2014 Christmas Spectacular

Hell's bells, no I have not stopped blogging, though work and a little illness have kept me from some of my pastimes recently. Now it's almost time for my holiday spectacular and yet, I have not written one normal post (as if any of them are really normal) in a month, so, the heck with it, I'm going with the holiday edition today.

 

Holiday memories

 

I was born and raised in a Jewish family.  Late in his life my father settled an argument between my older brother and myself. I clearly remembered that we had a Christmas tree one year, although now, all I can remember is the fact of it and no picture of it pops into my head. My brother said don't be ridiculous. Dad sided with me - yes, one year we had one.  I also seem to remember that something about them calling it a Chanukah bush, which is what Jews like to say when they decorate a tree, but I'm less sure about that.

 

Not that my parents had any pretensions about being Christian (it has occurred temporarily to two of my siblings). It was 5 of their 6 kids that left the religion. My parents were Jews to the core, my father to the degree that he affected a Yiddish accent for a few years (yes, really). They were Reform Jews, thank God (said the atheist) but Jews all the same. And they didn't want to us to mix up any Christian beliefs with those we were supposed to have. So, when I was four my mother tried to tell me that there was no Santa Claus. That I have a slight visual image of, though it could be imagined. It took place, if I recall correctly, in my bedroom, and my mother delicately tried to let me know that Santa was just for fun, and hoping I wasn't very disappointed. I wasn't.  I was embarrassed. Embarrassed that she thought there was a possibility that I thought that there a person who could actually slide down your chimney. Of course, at the time, I wasn't yet an atheist.  I'm not sure I gave the concept of God any thought at all at that age, although I may have just repeated the mantra or believed it. You can't remember everything. The firm skepticism I developed I distinctly remember occurring when I was in the 2nd grade, when I concluded religion was a hoax pervading the entire earth (thinking how could I, a child, alone, recognize this fraud and who was perpetrating it?) How far off was I?  Depends what you believe.

 

My family, naturally, celebrated Chanukah and I do have some nice memories of the lighting of the menorah with its characteristic waxy aroma and bags of candy money, that is, chocolate wrapped in faux-silver or gold aluminum, and even of that pathetic toy - the dreidel, with which I must have played a game on occasion.  For those not familiar with it, it was a top with four sides upon which were marked four Hebrew letters, one of which I think I remember was a gamma - our g. But, don't hold it to me.  Nor do I remember how you played.  And there was that horrendous dreidel song - "Dreidel, dreidel, I made it out of clay . . . . "

 

Leaving aside the many famous Xmas songs Jews have written, they somehow couldn't write a decent Chanukah song until Adam Sandler giggled through The Chanukah Song on Saturday Night Live (although to be fair, I once though I heard a relatively decent in Hebrew one year at a tree lighting ceremony, of all places, but, have never been able to learn its name and have never heard it again). Though I am not much of a Sandler fan, his song is fun because it mentions all kinds of celebrities, Jewish and otherwise, and brings into the light that whole Jewish funk some go through during Xmas season, ostensibly because there are far more Christians - many nominal, of course - than Jews, but I really think because the Christian holiday has racked up the better cultural icons. By far - by far.  

 

Not being a believer or really considering myself a Jew (other than by heritage and how others judge me) it is pretty easy for me to enjoy Xmas all I want. People like to bash the commercial aspects of Xmas, but that's exactly what I like, not the religious aspects. The last Xmas mass I was dragged to I brought a book with me. At least a few times I have tried to encourage a Jewish person suffering through the Xmas doldrums that they can enjoy pretty lights, fun songs and movies as much as any Christian without betraying their family and faith. Christians don't actually own the pretty lights. If an atheist can celebrate Xmas - and possibly a majority do in America - and Christians can enjoy Fiddler on the Roof, why can't Jews like Xmas?

 

But, some Jews can't get past it. But just as sad to me as Jews being unhappy because it seems to them like the whole country is having a party and they aren't invited. But, also sad to me is that some Christians can't appreciate the commercial Xmas I so adore either because it violates whatever religious restrictions they put on themselves. In some sects of Christianity (at least, they say they are Christians - others differ) Christmas can't be made merry, I think because they believe it trivializes it. I only know this because a few times in my life I've met children who weren't allowed any Joy to the World in the way the other kids could celebrate Xmas and it made me feel bad for them.  Who says they can't be pious and serious and sing O Magnum Mysterium in church and Jingle Bells on your way home? I know what you are thinking -- just because I can't see why anyone would do that to their kids doesn't mean they can't have joyful and meaningful lives too, but, how do you not let your kids watch Elf at Christmas?  People should answer the phone like he does in the movie -  "Buddy the Elf. What's your favorite color?" - at least in the holiday season.

