A Porcine Fable

By Patrick F. Cannon

The old gentleman didn’t need an alarm clock. His inner clock told him it was 5:30 am, and he came awake. As usual, he could hear his wife puttering in the kitchen. When he finished showering, shaving and dressing, the coffee and juice would be next to the granola on the kitchen table. The radio would be tuned to the local all-news station, so he could get the latest weather and traffic reports before leaving for the office.

In the adjoining bathroom, he turned on the shower – all the settings preselected – and removed his pajamas. He couldn’t help but notice an unpleasant odor. He sniffed his pajamas, but they seemed OK. Even after his shower, the odor persisted, and it occurred to him that it might be a plumbing problem. He must remember to ask his wife to call a plumber to check and clean the drains.

The odor lingered as he got dressed. He chose his usual conservative tie, then carried his suit jacket with him to the kitchen and hung it on the back of a chair. His wife was at the table, eating some fresh fruit and reading the Washington Post. He never read the papers at breakfast, not wishing to start the day in a bad mood.

“Elaine, do you smell something?,” he asked his wife.

“Now that you mention it, I do”.

“I think it might be the plumbing – who knows, maybe some critter died in the pipes or there’s a clog. In any event, could you call the plumber?”

“Of course. I think there’s someone there by 8:00; I’ll call then.”

After he finished eating, and drank his second cup of coffee, he returned to the bathroom to do the needful and brush his teeth. When he was done, he fetched his suit coat and briefcase, kissed his wife goodbye and left the house. His car and driver were waiting at the curb. The driver opened the back door, and said “good morning, sir.”

“Good morning, Joe”.  He settled in the back seat and checked his cell phone for messages. Nothing urgent, so he punched his office number. “Irene? I’m on my way – traffic’s not too bad, so I should be there in  about 20 minutes. Anything up? Good. See you soon.”

Strangely, the smell seemed to have persisted. Maybe it’s the sewers, not his plumbing. Not unheard of in this city. “Joe, do you smell something funny?”

“You know, I do. Maybe it’s something in the car?”

“No, I smelled it at home too. I think it might be something from the sewers, but it sure is annoying.”

When he arrived at his office, the staff was already busy. He said a general “good morning” and entered his private office suite. His secretary looked up and smiled. Then a strange look came on her face – she seemed to be sniffing the air. “What’s wrong?,” he asked.

“I don’t know. All of a sudden, there’s a strange smell that wasn’t here before. Kind of like a barnyard.”

Senator McConnell’s jaws dropped with the sudden realization that the odor might be emanating from him, that it had followed and hung about him from the moment he had gotten up. He sniffed his hand and the smell got worse!

Moral: When you spend too much time in the pig pen, eventually the smell becomes permanent.

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Copyright 2019, Patrick F. Cannon

Doth Age Wither?

By Patrick F. Cannon

With the Democratic Party already feverishly trying to find a presidential candidate who can beat the hated Donald Trump, there has been a good deal of talk about whether some of them might be just a bit too old to take on the challenge.

As someone who has himself reached an age older than any of them, I can tell you that I would be reluctant to accept the minimum four-year commitment of running the free world (and I’d hate to lose my afternoon nap). This doesn’t mean that I’m incapable of doing a bang-up job – I’m taller than any of the top three, and just as well educated. By the top three, I mean of course Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and good old Joe Biden. I would describe the first two as doctrinaire and Joe as confused.

One of the hallmarks of old age is the conviction that one has finally discovered the wisdom of the ages. This is OK for someone like me, but is dangerous for a politician. Jimmy Carter is a perfect example of a President who had all the answers, but was a bit confused about the questions. Both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren think they have found the secret formula for success. While their programs are somewhat similar, their styles are slightly different.

Warren was for many years a law professor. This has given her a talent for lecturing voters as if they were her students, not unlike President Obama. As with most professors, their version of the truth brooks no opposition. You want to pass the exam; you better listen up and regurgitate. While she doesn’t necessarily want to abolish Capitalism, she seems determined to jail all the capitalists. Dare I say that she believes you can legislate morality?

