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The Tyranny of the Minority

3/18/2021

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I was introduced to life in the hallowed halls of Congress when I was 12, old enough to tolerate a modicum of boredom, but young enough to recognize absurdity when I saw it. My father was scheduled to attend a conference in D.C. (we lived in Indiana at the time) so it was decided the whole family would go along for the ride. My dad said we’d get to see where and how laws were made (or not, as it turned out) before his conference started. 
 
The first day there, off we went to the Senate gallery, from whence we watched some grizzled “lawmaker” drone on about the number of boxcars sitting, unused, on sidings all over the country.* Happily for me, my tolerance for boredom being strained, we didn’t stay long, and after we left, I asked my dad what law they were talking about. 
 
“Oh, they weren’t talking about a law,” he explained. “That was just a filibuster.” He went on, of course, to explain what that meant. 
 
“Just a filibuster.” That was back in the days when a filibuster (a word which, incidentally, appears nowhere in the Constitution) meant someone had to stand up and speak for hours and hours to keep the senate from voting on a bill he didn’t want to pass. (Save for Margaret Chase Smith, they were all “hes” back then, more’s the pity.) I thought it a strange way for sentient adults to pass the time, but oh, well …
 
Now, however, the standing up and speaking for hours on end isn’t necessary. As Philip Bump explained in the Washington Post,“… In practical terms, filibusters these days are only rarely hours-long riffs driven by passion for a cause. They are much more frequently hand-wavey threats to offer such a speech, with the end game of forcing legislation to meet a supermajority standard before passage.”

By some arcane process a senator who knows he’s in the minority on the bill in question can, in effect, announce he’s conducting an imaginary filibuster to prevent the proposal moving through the august body enroute to
becoming a law. Sixty votes (a 3/5 majority) are required to overcome the tyranny of the minority he represents and move the proposal along in a process called “cloture.” 
 
Currently, Republicans all over the country have been pushing new state laws to make it ever more difficult for those with Democratic leanings to vote. In response, the House of Representatives, controlled by the Democrats, has passed the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. It is now up to the Senate, where Republicans threaten to block the proposal with a filibuster, to move the process forward. 
 
While the Democrats have a slim majority (48 Dems, 2 Independents, and the tie-breaking vote of VP Kamala Harris) and could either abolish the filibuster or make it harder (by requiring those marathon speeches, for instance), they hesitate. Why? Well, first, they’re not sure they’d have all 50 votes of the aforementioned senators and for another, when they’re the minority party, they sometimes like to use the filibuster themselves. 
 
The fact is that the proposed voting rights act is vital to our democracy. Without it, we face a future in which Republicans can dominate the electoral college without ever receiving a majority of the popular vote. That’s happened twice already in this young millennium and we’ve all seen how that’s turned out. The GOP is now pushing for new restrictions that would make it more difficult for minorities and the disadvantaged to vote in 33 states. 
 
Why? In a recent Supreme Court hearing in Arizona, the attorney representing the Arizona Republican party explained that without the restriction in question, the Republicans would be “at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats.” In other words, the Republicans need to stack the deck to win. 
 
Preserve the filibuster? Or preserve democracy? That’s the issue here. Let your senator know which is more important to you.

​*Interestingly, the aforementioned trip to the nation's Capitol occurred in the last millennium. Apparently, the boxcar problem remained unsolved for a long time. I googled "boxcars on sidings" and found several newspaper articles complaining about the boxcar problem. They were published in newspapers in 2009.  Click here to see the Wall Street Journal coverage.

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The CPAC Experience: Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo

3/3/2021

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​Soon, someone is sure to pen a fictionalized version of the bizarre story of Donald Trump and our tortured recent past. Perhaps somebody already has. If so, what, I wonder, is the genre? Satire? Fantasy? Psychological thriller? Apocalyptic tale? … Horror?
 
The story of last weekend’s CPAC alone would lend itself to any one of those literary types. Think about the name, for instance: Conservative Political Action Conference. I’ll admit I couldn’t bear to watch the entire lunatic event, but when I did, I didn’t see any conservatives and there was no conferring going on. The “former guy” (gotta love the Biden-inflicted moniker) fumed, whined and lied in a repetitive dump of hubris and prevarication that passed as a major speech. Sucking the oxygen out of the ballroom for an hour and 30 minutes, he provided lots of grist for satire, but none of it involved conferring with other attendees. 
 
You haven’t experienced the real Donald Trump until you’ve read, as opposed to heard, a few “sentences.” Here’s a sample from his opening remarks: “I stand before you today to declare that the incredible journey we’ve begun together, we went through a journey like nobody else. There’s never been a journey like it. There’s never been a journey so successful.” And you thought listening to him was painful! (For complete text of the former guy’s verbal meandering, click here.)

Then there’s Ted Cruz, fresh from the self-imposed embarrassment of his Cancun adventure. (You know … the one where he abandoned his Texas constituents in their frozen, unheated, waterless state.)​
He showed up in Orlando, stuffed into a business suit, and strutted about the stage, spouting inanities. “Bernie is wearing mittens, and AOC is telling us she was murdered,” he crowed a propos of nothing. And later we wandered into “… the media here looks at the men and women gathered here, at the young people gathered here, as dangerous radicals. This is the Rebel Alliance and Vader and the emperor, and let’s be clear, they’re not your father, are terrified of the rebels who are here. And I’m proud to tell you, Gina Carano [whoever she is] is standing with us.” Winding down, he closes with what he calls encouragement: “ . . . these are dark days and the media tells us this is the new Galactic Empire forever and 1,000 years.” Ted Cruz is a horror story in and of himself, and an apocalyptic one at that. (For text of his verbal adventure, click here.)
 
The speeches are blessedly forgettable, but I don’t know how I’m going to delete from memory the study in chaos that is the golden icon: that six-foot statue of Donald in flag-themed board shorts, red flip-flops, and (oops!) business attire on top; holding a star-topped magic wand worthy of Cindy’s fairy godmother in one hand and a document headed “We the people” in the other. And here’s the piece de resistance: hair styled in a pompadour a là Elvis Presley. It’s kind of Elvis meets the founders for a day at the beach and a long speech with a magical lady.
And never mind the inevitable comparisons with the idolizing of the golden calf in the Bible. That adventure turned out badly. Republicans, beware . . . (Text of Exodus 32 here. It’s short. You should read the whole thing.) Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo!
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"We Did Not Send Him There to Do the Right Thing"

2/16/2021

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Picture
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The "PA GOP official" quoted above is Dave Bell, chair of the Washington County (Pennsylvania) Republican Party ... and the complete quote is even more damning: "We did not send him there to vote his conscience," Bell said. "We did not send him there to do the right thing ... or whatever he said he was doing. We sent him there to represent us."  Representing, of course, was exactly what he was doing. Representing as he saw fit, as he understood what was right, based on the evidence presented at trial.  