 

The other aspect of Christmas and Chanukah that is big, of course, is gift giving. I hate to say it, but the joy of gift giving has been a little trampled on for me. I can remember a time when I gave out dozens of gifts every year. Unfortunately, it seemed to upset people more than please them and foist upon them an obligation I did not intend. Because if they didn't get one for you, they felt worse instead of better. I admit I've felt a little uncomfortable at times in those circumstances myself - Oh, they thought of me and must be hurt because I didn't think of them. But, I get over it. The way to handle it is to just try and be gracious and think if you can give a gift without getting one back, why shouldn't they be able to. Of course, you may be kidding yourself, but, what's the harm? There was at one point a time one circle among my friends all exchanged gifts with each other. That was sort of ruined when one of them (who, just wasn't going to like anything you gave her . . . I mean him or her ) insisted that we only give gifts for the kids. The Kids? They got so many gifts, if you piled up all of the presents I got as a kid it wouldn't equal one year's worth of presents for them.

 

Which brings me back to my youth and getting Chanukah presents. The way we did Chanukah - and I have no idea if this is traditional and Maimonides did this with his kids too or if it's just an American thing - is that you would get one big gift on the first day of Chanukah and then smaller gifts the next 7 days.  By "big gift" I mean that I would get a board game or something, like Mousetrap or Clue. And, we would be excited. The one thing you feared getting, of course, was ---- clothes. Because we could give a ***'s  *** about getting clothes and it meant one of your eight days and gifts was gone. Oh, well. Over all it worked out. I don't remember Chanukah ending and feeling disappointed.

 

So, nowadays, I exchange with my girlfriend (yes, she who I also like to call my 25 to Life Sentence, my Ball and Chainsaw, the Warden, my GirlFuhrer and my Insignificant Other) my daughter, brother and his family and less than a handful of my closest friends and a few others. On occasion I sneak a gift to someone and just leave it on their door step without a card so that they don't feel terrible and have to rush out and get me something, pretending they forgot to give it to me.  That's what Xmas guilt has reduced me to - being a Xmas sneak.

 

I do have a gift giving problem this year. It seems, limited as I am, I mostly only know how to give people books.  No idea if they actually read them or not. Personally, I read almost every book people give me as gifts even if I didn't choose them. There are limits. Someone once gave me (and others) a door stop of a novel by someone whose writing he admired for Xmas and I got through about four or so pages before I realized I'd rather be crammed down a chimney or take a terrifying ride on a flying sled without a seatbelt and gave it up.  But the rest I've read, even when given by those who have no idea what my taste is, and often I am surprised and really like them. And, of course, when I hand them out, I'm sure there are some clinkers in there too. You have to be in the right mood for a book and you can't always judge correctly what someone else will like or be in the mood for.  But, that's probably true of all gifts.

 

In any event, some people I give gifts to don't read paper books anymore; they read on devices. I suppose there is a way to give them a gift, but I'm 55 this year and it is a bit over my head how to go about it (I am up to the level where I can now download a book onto my Kindle, but I pretty much only download stuff either for free or almost free, that I'm pretty sure I would never read otherwise than on the crowded train where a book can be clumsy). As I have probably written on my blog more than once, I know these electronic readers are better in almost every way than books, but I'm not used to it and I like to look at my books sitting on shelves or in piles. It feels better to turn a page than click a button. Call me a luddite. I'm fine with it. Except when I move. Then having everything on a reader would be a godsend.

 

There's always gift cards, of course, so that they can actually pick out what they like instead of what I hope they like and haven't read yet, and on a few occasions I have given them to people, and don't mind getting them myself. But, still, I can't help but get the feeling that it means, look, I want to get you something but I'm too busy and it's not really that important so that I would put any thought into it and risk giving you something you don't like. So I'm not fair. You should hear how I feel about wedding registries.

 

Anyway, yes, I love Christmas and don't care who knows it, but so many people I know (okay, women - though in the modern world saying so somehow makes me a misogynist) just get overwhelmed by the expectations, reciprocations and self-inflicted pressure of the holidays and sometimes hate it.  Maybe "dread" is a better word.  Yes, they keep a list of people who send them cards and only send those people cards the next year. Is that really the spirit? No, but it's the reality.