Like Professor Warren, Sanders is for free college tuition and Medicare for all. Unlike Warren and most of the other Democratic aspirants, he isn’t for these things to pander to the so-called “base”; he has always detested Capitalism as a committed Socialist should. In an office that demands flexibility above all necessary traits (think Franklin Roosevelt), Bernie has gotten more rigid with age.

What he would love to do is what has failed everywhere it was tried – punish the successful by taking their money and giving it to the wise government to redistribute as it sees fit. I’m sure he sees the Labor governments just after World War II in Britain, Castro’s Cuba and Chavez’s Venezuela as worthy examples. I must say that the people of Vermont seem to have exhibited a perverse sense of humor to have harbored a Brooklyn Marxist to their leafy bosom for so long. Kudos to them for being willing to share.

Joe Biden is just a bit younger than Sanders, but because he’s been around so long, he has managed to actually establish a record that his moral betters can now decry. Unlike Bernie, who managed to do almost nothing in his years in the Senate but yell at people (have you noticed that he spends most of his time yelling instead of speaking?), poor Biden committed the sin of working across the aisle to get needed legislation passed, then compounded the felony by spending eight years as President Obama’s loyal vice president, whose record he must now defend to that same carping base.

But who knows? Maybe the Democrats will decide that someone younger and less rigid might better appeal to the majority of voters who identify as Republican or Independent (by far the most numerous at 42 percent). It may also occur to some of them that if 80 percent of Americans are mostly happy with their health care that “Medicare for All” might be more of a nightmare than a dream.

This old fogey held his nose and voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. I might be persuaded to vote for Joe Biden in 2020, but if the choice is Trump or Sanders, I might just spend the day playing Mah-jongg or Pickle Ball.

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Copyright 2019, Patrick F. Cannon

Nothing Funny About It

By Patrick F. Cannon

Regular readers of this space, and some friends and family, know that I have been publishing chapters of a (comic, I hope) history of the world. Nine chapters have appeared here, the last being a survey of our great scientific achievements. Chapter 10, when I get around to finishing it, will be The Age of Revolution.  Following that will be something on the Industrial Revolution.

And that might be the end. When I look at the 20^th Century, I struggle to find anything funny. Last week, I mentioned rereading Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August. The book ends with the Battle of the Marne in September 1914; after that, opposing trenches were dug from the Swiss border to the English Channel, and barely moved until the Spring of 1918, when something approaching mobile warfare returned, ending in the November 11 armistice. During those four years, approximately 40 million people died, including six million civilians. Here are the number of soldiers (rounded off) who died in action among the main combatants, with the approximate total population of the country in parentheses:

Germany                                 1,773,000 (68 million)

France                                     1,358,000 (39.6 million)

Great Britain                              908,000 (43 million)

Russia                                      1,700,000 (166 million)

Austria-Hungary                     1,200,000 (52.8 million)

Italy                                             650,000 (44.4 million)

United States                              116,000 (100 million)

Wounded would have been between three and four times those numbers. Appalling numbers to be sure, but let’s look at the same countries (minus no longer existing Austria-Hungary) for World War II, when at least 90 million died, including 45 million civilians:

Germany                                 5,500,000 (78 million)

France                                        218,000 (41 million)

Great Britain                               383,000 (43 million)

Russia                                      9,000,000 (175 million)

Italy                                              301,000 (45 million)

United States                               417,000 (132 million)

Comparisons of the two are instructive. For example, the far lower number of deaths for France and Great Britain in World War II can be largely explained by the fact that they were defeated by Germany in 1940 in a mere six weeks. In 1914, the French had gone to war with enthusiasm; in 1940, with deep pessimism. While some French units fought well, most didn’t and they dragged Great Britain down with them (thus Dunkirk).

The much higher casualties for Germany and Russia reflect the bitterness of that struggle. German dead on the Russian front were probably 70 percent of their total for all theatres. Many experts feel that the 9 million for Russia may well be conservative, with the true number closer to 12 million.