​The vote, of course, was Saturday's U.S. Senate ballot on whether to convict Donald Trump of inciting an insurrection. Forty-three Republican senators voted not to convict despite the fact that less than six weeks earlier, millions of us had watched Trump do just that. In a typical lie-laced speech, he'd sent a crush of supporters to the Capitol, promising "I'll be there with you" before retreating to the White House to watch the televised chaos unfold.

For several hours, the mob he'd unleashed stormed the Capitol, smashed windows, crashed through doors, trashed legislative chambers, ransacked private offices, beat outnumbered officers, taunted and verbally threatened VP Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and made pigsties of the restrooms. Brian Sicknick, a Capitol Police officer, was killed. Two others, reportedly traumatized by what they had endured,  later committed suicide.

Another, Officer Eugene Goodman, Acting Deputy Sergeant at Arms of the Senate, became an instant hero as he baited the rioting white mob to follow him away from the entrance to the Senate chamber before it had been evacuated. Senators have voted to award him the Medal of Honor. 

Nevertheless, on Saturday, by a vote of 57 (in favor of conviction) to 43 (opposed), the Senate acquitted Trump of the charge of inciting an insurrection. Foreign journalists reportedly were confused about how the majority lost, but the tyranny of the minority is grist for another mill.*

We now have one political party and one craven cult. What will become of the "Republicans"?


*In case you haven't been paying attention, the Constitution requires a two-thirds majority (i.e., 67 votes) to carry the day in impeachment cases.


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"The Chaos of the End of Something"

1/19/2021

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My first days-long immersion in real-time TV began on Nov. 22, 1963 It was early in my fleeting career with the San Diego County Welfare Department. As a mid-morning orientation session wound down, a woman burst in saying, “The president’s been shot!” 
 
In that innocent time, the unthinkable didn’t compute, and someone asked, “The President of what?”
 
“The president!” the messenger insisted, “President Kennedy.”
 
Within an hour, county officials closed all public buildings and sent everybody home. I remember walking past a flag already at half-staff, driving home on a nearly empty freeway, hearing my husband’s car pull into the drive as I turned on the TV, and watching events unfold together until after the state funeral three days later. Real life had come to a standstill.
 
That sensation—the cancellation of real life and time—didn’t happen again, for me anyway, for nearly four decades. By then, 9/11/2001, I was working as a school counselor. Nursing a miserable cold, I called in sick to ask a clerk to reschedule my appointments.
 
“Do you have your TV on?” she snapped. I didn’t. “Turn it on and tell me what’s happening,” she said, and I did—just in time to see the South Tower of the World Trade Center tumble to the ground. 
 
Strange … how traumatic world events sear into your memory details that, in more normal times, would be so mundane you’d never recall them: a tone of voice, a flagpole, the sound of a car in the driveway, the blank face of a TV not yet tuned in to the day.
 
There have been other traumatic national events, of course: assassinations, mass shootings, cataclysmic hurricanes, demonstrations against systemic injustice.
But now this …
 
January 6th,  2021
 
How do we make sense of it? Spurred by a sitting president, a mob seeking to block the validation of a demonstrably legal election, ransacks the Capitol, calls for the hanging of Mike Pence, desecrates the halls where bills become laws, loots legislators’ offices, and flourishes Confederate flags in their frenzy. Once again, I’m glued to the TV.
 
Once again, I’m struck by the sense that I’m living in another country, a country not my own. For a long time now, I’ve accepted the fact that this country is a violent one, uneasily hostage to gun-lovers and the NRA. But I’ve never thought … until now … that we would be threatened with insurrection, especially one triggered by a petulant sitting president. But here we are. 
 
It’s discouraging. Unexpectedly, however, I stumbled upon hope. In a classic example of what therapists call reframing, Anand Giridharadas, author and publisher of The.Ink newsletter and several books gave his take on the storming of the Capitol in a conversation with  Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC.
 
“This is not the chaos of the beginning of something," Giridharadas said, referring to the plundering of the Capitol. "This is the chaos of the end of something. … It’s not the engine of history. It’s the revolt against the engine of history. … It’s a funeral for white supremacy, a funeral for a kind of outdated, outmoded male power, a mourning for a time in which certain Americans could claim to be the default of an American and not have to share … What we’re trying to do is build a country that has never existed—a minority majority superpower.”
 
Food for thought, a glimmer of hope. Led by a thoughtful, competent President, much  work to be done by all of us.
 ​
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Another Country

1/4/2021

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Traveling in the Balkans a few years ago, I took a city tour with a local guide. I’m embarrassed to say now that I can’t be sure which country I was in at the time, though I believe it was Montenegro. Such is life on a cruise with way-too-brief shore excursions crammed into way-too-few days. Our city guide met us dockside, introduced herself and told us briefly about her background. 
 
“I’ve never moved,” she said, “but I’ve lived in three different countries.” Thus she described life where unrest and fighting sometimes results in an area being taken over by another nation, which then imposes a new name and a new regime on the land in question.
 
Here, in my lifetime, we’ve had none of that. But still … though the land where I’ve lived my entire life hasn’t changed its name nor its political structure, for the last four years I’ve often felt as though I’m living in another country. But then, a couple of months ago, we had an election. I started to breathe again as I looked forward to sane, experienced leadership and—belatedly—for the first time, a woman (yay!) in the second highest office in the land. It felt like a homecoming. 
 
But then … but then … the self-absorbed occupant of the most expensive government housing in the country decided he wanted to stay—the constitution, the law, and the time-honored tradition of the peaceful transfer of power be damned. And that, the peaceful transfer of power, never breached, is the keystone of this democratic republic.
 
