I published my first post about the National Rifle Association in the wake of Sandy Hook—more than five years ago. I wrote:
The dead can’t vote, and in the case of the children killed today at Sandy Hook Elementary School, they weren’t old enough anyway. So we have to speak for them and vote for them. Today is the day.
That began a string of posts about guns and the NRA, the most recent one following the massacre in Las Vegas. The killings just keeps on happening.
The mayhem from today’s shooting at a high school in Florida is being assessed. It is news and will be for a while. Republicans shilling for the NRA will explain the problem, which won’t involve guns. Soon, we will move on. The injured will more or less heal, the dead will still be dead, their loved ones will mourn.
Guns are one of the ways that America is “exceptional” in the world. Despite the patriotic pride that some take in this exceptionalism, it is nothing to be proud of. Shootings are not normal.
Trump lawyer Michael Cohen today says that he paid hush money to Stormy Daniels out of his own pocket. It was, he claims, not Trump money or campaign money.
This puts the spotlight on the role of the “fixer”. Fixers come in two varieties.
There are lawyers who use every means, this side of the law, but questionably this side of morals and ethics, to help clients clean up messes. See, for example, the movie Michael Clayton starring George Clooney.
Then there are fixers who leave law, morals and ethics behind. Winston Wolfe (“The Wolf”) in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction is the perfect example. “I’m Winston Wolfe. I solve problems,” he says. His immediate problem is quickly cleaning up a car in which there has been a very messy murder.
Trump’s mentor as a young businessman was Roy Cohn, one of the most infamous and unscrupulous lawyer/fixers of his time. Trump has found lawyers and non-lawyers willing to clean up his messes, like Michael Cohen. But he’s never found anyone who can measure up to Cohn, who was one of a kind.
Trump’s hero as a mature businessman—and as president—is Vladimir Putin. Putin’s fixers make Roy Cohn look like a choir boy. There is literally nothing that Putin won’t ask his global network of fixers to do for him, and nothing they won’t do. Fear, loyalty and money are great motivators.
Trump would love to bring Roy Cohn back as his ultimate fixer. That’s not possible. Trump would also love to get the help of Putin’s fixers. Apparently, he already has.
Who needs the arrows
of Valentine when we knit
with Rafqa’s needles
Note: I went looking for the Catholic patron saint of knitters—there’s usually an official or unofficial saint for everything—only to discover that there is no consensus about knitting. Suggestions include Saints Fiachra/Fiacre, Rafqa/Rebecca, Dymphna, Lucy, Ursula, Sebastian or Blaise. The idea was to connect the arrows of St. Valentine to the needles of St. Whoever. The haiku idea comes from having found the Japanese Knitting Stitch Bible as a gift for a knitter. All in all, a pretty long explanation for a pretty obscure poem. Happy Valentine’s Day.
Kaddish After Finishing a Tranctate of Talmud – David Wolk
Year Time (Yahrzeit)
The folder tabbed Dad
Reduces that day
That week
Those years
To an inventory of moments.
A poem for the dying
“It is never too late,
And it is always.”
An obituary draft
“He was a great man
Who showed us how to be great people.”
A speech
“His heart never failed anyone.”
I light a candle today
That I’ve missed before
I recite Kaddish
That I’ve chanted a thousand times
As reader and sometimes mourner.
The yahrzeit calculator
Tells me the Hebrew date
For year times to come
A list to 2038.
I wonder which of them
I will have to miss
If there is a folder
A poem a speech
For me.
Update: See below for news of 2012 tweet from Trump, commenting about Rihanna’s real life abuse situation, saying that if she is dating Chris Brown “She has a death wish. A beater is always a beater.”
Donald Trump and John Kelly probably haven’t ever heard Love the Way You Lie by Eminem and Rihanna. Maybe the younger, just-resigned, spouse-abusing White House Staff Secretary Rob Porter has, though he didn’t take it personally.
If you haven’t seen the interview with Porter’s second ex-wife Jennifer Willoughby (the first was also abused), please watch it. It is one of the most articulate, honest and compelling testimonies about abuse you will see. She explains how it is possible to stay in what in retrospect looks like an impossible and dangerous relationship. She also warns Hope Hicks, one of Trump’s closest aides and Porter’s current girlfriend, to be careful.
Anyway, Love the Way You Lie popped up on a playlist today. Maybe coincidence, maybe not. Maybe the White House, still trying to figure out how to defend Porter, should listen.
Rihanna:
Just gonna stand there and watch me burn
Well, that’s all right
Because I like the way it hurts
Just gonna stand there and hear me cry
Well, that’s all right
Because I love the way you lie
I love the way you lie
Eminem:
I can’t tell you what it really is
I can only tell you what it feels like
And right now there’s a steel knife in my windpipe
I can’t breathe, but I still fight while I can fight
As long as the wrong feels right, it’s like I’m in flight
High off her love, drunk from her hate
It’s like I’m huffin’ paint
And I love her the more I suffer, I suffocate
And right before I’m about to drown she resuscitates me
She fuckin’ hates me, and I love it, “Wait!
Where you going?”, “I’m leaving you.” “No, you ain’t
Come back!” We’re runnin’ right back, here we go again
It’s so insane, ’cause when it’s goin’ good it’s goin’ great
I’m Superman with the wind at his back, she’s Lois Lane
But when it’s bad it’s awful, I feel so ashamed
I snap, “Who’s that dude?”, I don’t even know his name
I laid hands on him, I’ll never stoop so low again
I guess I don’t know my own strength
You ever love somebody so much
You can barely breathe when you’re with ’em?