While the numbers for Germany, France and Italy are for Europe only, the others are for all theatres of operation. In Asia, Japan had 2.2 million dead; China 2-3 million. Adding everything up comes to about 130 million total deaths, military and civilian for both World Wars. To this we can add the “ethnic cleansings” in the Balkans, Africa, and Turkey; the Russo-Japanese War; the several Arab-Israeli conflicts; the Iran-Iraq war; numerous civil wars like Spain, China and the ongoing one in Syria; and of course our own wars in Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan (and let’s not forget Panama and Grenada!).

Civilian deaths too were much higher in World War II. Not only were six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, but aerial bombing and outright murder killed many more – the Japanese, for example, were thought to have killed tens of millions of Chinese civilians; and the Germans ruthlessly murdered Poles and Russians. And let’s not forget that Stalin caused the death of perhaps 10 million of his own countrymen in the 1930s; and Mao the same in China the 1960s.

In sheer numbers of deaths caused by conflict and official murder, the 20^th Century is the undisputed champ. But as a percentage of population, it pales in comparison to the religious wars in Europe in the 15^th and 16^th Centuries; and the Bubonic Plague of the 14^th, which experts now believe may have killed 60 percent of Europe’s population.

So, you can see why I might struggle to find many laughs in 20^th Century history. On the other hand, it gave us Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, Ring Lardner, James Thurber, Ogden Nash, Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Garrison Keillor, Lenny Bruce, Johnny Carson, Jack Lemmon, Myron Cohen – well, you can add your own favorites. They all found something to laugh about. Who knows, maybe I will too.

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Copyright 2019, Patrick F. Cannon

Repairing the Past

By Patrick F. Cannon

I’ve been rereading Barbara Tuchman’s wonderful book about the opening battles of World War I, The Guns of August. In this classic litany of mischance and human folly, the activities of the German government and army stand out above the other combatants for their sheer brutality and arrogance.

Here’s an example. By treaty among neighboring nations, including Germany, Belgium was guaranteed her neutrality. Nevertheless, the German plan of battle in August, 1914 included invading France through Belgium. When that small country refused to permit the German army to transit Belgium without a fight, the German were so incensed at their resistance that they demanded they pay reparations for the inconvenience they had caused them! The arrogance of this was breathtaking, so it is no wonder that when they ultimately lost the war, they were required to pay substantial reparations to the victors.

In essence, reparations are payments to “repair” damages to individuals or property. Recent Congressional hearings have again raised the question of reparations for the descendants of Africans sold into slavery and brought to this country to be sold again as laborers, primarily in the South. Even after they were freed in 1863, Jim Crow laws in Southern states drastically curtailed their rights, including their right to vote. The insult was compounded when the Supreme Court upheld separation of the races in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which established the “separate but equal” concept.

Beginning in 1948 when President Truman signed an order desegregating the armed services, African-Americans have slowly regained their civil rights. While there is now no statutory limit on their freedoms, it would be naïve to think that racism and discrimination is a thing of the past in America. But it is primarily to redress past wrongs that many African-Americans and others believe that financial reparations are due to the descendants of Africans brought to this country against their will.

Not everyone remembers or is even aware that in 1988 Congress passed and President Reagan signed a bill that paid $20,000 in reparations to each surviving Japanese-American who had been interned during World War II.  It was finally done after more than 40 years because the blame for interning American citizens (it was common for enemy aliens to be interned) was easy to place – it was done by the US Government through executive order.

The blame for enslaving Africans is more complicated. In our case, it was Great Britain who largely delivered slaves to Southern ports. But they were the traders, not the original enslavers. That distinction goes to their fellow Africans, who either captured them during battles, or rounded them up during raids, before shipping them to West African ports. Slave trading was part of the triangular system: Britain shipped manufactured goods to Africa, exchanged them for slaves, who were then sent to ports in America – New Orleans, Charleston, etc. – and exchanged for commodities like tobacco and cotton destined for Great Britain. Then the commodities were – well, you get the idea.