As I write, I persist in believing that we’ll stave off this threat from the most ignorant and self-absorbed president ever to sully the oval office. I'd be even more optimistic if Republicans would follow the lead of their colleagues in Georgia. There, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger handled a one-hour phone call with the grace and aplomb of a diplomat as Trump demanded that he "find 11,780 votes" to put Trump over the top in that state.  Later,  Gabriel Sterling, Georgia voting systems implementation manager,  offered up a detailed televised answer to all the accusations of voting irregularities. 

I do worry about the Republican party as a whole, however. They brought us here and many of them are more than eager, even at this eleventh hour, when they should be ushering the wannabe tyrant out, to support him in his quest to overturn a free and fair election. The disregard for themselves, their constituents, and their constitutional duties  is mind-boggling. Who do they see when they look in the mirror?
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The Pandemic Shines a Light

12/17/2020

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When the Biden/Harris ticket was elected, I felt nothing but relief and gratitude. At the time (pre-Thanksgiving), I planned to write an upbeat column on those decidedly upbeat feelings. However, that wasn’t the way it turned out. I just couldn’t switch gears. What I actually wrote, my previous entry on Marj-inized, called “The Audacity of Hope,” is hardly sweetness and light.
 
Since then, I’ve tried to focus on the positives of the whole pandemic experience, both personally and politically. 
 
Personally, now in the tenth month of semi-isolation, what I’m most grateful for are pretty practical—things like Zoom, for instance. I’ve never been a fan of chatting on the phone with a disembodied voice, but video chats are different--more like “being there.” You feel more connected and the more you use it, the more normal it feels. I’ve watched my son and granddaughter tie-dye shirts a continent away and had frequent family visits with all three kids at once as their work schedules (and three-hour time differences) allowed. 
 
And every week, I’ve had chats with my two sibs (each of them hundreds of miles away), virtual Happy Hours with some of my favorite locals, video visits with a new friend, discussions in a virtual forum on topics ranging from politics and economics to religion and the challenges families face in these parlous times. In other words, with Zoom—and other video chat applications—I’ve stayed connected. Without that technology, the pandemic would have been so much more isolating. 
 
The Gift of Time

The pandemic has also brought the gift of time. Like magic, commitments were cancelled. While I often berate myself for accomplishing what feels like next to nothing in a mostly unscheduled day, I have reviewed hundreds of 35-millimeter slides, ferreted out the best and grouped them to go to a scanner. I’m beginning the daunting task of de-cluttering, no small feat when you’ve lived in the same house for 35 years. (How can that be?) Suddenly, it just makes sense to get to those “put-off-able” tasks now.
 
And finally, while the pandemic hasn’t made me or my family stronger, it has made me made me appreciate the bonds we have.
 
One of my sons caught Covid-19 in March, very early. All we knew then was that it was highly contagious, presented with unpredictable symptoms, had no known cure, and was often fatal. With him on the east coast, me on the west, and travel foolhardy, I stayed home in spite of that famous motherly instinct to fly to the rescue. We kept in touch with frequent phone calls, but as one day turned into another and his symptoms worsened, there were sleepless nights for both of us.  
Late one night I could tell he hardly had the strength to talk, but sensed he needed to feel connected. Finally, I said, “How would you like me to read to you?” With that, I pulled Marley and Me off the shelf and started reading. By the end of the first chapter, he was asleep. I was grateful not only that he had temporary relief from pain but that I had finally found something I could do to help. Sometimes the helper is as needy as the helped.  

A Blessing in Disguise
 
With such a bungled pandemic response from the government, finding anything to be grateful for on the political scene has been a challenge, but the glaring clarity with which we can now see the Republican Party is a blessing in disguise. Clarity has been bought at an unthinkable cost: millions sickened, hundreds of thousands dead, businesses ravaged, jobs lost, the economy decimated, political division a chasm.
 
However, the GOP now is a party exposed. It’s clear that, in its current iteration, it is incapable of governing. Inexplicably childlike in the face of a national bully, the party has been hijacked by an ignorant, heartless, self-serving man trapped in his own delusions. As if the craven cowardice of the past four years were not enough, now we have Republicans signing on to Trump’s many attempts to get the results of the election overturned. It boggles the mind. Trump, it seems, is stuck in the developmental phase child experts call the time of magical thinking—and his followers have signed on for the ride.
 
Meanwhile—and here’s the good part—prominent members of the party are beginning to hurtle out of the playpen. Consider, for instance, the creators of the Lincoln Project and the numbers who increasingly speak out on national news outlets--George Conway, Steve Schmidt, Justin Amash, Paul Mitchell, to name just a few. 
 
The Dying GOP

I’m not sure the Republican Party can be rehabilitated. The party’s performance in the Time of Trump has made it clear that they’re too immature to carry on in their current state. I’m grateful that the pandemic, coming on the heels of a chaotic three years, has clarified the need not only for a new administration, but for a new political party to replace the dying GOP. We need two parties, but we need both of them to represent legitimate principles in the political, economic, and social arenas, not to be sycophants of an inept and unqualified “leader.” 
 
Meanwhile, we have elected two adults, eminently qualified to take on the daunting tasks at hand: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. For that, I’m grateful. ​
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The Audacity of Hope

11/23/2020

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Well,  hallelujah! 

Belatedly, the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris has been recognized by the current administration. This means the new kids will have office space, briefings from key outgoing officers, and opportunities for a coordinated approach to planning a smooth transition enroute to Inauguration Day. 

Lately, I've been feeling like a minor character in a bad novel by an author who's lost control and can't figure out how to bring his miserable literary endeavor to an end. In this story, the main character, supposedly the hero of the piece, golfs around in the background while supporting players emerge from time to time to make a show of trying to save him. 

It's like being trapped in a John Grisham novel. His books keep your attention for awhile until at the end you're dropped off in an unsatisfactory place,  wondering how you got there.

It's a real-life Groundhog Day with none of the levity. Every day, we've had rising numbers of new coronavirus cases, Trump on the golf course, increases in the number of coronavirus deaths, Trump on the golf course, frivolous lawsuits filed in one state or another, Trump on the golf course,  judges' dismissals  of  said lawsuits ... Trump on the golf course.

He cares not how many die, how many families lose their homes; how many children go hungry, lose their parents, miss out on vital parts of their education, feel less and less secure; how many health care workers lose their lives as they try to save others.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and their appointees will face huge challenges. But at least it's realistic, now, to indulge in the audacity of hope.   
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Re-electing Trump: What Would That Say About Us?