 

I went to a restaurant today called Rolf's in NYC. We started the tradition last year adding it to our pilgrimage to see the tree and walk down 5th Avenue looking in the store windows. Rolf's is a German restaurant and not that special in itself (the food's okay and too expensive), except they decorate the hell out of it for Christmas starting in October and there is something fun about sitting there in a pub where it looks like Santa exploded. 

 






From Rolf's Restaurant in NYC.

Review of favorite Xmas songs and Movies       

 

I have made lists here before and don't feel the need to review them comprehensively. But, I do like talking about them. This year (and probably most years), my favorites are All I want for Xmas is you - by Vince Vaughn and the Valiants (no, not the Mariah Carey song - it's country western and really pretty), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1VkMBi9vvw, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's Christmas Canon, Dean Martin's Let it snow and several versions of Baby, it's cold outside. Okay, and the Mariah Carey song.

 

And, I've DVR'd four Xmas movies this year -

 

Serendipity - a tour de force of personality by the leading actor, John Cusack, one of my all time favorites, and his side kick, Jeremy Piven, who almost steals the show, and the irresistibly cute leading actress, Kate Beckinsale, before she became a vampire.

 

Elf - I'm going to say this. If you don't like Elf, you are a cotton headed ninny muggins. Will Ferrell is a human raised as an elf, and, he's not only probably the funniest man alive other than Jim Carrey, but, you buy the character totally. He plays a lot of characters. But, at Christmas for me he's an elf. And this was Zooey Deschanel's best role (though she was good in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) and her duet with Leon Redbone on Baby, It's Cold Outside, is probably my second favorite version of it after the original Mercer-Whiting one (no, it wasn't Crosby and Day as is so often found on the web). That's on the soundtrack.

 

Miracle on 34th Street - Simply my all time favorite movie. If you watch any version but the 1947 Edmund Gwenn, Maureen O'Hara, John Payne, Natalie Wood, Eugene Lockhart, Porter Hall, William Frawley, Gerald Cowan (also a small role in The Maltese Falcon, another of my favorite movies), Phillip Tonge, Thelma Ritter version - what a cast! - then you are indeed a cotton headed ninny muggins and definitely on the naughty list. Because there are a few things in this world I really do not like. One is end zone dances. And another are remakes of the best movie ever made.

 

Bad Santa - A sick but very funny movie starring Billy Bob Thornton, Bernie Mac, Lauren Graham (Gilmore Girls mom), Tony Cox (yes, the guy who still plays a black elf on a recent tv commercial - I guess it worked), Lauren Tom - I don't even think it is possible to describe her character, John Ritter, and this strange rotund little actor, Brett Kelly, who plays Thurman Merman (he's in college now, but says he'll keep acting). Wikipedia says that Jack Nicholson and Bill Murray wanted the lead role but had other projects that kept them from it. I think I used to dislike him because he married Angelina Jolie. I can actually see either of them killing the role, but Thornton was good.

 

And, I'd like to see one of my favorites, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, a wonderful Preston Sturges comedy starring now forgotten actors, Eddie Bracken (Jerry Lewis before there was a Jerry Lewis) and Betty Hutton, but also William Demarest (Uncle Charlie in My Three Sons) and Porter Hall (see Miracle on 34th Street, above). It's not just really funny, but, when you know the back story of how Sturges battled the censors to make this subtly sexually suggestive movie in the 40s, it is even more so. Unfortunately, you can't find it on television very often.

 

And yes, I already saw It's a Wonderful Life this year, and fortunately only from when Clarence makes his earthly appearance, which is when the movie takes off for me. Some IAWL trivia I borrowed from the IMDB.com. Are there any lawyers reading this - is that legal? It's just a few and isn't trivia trivial by nature?:

 

1) In the frigid scene where Jimmy Stewart is about to jump off the bridge - it was 90 degrees on the Hollywood set and Stewart was sweating. All that snow is fake and the movie was filmed during a heat wave.

 

2) This was originally supposed to be a Cary Grant vehicle.

 

3) Stewart said it was his favorite movie of all that he made and George Bailey was also his favorite character. Personally, I think that's crazy, considering he made Vertigo, Rear Window, Rope and The Man Who Knew Too Much (from whence the song - Que cera cera) with Hitchcock, never mind a bunch of other movies which had to be better, but, I guess he's entitled to his opinion. It was Capra's favorite of his own movies too. 

 

4) You remember the dance scene where the floor opens exposing a pool (filmed in a real Hollywood high school). The kid who pushed the button was Carl Switzer. Not ringing a bell? Try - Alfalfa from The Little Rascals.