Great Britain didn’t abolish the slave trade until 1807 or abolish slavery until 1833, only 30 years before the Emancipation Proclamation. Our Founders, mostly Englishmen after all, wrestled with the question when drafting the Constitution, but failed to abolish slavery, many believing wrongly that it would die out naturally. They obviously share the blame for the persistence of slavery, along with the approximately 25-percent of Southerners who held slaves, and the perpetrators of the Jim Crow laws that replaced it.

But what of the majority of Americans, who neither trace to the Founders nor whose ancestors owned slaves? What of the people whose family were abolitionists? Or arrived here after 1863? The promoters of reparations argue that there is a kind of collective guilt or the stain of original sin that we all share regardless of these mitigating factors. It is the same theory of collective guilt that persuaded the Germans to massacre Belgium civilians in August, 1914.

While it’s unlikely that reparations will ever be paid, that doesn’t mean that white Americans must not continue to try to redress the pattern of discrimination that our African-American citizens have and continue to suffer. After acknowledging our past sins, isn’t it better by far to concentrate on the future? What good did obsessing about the past do in Northern Ireland or the former Yugoslavia?

For the many Americans who feel guilty about our past, I would suggest they consider investing in the future by donating to organizations that invest in education, like the United Negro College Fund (www.uncf.com), or any of the many other organizations that focus on what can happen rather than a past that can’t be changed. Why do so many instead insist on resurrecting the likes of Richard Russell and James O. Eastland and throwing them in poor Joe Biden’s face?  Is it because they’ve made a living at it so long they can’t afford to stop?

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Copyright 2019, Patrick F. Cannon

Our Living Language

By Patrick F. Cannon

According to a joint study by Harvard University and Google, there are 1,020,000 words in the English language. Just how they came up with that number is a mystery to me, but must have involved computers and millions of chimps.

The study did concede that many of the words they counted are now archaic, i.e., they are no longer used or have lost their original meaning. As so often happens, when I stopped reading the study after the first few paragraphs, I began to think of words that have been lost to us during my own lifetime. Here are but a few.

• Modest/Modesty. Like most English words, modest had several meanings. When I was a lad, for example, most women and young girls dressed so that their female charms were mostly covered by their clothing. It was said that they dressed “modestly.” As I recall, even a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking. Now, of course, anything goes. What once caused arrest at the beach, now largely goes unnoticed (except by the beastlier of men). Another meaning described someone of minimal ability or talent – they were said to be “modestly” talented. It is to be lamented that this usage is now obsolete, since it would be useful in describing entertainers like Justin Beiber and artists like Jeff Koons. Finally, one was said to be modest if he or she didn’t call attention to their achievements. I don’t recall Joe DiMaggio or Stan Musial ever flipping their bats or taking bows; or Jim Brown dancing the hoochie koochie in the end zone. Nowadays, it’s difficult to know whether you’re at a ball game or a circus. So, as you can see, modest, modesty and modestly are archaic.
• Discretion. According to one dictionary, the primary meaning of this now-dead word was: a determination not to cause offence or reveal private information. The opposite was, of course, indiscretion. Although everyone is now indiscrete, they don’t know they are because “letting it all hang out” is a national pastime. We live in an age when everyone seems to be taking pictures of their every activity, even their naked selves, and happily sharing the images with their Facebook and Instagram followers. There was a time when gentlemen “did not kiss and tell.” Now, particularly if they’re celebrities like Justin Beiber (again) or Taylor Twit (or is it Swift?), they can’t wait to get even with their rivals and ex-lovers (sometimes the same person). To do it properly, they hire specially-trained publicists, who were once called flaks, but have gone up market and are now called tit for tattlers.
• Probity. A person is known for his or her “probity” if they have strong moral principles, honesty, decency and uprightness of character. You are unlikely to have ever come across this word, since so few people now possess these qualities; and no politician has been known to have them for several generations.
• Civility. The base word “civil” is still used. Civil rights are still widely praised, if little understood; and civil government is understood to include governments at all levels. The study of all this, Civics, was once widely taught in schools, but has largely been replaced by something called “social studies” at the lower grades, and Marxism at our universities. To be “civil,” meant to treat one’s fellow citizens with the kindness and respect one would hope that they would return to you – really, just the Golden Rule. It seems clear that this meaning has been lost. Anyone who drives an automobile will know that there is a war raging on our streets and byways. Shots are fired more often than someone courteously yielding to another driver. If a man offers to give up his seat on the bus to a younger woman, he is likely to be arrested and branded a sexual predator. And removing your hat in the presence of a lady only means your head itches. Some men now never take off their caps, even in the finest restaurants. When dining out, it’s difficult to know whether you’re at Alinea or Joe’s Diner. Well, maybe they don’t take photos of the hamburger and fries at Joe’s, or jabber at their phone instead of their dinner companion.

