You already know who the ridiculous is. So let’s start with the sublime. I was in the library the other day at the “New/Non-Fiction/14 Days Only” section. On a lower shelf, I spotted a book of essays by Annie Dillard, “The Abundance: Narrative Essays Old and New.” Somehow, I had gotten to be this old without ever reading anything by Dillard, so I picked up the book, and opened it in the middle, to a chapter entitled “The Weasel” “The weasel is wild. Who knows what he thinks? He sleeps in his underground den, his tail draped over his nose. Sometimes he lives in his den for two days without leaving.” Needless to say, I checked it out. The weasel essay, six pages long, includes a 60-second encounter in the woods when Dillard and a weasel locked eyes. The essay also includes the tale of an eagle that tried to carry off a weasel, and got more than it expected. The essay become an exhortation to grab life – whatever life is – with your jaws, and not let go. That is pretty much what Dillard does in her writing, and in her life, by her own testimony. In one section, "An American Childhood,” previously published, she races through her family and her church and her boyfriends and her life. Required reading for teen-agers. I was knocked out by the two final essays. One was about sand, and geology, and the Jesuit priest-paleontologist, Teilhard de Chardin, and love. The final chapter by Dillard, a convert to Catholicism, was alternating segments about what she called the modern "hootenany" Mass and doomed polar explorers who went off unprepared. It ends with a fantasy of the two themes overlapping. I am now a fan of Annie Dillard, maybe even a groupie. * * * The second book continues the furry, feral theme, considering the muskrat Donald Trump carries around on his head and in his head. The book is “The Making of Donald Trump,” by Pulitzer-Prize-winning David Cay Johnston, seen often on the Web and the tube, warning us, “The Trumpites are coming! The Trumpites are coming!” The book hit No. 15 on the Times best-seller list last week. Johnston is an investigative reporter, one of the best, and has been on the scent of Trump and the muskrat for decades. He has put together verifiable details of the way Trump does business – the Polish immigrants who tore down a landmark building at nights, without safety precautions or attention to artwork; the vendors who got stiffed by Trump, the garish casinos in Trump’s name without his having any knowledge of how gambling works, the threats, the suits, the welching, and the lies about women he never dated. Johnston’s book should be read – but won’t be -- by the fact-averse minority that considers Trump the great white hope. Weasels sí, muskrat head no. I had this thought while watching the Democratic convention Wednesday night: Are the young Trumps watching? Do they hear what Michael Bloomberg says about their patriarch? Do they watch President Obama skewer their benefactor, their teacher, just about he did at that press dinner in 2011? How do they react to the gentle jibes of Tim Kaine? What do they think when Donald J. Trump asks Russia, invader of neighboring nations and clandestine drug pusher to its athletes, to hack the emails of Hillary Clinton? Does the word “treason” cross their minds? By genetic definition, these offspring don’t have all of Trump’s wiring – the disabilities that do not allow him to take in information, that make him lash out. Certainly the spouses do not. But have they absorbed Trump’s mind set? Do all those Trump mothers’ genes kick in and make the next generation fear the rampage he is on? Do they know right from wrong? Is there room for embarrassment when the Clinton commercial is repeated on the tube, showing children watching and listening as Trump makes fun of women’s bodies, of a reporter’s condition? (Serge Kovaleski is a friend and colleague, a terrific guy, who has a condition called arthrogryposis, which limits the motion of his arms but not his work, his life.) Do they ever try to bring up these ugly acts to Trump – or would he cut them off without a dollar, as if they were a vendor who had done honest work for him? Are they touched by the church ladies who have known tragedy up close but at the convention spoke of love and forgiveness while calling for gun control? What do they think when Vice President Biden refers to his late son, and talks about how the Obamas have become “family?” Can they imagine feeling that way about other people -- or other people feeling that way about them? What do the Trump scions feel when Michelle Obama reaches the whole world with her speech? We have been told that one member of the Trump entourage admires Mrs. Obama – Melania Trump, who used several chunks of Mrs. Obama’s speech in her own talk at the Republicans’ fearful convention. Or was that a weasel way of explaining amateurish plagiarism? Are they touched by Mrs. Obama’s intelligence and dignity – or do they carry the same racist contempt of the Obamas that can be found under the rock of the Internet – and, oh, yes, in Congress? What do the young Trumps really think when Michael Bloomberg refers to their meal ticket as a serial welcher and cheapskate, who got his start with a $1-million loan from his old man? Are they impressed with Bloomberg’s billions-of-dollars charity, or do they think to themselves, “chump?” The cliché is that the Trump kids seem okay, that they don’t have the bullying tactics of the old man. One reporter went hunting with the two older Trump sons and found them not obnoxious or repellent. But is there room in their hearts for self-awareness? For shame? Just wonderful. The United States has a presidential candidate who seems to have major psychological and developmental problems. (Plus, he’s obnoxious.)