10/31/2020

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We make generalizations about entire countries based on the bits of news we hear about them. Even with countries as similar to ours as the UK or Australia or New Zealand, most of us know little about their internal party politics or the belief systems of various groups within the citizenry. No doubt the same is true of those living in other countries when looking at our own.   
 
Thus, it made me think when I heard a talk show host inquire, “If we re-elect Donald Trump, what will that say about America?” With less than five days to go to the election, I immediately became too busy wondering how I would answer that question to hear the response of the interviewee. But here are a few thoughts that occurred to me:
 
It would say character is not important in America. It would say, for instance, that we’re fine with …
 
  • a leader whose lies are blatant, frequent and egregious 
  • a leader who forcefully separates infants and children from parents seeking a better life
  • a leader who publicly insults and mocks others 
  • a leader totally lacking in empathy and concern for others
  • a leader who believes there are "fine people" in the ranks of the white supremacists and has no plan for addressing the issues of persistent, systemic racism
  • a leader who lacks the courage to tell the truth about a roaring pandemic and to take the simple precautions that would serve as a model for protection—and who, even worse, holds “super spreader” campaign events endangering thousands of people while he knows full well he is placing them all in danger
 
  • Little known fact: The U.S. reported more new coronavirus cases (98,583) on Friday, Oct. 30th, than the entire number of cases (91,339) reported in China since the virus was first identified in December 2019. (Source, Laurie Garrett, prize-winning science journalist and author)
 
It would say that we accept a president who tramples on long-standing norms and uses his office for his own personal gain. It would say, for instance, that we’re fine with a leader who …
 
  • refuses to release his income tax information and to place his assets in a blind trust as modern leaders have customarily done
  • sullies the White House by using it as a campaign venue, an act that technically makes criminals of his participating staff who are thus in violation of the Hatch Act
  • muddies the concept of the separation of powers—holding unprecedented gratuitous swearing-in ceremonies at the White House for his three conservative Supreme Court appointees
  • steers events and visitors, foreign and domestic, to venues he either owns or otherwise profits from himself
  • installs “acting” appointees to high office without Senate confirmation, then fires them at will, creating a revolving door of high-level officers, many with little background in the  endeavors they're tasked with supervising
 
Perhaps most damning, however, is what it would say, not about what we accept from a president, but about what we accept in ourselves. It would say, for instance …
 
  • that equal justice for all is not a priority
  • that, like Trump himself, we lack the ability to “walk in another’s shoes,” to imagine life homeless, or without health insurance, or without a reliable income that allows us to shelter and feed our families
  • that lower taxes, especially for the upper financial echelons, are more important than upgraded transportation and infrastructure; more important than solving the problems of homelessness and hunger; more important than health care for all; more important than a living wage as a minimum wage, affordable child care, or retraining programs for displaced workers; more important than vast wealth and income inequality that leaves millions with a poor quality of life and little hope for better
 
Finally, it would say that we don’t engage in critical thought. It would say, for instance …
 
  • that we can’t discern truth from lies
  • that we don’t recognize the dangers posed by a president who knows little history—our own or the history of world
  • that we fail to see parallels between armed troops’ clearing of protesters from a public square—to make way for a presidential photo op, of all things—and the modus operandi of authoritarians around the world
  • that we accept the word of a reckless, medically ignorant president, who mocks mask-wearing and social distancing, invites us all to his super-spreader events, and tells us the virus will magically disappear, over the word of scientifically trained, experienced doctors who tell us every day how we can best protect ourselves and others from illness
  • that we don’t realize a chaotic administration, more focused on undoing the work of a predecessor than on instituting forward-looking programs, may be entertaining, but is simply a failed administration
 
We can do better than this. We'll soon know whether enough of us make that choice. 
 
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Toxic Maskulinity

10/25/2020

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There’s a new kind of toxic masculinity. Contagious and more closely related to one’s political affiliation than to gender, it afflicts Republicans more than Democrats. Caused by an unusual  toxin, the word describing it should more accurately be spelled with a k, instead of a c. Toxic maskulinity: the fear of appearing weak while wearing a face mask.
 
We knew months ago—and so did Donald Trump—that the best things we could do to protect ourselves and others against covid 19 were pretty low tech: wear masks, keep “socially distant,” wash hands frequently, avoid crowds. The simplicity of all that makes the behavior of the man who aspires to a second term in the White House inexplicable. He refused for months to wear a mask or to require his staff to do so—and even now, does so only sporadically. 
 
Trump’s behavior makes sense only as a psychological aberration, a break from reality so profound that those around him—and others who support him—have been unable to resist the vortex swirling them all into a kind of collective insanity. Who of right mind would routinely risk their own and their family’s lives by refusing to take simple protective precautions? 
 
And what leader of right mind would hold events designed to lure those thus deranged—and most likely to vote for him—into the hazards we now call super spreader events? It makes no sense. 
 
But then, the fact that we elected him in 2016 made no sense, and very little has made sense since then. 
 
Hope is on the horizon. We have a stark choice between an ignorant, reckless, self-absorbed man who cannot lead and a proven, compassionate, thoughtful leader who understands the problems of real people.  A major bonus comes with the latter: Joe Biden has extensive foreign relations experience, first as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and later as Barack Obama’s foreign relations adviser. He knows history and geography and how to conduct himself like an adult. Distracted by the domestic disruption caused by Trump’s bungled non-response to the pandemic, we overlook at our peril the damage done to our relationships with allies and competitors on the international scene.
 
The next four years: We can begin the work of rescuing an endangered species—government of the people, by the people, and for the people—or we can swirl around in the vortex. Which will it be?
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Debate or Bully-ism?

9/30/2020

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The first so-called Presidential debate of 2020 wasn’t a debate at all. It was an exercise in bully-ism, nationally televised evidence that some people truly never grow up, and redundant proof that a child-man lives in the White House. It confirmed once more the wisdom of Maya Angelou's admonition: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them.” We all know who Trump is. I naively believed, however, that being on public display with a competitor clearly his superior would temper Trump's behavior. Au contraire! He displayed even more immaturity, more rudeness, more ugliness than I anticipated. … And my expectations were lower than a lizard’s belly. 

