's why any discussion, debate, dissertation, disagreement, conversation or simple plain ol' chit chat about the integrity, or lack, of the purportedly villainous mainstream media (read: every single word printed or spoken in a news format in the United States of America that does not come from Fox News) is, at best, a waste of time.

And, at worst, an insult to what's left of the intelligence of the American people.

As I very intentionally pointed out a few paragraphs back, two wrongs don't make a right. And one lie is never an excuse to tell a second.

But holding media (with, of course, the exception of Fox News that has long ago broken my ex-wife's record for never, ever, ever being wrong about anything) to a "standard of truth and factual utterance" for lack of a less lofty phrase is, it turns out, not so much an exercise in futility as it is a literal impossibility.

Because...there is no standard of truth and factual utterance.

And proof about the truth is that it simply doesn't enter into the equation these days.

The 45th President of the United States has no problem ignoring it. Or objecting, complaining and/or plotting to harshly deal with anyone who deigns to call him on the fact that he ignores it.

And the media?

Well, in that higher scheme of things, they would take the high road and just be better people than that.

And it really is a damn shame that they don't take that high road more often.

But there's not a current President in sight on that high road.

Making the case that, if only by implication, truth is expendable and the lie is acceptable.

And were I representing the media and the opposing attorney leaped up and strenuously objected to the media's reporting of conjecture and rumor and, hell, let's just cut to the chase here, flat out lies, I would have merely to give the judge a glance, arch an eyebrow of expectation and wait for the ruling to come rolling right on over them.

Your President....sorry, I mean, your client, opened the door.

Objection overruled.







 







 *© Copyright 2017 Rick Jensen, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.