I couldn’t watch Thursday night. Turned on classical music on WQXR. However, I am vastly reassured by the latest reckoning by the Ouija Board people at the Times who have come up with odds on the presidential election. Hillary Clinton – we are told – has a three-quarters chance of winning the election. That sounds great. Then I read that this is the equivalent of the foul-shooting percentage in the National Basketball Association. I did not know that numbers people had a sense of humor and could drop a sly line like that in the middle of a story. We do use a lot of sports metaphors in this country, our brains perhaps terminally addled by reality shows and sports broadcasting.
Now there is the NY Times observation comparing Hillary Clinton’s chances with the NBA’s overall foul-shooting percentage -- .757 on this recently-concluded season. I was of course reassured by the prospect of Hillary Clinton, steely-eyed survivor of spurious charges, strong-minded debater who dribbled rings around Congressional pinheads like Trey Gowdy, fierce rebounder who held off Bernie (Mr. Elbows) Sanders in the primaries, now saving the day for humanity. In my fevered brain, in the championship final, Clinton gets fouled by Mad Dog Trump, the designated hacker from the Dark Side, who mysteriously never fouls out of games despite the dirty fouls he constantly commits. The ref signals: one shot. To let her think a bit, the Dark Side calls time out. Both teams repair to their benches. The joint is going nuts. Her supporters keep telling us that in the clutch Hillary never misses. (“You should have seen the time she threw the vase at me,” her husband often brags.) Coach looks at her and says, “Nothing to it, Big Lady. Over and in. Then we pop the Champagne.” In the stands, my knees start knocking like castanets. When do we wake up? Went to two graduations on Thursday – middle school and high school. Listened to graduates called up for diplomas – familiar town names over the years, Italian, African-American, Polish. Meantime, mischief was being made in Washington, D.C, and Great Britain. The Supreme Court was showing its contempt for the new wave of immigrants and British voters were choosing to leave the European Union, mainly because of immigration. (That's the thanks they show for the grand gift of curry and roti; they were eating bangers and mash before they let in the new people.) The student speaker at one graduation had a Hispanic name, spoke perfect English in a witty talk. The next generation. The Jordans and the Jennifers. America. I heard names being called that came from India and Pakistan. Central America. Korea and China and Japan. Several young women bowed their heads, Asian-style, to their teachers on the stage, I eavesdropped as three mothers greeted each other, one with a thick Hispanic accent. Their familiarity spoke of parent-teacher conferences, art shows, sidelines at soccer matches on nippy afternoons. In Washington and Britain, people were building walls, you might say. The same week a great moral leader, an American treasure named John Lewis, reminded some of us how to demonstrate for fairness. The sourpuss speaker of the house labelled it a stunt. Guess he never studied civics in Wisconsin. The middle school graduates lined up in alphabetical order, with four years of order ahead of them. In the late afternoon, the high-school graduates swarmed in no order whatsoever, clusters of friends, glimpses of cutoffs and shorts under billowing robes – all energy and brashness, more than ready to move on. Taxes are brutal in this part of the world, but the school district has done its job. We heard these graduates had earned $2.2-million in scholarships. In this one corner of the world, the system seemed to be working. At one family gathering, both graduates brought friends with recent roots overseas. Nice kids. Bright eyes. On their way. In Scotland, the presumptuous Republican candidate – who, by the way, looks puffy, pasty-faced, not well, about to explode – congratulated the Scots for the Brexit vote. He somehow missed the point that the Scots had voted to remain in the E.U. The Scots are mocking him, big-time. Guess Wharton didn’t teach civics. Or else Trump simply cannot assimilate facts. Late that night, money people around the world panicked. That’s the way the lemmings leap. Happy graduation. Happy world. Thank goodness for the Mets. That’s all I can say. They serve the ultimate function of sports – keeping the mind off real life -- and more power to them. Right now the Mets are out west, which gives me license to ignore cable news in the evening and hope Bartolo Colón will hit another home run. I caught that one live on Saturday -- Gary Cohen’s call was great on the tube; so was Howie Rose’s call on the radio; so was the Spanish call by Juan Alicea and Max Perez Jimenez. All I can say is, if you are going to watch a man with a big belly lumber around with a smirk on his face, better to watch Colón than that trickster from Queens. This is not escapism, this is self-help, not having to remind oneself over and over again that at least one third of America leans toward a lout from reality TV. Let’s go Mets. The other night I saw Asdrubal Cabrera, who has reminded us what the position of shortstop can be, race down the left-field line to catch a fly ball over his shoulder at the edge of the stands. When a little boy in the front row leaned forward to congratulate him, Cabrera patted the boy on the head. There was more grace and humanity in those two gestures than I have seen from the front-runners in the grinding decades of this current political campaign. (As an old Appalachian hand, I am available to advise Hillary Clinton how to talk to coal miners, but I don’t think that is happening.) I’m burned out. I’ve been watching and reading about the primaries for way too long – and have few complaints. I just read the thoughtful essay in the Times about how pollsters and experts underestimated Trump, but I just want to say these are the same number-crunchers who reassured me President Obama was going to win in 2012. (By winning, Obama endured, to deliver that wonderful graduation speech at Howard University last Saturday, a civics lesson for all. I am going to miss that man, no matter who wins this long slog to November.) All right, the pollsters and others missed the Trump tsunami among the minority on the right, but I cannot fault The New York Times, where I used to work. It has given us tons of stories on buffoonery of Trump. (I saw a friend of mine from Queens quoted about what a nasty little boy Trump