The “debate” was a contest between barbarism and civility. At first blush, it might appear that barbarism won. I didn't count the words, but I'm sure, if the win had been based on word count, the barbarian would have been the victor. After all, he used his own allotted time and some of Biden's, too. The agreement had been that each candidate would give a two-minute, uninterrupted response to the initial question in each of the six segments of the program. Those statements were to be followed by a few minutes of discussion--as in "give and take." You might be familiar with the concept; in debates of yore, this would have seen one candidate speaking at a time. Not so now.

Was anyone surprised when Trump jumped in to talk over both Joe Biden and moderator Chris Wallace as they spoke? Shortly, the event became a free-for-all, Trump performing with all the grace of a grizzly at a tailgate party and Biden treading a fine line: respond in kind or let the bully rant? It was a no-win choice. Meanwhile, Trump lied, bragged, dodged, and attacked the Biden family.  Did we know any more about his policies at the end of the night than we did at the beginning? (Does he have any policies? That's a question for another time. His "party." you know has no platform.)

The winner was not the guy who spewed out the most words. The winner was Joe Biden. While Trump confirmed his immature, bull-in-the-china-shop ignorance; Biden showed us his capacity for empathy, his love of family, and his concern for those who are suffering health and economic devastation brought on by the coronavirus. He was as presidential as a guy can be while in the sights of a run-away bulldozer.

The absence of a policy discussion was a plus for Trump. With no party platform and no plan of his own, Trump goes wherever his impulses take him. A serious discussion of policies would have been such an inconvenient  handicap.

I can't help myself. I thought the best line of the night was uttered by CNN's Anderson Cooper in the “post-game” analysis when he described Donald Trump as “obesely immoral.” I’m not sure what that means,  but as one of my educator colleagues used to say, “It communicates.”

There’s no point in further debates unless the moderator—or another designated person—is given a “kill” switch which would enable them to turn off the microphone of the person not designated to speak. Some have even proposed putting the candidates in sound-proof booths like those used in high stakes game shows.  Unless some kind of controlling measures are instituted, the debates are an exercise in futility, of no value except for the purpose of highlighting the differences between an ignorant bully and an experienced, empathic leader. But we already knew  about that. 


In these chaotic times, get your day off to an equilibrious start, by reading the work of Heather Cox Richardson on Facebook. She describes herself as “a political historian who uses facts and history to make observations about contemporary American politics.” She posts a column nearly every day. They're always rational and cogent and deal with major events in the news. 

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What? No Platform?

8/28/2020

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Planks in political platforms are often honored in the breach. Nevertheless, voters expect that every four years each major party will formulate and publish a party platform—a coherent statement of aspiration revealing what the party stands for and its plans for the next four years.

Here’s the GOP platform for Campaign 2020: “Trust us.”

And here is the nutshell version of the 90-page Democratic platform:
  • To protect Americans and recover from the Covid 19 pandemic
  • To build a stronger, fairer economy
  • To achieve universal, affordable, quality health care
  • To protect communities and build trust by reforming our criminal justice system
  • To heal the soul of America
  • To combat the climate crisis and pursue environmental justice
  • To restore and strengthen our democracy
  • To create a 21st century immigration system
  • To provide a world class education in every zip code
  • To renew American leadership
Here, I remind you, is the Republican platform: “Trust us.”

It’s the ultimate insult. In failing to publish a platform, that’s what the Republicans are saying: “Trust us.” 

Why would we? Hostage to the most immature, ignorant and mentally challenged person ever to walk the halls of the White House, the Republicans are a political party in name only. They’re props. 

Apparently, they believe the 2016 platform would do and saw no need for an update. After all, the only things that have happened are … well, let’s see … a deadly global pandemic, the collapse of the economy and …  uh, record-breaking weeks-long demonstrations in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, and, of course, the issue of how to keep safely educating our kids. And then there were the multiple, caught-on-camera killings of black men by the police and calls for considering more effective ways to perform the policing functions of government. Nothing much …

Interestingly, by copying and pasting the entirety of their tired 2016 platform, the GOP inadvertently told the truth about one point: "The current Administration [that, as any careful reader knows, is the one led by Donald Trump] has exceeded its constitutional authority, brazenly and flagrantly violated the separation of powers, sought to divide America into groups and turn citizen against citizen.”  Yes, they have!

Unwritten is what the Republicans apparently believe: Trump will do what Trump will do, any platform be damned. It is what it is. Give us antediluvian judges, chip away at reproductive rights, continue corporate welfare and … oh, tax cuts for the well-to-do: Those are the things that matter.

Both parties’ conventions were—well—unconventional this year, but the differences between them couldn’t have been more stark. From the Democrats, we heard the sweet song of sanity: Pointed speeches, some delivered from the homes of the speakers; votes for nominees cast by citizens around the country against the backdrop of their ordinary lives; a talk by a brave 13-year-old stutterer thrust into the spotlight after a chance encounter with Joe Biden on the campaign trail.

From the Republicans, we had a serenade of sycophants: A parade of Trumps trotted out on stage (but where were the endearing personal remembrances we expect from children of the well-known?); pompous Mike Pompeo, happily ignoring the Hatch act as he touted the wonderfulness of Trump from a perch in Jerusalem; Mike Pence, fawner-in-chief, praising his boss’s handling of the corona virus pandemic … and the lies, always the lies. 

Then there was also the illegal use of the White House looking like the venue of a campaign party on steroids. … But that’s another whole issue. 

Right now, with historians warning we could lose our democracy within a year, this is what matters: VOTE! 

Read the Democratic Party's 2020 Platform

​Read the Republican Party's 2016 Platform 


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Pandem-ic/onium

7/31/2020

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​Many years ago, our first-born, then three years old, accidentally knocked over a full glass of milk as the dinner hour began. Fortunately for him, the milk flowed across the table, whereupon we—the grown-ups in the room and those most affected by the spillage—jumped up and did what grown-ups do. Finishing the clean-up, we noticed Kevin had continued to eat through it all, only mildly interested in the commotion and certainly feeling no responsibility for what had happened. 
 
I thought of this incident while watching footage of Trump golfing recently as the pandemic roared, federal agents wreaked havoc on the streets of Portland, millions worried about eviction, hunger, and health, and children faced an uncertain school year and even more uncertain prospects for a productive future.
 
