I hate politics

I managed to get through the entire Vietnam War without knowing anything about it, including where Vietnam was.  I allowed the government to make the decisions about what to do about this, or anything else, thinking they had studied the situation and had it well in hand.  After all, the government was full of Harvard graduates and Fulbright scholars, and I was a graduate of a State school, moreover, one without a football  team.  In short, I trusted them to know what they were doing.  Those happy days are gone, apparently forever.

Now I have to keep an eye on the bastards and in order to do so, I have to keep up with the news.  I have to know the difference between the Tutsi  and the Houtu, so I can set them straight when they are doing it wrong.  And I especially had to keep an eye on our government, something that gives me sleepless nights because they seem to be doing it wrong all the time.

  And there is Hunter Biden--don't get me started on him.  And Joe Biden, whose peregrinations reminds me of my Uncle Abe, after he got  Alzheimers. Of course, Abe's conversations made more sense than Biden's, for he was smart and Biden isn't.  But both had a tendency to wander off if not watched.

So now I follow the news, and it gives me high blood pressure.  I long for the good old days when I kept up with English literature and the politicians ran the country without my input.  Actually they still run the country without my input but I am forced to keep an eye on them.  They turn out to be ganovim-(Yiddish for thieves).  So they go on merrily running the country into the ground, and worrying about such vital issues who is using which bathrooms and who is using which pronouns for whom.

Meanwhile, my ltttle nest egg loses 40,000 dollars over a weekend.  As all you Harvard grads know, this is Putin's fault. 

Hillary's wardrobe

People are saying mean things about Hillary's wardrobe, particularly the $12,000 coat she appeared in recently.  I  think that's a cheap shot.  The coat is not becoming,--she can't carry it off.   She looks like she picked it up at some store that features garments for older women.  I can just see some upper middle class woman wearing it to church or to a do at the Women's Club, and looking better in it than Hillary.

No kidding, I think I would look better in that coat than she does; she is not interested in looking attractive, and I am.  Surely the pantsuits she wore in office were dreadful, but so was everything she wore, including her ugly hairstyle, which made her look like someone who does not visit her stylist  often enough, or maybe doesn't even have a hairstylist.  She does not place a high value on her appearance, having more worthwhile things to concern herself with, like how many bombs to drop on ISIS this week or what to do about hunger.  I'm not saying she shouldn't spend a lot of money on her clothes; no-one expects a millionaire in public life to shop at JCPenney. (Sorry, JC, not criticizing you!)

Everyone was always sniping at Jacqueline Kennedy for dressing elegantly, but she was a delight to the eye, very pretty, very stylish.  She brought grace to the White House.  Michelle Obama always looks beautifully dressed, although every time she opens her mouth she utters claptrap, and aggrieved claptrap at that.  Silence would do her a world of good.

Hillary is not a good campaigner, unlike her husband, who clearly loves, loves, loves speaking to a group who adulates him.  His wife is more like Nixon; she understands that you can't get elected unless you campaign for office, so she does, but you can see it is not her metier.  Bill liked to show off, and he craved attention and admiration.  He had a raffish sort of charm.  People liked him.  If you were seated next to him at a dinner party, you would like him.  If you were seated next to Hillary, she would talk about day care or getting out the vote.  Trump is more like Bill, he glories in being the center of attention.  He takes great joy in shooting off his mouth and more, in shocking people like a kid showing off in class.

Her voice is not passionate or persuasive.  It's not even pleasant.  That midwestern croak!  Crows could take her seminar and benefit by it.  She does not love her audience and they don't love her back.  As for her ideas!  She, like Muhammed Ali, keeps talking about fighting, but unlike him, she does not put on the gloves.  Her ideas are shopworn and have no substance.  Sincerity also is not her metier, unlike Bernie Sanders, who clearly believes every crackpot idea he so passionately advocates.

What Hillary clearly believes is that it is her turn to be President.  She earned it!  She's a woman,   She was gracious about losing to Obama, so she is now entitled to the presidency for being a good sport, and  it is her turn.

Should I forget about blogging?

I'm considering what to do with my blog, which I think 3 or 4 people actually read.  I have signed up for all the social media stuff, but I don't know what to do with that either.  Shall I discuss my visit to Whole Foods?  My skull x-rays?  Who cares?  As for Twitter, most of the bloggers I enjoy are posting there, but I can't even begin to figure out how it works.  It seems to have enlisted all the characters on the keyboard which were formerly used only in comic strips when one of the characters inadvertently hits his thumb with a hammer and said something like:  "@#*^$$$!"

Also, politics isn't fun any more.  I can't believe the people we have in positions of authority are the best we can find.  What a dreary lot!  What happened to the quality of citizens?  There are 300 million people in this country, but the voters are offered a candidate who believes a woman's body will reject a fetus that results from rape.  Whether he also believes that the stars are God's daisy chain was not revealed.

I am reading Shelby Foote's enormous tome on the Civil War, which is teeming with interesting and distinguished people, so much so that you have to keep a list to remember which side some of them are on, very much as I had to do with War and Peace.  I am still reading about 1861 and have four more years to go.  What a cast of characters!

Funny how now that we have a Democratic president the media are not banging on about how many American lives have been lost in Iraq or Afghanistan.    The total casualties in the Civil War are estimated at 600,000.  No one knows for sure.  Don't hear much about no blood for oil either.

Political discourse

I've just finished Joseph Ellis' biography of George Washington, "His Excellency." Talk about political discourse! Washington was venerated until he became president, and then his troubles began. Thomas Paine prayed that he would die. And that was just for openers. All the founding fathers loathed one another. Madison had no use for Jefferson, who hated Hamilton, John Adams essentially disliked everyone, and so it went.

When Washington was president, many of the above and others not yet mentioned suggested that the old man was senile, if not corrupt. He was accused of just about everything evil except being connected with Halliburton.

So political discourse wasn't so terribly civil in the early federal period. Moving right along down the corridors of history, in 1856 Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina attacked Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts on the floor of the Senate with a cane, grievously injuring him. The difference of opinion which motivated him was the issue of slavery.

If anything, political discourse has calmed down in modern times.

Why the public admires Chris Christie

Have you noticed how Conservatives hem and haw, compromise, sympathize with their opponents' objectives, act defensive,  and  how ambiguous their remarks are?

About global warming, aka climate change, for instance:  you just know that President Bush knew in his heart that it was bullsh**, or at the very least, that it was unproven,  but he didn't want to take a stand because it didn't matter.  Much.  He wanted to be a good guy and meet the fanatics halfway.  And that's how we got fluorescent light bulbs, front-loading washers, barely wet showers, and unflushable toilets.  Senator McCain also genuflected to the God of Global Warming.  It was clear during his presidential campaign that he hadn't given the matter any thought, so to be safe, he paid obeisance to this totally phony issue.

On the other hand, the Left  bloviate with glib certainty that they are on the side of the angels.

As William Butler Yeats said: the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

What a relief Chris Christie is.   He  says what he means. In simple declarative sentences.   Instead of beating his breast about the recent snowstorm, he made it clear that cleaning local streets was the responsibility of local government, not of the State.  The message was short enough for Twitter.  Rather than go on at great length about the proposed tunnel he decided not to fund, he stated that the State couldn't afford it.  A case could certainly be made against him in both these instances. But instead of refuting his reasoning, his critics  make nasty personal remarks about his weight.  That seems to be their notion of reasoned argument.