was; quite right.) The Times has done fine (with the great Margaret Sullivan riding herd in her final months as media critic) and MSNBC has sent platoons of reporters out into the land. Chris Matthews, the host who doesn’t listen to his guests, is often susceptible to Trump’s flattery (we’re-a-couple-of-big-timers, you-and-me, Chris) but nailed him on his abortion silliness. MSNBC has enlightened, with Lawrence O’Donnell and Joy Reid and Rachel Maddow and our household favorite Steve Kornacki. (I’ve lost my wife to Kornacki and Bernie Sanders.) Brian Williams has been irrelevant -- hair and teeth and suit, on his work-release program with the network. When MSNBC veers into silliness, CNN is there. And thank goodness, our cable system carries the BBC and Euro News to remind us the world is still out there. Forget our networks. They gave up decades ago. For the reading class, the web is full of informative articles, like the one by David Cay Johnston on salon.com about Trump bankruptcy maneuvers. Now Trump is proposing to run the country that unsavory way, according to Paul Krugman. For all the hand-wringing, I do not think I am uninformed. Fact is, I am too informed. There’s only one more Breaking News I want – not too late on the evening of Nov. 8 -- the long national nightmare is over. We will have a president who is, at bare minimum, informed. Meantime, the Mets are out west. Colón pitches Thursday night. * * * (In case you missed that wonderful talk.) What’s the word for early nostalgia?
Every time I read the paper or turn on the tube, I am reminded just how much I am going to miss Barack Obama. Separation anxiety sets in. I see him comporting himself with dignity and wisdom, in Europe at the moment or wherever he goes - the thoughtful pauses, the complicated sentences, the deference to fact and reality. Every time the U.S. locates a nest of crazies in the Middle East, or the jobless rate stays down or the stock market moves up, I say, “Yeah, he’s not doing anything.” Real pundits have been saying the same thing recently. Brooks. Alter. And I just discovered a wonderful piece by Jim Nelson in GQ. I like every word. Pretty soon, even Mitch McConnell and that posse (Mitch and the Dull Normals) that stands behind him are going to miss Barack Obama, even though they have spent the last seven years resenting that a President of mixed heritage is the smartest man in the room. Après lui, le déluge. The other day I heard Trump making fun of John Kasich’s last name. Get this: a family that claimed it was Swedish, not German, making fun of a Croatian name, in front of angry whites who think they’ve gotten a bad deal. He's mocking them, and they don't get it. Now I hear Cruz and Kasich are working in cahoots to divide the remaining states. Those two mugs couldn’t figure out how to split the check after lunch. Recently I had the pleasure of voting for Bernie Sanders in the New York primary. The other day our grandson sat up close to Sanders at a rally in Pennsylvania and sent a photo and terse note: “Yeah, it was a little cookie cutter, but it was still really cool to see him.” He’s voting for the first time this fall. It’s been wonderful to see young people drawn to a political race. I hope they stick around for November, when I will do my duty and vote for Hillary Clinton. For whom else? I turned on the tube Sunday night and MSNBC was dredging up a canned Clinton retrospect. Yikes. For the next half year we are going to be hearing names like Linda Tripp and Paula Jones and Whitewater, emerging from the swamp, historical zombies. Meantime, my wife gets Elizabeth Warren newsletters, explaining the economy, the state of the union. Sometimes we fantasize about Warren running for President, this time, right now. John Nichols put it perfectly in The Nation: http://www.thenation.com/article/the-most-focused-and-effective-democratic-messenger-we-have-is-elizabeth-warren/ I doubt Sen. Warren can do Al Green. The Prez did him at the Apollo -- even made a reference to Sandman Sims, the legendary comic who gave the hook to bad acts. Where is the Sandman when we really need him? Donald Trump has been yammering about making South Korea pay for American services.
I doubt he knows anything about South Korea, other than he may have a property there. In 2002, I accompanied the American soccer team’s visit to the DMZ between South and North Korea, while the team was preparing for the World Cup. The federation was kind enough to allow journalists covering the team to come along, on a separate bus. We all walked from a staging area toward the buildings at the border. Officials had told us to dress conservatively – no shorts – and not to wave or smile at people on the other side. They impressed on us that this was serious business. We had been told of the time in 1976 when North Korean soldiers attacked with axes, killing two American soldiers who were pruning a tree. Since then, security had been even higher. Soldiers from both Koreas stood a few feet apart, glaring at each other. They worked short shifts, to remain at peak alert. Behind the South Koreans on the front line were American soldiers, in great shape, well-spoken, the best and the brightest. These were not hired hands, to be withdrawn over a labor dispute. These were warriors, guarding what President Clinton once called “the most dangerous place on earth.” When we walked back to the buses, we were made aware of barracks where soldiers from South Korea and the United States were waiting, literally seconds from possible combat. These were partners, protecting a flourishing democracy, in effect standing guard for much of Asia and the world. I remember DaMarcus Beasley, one of the most observant of American players, shaking his head and letting us know he had come with no idea what went on there. But now he did. Everybody heading back to the buses seemed reflective. Some younger Korean journalists told us their parents and teachers had not impressed them about the danger a few miles north. Anybody with normal learning ability would have realized the serious issues at that border. As President Obama said Friday at the nuclear summit: “Our alliance with Japan and the Republic of Korea is one of the foundations, the cornerstone of our presence in the Asia-Pacific region. It has underwritten the peace and prosperity of that region.” The American presence at the DMZ -- and backing up Japan -- was not some hotel deal to be re-negotiated, in Trumpian fashion. There are many things wrong with Donald Trump. Many things. But whether his family name was changed is not one of them.
