EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 RESEARCH

Sometimes I read Harper’s Index and dream that if I happed to be younger, smarter, and more educated, I would consider my own topics, such as:

The percentage of the terrorists who attacked the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 who were card-carrying drag queens.

The ratio of women who said, in 2016, that they didn’t like Hillary Clinton but now say they analyze their voting decisions more carefully.

The percentage of evangelicals who affirm reading the Book of Numbers in its entirety and feel concern for the Midianites.

Percentage of affirmed MAGA voters who voted against Bill Clinton only because of his sexual misconduct.

Percentage of voters who feel multiple divorces is not a concern of Christians in selecting a president.

Who believe that the sexual orientation of married couples is.

Number of Trump supporters now in prison who worked as librarians.

Percentage of Americans who believe Lyndon Johnson personally fired the shots that killed John F. Kennedy.

Percentage of American registered voters who can name the U.S. Presidents in order since Herbert Hoover.

Percentage who can name the last ten Grammy winners for female vocalist of the year.

Percentage of mass murderers in the U.S. who were transgender.

Percentage of Americans who believe that the percentage of Americans serving in the military is greater than 25 percent.

Defeat

People made a lot over an op-ed piece this weekend in The New York Time about the city of Clinton, Arkansas and Van Buren County. A local writer, Monica Potts, is working on a book about low-income women in Arkansas. Her piece was entitled, In theLand of Self-Defeat, and well worth reading. At its core lay an uproar over plans to combine two jobs at the county library and raise the remaining recipient’s salary. A Facebook poster, in what is becoming common in local government administration, whipped some of the local population into a frenzy, scraping scabs off whatever sores of social misery an individual might suffer and blaming it on the unfortunate librarian, or education, or taxes, or Hillary Clinton, anything but logic.

I felt the piece was well-written and thought-provoking. Here are some of the thoughts it provoked in me.

First, it carried a hint of inductive reasoning. Somehow, the actions created by Facebook postings may or not generalize into an explanation of why we now see Donald Trump in the White House, or why one party is now dominant in our state (it’s the same party that was dominate during my youth, just with a different name).

Also, I grow a little weary of pundits and writers talking about the “mistakes that Hillary Clinton made.” Here are what I believe are the major political mistakes that created our nightmare.

- Many Americans allowed two multi-billionaires (an Australian and a Saudi-Arabian) who own a cable channel to form their attitudes with a two-year TV smear campaign of lies, innuendos, and outright slander against Clinton, and praise of her opponent in a monstrosity disguised as a news channel.

- James Comey, caught between a “rock and a hard place,” chose poorly (based no doubt on which side he thought could do him the most harm) and sabotaged the Clinton campaign just days before the election.

- The campaign was unable to overcome a genuine feel of “Clinton-Fatigue.” Perhaps a simple “there are worse things” campaign could have helped.

But …

The biggest boulder in this landslide of misjudgment was that Hillary Clinton had served as Secretary of State under an African-American. Yes, a … well I won't use the word I heard so often to describe him. The bigotry test prevailed over the rational method. Sorry.

And if one is from Arkansas, one will have a hard time refuting that with a straight face. Remember the campaign flyers that contained neither platform pledges nor administrative challenges, but simply a big photo of the opponent alongside Barack Obama? Admit it, and then try to claim that logic of any sort resulted in our Electoral College votes, or set the stage for where our country finds itself at present.

The article covered other conservative shibboleths such as anti-education and anti-taxation. I don’t feel qualified to discuss those feelings for a specific city. I’ve only visited Clinton once. That’s when I was invited up after a devastating tornado had torn through the area. They hardly knew I was there. The local folks were too busy courting the FEMA reps who had arrived, with bags of money, to help.

In the final sense though, Clinton shares some of the same obstacles as other small towns in Arkansas. The reason for their original existence, whether it be trade, the railroad, tourism, or settlements for farm labor has disappeared. Along with this has come the lowering of income for middle-class workers. There simply aren’t enough people or resources to support a community facing the so-called “Retail Apocalypse.”

The hill country of Van Buren County, Arkansas offers a beautiful place to live, but little in the way of sustenance. The flat Delta country to the south offers some of the most fertile land in the world, but is a low, flat land, harsh in places, and deemed by many to lack the picturesque beauty that would attract new residents or businesses.

