Trump! Trump! Counter-Trump!

Among the less celebratory perceptions of the Fourth Quarter has to be the recognition that the world hasn't changed. I think it was Avraham Friedman (who blogs from the Middle East mostly about Viktor Frankl and the ideas that grew in Frankl during his years in WWII camps) who cited one of his students as reporting that 'birthdays are those days when the Creator has indicated by the birthday-person's birth that the World just couldn't continue without them.' Maybe the Fourth Quarter begins with the recognition that -- in spite of the fact that you haven't, yet, brought peace to the world and cured cancer -- the World will, indeed, go on without you and that if the Creator thought you were going to change it all, She oopsed.

So, I've lived for all this time and politicians are still hoodwinking the public and, likely, lying to themselves. I've preciously suggested that the National Debt might be remediable were we to charge admission to public floggings of all those who intentionally tell mistruths to the voting public.

I don't wish to diagnose Mr. Trump (DT) but I do have reactions to what he says and how typical it is for his statements to represent others as having done what many believe he does regularly. I suppose, that is, that the most forthright comment he makes is that he is "a Counterpuncher" ... but in a different sense than the one he uses. 

His most recent attack on a judge whose parents were Mexican immigrants is not untypical. Let me explain. It works something like this:

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Punch: DT promises to bring the Mexican Government to its knees by forcing it to build the now infamous DT's wall and suggests that that Government chooses to send all its dregs to the USA. In short, he depreciates the power and the decency of Others ... an aggressive act.

Counterpunch: DT concludes that the judge/offspring of one so-aggressed-upon is incapable of judicious thinking because DT has aggressed upon him and he, the judge, is therefore predisposed to aggress against DT.

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Let's see: According to his reasoning, Mexican, Women, Muslims and Democrats would all need to recuse themselves in legal/judicial matters related to DT's alleged fraud in the Trump University case.  It would be facile, too, to say something insulting about all other groups, while he's at it.

But lemme give some other examples:

DT is an extreme pragmatist ... the kindest way I can describe someone who will say whatever it takes to get a job done. It is not so much the Pragmatism is un-American but our Constitution and its Bill of Rights demand of us that we temper that Pragmatism with Rules. DT must have a degree of intelligence and a basketful of guile to accomplish what he has. 

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Punch: Like many of us -- myself included -- we did what we could to avoid military service during the Viet Nam era. They were, indeed, complicated times and the issues surrounding such decisions were equally difficult to parse. M & I were "Waist Deep (not) in the Big Muddy" during those years but in diapers. DT, I can only surmise, may well have been among those who had connections that permitted him a pass. I don't know.

Counterpunch: Sen. McCain is not a War Hero. War Heroes are those who don't get captured, according to DT.

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Punch: DT has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to single out women for derisive comments, foul and demeaning descriptions and attempts to undermine their careers. Undoubtedly, he has helped women, as well.

Counterpunch: Let's talk about Bill Clinton. By the way, I do hold Clinton responsible for Gore's loss in 2000 ... I can't help believing/considering that he he kept his trousers buckled, many -- even if a small minority -- would have voted for Gore and, perhaps, the mess we are in would be less of a mess. Perhaps?

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Punch: The Drumpf's came from Germany, apparently .... a country that was, indeed, brought to its knees by the Allies ... twice. I don't know what the youngster/man thought of himself in the post-War era growing up in Queens. If your grandpa speaks with a middle-European accent, who are you? Who knows? Was there Shame? Guilt? Reparations such as many very wealthy people offer (the Koch brothers are a simple example or the Kimmels or the owners of Comcast who support the Arts and build Hospitals) are not familiar to me with the DT's name upon them.

Counterpunch: Implying that Obama is not eligible to serve as President ... not an American.

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Punch: DT's rhetorical device of denying and saying something at the same time is well-known to the listening public. 

"I'm not saying that s/he's A-B-or-C but she's at least A-C and maybe D-C!"

"I'm not sayin' you should beat up these protesters but back-in-the-day, they'd be carried out."

"I'm not sayin' that he was born in Kenya, but ..."

The famous list goes on.

I think it's fair to say that DT often peppers his talk with conflicting or paradoxical positions.

I could but I won't .... Inuendo but not ....

Counterpunch: "Lying Ted" ... "Lying Hillary" .... 

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Punch: DT very cleverly gets all the major news networks to cover his campaign in what seems obvious was an enormously unbalanced way. He uses outrageous behaviors and comments to accomplish this. The Left and the Right give him 10's of Millions of Dollars of air-time during which they inevitably talk about the over-the-top and offensive comments he has made. The other 20 candidates (D and R, alike) are arguing about quotidian and boring 'crap' like policy. The Networks take the bait.