Every day something bad comes out about Trump – his faux “university,” his ludicrous litany of products real and discontinued, and worst of all, the public events where Trump’s people sucker-punch protestors who just happen to have dark skin. Apparently, he lied about consulting police before cancelling his rally in Chicago Friday night. Trump is, to use his own fourth-grade word selection, a nasty, nasty guy. (When he says “dude” it's a code word for blacks.) I was calling some of Trump’s sucker-punch supporters Brown Shirts long before I heard that his family name may have been altered a generation or three ago. Brown Shirts do not depend on a discarded name from the other side. Now it turns out that the Trump family from a posh section of Jamaica Estates, Queens, may have been named Drumpf back in Germany. Trump, typically, has been known to claim he had Swedish origins. Well, who believes him on anything? Into the mix comes a British comedian selling ball caps (at cost) that say “Make Donald Drumpf Again” – a twist on Trump’s subliminally racist slogan. The first lot of ball caps sold out. I don’t find John Oliver funny. I came upon him in 2014 when he was goofing on the American interest in the soccer World Cup, those silly people. This was after a quarter century of American involvement in the great event, with pubs and television ratings flourishing during the World Cup in Brazil. But Oliver yukked it up, giving me the impression he has a tin ear about the country where he makes a considerable living. (I gather, to his credit, he is also having fun with the scandals of FIFA, the world soccer body.) Fact is, the basic act of changing a name, legally or otherwise, is part of the American experience, part of assimilation. Changing names is as American as apple strudel. Some people changed their names to make them sound more American. But I grew up a yooge half mile away from Trump’s posh enclave, and I knew German-Americans up the block who kept their name – and their vestigial accents, harder to shed – shortly after the War, with no need to hide their life’s journey. My soccer captain at Jamaica High spoke German before he spoke English, he told me the other day. Nowadays, the newer waves, the Garcias and the Patels, do not change their names; we have moved on. We also change pronunciations. The Hungarian-American family that adopted my father had long since anglicized their pronunciation to VES-see, but as a tour guide in Budapest once lectured me, my surname is quite familiar there, and is pronounced VAY-chay. (Bud Collins was the only person who called me VAY-chay. Bud knew that stuff.) What’s in a name? Donald Trump is a creep, a dangerous creep. If his family changed its name, a comedian sniggering about it on the tube does not help the dialogue. What a wonderful night for journalism, at the end of the Academy Awards, to see “Spotlight” honored as best picture. The film shows how the Boston Globe pursued a history of abuse by priests in the region.
Yes, journalism is still being practiced at some of the surviving journals in the United States, the ones that devote precious time and money and staff to finding stuff out, and publishing it. However, my pride in colleagues is tempered by the realization that not enough people read the information – and opinion – in the surviving fringe of American journalism. I occasionally talk at colleges and high schools and generally get blank looks from students when I ask how many people read newspapers. Even on line? I ask. Some nod yes, but cannot give examples. They like things that jump around. But apparently so do their elders. A frightening swath of Americans seem to think Donald Trump knows how the world works. Because people do not read newspapers, in print or on line, they do not know that he is generally regarded with a shrug and a smile in New York, the town that knows him best. Oh, that guy. This reality was brought home recently by two articles in The New York Times about Trump’s reputation (marginal) in New York real estate circles, and how he bled investors in a golf resort in Florida. This is who the guy is; this is how he operates. But unless people delve into the details – that is to say, read – they will never know. This is where we are going. Here are two stories most of America will never read: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/24/nyregion/donald-trump-nyc.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/27/sports/golf/at-trump-club-in-florida-some-members-want-their-money-back.html Now Trump is threatening to suppress newspapers when he becomes President. Perhaps he will send his Brown Shirts to crowbar the printing presses. Here’s another look at Trump, from 1990, by Marie Brenner in Vanity Fair -- the attention-deficit playboy-builder we knew before he unleashed his public bully. http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2015/07/donald-ivana-trump-divorce-prenup-marie-brenner I also recommend two current articles on Hillary Clinton and Libya, stemming from what is obviously weeks of work: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/us/politics/hillary-clinton-libya.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/us/politics/libya-isis-hillary-clinton.html One last thing about journalism: Margaret Sullivan is leaving her post as public editor at the Times to become a media columnist at the Washington Post. In my now-outsider’s opinion, I wish the Times had found a new gig for Sullivan, the best public editor the Times has had. I hope these links work in your system. If not, the stories are easily looked up. As a proud alumnus, I am glad the Times values its work by charging for it on line. It costs a lot of money for the Times and Globe to cast their spotlight. (My friend Hansen Alexander, frequent respondent on this site, plumbs the primitive id of a certain candidate.)