Meanwhile, there was a grinning Trump in “thumbs up” pose as a photographer took a shot to memorialize the golfers’ happy day.
 
Yes, what I’m saying is that Trump has the maturity of a three-year-old. More than 150,000 deaths in this country alone, health care workers hammered, businesses collapsed, no coherent plans for educating kids, and an obsession with creating doubts about the validity of an election which hasn’t even occurred yet: All that, and oblivious to the suffering of millions, the most powerful man in the country, the one who could—if he would—do more to address our multiple catastrophes than anyone else in the country … golfs.
 
This is leadership? A struggling reader (witness the halting, expressionless rendition of his “prepared” remarks and speeches), Trump has only a distant relationship with the U.S. Constitution. His knowledge of history is limited, and a constricted vocabulary leaves him without the tools needed to think critically and analyze complex situations. 
 
Cocooned by a feckless party that embraces the most ignorant and irresponsible person ever to occupy the White House, Trump flails his way from crisis to crisis.
 
Legend has it that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Trump golfs. ​
 
 
 

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Words Matter: Don’t Defund the Police

7/23/2020

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Whoever came up with the call to “defund the police” made a grievous error.  They used the wrong word: Defund. You don’t need a dictionary to tell you that, to the English speaking brain,  that means “take all the money away,” clearly a preposterous proposal. Understandably, there’s resistance to that, and folks who support “defunding” are constantly required to explain what that term means to them.

What it means is something like restructuring, reorganizing, even reconstructing. Clearly, deep change is needed. Any time an individual believes he can, with impunity, murder another while cell phone cameras record  an agonizing strangulation, it’s clear that person and the organization he represents are out of control.  That’s what happened on May 25th of this year when Derek Chauvin, a 19-year veteran of the Minneapolis Police held his knee on the neck of a prone George Floyd until he died lying in the grit of a city street. Bystanders  repeatedly beseeched Chauvin to stop. Chauvin, hand-in-pocket, looked directly at them. Unmoved he continued his murderous pursuit until George Floyd died a cruel and senseless death. 

Now, we’ve seen. Now, we know. And now, after weeks of protests spanning the country and, indeed, the globe in the midst of the chaos already brought by an unprecedented pandemic, we’re called upon to act.  Turning “police departments” into broad-based “departments of public safety,” staffed not only by law enforcement but also medical, mental health, and social work personnel makes sense. 

Less than a month after Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, Rayshard Brooks fell asleep in his car in the drive-through lane of a Wendy’s. After an initial encounter during which both Brooks and the officers sent to check on him spoke calmly,  they attempted to handcuff him and, when he ran away, shot him dead. Had unarmed medical or mental health personnel, not police, been sent to the scene, Brooks would likely be alive today. We need a broader view of what constitutes public safety.

This will become even more important as we struggle through the pandemic and its aftermath.. The medical and mental health effects of prolonged isolation, job loss, economic devastation, and as yet unknown health issues to be experienced by coronavirus survivors will demand a multi-faceted response to public health and safety far beyond what a traditional police response can provide.  Leadership for this will have to come from local governments. Perhaps this will be the proverbial silver lining. 
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So Much Lost, So Much to Gain

7/6/2020

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 “What do you have to lose?”
 
Trump threw out this empty, flippant line most famously when urging black listeners to vote for him in 2016. … And “What do you have to lose?” he later asked as he cajoled coronavirus patients to try an unproven medication.
 
Well, now we all know what we—all of us, blacks, whites and everyone in between—risked in that unlikely election: the lives of loved ones, our own health, economic security, peace of mind, the ability to engage in the simple pleasures of daily life without once evaluating risk before stepping out the door or bringing visitors in. 
 
While Trump isn’t responsible for the existence of the virus, he is responsible for the sloppy lack of leadership that allowed it to spread like pollen in a Midwest springtime while he spewed  assurances it would miraculously disappear. 
 
“I take no responsibility,” he said in answer to a reporter’s question about his role in leading the battle against the pandemic. Harry Truman he isn’t. Tasked with the presidency upon the death of FDR, one of the giants of that office, Truman posted a sign on his desk in the oval office: “The buck stops here.” Until now, that was considered a truism, the essence of presidency.
 
But I digress. On the civic level, we’ve lost, among other things:
 
  • Political leadership that respects and supports the civil service in its job of sustaining the day-to-day operations of government
  • A Congress composed of adults in both parties who have principles (and the backbone to go with them) and who exercise reason, listen to their conscience, and act in the interest of their constituents and their country
  • Our self-respect as a country
  • The respect of the global community
  • The faith that democracy will survive​
But all is not lost. Look at what we’ve gained. With the country in virtual coronavirus lockdown, a 17-year-old captured on her cell phone the slow, brutal murder of George Floyd by uniformed police in the streets of Minneapolis. It was a cruel loss for Floyd’s family and friends, but the video awakened a proverbial sleeping giant. Millions of people, of all colors and persuasions, saw that video and recognized, as many of us never had before, the reality of lives fraught with risk simply because one’s skin is brown or black, and to the reality of the oft-hidden inhumanity under blue uniforms and silver badges.            
 
Had George Floyd not been murdered exactly when and how he was, the story of the pandemic would have been simply a story of the pandemic. But now it’s much more. Demonstrations spread from Minneapolis to New York, Washington, Seattle, Los Angeles … to places like tiny Pine Ridge, South Dakota, and Victor, Idaho … and around the globe—Capetown in South Africa, Melbourne in Australia, Copenhagen in Denmark, Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.
 
With many people out of work, the availability of time, energy, and commitment coalesced to power the demonstrations that already are prodding local governments to restructure police departments, develop more demanding training for officers, prosecute killings by police more diligently, and create more robust social services on the local level.
 
Minneapolis, for one, has already drafted an amendment of their charter with provisions for replacing the police department with a Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention.” Thus amended, the charter will mandate a holistic, public-health oriented approach to ensuring public safety. Others likely will follow.

The perfect storm has met the fierce urgency of now.
 
We must keep up the momentum. It’s long past time and too late for too many.
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Donald Unmasked

6/26/2020

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What is it about the prospect of wearing a mask that turns sentient adults into rambunctious two-year-olds, eager to abandon reason and follow the King of Chaos, the new Pied Piper, over the cliff? 

Millions follow his lead. Irony abounds.
 