 

Some of my favorite things

 

Did someone mention Alfred Hitchcock? It gives me the idea of listing a bunch of the things in the television and film world that I'm particularly grateful for, not repeating those listed above -

 

Hitchcock - particularly the four Stewart movies I listed above, but also North by Northwest, The Paradine Case, Frenzy and To Catch a Thief.

 

The Howard Stern Show from about 1984 through roughly 2004, when I finally started to tire of it. But, some of the hardest laughs in my life were had while driving to work thanks to him.

 

The Honeymooners - men my age still laugh like baboons when watching re-runs of Kramden and Norton, even for the zillionth time.

 

Woody Allen's Play it Again, Sam, Sleeper, What's Up, Tiger Lily?, Love and Death, Take the Money and Run, Casino Royale and Annie Hall. It's been a long time since I've watched one of his movies.

 

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum.

 

Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein.

 

Peter Sellers as Clouseau in A shot in the Dark and The Return of the Pink Panther.

 

John Williamson scores in the Indiana Jones, Star Wars and Superman series.

 

Sean Connery - still James Bond to me (and I'm not alone).

 

Richard Dean Anderson, who has played two of my favorite tv characters in two of my favorite shows - Angus MacGyver (in, of course, MacGyver) and Colonel, then General Jack O'Neill in Stargate SG1.

 

Kung Fu, starring David Carradine. I still quote from that show all the time and I'm not even being ironic when I do.

 

Jane Fonda as Barbarella in the movie of the same name. Hey, I'm human and male. The opening scene in the space craft stays with me still.

 

Joey Heatherton - I don't know about you, but she fueled a lot of teenage fantasies for me. I do not want to know what she looks like now. I know what I look like and she's got years on me.

 

Clint Eastwood, particularly in the near perfect The Outlaw Josey Wales but also A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, Pale Rider and, of course, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.   Naturally, this barely touches on his long and rather amazing career as an actor and director. My two favorites of his non-Western film would be an edgy detective movie, Tightrope (not as Dirty Harry) and a WWII movie with Richard Burton, Where Eagles Dare.  I kind of liked those orangutan movies too - Every which way . . . . Oh, and one movie he made with Burt Reynolds - City Heat.

 

The Odd Couple (the tv show with Klugman and Randall rather than the more primitive Mathau/Lemon movie).

 

Along with the Honeymooners and The Odd Couple, the other two greatest tv comedy series in my mind were Seinfeld and All in the Family. The Original Mary Tyler Moore Show may round the top level out and if I was going to make it ten, F-Troop, The Munsters, The Adams Family, Gilligan's Island and Fawlty Towers.

 

Obviously, I don't find television as well done now as it used to be, but I loved Friends too. Most recently, I am mourning the end of How I Met Your Mother and am only consoled by Modern Family. BTW, men - am I the only one who finds Julie Bowen sexier than Sophie Vergara? Cause she is.

 

Bruce Lee. There has never been anyone like him since. Not even close.

 

The original Superman from the '50s starring George Reeves and Lois and Clark from the '90s.

 

One of the first tv shows I remember - King of the Rocket Men, which was originally a movie serial

 

I'm sure many more, but that's about all I can think of off the top of my head and I have to wrap this up.

 

Ten things that make me odd and a little disreputable

 

Why not make fun of myself? It's Xmas. I've noticed the following things about me seem to bother some people (and I'm not including the gf, because that's everything). I guess it's because I differ from them and I'm not supposed to.  I'll never really understand it but this is just the way it is.

 

1) I don't see why people like big tv's so much, not to mention HD.  We loved it when it was black and white and had a 13 inch diagonal. Why do we need it so much bigger and those incremental improvements in color? Okay, it's prettier, but so. Besides, I really don't want to see people's veins or sweat. Is that really more fun?

 

2) I ask people to explain why they believe certain things (if I think they are normal and won't explode). But, apparently that's more challenging than a lot of people like.

 

3) Sometimes I read while driving. Not when I'm with anyone though or in traffic. Even I know that would terrify people. But, people don't even like to hear I do that.

 

4) I like Autumn better than spring. At least in NY, Spring is usually cold and wet or too hot. With the exception of going to the beach, I prefer Winter to Summer. Rather be cold than hot. Amazingly, though I do know some people who agree, this really bothers a lot of people.

 

5) I don't see why I should root for a team just because the stadium is closer to my house.

 

6) I still prefer paper books to readers.