Counterpunch: "The Networks are against me" and each and every comment is permitted to more or less fall by the wayside. Can we really have a president who says the things he has about women? I suppose we can, after all he's been treated unfairly. ... OMG!

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I welcome others to send other examples which I shall append in your name (hhcovitz@aol.com) ... In any case, it is a disheartening component of Last Quarter living to see these same techniques used so openly with the public as they have been in many previous Strong-Man Led Regimes. Mid-Fourth-Quarter? and I've changed the World very little, if at all. I do hope I've on a much more local level influenced those people I've loved.

Glad, Sad or Mad?

(a picture of me without my masks ... )

These have been weeks of Glad and Sad. Throughout my ramblings on this blog since, I think 2011, I've revisited my sense of my and maybe Monty Python's sense of life ... mine acquired over the past seven decades. They don't have the feel to me of deep metaphysical truths espoused by students of Nietzsche, but maybe by Nietzsche, himself:

"You have your way;

I have mine.

As for the Perfect way

or the only way,

that doesn't exist."

Among the movies that have moved me is a feminist one about Antonia and her Line ... her daughter and grand-daughter. Maybe it's unfortunate that it mocks men a bit ... but we men and our need to prove ourselves is, in the end, a comically pathetic attempt to hide and deny vulnerability. In any case, in the film is a man ... a student of Nietzsche who cannot quite leave his home or his books ... his name in the film is Crooked Finger. Maybe he serves as counter-character to a crazed lady, la Luna, who howls at the Moon, at night. Crooked Finger suicides; la Luna keeps on howling!

As I said: these weeks have been Glad and Sad. M's baby Sister turned 60 and we travelled 300+ miles each way to celebrate. Just M and I in the roadster ... top down ... at one time leading a caravan of Corvettes anxious to pass our little German 2 seater. Just fun! ... Just Glad, though talking a bunch with each other about the loss of a 57 year old friend ... the one I spoke of last, I think. We talked, too, about a 37 year old daughter of a friend who tried very hard but couldn't make it and was dying ... and, indeed, died a day after we returned. Can't imagine what it's like for her Mom and Dad. Our youngest used to babysit for her ... a sweet young woman plagued by chemical Demons and undoubtedly demons of another ilk. 

I haven't been able to write very much, these days ... a problem as I need to speak in New York in just 4 or 5 days and I'm not certain what to say to the very Nietzschian audience of serious-minded thinkers. Maybe it has been watching GuntherDog struggling in these weeks. This morning, he did what he's been doing each morning, lately. Climbs down slowly from his chair and waits for me to pee and then walks out of our bedroom. He pauses, at just that moment, and walks towards a bedroom that is no longer occupied, sniffs a bit, and gets back on path towards the stairs. I've never been quite certain what to say to him, especially as his vocabulary is limited. He knows "upstairs" and barks and clammers to go up each evening after hearing that word. He knows "wanna pee" and it moves him to the door. "Couch" takes him out of my chair and onto the love seat where he and M snuggle. Still, he doesn't get: "They're no longer there." How do I explain these things to an Old Dog ... to myself ... I think Gunther is about 14.

So, back to the issues of my five simplistic truths.

First -- maybe foremost! If y'can't juggle Sad and Glad, you're phukt!

Second: The Canvas on which you get to Paint your Life is Framed and Finite;

it's very big but y'don't get to expand it.

Third: Life IS the Only Game in Town; 

Life IS the Only Thing that IS -- at least in these dimensions!

Fourth: Life is Meaningful only in the context of Relationships.

(if y'don't believe me, go read Kohelles, author of Ecclesiastes)

&

Fifth: For the Envious, Mad and Miserable cover Glad and Sad.

Frankly, I think Gunther and the 6 or so other Noble Beasts who have accompanied M and I on our journeys taught us all but the second of these so-called truths ... and the second, unfortunately, I won't be able to explain to him.

Alas!

So Little Time ... but So Much

Whenever I/we go to a funeral, the recognition of just how little time may be left becomes, at least momentarily, unavoidable. R led the good life. I never heard him say a bad word about someone in public. Seemed to love his Kids, adore his Wife and include his Mother in his posse. He was famously a good Doctor who took care of little babies for a living ... those endangered infants who came out just-too-soon ... some, no bigger than a guinea pig. I knew him to be uncomplicated. We attended a prayer-group, together ... I had come there about 17 years ago ... the year before, M had met him in the weeks after his Dad died on the same day that M's Dad, Murray, had. 

