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.

Sailing To Oblivion: June 17, 2017

We teach it in public administration classes. “Where you stand depends on where you sit.” We see it a lot lately.

Whether it’s the sexual assault trial of Bill Cosby, the comedian and actor, or the investigation of our presidential administration, there is a temptation to view events from our particular sitting spot. It is the sort of thing that can send social media into an uncontrollable frenzy. It can even lead to mayhem and violence. It is what I think of as I experience what appears to be another tack into the sea of disbelief, as we sail to Oblivion on June 17, 2017.

Where we stand depends on where we sit. That would be “Miles Law,” named after the Truman-era bureaucrat who coined the phrase.

We saw it as a symptom of our patriarchal society recently. While Trey Gowdy and his minions had freedom to unleash whatever fury they chose on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, somehow the tender sensibilities of current Attorney General Jeff Sessions had to be protected from the tough questioning of Senator Kamala Harris, Democrat of California.

One can only imagine the sort of slobbering venom that hate media would have produced had Secretary Clinton said, “you make me nervous.” Men do tend to get a free ride in our society, many times because strong women do exactly that—make them nervous. Like Ginger Rogers, who matched every dance move of Fred Astaire, only backwards and in high heels, we men expect our sisters, in this travail of life, to accomplish more, with less acknowledgement, while maintaining a soft and compliant smile. Like plantation owners in the old movies felt about their slaves, we are sure that, in their hearts, they love us.

No wonder they—the strong women of America—regard us men as complete idiots. They don’t have to run around yelling “lock him up, lock him up.” They know that, given enough time, he’ll lock himself up.” Or that’s surely how it looks from where they sit. So many times, the truth lies not in the smile but in what is hidden behind the smile. Miles Law is in operation. It’s just that we have no inkling of where they are mentally sitting.

Meanwhile, from where the men reside, that hegemonic position espoused since the writing of the Holy Bible, it seems only natural to be treated as superior, protected from harsh judgement, given a leg up in our endeavor and always given the benefit of the doubt. It’s the way the Universe was formed. It’s the way things are. Justice carries men along like a mighty river carrying a boat. It is only natural

Or is it? There is another actor in this drama: time. And one can’t think of the inexorable role of this particular actor without recalling the famous ending of Fern Hill, perhaps the most famous Dylan Thomas poem,

“Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,

Time held me green and dying

Though I sang in my chains like the sea.”

You want me to be quiet where?