 

7) I don't carry a wallet. If I lose the wallet I lose everything. Same reason I don't put all my keys on one ring.

 

8) I'm not uncomfortable eating something off the table. It's not dirty.  And I don't see why some foods we are allowed to eat with our hands and others not, unless it's really goopy. Admittedly, there are limits to my table manner. If it's not really disgusting in my book, but just a convention, I might skip it.

 

9) I don't watch all those wonderful cable shows. I know they are terrific. I just don't want to watch them. Maybe some day. Just not this year.

 

10). I have no idea why people believe things just because their family does, at least once they grow up. Tradition can be nice, but, thinking about things and maybe making up your mind about it is much better. Apparently, that is really troublesome to any number of people.


That's all folks. Merry Christmas. Happy Chanukah.

Mugwumps

I decided to post some portions of a speech by Mark Twain this week. I think I found part of it a year or two ago in looking for the source of his famous saying concerning "loyalty to petrified opinion" and have since acquired the entire speech in a used collection of Twain material.  There are many sites online that publish quotes, but most of them give no authority for them (when, where it was said or written) and many a famous phrase turns out not to have actually been said by the attributed person or even during their life. For some reason, there are tons of quotes, sayings or speeches wrongly attributed to Shakespeare, Franklin, Jefferson, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and George Carlin.  Why? I don't know. I guess its fun for people to get their words published and have some attention paid to it just  because one of those guys supposedly said it. Wikiquote actually has tons of information on wrongly or falsely attributed quotes. 

In any event, that Twain quote is one of my absolute favorites, and, I wanted to make sure that he, you know, said it - unlike "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco," which at least no one can find where he might have said it, if ever. 

I have always meant to write a post on things we think people said that they probably didn't or maybe someone said it or first, anyway. At some point you do start saying to yourself, did anyone actually say anything?  It can be disappointing to find out that someone you always thought said something brilliant merely lifted it from a magazine he read that month or another writer, but, it happens all the time.

Anyway, as far as I know (I wasn't born for another 80 plus years) Twain actually did write and say the quote about petrified opinion and I tracked it down to a speech he made in 1887. If anyone can find where he might have said it earlier on - or someone else - let me know.

Why do I bother to re-print it here (I may have printed part of it once before)? For one thing, Twain at or near his best is wonderful to read. Some of his best stuff is only found in speeches or little sketches he wrote.  This one is about about Mugwumps, at least in part. To the degree that this means an independent or even a fence-sitter, then I am a Mugwump. I will give you some of the speech and then explain a little more.

From a paper entitled “Consistency,” read by him to The Monday Evening Club.

. . .


What is the most rigorous law of our being? Growth. No smallest atom of our moral, mental, or physical structure can stand still a year. In other words, we change -- and must change, constantly, and keep on changing as long as we live. What, then, is the true gospel of consistency? Change. Who is the really consistent man? The man who changes. Since change is the law of his being, he cannot be consistent if he stick in a rut.


Yet, as the quoted facts show, there are those who would misteach us that to stick in a rut is consistency--and a virtue; and that to climb out of the rut is inconsistency--and a virtue; and that to climb out of the rut is inconsistency--and a vice.


They will grant you certain things, without murmur or dissent--as things which go without saying; truisms. They will grant that in time the crawling baby walks and must not be required to go on crawling . . . that a child's knowledge is becoming and proper to the child only so they grant him a school and teach  him, so that he may change and grow; they grant you that he must keep on learning--through youth and manhood and straight on--he must not be allowed to suppose that the knowledge of thirty can be proper equipment for his fiftieth year; they will grant you a young man's opinions about mankind and the universe are crude, and sometimes foolish, and they would not dream of requiring him to stick to them the rest of his life, lest by changing them he bring down upon himself the reproach of inconsistency. They will grant you these, and everything else you can think of, in the line of progress and change, until you get down to politics and religion; there they draw the line. These must suffer no change. Once a Presbyterian, always a Presbyterian, or you are inconsistent and a traitor; once a Democrat, always a Democrat, or you are inconsistent and a traitor--a turncoat.