Because the Chaos King and those close to him are tested daily, he seems to feel safe in his little White House bubble and feels no responsibility to ensure that others are protected when, maskless, he and his minions venture out. Yet recently, he observed that “a person can test negative day after day and then all of a sudden they have the virus” or words to that effect. He was baffled, even amazed. "Is it magic?" he seemed to ask.  "How does that happen?"
 
The irony doesn’t end there. Unmasked, he insists on holding rallies for his shrinking band of boosters who, following his lead, show up bare-faced and ready to spew out droplets with every cheer. They’re the very voters he’s courting, the ones who, with good health and lives extending into November, are most likely to go to the polls and cast their ballots in his direction. But now, they’re risking their lives. And for what?  To hear a raspy, rambling recital of the same incoherence they’ve heard for three long years? Would wearing a mask interfere with that? And, if so, why would they care? They know what he’s going to say. There’ll be no nuance there.
Apparently, the King of Chaos believes wearing a mask is for sissies  …  sort of like wearing a seatbelt or taking vitamins or looking both ways before you cross the street. He doesn’t see it as an undemanding way for all of us to protect each other, nor does he see that he should participate. It's "white privilege" run amuck.
 
Of course, protecting others has never been a big thing for him. … Think kids in cages …  black men and women murdered at the hands of police … white women groped by the hands of the CK himself. And now, foolish backers called to risk it all to soothe the King of Chaos. 

​His fearful party--what's left of it--refuses to stand up to him. On the national level we are leaderless in the most tumultuous time in several generations. VOTE  November 3rd!  
Picture
Wearing a mask is easy!
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What About the 25th Amendment?

5/28/2020

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The 25th Amendment is commonly cited as a tool for removing from office, at least temporarily, a president “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” It was proposed and ratified in the 1960’s after Lyndon Johnson became president following the assassination of President Kennedy. Johnson served out the remainder of Kennedy’s term without a second in command., and the 25th spelled out a remedy for that going forward. But its main claim to fame is another provision, the one regarding what is to happen if a living president is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
 
And therein lies the trouble. The amendment is clear and specific about how a vice presidential vacancy is filled: “…the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress,” it says. But it’s terribly squishy on the more challenging question of dealing with a president “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
 
Section 4
​In Section 4 of the amendment the drafters offered two ways such inability may trigger the president’s removal: 
 
  1. The president him/herself may notify the two houses of Congress that he/she is unable to discharge the powers and duties of presidential office OR
  2. (…here’s where it gets dicey…) The vice president and a majority of the heads of major executive departments or “of such other body as Congress may by law provide” may transmit to both houses of Congress a written declaration that the president is unable to discharge the “powers and duties” of the office.
 
At that juncture, the vice president would assume the presidency until the elected president is deemed fit to return to office as spelled out later in the amendment.
 
The Flaws
Prior to the Trump era, we apparently didn’t think too much about the practicality of said amendment. But now we do. Such fatal flaws! First, there’s the failure to spell out exactly what is meant by “unable.” The implication is that the inability would be something physical—a stroke, debilitating pain, surgery necessitating anesthesia, a coma, for instance.
 
Picture
The four i’s that afflict the current White House resident—immaturity, ignorance, immorality, irrationality—probably weren’t on the radar of the drafters of the 25th amendment, yet they render the occupant “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” just as surely as any of the physical complaints.  In the ‘60’s, it was a given that any president would be a fully formed adult.
 
Early in the Trump presidency, some mental health professionals publicly offered their opinions on Trump’s mental health and were roundly criticized for diagnosing someone they had not examined. As a family therapist, I often wished I could see my clients out in their world in action. What we see every day as Trump moves through his world provides more empirical evidence for a diagnosis than a dozen typical therapy sessions. We should have listened. 
 
The second major flaw in the amendment is identifying the “principal officers of the executive departments” (State, Justice, Defense, for instance) as the first responders, so to speak, who could be counted on to take action in the event of presidential inability to perform. Again, a flawed assumption. Those officers, after all, are appointed by the president and, in our current situation, serve at the pleasure of the president in an organization hallmarked by chaos, cronyism, and cruelty. With a few notable exceptions, they are sycophants, apparently without conscience or free will.
 
We’d like to think this can’t happen again. Many of us thought it couldn’t happen the first time. The 25th amendment won’t save us. This election year, we need to get it right. 
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Return to Normal Life? No!

4/30/2020

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I’m more than ready to return to the “good old days” when I thought nothing of meeting friends for lunch at our favorite eatery or playing pickleball at the local courts or running to the market for a few items in the middle of the day. However, I find myself mysteriously apprehensive about the prospect of resuming what we’ve come to call normal life.
 
It isn’t the “normal life” as described above that gives me pause. It’s what has passed for normal life on the political scene.
 
“Never let a crisis go to waste,” we’ve been told at various junctures. If ever there was a time to heed this, it is now. My apprehension grows out of a concern that we’ll allow this, the quintessential crisis of our time, to eventually “resolve” without addressing the deep flaws it has made so glaringly apparent.  Such things as … 
 
  • A health insurance system heavily dependent on employers—at a time when large numbers will be unemployed
  • An economic system in which labor unions have been eviscerated, leaving individual workers relatively powerless and often resulting in stagnating wages and benefits while income inequality, aided by welfare for the wealthy, takes on a life of its own
  • Growing homelessness, drug addiction, underemployment, and astonishingly low minimum wages at both state and federal levels
  • A presidential electoral system that too frequently lifts into office candidates who fail to win the popular vote and currently has brought us the most unqualified and inept president in history
  • Lack of effective campaign spending limits in our post-Citizens United world which often turns legislators into tools of big-money contributors at the expense of the voters who sent them to Washington and perpetuates all of the above
 
And those don’t even begin to cover the immense challenges of climate change which threatens to make the planet uninhabitable and the need for upgraded, new and improved infrastructure in the areas of mass transit, broadband, highways, and schools. The list goes on.
 