Now, it’s certainly possible that these, and many other archaic words, will someday make a comeback. For example, codpiece became obsolete hundreds of years ago; now, one sees it on the menus of many fashionable restaurants. Wait, I may even have a photo here on my phone.

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Copyright 2019, Patrick F. Cannon

(The following post first ran in early April. I’m running it again, because the two buildings mentioned, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House and Unity Temple, have just been designated as World Heritage Sites, along with six other Wright buildings: Falling Water in Pennsylvania, the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan, Hollyhock House in Los Angeles, Jacobs House in Wisconsin, and Wright’s own homes, the Taliesin’s in Spring Green, Wisconsin and Scottsdale, Arizona. Other Heritage sites in the US include Yosemite, the Statue of Liberty, Grand Canyon, Independence Hall, etc. The only other sites listed partially for architectural reasons include Jefferson’s Monticello and University of Virginia, and the Taos Pueblo. If you live in the Chicago area and haven’t visited Robie (above photo by Jim Caulfield) and Unity, why not? If you don’t live here, why not visit Chicago? There’s plenty of other great stuff to see here too!)

Busman’s Holiday

By Patrick F. Cannon 

Photographer Jim Caulfield – one of the premier architectural photographers in Chicago – and I have collaborated on five books on Chicago architecture and architects (and are working on a sixth). This has taken up a good deal of my time for the last 15 years or so. Because I spend much of my time reading, researching and writing about Chicago architecture, I decided that this blog would be a vacation from those concerns. I’m breaking that rule today, to encourage you to visit two great works of art.

Last Thursday, my wife Jeanette and I attended a reception and viewing in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood of Frank Lloyd Wright’s newly-restored Robie House, his 1910 masterpiece of the Prairie style, this country’s first truly American architectural style. Its reopening for tours came less than two years after restoration was completed at Wright’s other Chicago-area masterpiece, Unity Temple in Oak Park.

Harboe Architects was responsible for both restorations. Its client for the Robie House was the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust; and at Unity, the Unity Temple Restoration Foundation. Tours for both, however, can be booked at the Trust’s web site, www.flwright.org. or by calling 312.994.4000.

While there are literally dozens of Wright designs in the Chicago area – Oak Park and River Forest alone have 27 – these two are the most important. The cost of their restoration, approximately $11 million for Robie and $25 million for Unity, is a bargain considering what far lesser works of contemporary art are fetching at public auction.

Chicago is justly famous around the world as a living museum of modern architecture. None of our great buildings is superior to Wright’s masterpieces. Other great works of art can of course be seen at the Art Institute, the Museum of Contemporary Art and other museums. But architecture is unique among the arts in that you can actually walk into a building and experience its form and space firsthand.

I have given many tours of both buildings and, even in unrestored state, visitors from literally around the world have been awestruck by these spaces. Now, restored as Wright would have wished them to be, they are simply breathtaking.

In 1957, the then owner of the Robie House, the Chicago Theological Seminary, planned to demolish it to make way for a new building. Wright, then 90, came to its defense, as did many others. On a visit, he was quoted as saying (and I paraphrase) that you wouldn’t think of destroying the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris, so why the Robie House, which was a greater work of art than any painting could ever be! Typical Wright.

Ultimately, New York real estate developer William Zeckendorf bought the Robie House in 1958 to use as a temporary office while doing work in the area, then donated it to the University of Chicago, which still owns it, although the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust was and is responsible for restoring and operating it.