It is a curious logic. Is there but one kind of treason? No man remains the same sort of Presbyterian he was at first--the thing is impossible; time and various influences modify his Presbyterianism; it narrows or it broadens, grows deeper or shallower, but does not stand still. In some cases . . . nothing is really left of it but the name, and perhaps an inconsequential rag of the original substance, the bulk being now Baptist or Buddhist or something. Well, if he go over to the Buddhists, he is a traitor. To whom? To what? No man can answer those questions rationally. Now if he does not go over what is he? Plainly a traitor to himself, a traitor to the best and the highest and the honestest that is in  him. Which of these treasons is the blackest one--and the shamefulest? Which is the real and right consistency? To be consistent to a sham and an empty name, or consistent to the law of one's being, which is change, and in this case requires him to move forward and keep abreast of his best mental and moral progress, his highest convictions of the right and the true. Suppose this treason to the name of a church should carry clear outside of all churches. . . . So long as he is loyal to his best self, what should he care for other loyalties. It seems to me that a man should secure the Well done, faithful servant, of his own conscience first and foremost, and let all other loyalties go.


. . . I have referred to the fact that when a man retires from his political party he is a traitor — that he is so pronounced in plain language. That is bold; so bold as to deceive many into the fancy that it is true. Desertion, treason — these are the terms applied. Their military form reveals the thought in the man’s mind who uses them: to him a political party is an army. Well, is it? Are the two things identical? Do they even resemble each other? Necessarily a political party is not an army of conscripts, for they are in the ranks by compulsion. Then it must be a regular army or an army of volunteers. Is it a regular army? No, for these enlist for a specified and well-understood term, and can retire without reproach when the term is up. Is it an army of volunteers who have enlisted for the war, and may righteously be shot if they leave before the war is finished? No, it is not even an army in that sense. Those fine military terms are high-sounding, empty lies, and are no more rationally applicable to a political party than they would be to an oyster-bed. The volunteer soldier comes to the recruiting office and strips himself and proves that he is so many feet high, and has sufficiently good teeth, and no fingers gone, and is sufficiently sound in body generally; he is accepted; but not until he has sworn a deep oath or made other solemn form of promise to march under, that flag until that war is done or his term of enlistment completed. What is the process when a voter joins a party? Must he prove that he is sound in any way, mind or body? Must he prove that he knows anything — is capable of anything — whatever? Does he take an oath or make a promise of any sort?— or doesn’t he leave himself entirely free? If he were informed by the political boss that if he join, it must be forever; that he must be that party’s chattel and wear its brass collar the rest of his days — would not that insult him? It goes without saying. He would say some rude, unprintable thing, and turn his back on that preposterous organization. But the political boss puts no conditions upon him at all; and this volunteer makes no promises, enlists for no stated term. He has in no sense become a part of an army; he is in no way restrained of his freedom. Yet he will presently find that his bosses and his newspapers have assumed just the reverse of that: that they have blandly arrogated to themselves an ironclad military authority over him; and within twelve months, if he is an average man, he will have surrendered his liberty, and will actually be silly enough to believe that he cannot leave that party, for any cause whatever, without being a shameful traitor, a deserter, a legitimately dishonored man.

There you have the just measure of that freedom of conscience, freedom of opinion, freedom of speech and action which we hear so much inflated foolishness about as being the precious possession of the republic. Whereas, in truth, the surest way for a man to make of himself a target for almost universal scorn, obloquy, slander, and insult is to stop twaddling about these priceless independencies and attempt to exercise one of them. If he is a preacher half his congregation will clamor for his expulsion — and will expel him, except they find it will injure real estate in the neighborhood; if he is a doctor his own dead will turn against him.

I repeat that the new party-member who supposed himself independent will presently find that the party have somehow got a mortgage on his soul, and that within a year he will recognize the mortgage, deliver up his liberty, and actually believe he cannot retire from that party from any motive howsoever high and right in his own eyes without shame and dishonor.

Is it possible for human wickedness to invent a doctrine more infernal and poisonous than this? Is there imaginable a baser servitude than it imposes? What slave is so degraded as the slave that is proud that he is a slave? What is the essential difference between a lifelong democrat and any other kind of lifelong slave? Is it less humiliating to dance to the lash of one master than another?

This infamous doctrine of allegiance to party plays directly into the hands of politicians of the baser sort — and doubtless for that it was borrowed — or stolen — from the monarchial system. It enables them to foist upon the country officials whom no self-respecting man would vote for if he could but come to understand that loyalty to himself is his first and highest duty, not loyalty to any party name.

Shall you say the best good of the country demands allegiance to party? Shall you also say that it demands that a man kick his truth and his conscience into the gutter and become a mouthing lunatic besides? Oh no, you say; it does not demand that. But what if it produce that in spite of you? There is no obligation upon a man to do things which he ought not to do when drunk, but most men will do them just the same; and so we hear no arguments about obligations in the matter — we only hear men warned to avoid the habit of drinking; get rid of the thing that can betray men into such things.