Q. Why are you ahead of the other Republicans? NDT: (Not Donald Trump) The camera loves me. The networks place me standing in the middle of the other candidates during the debates. I suck up all the air in the studio and they become invisible. Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz and what’s his face from Ohio become mere shadows of the Donald. I’m really the blond bombshell of the year. I’m the Marilyn Monroe of politics. Q. Marilyn Monroe? Really? NDT. Heck, Marilyn had some girth around the middle at the end, love handles like me. Not like Rosie. Q. As a New Yorker, one would think that you are actually a good deal more liberal than you talk. NDT: I believe strongly in whatever my speechwriters compose that day. Q. You’ve called for no taxes for people who make less than $50,000. How are you going to make up for that loss of income in your budgets? NDT. Look, that’s way too complicated to explain to the American public. Only experts at the Congressional Budget Office understand these things. Q. Your plan to build The Great Wall of America on the Mexican border seems to be popular in some quarters. NDT: The Donald knows what voters want. You can’t have a bunch of little brown banditos coming to New York City like barbarian hordes and doing all the preparing, cooking, and waiting on tables in our restaurants. They would take all the jobs away from my fellow Wharton grads. Q. How did you calculate the 8 billion figure for this great wall? NDT: Look, the American people trust the Donald to figure out these things because he’s a real estate genius and can say “You’re fired” to foreign leaders who disagree with him. And as I’ve made clear, I’ll simply call up the leader of Mexico, whoever the hell that is, and tell him to put up the wall and pay for it himself. Q. And Mexico would just do that? NDT: You’ve got to understand that when the Donald says jump, other world leaders and members of Congress are simply going to ask, “How high?” Q. Speaking of Congress. You have no experience whatsoever in government. NDT: I’m going to be more successful with Congress than LBJ. And here’s why! Every Republican in Congress owes me big time from contributing to their campaigns. All I have to do is call the up and remind them of my generosity, and they will vote for anything I demand. Q. And if they don’t? NDT: I’ll bring in the heavy artillery. I’ll have Regis and Kathy Lee and Michael and my lunch partners at the Plaza pressure them. Q. You’re coming from a background in high society and reality TV. Why are you so popular with some regular people? NDT: World Wide Wrestling. As David Brooks pointed out recently, I was a huge success working with World Wide Wrestling, which you know has more cash than any sports media related business. Q. How could you possibly beat a candidate such as Secretary Clinton, since you probably can’t even win your own state of New York? NDT: I don’t even know why Hillary is running against me because she loves me so much. Like most women, she daydreams about playing footsie with me under the table at dinner. She and Bill even came to my wedding, I forget which one. Q. Besides building The Great Wall of America, what do you intend to do in foreign policy, should you win? NDT: Well, of course besides keeping the Muslims and Mexicans out, I’ll do the easy stuff first, such as imposing peace in the Middle East. Q. What? NDT: The first thing everybody needs to know about the Donald is that he’s a master negotiator. Build a few hotels on the Gaza strip, a few new shopping malls for Tel Aviv, presto---an Israeli-Palestinian peace. I expect the new capital of Palestine will be called Trump Town. Q. How are you going to deal with Afghanistan and Iraq? And will you send more ground troops to Iraq to deal with ISIS? NDT: That’s a tough question. Got an easier one? Q. Not really. NDT: Oh, all right, I’m not going to be PC here because that would ruin my image, but those war things are really too complicated to explain. They are better explained by our war planners at the Pentagon. And you can bet if things go wrong in Iraq when I’m President, those things WILL be explained by the Pentagon. Q. And if they go right? NDT: It will prove, of course, what everybody already knows. The Donald is a genius. Q. You don’t like tough questions. How will you handle the White House press corps? NDT: If the news media at the White House asks biased questions, which I define as ones that don’t make me look good, then goodbye, don’t hit your butts on the way out the door. Read my lips, no more presidential press conferences. You’re finished. You’re fired. ---Hansen Alexander is a New York attorney and author of six books. The latest, "The Life and Trials of Roger Clemens," will be released by McFarland in the fall. Donald Trump thinks Pope Francis is “too political” because he will visit a camp of migrants during his stop in Mexico. This comes while Trump is seeking – and getting! – support from Christian voters. I bet he hates the idea of the Pope building showers and toilets in Rome for the homeless – those loafers – and speaking with tolerance about gays, asking “Who am I to judge?” It seems clear to me that Trump does not have normal human compassion. His success with Americans as a sneering tyrant on a reality television show has further emboldened his unchecked infantile impulses. Yet some Americans, professing religious values, fall for him. He’s their kind of guy. Trump’s criticism of Pope Francis reminds me of another