So small communities watch the world go by, while residents focus on such things as a librarian’s salary, whether or not education is, in the long run, good for society, or the color of a president’s skin.

Someone or something must take the blame.

We should be able to do better.

Saiing To Oblivium: August 28, 2017

It almost seems unfeeling to be planning a normal day when our brothers and sisters in Texas are experiencing such horror. But, we beat on, as F. Scott said, “boats against the current.”

What we might learn from these dreadful days is that Nature plays a catastrophic game when she chooses, and we are powerless.

A bully can’t shake his hand in her face and stop the gales.

A billionaire can’t show her his bank statement and escaper her wrath.

A general can’t order his battalions to counterattack and send her fleeing in fear.

A politician can’t “whip” his party into formation and outvote her intentions.

A person blessed with uncommon beauty can’t charm Nature out of destruction.

A thief can't steal her power.

No, at the moment Nature unleashes her fury, we all equal, one of the few moments during which that is true.

What can we do? Perhaps catastrophes such as this will help convince us that neither ignoring nor challenging Nature is the answer. Perhaps the answer lies in a new reverence and a more accommodating posture. Perhaps it is time to let wisdom, education, and decency lead us away from defiance and toward harmony. Perhaps it is time to spend more of our resources working with Nature and less warring with one another. Perhaps it is time to sweep the halls of government clean of climate-change deniers, greed-mongers, and divisive charlatans. We can replace them with women of thought and prudence. (I leave men out of the equation as we’ve had our chance and it’s gone with the wind).

Heck, we might even start electing leaders on the basis of thought and hope instead of fear and hatred.

After all, the only real thing we can do it the face of a furious and unforgiving Nature is to dream of better days and better ways.

Just thinking …

Sailing To Oblivium: August 14, 2017

Because I’m from Arkansas, friends from other states have asked me about Hillary Clinton. I don’t know the woman personally. I shared a running track with her a few times when the old downtown YMCA in Little Rock still had a health club. I was with a friend at the airport one day when she came over and thanked that friend for the expert testimony he had provided for her in a trial a few years back. She introduced herself to me.

Those are the total times I have been in her presence, although the Governor’s Mansion was only a few blocks from where we lived back in the day.

Of mutual acquaintances who did know her well, I have never heard one say a bad, demeaning, unkind, or critical word about her.

The only disparaging remarks I have heard from Little Rock residents came from attorneys at the aforementioned health club talking about how she had destroyed one of their brethren in court and how they hoped they would never have to go against her.

The editorial staff of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette despises her. For an Arkansan, that is one of the highest endorsements of good character that one can achieve.

The consensus among some professionals was that she was smarter than her husband. Others disagreed, saying she was the better administrator and he was the better politician. All say they were good parents. None of my professional acquaintances ever accused Hillary Clinton of being warm and charming in public. That is an assessment that fits a majority of trial lawyers in our state. They, in their defense, are paid to win cases, not friends.

After Ken Starr and his band of zealots spent $70M dollars trying to find dirt on her and her husband, uncovering only an extra-marital affair between her husband and another woman, and nothing at all on her, Having damaged or destroyed countless innocent lives in the process, Starr and his merry evangelicals moved on. I thought the personal crusade against her was over.

No. Trey Gowdy spent another hundred million or so trying to convict her of something and failed. Failed completely. Had he found an unpaid parking ticket, he would have had her arrested. But no. He found nothing. I though the inquisition finished.

No. After a convoluted and confusing battle over the fact that she had erred in the use of her e-mail accounts, uncovering little more than sloppy methodology, I thought the harassment was over.

During all this, nobody ever found grounds for charging her for anything. Anything at all, despite the fact that her enemies controlled both houses of Congress, and enjoyed the full faith and credit of the Koch Brothers and other billionaires with which to finance digging for dirt. With the “null hypothesis” thus extant, surely the search was over.

No, Fox “news” took charge of the campaign. This time, facts were not a necessity. They fed the unsuspecting brains of their viewers with tons of rot and garbage that would have made The Galilean himself look like a child molester.