In those years, R would contribute to discussions ... always in straightforward yet fundamental ways. I recall one discussion where somehow the conversation about the Biblical text turned to the requisite need to think positively about one's illness. R wasn't suggesting a pessimistic attitude but one -- pointedly -- where the ill person didn't have the additional burden of being encouraged to believe that his illness was his fault. That stuck with me, as did, I think, everything else R said. He died two days ago. Yesterday, when I was discussing the weekly texts in front of the group, I heard myself saying and meaning that I remembered what he said more often than what I had. I then heard myself talking about Moses' Blessing/Curses at the end of Deuteronomy, a part of which has always moved me.

"May Z'vulon rejoice in his goings-out and Yisasschar in his ethereal studies."

One of the great commentaries of the 13th C, Simon Yitzchaki, comment, I thought I recalled (I haven't checked, yet) that these two Tribes of Jacob had an agreement. Z'vulon would indulge in what Simon Yitzchaki called in his Old French prakmatia ... pragmatics ... business ... earning a buck. In the meantime his successes would support Yisasschar's studies. Good enough, I recall thinking in Seminary in 1960, but Moses only addresses Z'vulon ... only bothers talking to the Pragmatist. I thought of R. as just such a pragmatist ... decent? always ... a gossip/trash-talker? never. Simpler, as the kids say it in describing the Mosaic distinction:

"Bullshit walks and action talks."

Or as the Poets might say it (like Lerner and Lowe):

"Don't talk of stars, burning above

If you're in love? show me!

Tell me no dreams, filled with desire

If you're on Fire, show me! 

... Don't talk of love ... Show me!"

As his sons and Medical Practice partner and Brother spoke, I was to learn much more about R than I knew from our brief supportive moments in our prayer groups; R or I or both of us would show up exhausted after days of caring for sufferers:

"Y'OK?"

"Pretty Good."

I recall no bullshit. And I only was privy to a part of his life ... At the memorial service (what in my tradition is called "accompanying the dead" on their final journey), I was to learn that R.  really listened to the Grateful Dead and Bruce Springstein on his way to driving his son last-minute 100 miles to see some great basket-baller? I had no idea that he loved Baseball, Football, was enamored of the local teams, skiing, Fly-Fishing, or that he had really encouraged his two sons to follow their dreams away from the Medical Practices that he, his Parents, and his wife had each built. I hadn't known that he and his wife met 40 years ago on maybe the first day of undergraduate studies or that  he had built what his brother called a Full Life that Lady? He used the same expression when he was first diagnosed with Cancer 23 years ago ... "I've had a good ride." I knew none of this. Nor did I know that he'd been invited to testify on a Medical Miracle in the Vatican.

I let the cat out of the bag, didn't I? .... started school 40 years ago? So R was 58 when he died and hadn't yet been blessed with playing in the Fourth Quarter, as I think of it.

But fullness of life isn't measured in linear and equal measures along a stick or by hand shaped pointers running about a circular dial. When at 57, the Cancer returned and even in the many months that followed, it could be said by those who knew him:

We loved you, R ... we'll miss you.

Y'did real good!

Evangelical Hypocricy

35 years ago, I taught a course to psychotherapists on Culture, Religion and Psychotherapy. Throughout the early months of the seminar, I was struck by one fact and one fact, alone: every time one of my students -- all growed up and life experienced with maybe the average age being 45 -- every time a student mentioned a religious person, it was someone who was emotionally ill. I, at last, commented that not only was it true that most of the great works of the ages were God-Fearing but, indeed, the last psychoanalyst who had taught the course for years before he unexpectedly died was a religious person, as well.

All this to say: I don't know if Donald Trump "loves women" ... the tabloids certainly claim that he's bedded many of the "fairer sex" ... but I have been drawn, in my life, to devout and religious folk and their texts. Lord knows, some readers of these scribbles have complained that my blog is overly peppered ... too heavily spiced, that is, with quotes from various Scriptures.

So, I wonder .... and so does M ... how can it be that some Evangelical Christians and some Ultra-Orthodox Jews are supporting for the Presidency of the Nation (that gives them the right to pray to their God in whatever way they choose) a man who at least reportedly is a serial adulterer, a public smearer of others, an offender of women based on their weight or looks, a man who discusses his and his women's sex lives on such programs as the Howard Stern Show, and someone who garishly transgresses Deuteronomy's prohibition on even the King having too much stuff (horses, women, ...).