papal trip to Mexico, which I covered, oh my goodness, 37 years ago. The new Pope, John Paul II, in his first overseas trip, arrived in the Zócalo, the center of ancient Mexico City. The Pope issued a call for the Catholic clergy of Latin America to get back in uniform and deliver the sacraments and not bring some semblance of self-determination to the poor. Don’t be political, in other words. The coded words sent a message all over Latin America, allowing governments to clamp down on activism toward the poor, including in Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s native Argentina. This Pope has seen repression up close, has been deeply scarred by it. The latest Trump outburst reminds me of Mexico in February of 1979 when I twice met Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero of El Salvador, who spurned luxuries and slept in a peasant hammock and encouraged help for the poor. I wrote about my encounters with Romero a year ago: http://www.georgevecsey.com/home/i-once-met-a-potential-saint-archbishop-romero I asked Romero whether the words from Mexico City did not put religious activists in trouble all over Latin America. His response was a somber yes, without any sign of fear or weakening. A year later he was assassinated while saying Mass. Trump has surely never heard of Oscar Arnulfo Romero. I assume he knows nothing of the desaparecidos, the thousands of Argentines who were taken away, never to be seen again. Trump knows gold-plated bathrooms and tactical bankruptcies and serial marriages. The Pope builds toilets and showers for the homeless. In an ancient ritual of humility and service, he washes and kisses the feet of Muslims and convicts. Trump wants to build a wall. Boasts that Mexico will pay for it. And many Americans professing religious leanings are charmed by him. * * * (Terrific article about Trump's world view:) http://www.salon.com/2016/02/12/donald_trumps_white_america_is_revolting_new_numbers_show_just_how_noxious_the_gop_front_runners_coalition_is/ Weekend Update: The debate was a ghoul show. Saturday Night Live was ecch, as we say in New York. Rather than expend more good energy, I ducked the Super Bowl. It just didn't exist. Watched political history on C-Span. Listened to classical on WQXR-FM. Read a great New Yorker piece on Chechnya. What a clean feeling to wake up Monday, like getting up early on Jan. 1 after not drinking. But the news says Trump and Cruz and El Joven are still with us. Yikes.)
Nevertheless, my household is hooked on the presidential primaries: Steve Kornacki explaining stuff on MSNBC and Rachel Maddow and Chuck Todd with all their enthusiasm and Chris Matthews never letting his guests get in a word. (What is Brian Williams, with his pomaded network stiffness, doing on cable? As the subway guy bellowed in the movie “Ghosts:” “Get off my train!”) Plus, the primaries beat the heck out of football, which I always knew was bad for the brain, anybody’s brain. As of Saturday morning, I was not at all sure I would watch the Super Bowl. I had already seen one NFL game this season. Yes! It happened two weekends ago, after I gloated about going a full season without seeing a single down. http://nssafame.com/2016/01/25/in-the-spotlight-george-vecsey/ Having made that boast, I went to a family gathering two Sundays ago for (a) home-grilled wings, (b) the NFL doubleheader and (c) glimpses of the grand-daughters. (The girls ate the wings and promptly vanished downstairs to watch “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”) As a sociologist in a strange land, I did observe: *- NFL broadcasters no longer chortle how tacklers “rang his bell.” I wonder why. *- Deep loathing of the Patriots. One family member hates Brady because he retains a resident chef. *- Football has not changed much since the last time I took a peek – sporadic running, passing and kicking, plus commercials. *- My wife – not a sports fan – noticed Peyton Manning’s craggy face on the sideline: “He’s the one who sings about chicken parmesan on TV.” *- Speaking of commercials: the ones for football are aimed at active younger people (cars and fast food) whereas the commercials for my age group push health insurance, stair lifts, vitamins for arthritis, ringing in the ears and upset stomachs, plus pills that involve couples splashing around in water. *- With the game dragging, some of us discussed the delightful prospect of Barbara Bush going to a primary and kicking Trump in his posterior, while sneering, Not our type. Go, Granny, go. With two minutes left, fear and trembling took over. Laura, the sports and political columnist, cautioned that Bill Belichick, master of dark arts, might still think of something. The behemoth named The Gronk plucked the ball out of the air to bring the Patriots within 2 points. The onside kick skittered harmlessly. Game over. Cheers. Civilization saved. I came away from my annual NFL game comparing candidates and coaches: *- Chris Christie and Rex Ryan, of course. But Rex had better lap-band surgery. *- Jeb! and Dick Kotite. Nice guys who…. *- Trump reminds me of a fan in a goofy costume, who makes brave noise from the stands but doesn’t understand the game. *- El Joven de Florida reminds me of boy wonders who get a job somewhere and are immediately over their heads. *- Clinton does not conjure up a football image but I could not help thinking of baseball manager Gene Mauch, a verbal lifer who knew the game inside and out. (You know the rest.) *- Cruz and Belichick. One delivered a chop block to Ben Carson's knees. The other has a perp list of dirty tricks. *- Bernie Sanders and Tom Coughlin, two apparently grumpy old men who lightened up. (Coughlin won two Super Bowls. Just saying.) I planned to watch the GOP Frolics followed by Larry David and Bernie Sanders on SNL, to clear my head. As for the Super Bowl, MSNBC said Jeb! was planning a Hail Mary Pass: an expensive commercial starring The Old Decider. We've seen how that one works. Oh, there's nothing halfway