If you live in the Chicago area, or plan to visit, Robie and Unity should be on your “must see” list. So should the Mona Lisa, but that will cost you more and even then you’ll be lucky to get close enough for a good look. Here, you can not only see great works of art, but walk around in them, and even – in the case of Unity – take a seat.

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Copyright 2019, Patrick F. Cannon

They’re the Greatest! (Or Are they?)

By Patrick F. Cannon

A movie just out, Yesterday, directed by Danny Boyle, has an interesting plot. Some kind of catastrophe has caused everyone in the world to forget that the Beatles and their songs ever existed – except, that is, for one so far unsuccessful, but soon to be famous, songwriter. According to the review I read, the movie’s assumption is that the Beatles were the greatest songwriters who ever lived.

Thus, once again, the dubious claim that someone or something is “the greatest” is made. In my memory, only two individuals have made such a claim for themselves – Mohammed Ali and Donald Trump. Ali had the better claim, if you forget Joe Louis in his prime, or Rocky Marciano, who, after all, retired undefeated. And then of course there’s Jack Johnson. As to Trump, the list of his betters includes just about everyone in the world except his buddies Putin and Kim.

I’m a great admirer of McCartney and Lennon, but are they really greater than Irving Berlin, Richard Rogers, George Gershwin, Cole Porter – or Steven Foster, Franz Schubert and Gustav Mahler for that matter? Why does anyone think the Beatles have to be in competition with all the other songwriters who ever lived? Only Paul McCartney is still with us, but I’m sure he’d be reluctant to claim his talents are superior to George Gershwin’s.

To continue with music, there are people who will argue over the relative merits of Beethoven as opposed to Mozart; or Mozart as opposed to Bach; or Bach as opposed to Stravinsky; and on and on. Why not just be glad they all decided to be composers instead of politicians?

Baseball fans go crazy with this “greatest” stuff. For example, Ty Cobb had the highest lifetime batting average (.366), but had a slugging percentage of .5120 as opposed to Babe Ruth’s .6897. What would Ted William’s slugging percentage of .6338 have been if he had not missed five prime seasons serving his country?  Would his lifetime batting average of .344 been as high as Cobb’s? But were any of these worthies actually the best all-around ball player of all time? Fruitless, isn’t it?

I once thought that Rembrandt was the greatest painter of all time. Then I discovered Velasquez, then began looking more closely at Titian. Don’t many consider Leonardo da Vinci the top guy, even though he had trouble finishing his paintings? And don’t forget Michelangelo, a great all-rounder, who could do you a fine sculpture and later paint your ceiling.

Of course, all these guys have been dead for 400 years or so. How about some more-contemporary artists like Turner, Van Gogh, Monet or the great Picasso? Or what’s wrong with the living? How about Jeff Koons (just kidding!)?

People are also fond of listing the greatest US Presidents. Lincoln and Washington vie for the top spot, with Lincoln winning on points. Others near the top include Franklin and Teddy Roosevelt, Jefferson, Jackson (yikes!), Lyndon Johnson, Harry Truman and Woodrow Wilson. Conservative think Reagan should make the list. The thing is that all of them came along just when they were needed.

Many historians also like to rank the worst presidents. Failures like John Tyler, Millard Fillmore and James Buchanan no longer have to vie for the dubious honor of being last on the list.

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Copyright 2019, Patrick F. Cannon

Biden Puts His Foot in It (Again)

By Patrick F. Cannon

I’ve known Joe Biden since 1972. He was a brash young man then and was never – and I mean never – at a loss for words. When I say “known” I don’t mean I’ve actually met him, but I’ve seen and heard him so often that he seems like the younger brother I never had. You know, the young kid who can’t shut up.

Of course, he’s not so young anymore. If he somehow manages to get elected President in 2020, he’ll be 78 when he takes office. His equally talkative opponent for the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders, would be 79. For the record, Ronald Reagan was 78 when he left office after two terms. To be kind, he was not quite up to the task for the last two years or so.