Where is this roughly 50% of religious folk coming from? In my own religious tradition, each day is started with a prayer asking God to protect the one praying from public displays of arrogance (עזות פנים) and from those who publicly display their arrogance (עזי פנים). How can this be that 50% of Indiana's Evangelicals supported such a man? As I noted in a recent posting, the sages of Babylonia were confused by the juxtaposition in Deuteronomy 17:18-21 of the rules for judges and public officials with the prohibition against idolatry (tree worship, there). They explained it by arguing, as I recall, in Tractate Sanhedrin (p 11, maybe) that "anyone who stands up for the election of an unfit judge/leader is essentially guilty of idolatry."

Somebody, please explain how religious folk can stand up for electing one such as the reported Donald Trump for leader of the Free World?

Elizabeth Warren said something similar but so much better than I ever could:

Donald Trump is now the leader of the Republican Party. It's real – he is one step away from the White House. Here's what else is real:

Trump has built his campaign on racism, sexism, and xenophobia. There's more enthusiasm for him among leaders of the KKK than leaders of the political party he now controls.

He incites supporters to violence, praises Putin, and, according to a columnist who recently interviewed him, is "cool with being called an authoritarian" and doesn't mind associations with history's worst dictators. 

He attacks veterans like John McCain who were captured and puts our servicemembers at risk by cheerleading illegal torture. In a world with ISIS militants and leaders like North Korean strongman Kim Jong-Un conducting nuclear tests, he surrounds himself with a foreign policy team that has been called a "collection of charlatans," and puts out contradictory and nonsensical national security ideas one expert recently called "incoherent" and "truly bizarre." 

What happens next will test the character for all of us – Republican, Democrat, and Independent. It will determine whether we move forward as one nation or splinter at the hands of one man's narcissism and divisiveness. I know which side I'm on, and I’m going to fight my heart out to make sure Donald Trump’s toxic stew of hatred and insecurity never reaches the White House.

The Prince and the Queen

I vaguely remember Elizabeth's coronation ... or do I only remember the multi-colored stamps that I later owned. The early years of life are covered in a fog of other interests. So much centers on the family. Brother, two Sisters, Mother, Father, Grandparents and even some cousins. And while we lived not far from the ocean, just across the pond, aye, from the new Queen in England, unlike Sister Sarah and her Alaskan scrutiny of Mother Russia, I lacked the vision to see Father England from my kitchen window.

When I heard that Prince died, yesterday, I was totally blindsided. The Prince? Bandar of the Saudi Royal Family? One of the boys of the young lovely we all loved whose hubby, another Prince, was madly-deeply in love with another? No, no, M explained.

The greatest singer, the most sellingest of all Funk Rockers, Prince!

Prince who, I protested. Well no use.  Everybody on TV from Brian Williams to Lefty wonks like Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes all knew his music. Maybe I finally had something in common with T-Rump in missing out but then I heard Donelle talk about Prince, too.

What is the Last Quarter for a nerdy Pater Familias? I don't rightly know but one of the discoveries made during that time is that the Second and Third Quarters were taken up with lots of stuff beyond Pop Culture.

IF I had to do it all over, again?

If I could do it all over again, I'd "let my freak flag fly" and high, at that, and I'd know lots about Michael Jackson, Iced Tea, Prince, the Big Cool J guy who plays a detective on a show whose name I can't recall, and Kim Kardashian ... I would finally get to know who-the-fuck or WTF is a Kim Kardashian and whether OJ really killed his wife, whose name I may have once known. As Gunther Toody might say: Oo-oo, I almost got the name.

AM I talking regret? NO, I don't think so ... More like acceptance that at every fork in the road we implicitly decide which road not to take though we convince ourselves of a different narrative.

Election 2016 ... Queries of the Night

I'm confident that I'm not alone in suffering from Pavor Nocturnis ... Nightmares of the Night ... usually brief. For me, they take the form of Questions and Queries not for the Candidates but for the Voters. An unsolicited selection follows:

Would you vote for Bernie Sanders if he was transgendered?

One dream took the form of a New Yorker cover ... split screen. Left part has Bernie in a floppy Sunday-best hat and a colorful mu-mu about to walk into a Women's Bathroom.

The other split image was Sen/Secy Clinton sidling up to a urinal between two men leading to another question: Would you vote for Sen. Clinton if she were a he?

Would you support T-Rump if he weren't a craven guttersnipe?

Would you vote for Clinton if she were a Republican selling dinner-invites for $300,000+?