About the Iowa way to treat you, When we treat you Which we may not do at all. -- “Iowa Stubborn,” Meredith Willson. Thank you, Iowa (as the politicians say.) One of the best movies ever made about America -- right up there with Brooklyn movies and LA Noir movies and Deep South movies - - is the musical "The Music Man," written by the great Meredith Willson (two Ls, cantankerously), originally from Mason City, called River City. The movie is about another time and place and a flimflam man carrying a cheap suitcase, alighting from a smoky passenger train. Somebody asks where he is going and he says, "Wherever the people are as green as the money." Now they come on chartered jets, but they still want something, in this case votes, from clusters of Iowan in gyms and halls, earnest and dressed for winter (with the occasional Bernie t-shirt.) I recalled covering a few stories in Iowa (including Pope John Paul II’s visit to a heritage farm, charming Lutherans) and for one of the rare times since I retired I actually wanted to be working, talking to people in those clusters. I kept thinking of wily Robert Preston, calling himself Prof. Harold Hill, and heartbreakingly lovely Shirley Jones as the librarian, and Buddy Hackett, for goodness’ sakes, settled down in Iowa, and all the characters, the puffed-up men and hormonal teenagers and cackling wives who were smarter than their husbands, of course. And there was Trump, roaring in on his own jet, selling hot air out of an empty suitcase and empty mind. The Iowans asserted themselves in a few directions, going for Sr. Canada first and El Joven third and leaving Trump in a very loser-like second. (And what about his bluster that he can get things done?) He got on his plane and went east, unlike The Music Man, who…but heck, rent the movie. The Iowans also went 50-50 for Clinton and Sanders, now joined at the hip like the couple in the Grant Wood painting, “American Gothic.” All those people, coming out on a wintry night, did not settle much, but they did firmly establish that Trump did not get the girl in River City. For a different metaphor of Trump, the pro-wrestling bozo, I urge you to read David Brooks’ brilliant column in the NYT. I loved watching Iowans in their clusters – the Iowa-stubborn female vet who cursed the VA live on MSNBC, the Iowa-stubborn young man who held out for Martin O’Malley in his final hours as a candidate, the Iowa-stubborn voters who cheered Cruz and Rubio and Trump and Clinton and Sanders as they vanished into the night, leaving Iowa to Iowans. And we're so by God stubborn We could stand touchin' noses For a week at a time And never see eye-to-eye. -- "Iowa Stubborn," Meredith Willson.
It’s bad enough to have nihilists around the world blowing things up after their own systems failed. But what accounts for apocalyptic behavior in the United States? This is no news that Donald Trump is proposing things right out of the dictator playbook, even citing the one really unpleasant thing Franklin Delano Roosevelt did – internment of Japanese-Americans. Trump doesn’t even know how widely that is condemned, by people who admire FDR. He doesn’t know much, which is his appeal to a generation dumbed down by reality shows with sneering hosts. I grew up near Trump in Queens. People tell me he was a nasty little kid. Still is. But he has terroristic help from the Republicans he scorns: Carly Fiorina made public comments about dissecting embryos for “baby parts.” This has been proven untrue. Tell that to the crazed hermit who killed three people at a Planned Parenthood site in Colorado. I haven’t heard Fiorina apologize for inciting the brute. The main New Hampshire newspaper endorsed Chris Christie in that state’s primary. At least it wasn’t Trump. But I heard the paper’s editorial writer explaining what a fine leader Christie is. He had no idea that New Jersey is doing terribly financially, and he did not seem to know about the bridge scandal -- people in Christie’s circle backing up the George Washington Bridge. Isn’t that terrorism? What would happen if Christie were elected – from the clink? Finally, Lindsey Graham is urging Republicans to take back their party from the unwashed interloper. That’s nice. But Graham and the “establishment” is coming off nearly seven years of overt sabotage to the President and the government. The motivation was more than politics. It was racial. They could not stomach a smart man with African-American roots as President. Graham and his pals facilitated Donald Trump. Isn't that terrorism? This just in: a sweet example of Graham saying nice things about Joe Biden, as forwarded by my political friend, George Mitrovich: * * * https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mitrovich-baseball-notes/HGgHFL8Cq5U * * * Here’s a song from the Prophet Iris -- Iris DeMent: "Wasteland of the Free:" Trump is slipping, exposed as the buffoon he is. As I watched him fall apart in front of our eyes, I kept trying to remember who he reminded me of.