Anyway, back to Joe. He served six terms in the Senate and two as Vice President. While in the Senate, hardly a Sunday passed without him appearing on one or more of the Sunday morning news programs like Meet the Press and Face the Nation. On one, he might talk about the Iraq war; and on the other, the latest Supreme Court nominee. He was never at a loss for words or an opinion.

That’s his problem now. When you have pontificated as much as he has over nearly 50 years in public office, you inevitably stick your foot in it from time to time. In our enlightened era, the longer your career, the more grist for the politically-correct mill. Historical perspective counts for nothing; it’s only today’s orthodoxy that counts.

Joe made the mistake of mentioning that to get things done you had occasionally to work with people whose opinions were abhorrent to you personally. He mentioned former Democratic senators James O. Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge of Georgia, both arch segregationists, as fellow senators he worked with on other issues that were beneficial to the American people as a whole. Shame on him for putting the public good ahead of partisanship.

I may have lost count, but Biden has 22 challengers for the Democratic nomination for President. Every one of them was nearly apoplectic that he should even suggest that one could work with someone who didn’t measure up to the current orthodoxy. Of course, that orthodoxy depends on one-party control of the presidency and both houses of Congress. If they don’t achieve it – it will be difficult to dislodge the Republicans from control of the Senate – they will have to look good old Mitch McConnell in the eye. In case you haven’t noticed, he never blinks.

By the time you read this, the first of the Democratic Party debates will have taken place. One idea that seems to be gathering support from several candidates is forgiving student loan debt. The same candidates are also floating the idea of free college education for all (thus, presumably eliminating the student loan problem in the future).

As with everything else, the loan issue is complicated. For example, the Federal government was only too happy to approve loans to for-profit colleges and trade schools who were then only too happy to sign up unqualified students, who predictably flunked out owing a lot of money. And apparently it never occurred to many who did graduate from legitimate schools that they might have borrowed less money if they had actually worked to earn some of their tuition and other fees. Of course, I’m sure you won’t mind paying off their debts and their education costs going forward.

In this regard, I’m reminded of a story about former President Calvin Coolidge. When approached about the possibility of forgiving Great Britain’s debt from World War I, old “silent Cal” gave a typically brief reply: “They hired the money, didn’t they?”

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Copyright 2019, Patrick F. Cannon

Man the Ramparts!

By Patrick F. Cannon

Smithers stood at the ramparts, studying the distant forest with his telescope. “Nothing moving yet, sir.”

“Let me have a look,” I said. I took the telescope – the very one the lookout on the Santa Maria had used when he yelled “Land Ho!” on that fateful day in 1492 – and looked across the plains toward the distant stand of trees. The leaves were rustling in the gentle breeze, but there was as yet no army in sight, although I knew they would approach from there.

“You would think,” said the faithful Smithers, “that they would have had their fill of blood and flesh, that their hunger would be satiated. After all, what harm can we few, we happy few, we band of brothers actually do?”

“Ah, Smithers, but they can’t stand the thought that they haven’t subjugated the whole realm; that there might yet be a small corner that they haven’t conquered and digested. They must have even this insignificant corner. Their hunger is all consuming, their lust for blood terrifying.”

Just then, I noticed a slight movement among the trees. Then, slowly but remorselessly, a mighty host emerged and began forming on the plains. At its head was a golden chariot. Smithers was awestruck, but managed to croak: “Who’s that in the golden chariot?”

“That’s General Pritzker. Apparently, he can’t sit a white steed properly, so the Democratic party had the foundry-workers union cast a sturdy buggy for him. Strangely, his seat looks like a golden toilet.”

“But where’s Field Marshall Madigan?”, the puzzled Smithers asked.

“He’s toward the rear, surrounded by his Praetorian Guard. He seems to directing one of his minions – I believe it’s Colonel Cullerton – to relay instructions by cell phone to Pritzker.”

“Why doesn’t he do it himself?”

“He didn’t get to be Field Marshall by talking on a wire-tapped phone. He’s seen what’s happened to some of his foot soldiers.”