This is a funny business all around. The same men who enthusiastically preach loyal consistency to church and party are always ready and willing and anxious to persuade a Chinaman or an Indian or a Kanaka to desert his church or a fellow-American to desert his party. The man who deserts to them is all that is high and pure and beautiful — apparently; the man who deserts from them is all that is foul and despicable. This is Consistency — with a capital C.

With the daintiest and self-complacentest sarcasm the lifelong loyalist scoffs at the Independent — or as he calls him, with cutting irony, the Mugwump; makes himself too killingly funny for anything in this world about him. But — the Mugwump can stand it, for there is a great history at his back; stretching down the centuries, and he comes of a mighty ancestry. He knows that in the whole history of the race of men no single great and high and beneficent thing was ever done for the souls and bodies, the hearts and the brains of the children of this world, but a Mugwump started it and Mugwumps carried it to victory: And their names are the stateliest in history: Washington, Garrison, Galileo, Luther, Christ. Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world-end never will.


Historically, Mugwumps were  Republicans who did not like their party's 1888 candidate and voted for Grover Cleveland (whose first name, by the way, was not Grover, but Stephen - one of my favorite pieces of presidential trivia).  It is hard for some to get around the fact now that in 1888 being a Democrat meant that he was the more conservative candidate. Mugwump was a derogatory name stuck on the turncoats  by a political opponent (a journalist). Mugwump was derived from an Indian name that meant, at least sometimes, some kind of big shot. Historically, some writers claim the Mugwumps were members of the economic elite class out to protect their own interests and others that they were classical 19th century liberals (that is, closer to modern day libertarians). I can't say I am exactly a Mugwump because I have no party to leave for another, but I am a fence-sitter, an independent and I lean at least a little bit libertarian - which ideologues despise almost more than their direct opponents. E.g., nowadays both liberals and conservatives frequently assail libertarians as having no values, and characterize independents as being phonies (of course, some are) and fence-sitters unable to make up their minds, which is kind of right, although, I don't see what's so wrong about it. Why is it better to pick a wrong idea than to say I don't know - good points on both sides?



If you are a Mugwump, Twain's words are very inspirational. No, it's not that you think of yourself as a Washington, Christ or Galileo, etc., but, he's right that when I read about someone who rebels against his own group because of behavior that he thinks wrong or unjust, I do feel a kinship and excitement and admiration - even if there are often aspects of the persons that I find despicable. Luther, just as example, was, despite his own heresy to the Catholic Church, comfortable with the killing of those he saw as heretical (and that is not true of all at his time and place) and Washington, who claimed to and probably in the abstract deplored slavery, had many slaves all the same and was determined to keep them at least through his and his wife's lifetimes (and that too, was not true of all at his time and place).  I have, in fact, spent some significant time studying four of those five examples, and at least a little time on Galileo.  Stories of courage are inspirational enough, but couple it with an attempt to expand religious or intellectual tolerance or personal independence and it does something for me. There is a long history of it which has directed my attention, if not exclusively, then constantly for many years now.


I have to admit that my own experiences have not been too traumatic. When young I was politically a liberal (it was all I knew, having been raised without ever hearing another opinion from anyone I wasn't told was a criminal or bad person) although I was also very ignorant about politics in general.  But, I was in many ways, not just politically,  always also an independent and that part of me has remained in the large part throughout my life, and I have long shed my partisan attachments. And if never threatened with death (just a beating, once) for my opinions, certainly there were times when I was subject to some form of ostracization or it made life a little frustrating or uncomfortable. I won't complain too much because I do believe by sheer luck I have been born amongst the luckiest people in the history of the world in terms of freedom, access to knowledge and comfort so that I have never had my independence seriously contested such as would make me a martyr.  I could tell you stories, but, at the end of the day, there was merely disapproval or ridicule from others and I know I can bear that. Though some people think I like to be disagreeable or "different" and that explains my opinions; I suppose it just makes it more comfortable for them to think so.


Believe me, I am well aware that having people who agree with you is much more pleasant than having them disagree.  Yet, I can't conceive of being attracted to being a member of a club or group for the sake of getting along or having people approve of my opinions. For a long time when I was younger, in fact, I did not feel like an American at all until I understood what it should mean. I can tell you, my allegiance to this country is not based on the accident of my having been born here, but to my attraction to its principles, however imperfectly performed. Even to this day the patriotism thing and group conciliation does not warm my heart. Mores so I admire devotion to the values (of course, those values with which which I agree), personal sacrifice and courage in the face of conventional thinking and much of my reading in life is about those who sacrificed their comfort and lives so that we have it (here, anyway) so easy today.