Then it came to me -- right after Trump went along with the bigot at the rally who proclaimed President Obama is a Muslim. Whereas John McCain summoned up his dignified side in 2008 when the woman in red pulled that stuff, Trump chortled with glee. My thoughts turned to young Alvy Singer in the movie "Annie Hall." The little boy puts up with a bumptious friend of his father's, just long enough, and then he turns away, muttering the famous phrase. Enjoy the video. This time Trump has gone too far. He has made fun of Carly Fiorina’s face and sneered at Mexicans, aiming at the angry white male. Now he has taken on John Kerry for committing the federal crime of riding a bicycle as a septuagenarian. “They have no respect for our president, they have no respect for John Kerry, who falls off bicycles at 73 in the middle of a negotiation that’s very important,” Trump said in August. He paraphrased it Monday night, again criticizing the Iran nuclear treaty. Of course, Trump exaggerated Kerry’s age. Said he was 73. In fact, Kerry is 71. Take it from a far lesser cyclist who tumbled on sand, every year counts while pedaling uphill More to the point, Trump has once again pandered to the know-nothing set, this time in Dallas, making fun of Kerry’s love of cycling – the high-tech bike, the full outfit, the challenge of a Tour--level mountain in Switzerland. Trump perhaps knows this is something thousands of men and women do daily in Europe and elsewhere, imitating the great cyclists on the hardest hills they can find. But he panders to the base. Classic Donald. He said the Secretary of State was riding in a race. In fact, Kerry was taking on a Tour incline in May, but with his own State Department motorcade, which rushed to his help when he struck a curb and toppled, fracturing his leg. Yes, the injury was serious enough to warrant surgery and care in New York. Trump senses it will work as part of his shtick about Kerry. In his rally in Dallas, Trump once again imitated Kerry’s return to work. Simulating a man walking with crutches, he said, “The people from Iran say, ‘What a schmuck.’” This is a common theme with Trump – the queasiness with anything less than a perfect 10. Trump seems pathologically uncomfortable with human frailty. What must he think of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who ran a country in terrible times, limited by polio? The fear of frailty, this discomfort with complexity, accompanies him on national television, babbling about himself -- the Reality Show Host as Candidate, for goodness’ sakes. Undoubtedly, Kerry was inconvenienced by his accident, but there are such things as telephones and cables and the Internet. We have seen footage of Kerry with his Russian and Iranian counterparts. The body language tells me they do not consider him a schmuck, with or without crutches. Kerry also speaks French fluently, undoubtedly a drawback to Trump’s base, maybe even to Trump himself. French was a skill Mitt Romney tried to hide during his stiff race in 2012. Why would the United States want a worldly President or Secretary, anyway, when the current rage seems to be a carnival clown, who cannot even get ages right. Now I read there is a new book about Donald Trump, exploring his boasts and threats and exaggerations. He was a rich boy screw-up sent to military school, which he compares to actual service.
Right. And listening to sergeants at ROTC in the late 50's, describing combat in Korea, was the same as being there. For New Yorkers, this arrogant bombast from Trump is familiar stuff -- because we know him. (See Jim Dwyer's column in the NYT recently.) In my home town, Trump has long been a punch line, accompanied by eloquent shrugs and the word "Echhh." I still regard Trump as a bad leftover from the 70's, when the city was plagued by vandalized payphones, graffiti in the subways, the reek of urine everywhere, Yankee fans chanting "Boston Sucks!" and disco. Don't forget disco. Whom do I blame for the civic vulgarization in the '70's? In 1973, an auslander, George Steinbrenner, bought the Yankees, bullying people and winning championships. In 1976, Rupert Murdoch, an Australian-speaking media mogul, purchased the once haimish New York Post and filled it with sniggerings and inaccuraciies. And in the late '70's, a builder's son, Donald Trump, bought the Commodore Hotel and remodeled it as the Grand Hyatt. Everything is grand with him. Later, he tried to build Brasilia on the west side of Manhattan and blabbed about his sex life and the tactical bankruptcies he had taken. What a guy. Now he makes fun of Carly Fiorina's face. (I'm not a fan, but I will say she carries herself better than any of the schlubs in the GOP primaries.) My wife pointed out an article on Salon.com, claiming that Trump's constituency is based on angry white males who feel, well, "emasculated." Okay. Ultimately, it appears that some people Out There on the Steinberg Map have been watching reality television so long they cannot tell a TV celebrity from a simplistic racist. Disco lives. 1. A friend of mine grew up in Jamaica Estates, Queens, right behind the Trump house. They were mostly nice people, my friend said, but when a ball went over their fence one young Trump would grab it and say, nyah-nyah, you can’t have it back and scurry into the house. My friend says Donald Trump was always a nasty little kid.
2. When John McCain came back from Hanoi with broken arms and unbroken spirit, he and some other vets organized a pipeline for sending goods to the poor people of Vietnam. My wife sat next to one of McCain’s guys on a flight out east; he said the senator did not like publicity about the operation. I once interviewed him in his office (about Olympic business) and asked him about the pipeline and he shrugged, eloquently, as if to say, it’s the right thing to do. I sometimes scream at the tube at the loopy things he says, but I really like him and have not the slightest doubt that he is an American hero. 3. Make no mistake about it, the Republicans have made this an easier world for Donald Trump to spread his foolishness. For over six years they have run a campaign of ignorance and malice and, yes, prejudice about the twice-elected President. McConnell and Boehner and Graham have questioned Obama's motives, his actions, and, with their silence, even his birthplace in Hawaii. I think it is because they cannot handle having a moral and educated man of African and American descent, as the smartest man in their room. Their behavior has created a monster. Donald Trump is their golem. |
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