Would you vote for Cruz? Indeed, ... why would you vote for Cruz?

Why would you vote for a Billionaire who won't release his Tax Returns?

Why would anyone vote for a candidate who won't proudly release transcripts of speeches.

Is it Right and Proper to have a President who talks with a Brooklyn accent?

Why would any God-fearing person vote for a spoiled kid from Queens who tried to screw -- some say -- everything in a skirt, who -- again, some say -- cheated in his marriages and talked on the Howard Stern show about his package and his prowess? And one who contradicts himself in many sentences? I mean ... WTF?

And why won't people vote for the Good Governor of Ohio? As is not quite written in song: 

Why-O-Why-O-Why-O would we ever ignore Ohio? 

Frustrating ... I was kinda hoping for a Sanders/Elizabeth Warren ticket and it just ain't gonna be. I will vote for Secretary Clinton, though I'm still pissed with her for her attacks on Obama. I'll really miss Obama, his way of thinking (if not his particular thoughts) and his charming and dignified family. The Obama's are, to my of thinking, a class act .... 

Aside: In the chapter of Deuteronomy that discusses the appointment of leaders, the Writer (writer) the need to be above bribery and willing to chase after justice (צדק צדק תרדוף). It then, out of context, inserts: Though shall not plant a tree of idolatry next to the altar of God (לא תטע אשירה כל עץ אצל מזבח ה׳). My memory isn't what it once was but somewhere around page 11 of Tractate Sanhedrin, the Masters of the Schools of the Babylonian exile tried to explain this curious juxtaposition:

Any one who elects an unsuitable leader? 

It (must be that it) is as if they planted a tree of idolatry near the Altar of God.

כל המעמיד דין שאינו הגון ... כאילו נטע אשירה אצל מזבח ה׳

California Dreamin' ... on a beautiful Spring Day!

Just us Chickens

Getting a big boost out of reissuing of my 1997 volume in paperback that respectfully disagrees with Professor Freud over the central position of Sex and Aggression in human emotional disturbances

The back of the book has a picture of M and I taken by our youngest. The picture of the hunk on the front lower-left -- contrary to rumor (that I began) -- is not me. The idea for such an image of Adam confronted by a multiplicity of gods or influences was first shared with me by a student (Matt Dalberto) in a Mathematics and Art class that I taught at Tyler School of Art some many years ago. It captures, for me, the situation that humankind inherited when it evolved into a self-aware being ... a being that could reflect on multiplicity ... a being that no longer would simply follow its singular instinct in the pursuit of some goal but had a complexity of desires that wove themselves in almost-infinite-variety into notably distinct tapestries. As I once noted in a footnote somewhere in my scribbles: I've never know a cur who needed either candle-light, soft-music or the assistance of Secrets from Victoria to, as they say, get it on. No. For GuntherDog, it's nothing more than his nose that is necessary for him to be sexually inspired to initiate the choreography of sexual desire. 

Which gets me to a picture from this morning walking down the stairs. It was a morning like others. I stirred in bed and immediately heard Gunther groaning like an old man from his nearby oversized chair. M, still recovering from the barbaric replacement of her knee-joint with an aftermarket knee likely produced by a shop left over from the days of the booming US auto industry ... there was M ... My stirring ... GuntherDog's kvetching ... and M's quietly expressed knee discomfort. There are rituals, too. Unless it's an emergency, I get to pee first and then Gunther kvetches off his chair, shakes off sleep and leaves our bedroom for the upstairs hall. He walks over to what once were the kids' bedrooms, smells no one and walks to the top of the stairs and sits. As his Sancho Panza, I sit next to him for all of thirty seconds and scratch his head ... he makes loving little noises and when he's prepared to do so stretches and does the four-legged dog-walk down the stairs. I follow and walk towards the back door with him. He walks out without showing the least bit of urgency ... Gunther has his pride and I swear that I can almost hear his words:

"Hey, Old Man. I coulda held my pee for a long time.

Not like you, y'Old Fart."

The Last Quarter has much in it ... many opportunities ... much camaraderie ... and, yet, in some profound way, it's "Just Us Chickens" ...  M, GDog and Me ... each in our own way trying to make sense, even as we attempt to maintain relevance in the lives of the kids and grandkids who'll visit with us, tonight, and with those others who choose to hang out with us in Q IV. 

Did I maybe hear GDog just quietly query: 

GD: Hey, Old Man. Why am I not on the back cover of yer Scribbles?

HC: Sorry, Guy. Guess I forgot where I hid the Ginkgo Paloba (& how to spell it)