We both watched as the mighty host came closer and closer. Even without the telescope, you could see the bloodthirsty mob slobbering with anticipation. At the same time, they issued forth unearthly yells, which sounded like “more taxes, more taxes, more taxes!”

Smithers, the bravest of the brave in most cases, whispered “there’s no way we can survive this attack. And they’ll take no prisoners! Perhaps it would be prudent to retreat now so we can live to fight another day.”

“Well, that seem sensible. Where do you suggest we go?”

“How about Indiana? A lot of our friends are there already.”

“Why not? Issue the orders!”

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Copyright 2019, Patrick F. Cannon

Have You Had Enough?

By Patrick F. Cannon

With the cemetery where thousands of Americans are buried who died to liberate Europe from Nazi tyranny as a backdrop, President Trump in a Fox News interview chose to honor the 75^th Anniversary of D-Day by insulting the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the former head of the F.B.I., who is himself a decorated veteran of the Viet Nam War. It was only the latest disgusting performance by a man who is totally unfit to hold his office, and who is not only unqualified, but a thoroughly bad man.

As a political conservative myself, I am sick and tired of Republicans and others tolerating and even celebrating this amoral and immoral man. I read the other day that the Republican National Committee is busy raising money for his reelection campaign instead of working to find someone to run against him for the party’s nomination. Do they have a death wish? Perhaps they’re all getting shaved at the local barber shop so they don’t have to look themselves in the mirror every morning?

I’m sick and tired of the argument that after all he’s responsible for the booming economy and the loosening and eliminating of many of the regulations that Republicans find so restrictive. What they forget, it seems to me, is that any Republican president would no doubt have done the same, while not cozying up to such worthies as Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, and insulting our allies in other parts of the world. Oh, and trashing such bedrock Republican principles as free trade and international cooperation.

Two of Trump’s accomplices deserve special mention. Senator Mitch McConnell was first elected to the Senate from Kentucky in 1984, and became majority leader in 2015, in time to prevent President Obama’s final nominee to the Supreme Court from getting a vote in the Senate. As minority leader when Obama took office in 2009, he publicly proclaimed that his aim was to make certain that he (Obama) wouldn’t be re-elected in 2012. He failed in this. He also failed to prevent passage of the Affordable Care Act, but successfully thwarted most of the rest of the President’s legislative program. Although he originally supported Rand Paul in the Republican primaries, he soon jumped on the Trump bandwagon when it became clear his nomination was inevitable.

He is the archetype of the modern politician who puts party ahead of country. Nancy Pelosi, who evidences this tendency herself, is wise to counsel caution on the impeachment issue. She understands that even if the House were to impeach the president with overwhelming evidence, McConnell would likely prevent his conviction in the Senate. Based on her knowledge of the situation, Pelosi is happy to wait until Trump leaves office, when he is almost certain to be indicted.

(I would like here to point out that McConnell was born in Alabama, not Kentucky. My friend Skip – who was born in Kentucky – would like everyone to understand that the Blue Grass state bears no responsibility for spawning him.)

Lindsey Graham, the senior senator from South Carolina, is a special case. Long known as John McCain’s best friend in the Senate, he has become an avid Trump supporter. As we know, McCain criticized the president on a whole range of issues, including his character. For this, the famously vindictive Trump heaped abuse on McCain even after his death. His animus was so extreme that his staff had the USS McCain hidden during the president’s recent trip to Japan because they knew he would explode if he saw it.

(Just for the record, the ship is named for the three McCain’s who served their country in time of war. Both John McCain’s father and grandfather were distinguished admirals. Trump, although not alone in this, got enough draft deferments to insure he didn’t serve in Viet Nam.)

For Lindsey Graham, friendship only goes so far. When you have to pander to the many Trump supporters among the “lost cause” white voters in South Carolina to get re-elected, well, loyalty is a luxury you can’t afford. Maybe the voters in Kentucky and South Carolina will do the right thing and rid themselves of these sanctimonious hypocrites. In the meantime, I have to call my barber to make sure Madigan and Cullerton have already been in for their shaves.

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Copyright 2019, Patrick F. Cannon