A year ago, we (I, anyway) couldn’t have imagined a scenario like the one we’re living through. The fact that we have a disorganized, uneducated leader exacerbates the situation, but this would have been difficult in any event. We’ve ignored for years all the early warning signs that we must address the many challenges we face. Now we have a global pandemic that has lit up our flaws like a klieg light. The emperor truly has no clothes and we have truly ignored the rot in Washington that has left many among us behind in so many ways. If this doesn’t get our attention and produce action to address deep and abiding injustice, I don’t know what will. 
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Andrew Cuomo and the Art of Leadership

3/20/2020

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Every day for the past few days, Andrew Cuomo, governor of the besieged state of New York, has been conducting a master class in the art of leadership in a crisis. The man who most desperately needs such instruction, unfortunately, doesn’t attend. He’s too busy conducting sessions of the “how not to do it” variety in the White House. I imagine most of you have seen at least snippets of the latter, but you may have missed Gov. Cuomo. If so, click here to see a sample.
 
The difference between the two is striking—in tone, content, and delivery. Cuomo sits at a table, aides seated at a safe distance on either side. Trump stands at a podium, aides crowded shoulder to shoulder behind him. Those visuals alone tell you a lot about the level of respect each gives his assistants in these perilous times. 
 
Cuomo speaks calmly, with assurance, looking at the reporters, gesturing on occasion.  He’s informative and articulate. He uses no notes, but prepared highlights of his main points appear on a screen as he speaks. He exudes genuine concern and believes in what he’s saying. He understands the human condition and shares personal stories. Discussing families in distress, he talks about his experience when his daughter was in isolation and says three-word sentences can make a difference: “I love you. I miss you. I need you.” 
 
He inspires confidence, even as he announces a new level of restriction for the residents of his state. Sensitive to words, he calls his plan New York State on PAUSE: Policies that Assure Uniform Safety for Everyone. “Shelter in Place” scares people, he points out; it’s associated in many people’s minds with active shooter situations or nuclear attacks. 
 
He tells people not to blame anyone county officials, mayors or others of that ilk for the heightened restrictions. “I accept full responsibility,” he declares. When the crisis is over, he wants to be able to say he did everything he could to save lives.
 
In a word, Gov. Cuomo is presidential. 
 
Our president, quite frankly, is not. He doesn’t take responsibility. He doesn’t inspire confidence. He came late to the game and can’t catch up. He sees everything through the prism of his own self-interest. He insults reporters.   
 
My family—siblings, offspring, and nieces and nephews—are scattered about the country. Like all families at times like this, we worry about each other. One of my sons lives in the heart of Manhattan. I’m glad Gov. Cuomo is the guy in charge in that state.
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Grist for the Dems' Campaign Ads

3/19/2020

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No matter who the Democratic nominee is, Trump is obligingly providing all the raw material the party will need for the inevitable parade of attack ads. 
 
He waffles wildly. Regarding the coronavirus, for instance …
 
  • On Jan. 22, he said, “It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”
 
  • Feb. 26 … “We’re going to be pretty soon at only five people. And we could be at just one or two people over the next short period of time. So we’ve had very good luck.”
 
  • Feb. 27 … He referred to the coronavirus as a “Democrat hoax” and said “It’s going to disappear. One day—it’s like a miracle—it will disappear.”
 
  • On Mar. 7, asked about the possibility that the virus would spread to D.C., he responded, “No, I’m not concerned at all. No, I’m not. No, we’ve done a great job.”
 
  • Mar. 16 … “it could be right in that period of time [this summer] where it, I say, wash—it washes through.”
 
  • And Mar. 18 … “This is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.”
 
Oh my! Trump lives in his own reality, untethered from Planet Earth and us earthbound earthlings hindered by our old-fashioned commitment to empiricism.
 
Either that—or he lies. Take your pick.
 
Then there’s the boasting. Childlike, he hasn’t yet figured out the sun doesn’t rise and set with him. The universe has other business to attend to. I’m waiting for the day when the long-suffering press corps (how much of this can they take?) rises up, holding signs above their heads, saying, “THIS ISN’T ABOUT YOU!”
 
But that’s a topic for another time.
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Will the Democrats Get What They Don't Want?

3/9/2020

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The Democratic Party is fast becoming the poster child for the Alfred Adler theory that “neurotic safeguarding always gets you what you don’t want.” Those may not have been Adler’s exact words (he was, after all, Austrian, a psychiatrist in the late 19th-early 20th century), but I’m afraid it may be an accurate diagnosis of the Dems’ dilemma.
 
I’m hard-pressed to understand the swift winnowing of an excitingly diverse roster of candidates to a slate of two old, straight, white-guy pols. (I can say that because I’m old myself--and there are several old white guys among my favorite people.) There were many other entries in this race, and while both Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are experienced and qualified, this feels like recycling when what we need a fresh new product.
 
Think back: In the 2016 election, when many voters longed for a disrupter, someone who would tackle rampant income inequality, unaffordable health care, wage stagnation, and unbridled corporate greed, the Dems decided to run a moneyed candidate with long, deep ties to corporate powerhouses and super PACs, one who struggled to connect with voters on a personal level and who proposed little in the way of novel solutions to deep-seated problems. Yes, that candidate was Hillary Clinton, and perhaps the Dems thought selecting a woman made that a bold choice, but it didn’t. 
 
Back then, their other viable option was the aforementioned Mr. Sanders.  Like Clinton, he was far from warm and fuzzy. Unlike Clinton, he proclaimed himself a socialist (not the smartest thing he’s ever done) and ran to the left of almost everybody. But he did have ideas about addressing rampant income inequality, unaffordable health care, wage stagnation, and unbridled corporate greed. The Dems rejected him. 
 
Fast forward to 2020. This year … this year, we thought, would be different. In addition to Joe and Bernie, the Dems were offered a field of diverse candidates, including one who not only proposed fresh solutions to persistent problems—and had plans for carrying them out—but who also had what often seemed to be a nearly-sacrificial personal touch. How many little girls did she engage in the “pinky swear” to let them know they could be anything they chose? How many hours did she stay after rallies so everyone who wanted one could get a “selfie?” How many personal stories did she listen to on cold Midwestern nights?
 
Assertive, caring, smart, inspiring, Elizabeth Warren is the whole package. So why, on Super Tuesday, was she pushed out of contention by voters who swung to the two males now left in the race? Were they so traumatized by the disaster of 2016 that they believed no woman could win against our gender’s arch nemesis Trump? Could they not see the enormous difference between the two women in question?
 
Maybe. But this seems like the coward’s way out. It seems like neurotic safeguarding which—remember—always gets you what you don’t want. I hope I’m wrong.  
 
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