You meet, and neither one of you even know what hit ’em
Got that warm fuzzy feelin’
Yeah, them chills used to get ’em
Now you’re gettin’ fuckin’ sick of lookin’ at ’em?
You swore you’d never hit ’em, never do nothin’ to hurt ’em
Now you’re in each other’s face
Spewin’ venom in your words when you spit ’em
You push, pull each other’s hair, scratch, claw, bit ’em
Throw ’em down, pin ’em
So lost in the moments when you’re in ’em
It’s the rage that took over, it controls you both
So they say it’s best to go your separate ways
Guess that they don’t know ya
‘Cause today, that was yesterday, yesterday is over
It’s a different day, sound like broken records playin’ over
But you promised her, next time you’d show restraint
You don’t get another chance, life is no Nintendo game
But you lied again
Now you get to watch her leave out the window
Guess that’s why they call it window pane
Now, I know we said things, did things that we didn’t mean
And we fall back into the same patterns, same routines
But your temper’s just as bad as mine is
You’re the same as me when it comes to love
You’re just as blinded, baby, please
Come back, it wasn’t you, baby, it was me
Maybe our relationship isn’t as crazy as it seems
Maybe that’s what happens when a tornado meets a volcano
All I know is I love you too much to walk away though
Come inside, pick up your bags off the sidewalk
Don’t you hear sincerity in my voice when I talk?
Told you this is my fault, look me in the eyeball
Next time I’m pissed I’ll aim my fist at the drywall
Next time? There won’t be no next time!
I apologize even though I know it’s lies
I’m tired of the games, I just want her back
I know I’m a liar, if she ever tries to fuckin’ leave again
I’ma tie her to the bed and set this house on fire
Rihanna:
Just gonna stand there and watch me burn
Well, that’s all right
Because I like the way it hurts
Just gonna stand there and hear me cry
Well, that’s all right
Because I love the way you lie
I love the way you lie
I love the way you lie
From The Hill:
CNN’s Jake Tapper on Friday resurfaced an old tweet from President Trump denouncing domestic abuse, hours after Trump praised Rob Porter, who resigned as White House staff secretary over allegations that he abused his ex-wives.
In October 2012, Trump tweeted in response to news that singer Rihanna appeared to be once again romantically paired with Chris Brown after he physically assaulted her.
“If Rihanna is dating Chris Brown again then she has a death wish,” Trump wrote. “A beater is always a beater– just watch!”
Trump is demanding a military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue, just like the one he saw in France.
But what he really, really wants is one like his hero Putin puts on—especially with the lady soldiers in knee-high black boots and miniskirts (not a joke, as pictured above).
It is important that a president be a good role model for children, 90 percent of American voters say, but President Donald Trump is not a good role model for children, these voters say 67 – 29 percent in a Quinnipiac University National Poll released today.
There is almost no gender gap in grading President Trump’s standing as a role model. Every party, gender, education, age and racial group, except Republicans, say the president falls short, the independent Quinnipiac University Poll finds.
Republicans say 72 – 22 percent that Trump is a good role model for children.
If you have the time—and you should make the time—please watch this half-hour interview of Abraham Joshua Heschel from 1972, shortly before he died.
It doesn’t matter whether you believe in God, the Bible or religion. That such a person might grace the world and our lives is testament to the human possibility. Few of us will reach that height, but just knowing that there is such light among us should inspire us dimmer bulbs.
“I am an optimist against my better judgment,” he says. On our better days, so should we all try to be.
Sake chilled or warm?
Glass or cup?
Why flip one coin
When you can toss three?
The I Ching will know.
6 9 7 9 7 8
A hexagram telegram:
“During a time of great exceeding,
inevitably there is extraordinary action.
Extraordinary action needs great nourishment.
The roof is about to fall and
it is time to go somewhere or to do something
to remedy the situation.”
A glass of chilled sake
I read it again
A cup of warm sake
I read it again.
Great nourishment.
The roof is not falling
But the moon is fulling.
More sake
Not chilled or warm.
I toss the coins in the jar
But can’t read the wet heads or tails.
It is time
To go somewhere or do something
To remedy the situation.
What time is it?
Where should I go?
What should I do?
Time for another telegram.
Practical magic is a very popular subject for fictional speculation. So is time travel. If either of those turn out to be real, the one thing I would do with those practices is to bring back the venerated founders of America—our original revolutionaries and constitutional architects.
Their inspired vision of an enlightened democracy was a gift to us and to all civilization. Since at this moment there seems to be major misunderstanding, misrepresentation or ignorance of the essential principles, these political heroes would be the best people to explain themselves.
I see them making the rounds of the news networks. Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, the whole lot, appearing on CNN, MSNBC and especially Fox News. They would be subject to vicious criticism and character assassination, of course, but those who stood up to and defeated King George III would have little trouble dealing with the 2018 Republican Party and Sean Hannity.
Ben Franklin would have a particularly good time. Besides his scathing wit, Franklin would focus on Trump’s frequent reference to attending the University of Pennsylvania. Franklin was founder of the University of Pennsylvania, and would suggest that if he knew Trump would someday be bragging about it, he would never have founded the university in the first place.
So, if you are a magician or time travel technologist, here is an opportunity to do immense good with your skills. Bring back the Founders. Now.
Bob Schwartz 