One example: an individual assured me, without fail and with perfect certainty, of seeing a video of Hillary Clinton laughing because she had gotten a child molester off, as his attorney. Some facts:  (1) There was no video. (2) The lie developed from an unaired, but recorded, interview with a prominent Arkansas journalist when Hillary Clinton was a young attorney. (3) She was assigned the job as attorney for the accused, neither seeking nor wanting the assignment. (4) She was relating to the interviewer how the accused, no doubt guilty of something, had easily passed a polygraph exam. She laughed when she related how that had made her forever distrust polygraph exams, a youthful case of unartful conversation at worst. (5) Hillary Clinton didn't "get the man off." The victim’s parents dropped the case before it went to trial. There's a little more to this if one cares to dig a bit.

I offer this only as an example of how countless hours of work by Brietbart and others can distort reality. Oh, and she never ran a child pornography cell beneath a fast-food restaurant. Thank social media for that one.

After the assault by Fox, I thought the worst may have been over. Then, James Comey had to decide whether to alienate the political party in power or the political party out of power.

He chose poorly, and now we are in the mess that resulted.

I’m not posting this to defend Hillary Clinton or to change anyone’s mind. So please, I offer no ad hominem attacks on any of you, and would graciously ask the return favor. You are welcome to your opinions. I spent four years of my life defending you from being punished for having them. I’m just printing this as my honest assessment, and the reason as to why I voted for this capable woman for president and will die treasuring that as one of my proudest votes.

Just thinking.

Reconciliation: 15

We Arkansans who remember the assault of Kenneth Starr and his army upon our state are amused at the current party leader who’s whining about being “mistreated.” The tragic trail of families disrupted, reputations defamed, and lives destroyed by this man and his legions, will remain in collective memories for years to come. They include those of a dear lady who witnessed her personal library subpoenaed because some books “contained coded messages,” according to a Starr operative. These consisted of dates with suspicious lettering beside them, such as “tg, pc, mp, ml, and fc.” The worst James Bond villain couldn’t have posed a greater threat to our national security. The only thing missing was crime-scene tape.

Not a soul offered an apology after discovering that the cryptic offenses referred to the daily menu at our state capitol’s cafeteria.

I’ve only eaten breakfast there and then only a couple of times, but I’ve heard the meatloaf was delicious back in the day.

So, I ask all my friends, those on both sides of the political spectrum, to claim the right to elect politicians who understand that there will always be “heat in the political kitchen.” It’s best to withstand it or get out.

When we hear a sitting president say, “No politician in history — and I say this

with great surety — has been treated worse or more unfairly,” simple astonishment isn’t enough. Starr and his clan spent $70,000,000 attempting to destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton. Trey Gowdy spent another $20,000,000 on Hillary alone, we are told. Only Roger Ailes knew how much he spent. And the Koch brothers? They are still at it. The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, to mention only two, had daily editorial fodder for more than a decade. Fair? Who’s to say? It just happens, that’s all.

Mistreatment? Were theirs the worst? Ask Abe Lincoln who, on his best day, was only compared to a gorilla.

When I was but a youth, Harry Truman suffered greatly for, among other things, his sin of integrating the military. I well remember attending a rodeo on my home town at which the clown presented the following ditty, repeated over the speakers by the announcer:

Mary had a little Lamb,
Its face was almost human,
and every time you raised its tail.
You'd look at Harry Truman.

It’s too late to ask President Eisenhower how many adoring editorials he received from the Southern news media, with the notable exception of the late Arkansas Gazette.

It might help us heal as a nation to moderate our language. It is no more proper to paint Donald Trump as Adolph Hitler than it was Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barrack Obama, or Hillary.

I’ll even start by toning down my resentment of the Starr episode. I’ll just refer to it as that "that late unpleasantness." Original enough, eh?

Let us also strive to deal in facts and not internet-inspired “truths.” Facts such as: the sun came up this morning. And, though predictions are difficult, especially when they involve the future (a phrase I coined myself although some folks wrongly attribute it to Yogi Berra), the sun will probably come up tomorrow morning, barring one of Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s “Black Swans.” (Recommended reading).

It is up to us to determine what kind of world that sun will shine upon.

Old Harry came out all right.
Will we?