Would I have the courage of a Washington, Luther, Christ, Garrison or Galileo (or many other examples) were I so tested?  Who  knows? It is easy to sit in an easy chair and think or hope so, and, I know under the pressure of public disapproval I am willing to "take it," but that's easy compared to when you are facing a mob that is lighting a fire, or picking up some rope or nails.




Twain's examples are people who underwent true tests of their character. Where I live anyway, these are less violent times, though we know in other parts of the world some would slit your throat, or if you are lucky, just jail you, rather than put up with any dissent or apostasy. But, the principles he states are as true to today as they were then. We change our opinions as we grow older, experience and learn new things. I find many don't even like to admit that even to themselves, so strong is the aversion to being called a traitor or admitting they changed their mind or were wrong. And still, few politicians are so hated as he or she who switches their political party.








But, as Twain said, the Mugwump can take it. And reading about these great men and sometimes women, helps. And great speeches - Thank you, Mark Twain.

The Worst President? IV

No. 6.  Worst reversal of policy for political expedience than even other politicians.

Yes, I know that politicians are human; that humans frequently change their mind; that we want our presidents to have open minds.

I also know that politicians seem to change their mind in the most cynical ways, for their own good or that of their party.  Presidents are no different than any other politicians, but it is more visible when they do it.

As just a few examples, Jefferson ran as a states rights, small federal government, strict constitutional interpretation candidate. Not so.  Roosevelt ran as an anti-spending, anti-big program president in the face of the depression and ended up doing the opposite. Reagan raised taxes, whatever his program (though overall reduced them). So did George W. Bush. You could go on and on.

But, Obama seems to be destined to be the worst offender. Time and time again he does exactly the opposite of what he said presidents should not do or his administration will or will not do. It's hard not to call some of them just outright lies. And, it's not that I disagree with everything he did once he flopped. The point is, he so frequently says he won't and then does or he will and then doesn't.

• In his 2008 presidential campaign he went back on his pledge to take public funding, which would have limited his spending. When his -fund-raising advantage became obvious he changed his mind and of course denied what he had promised.
• He said he would no sooner throw his long time mentor (and nut) Jeremiah Wright under the bus than his grandmother and then through him under the bus. It wasn't that Wright got any crazier. It just became more politically difficult.
• He said lobbyists would not work in the White House. There are long lists available on the web of those who do.
• He said that raising the debt limit was "irresponsible," a "failure,"" and "unpatriotic." And then he continued to raise the level of deficit.
• He said he would not use federal law to circumvent state law on marijuana. Yet, his administration had more raids on dispensaries in states with medical marijuana laws in one term than his predecessor did in two terms.
• He said he would close Guantanamo Bay and he didn't.
• He set a red line for Syria for the use of chemical weapons and then went back on it. Amazingly, he even denied having said it.
• He said we would get out of Afghanistan and increased the troops. Far more soldiers died in Afghanistan under Obama than under Bush.
• He vehemently argued against the Patriot Act in the Senate and then extended it.
• He said that we should not have military tribunals with respect to terror suspects. And then. . . .
• Before he was president he wrote that we should end renditions and then . . . .
• Before he was president he said that the executive did not have the constitutional power to attack another country short of self defense without the blessing of congress. Libya anyone?
• Soon after he became president, he said we would retain the plans for a third site missile defense in Eastern Europe against the threat of Iranian missiles. He reversed. Why? Few disagree it was mostly because our great friend Russia didn't like it.
• He said that Mubarak (Egypt) was an ally and a force for stability and then demanded he go. We got Morsi (and I'm for one grateful the military essentially took over).
• He said he would put health care negotiations on C-Span. Well, there was that one meeting where he told John McCain that "the election is over." Okay, he did apologize later, but, there were no negotiations on C-Span. In fact, the way Obamacare was passed set new records in government secrecy and opaqueness.
• He  "promised" and "guaranteed" that people could keep their health insurance after his plan was passed. Later, the government had to admit it wasn't true.
• He promised that no family making less than $250,000 would see any tax increase. This so incensed me during his initial campaign as a ridiculously seethroughable lie (why could I not convince anyone of this?) and it was, of course, just that. Even Obamacare raises taxes.  He also phrased it sometimes to make it appear that it was per person. He also made it sound like capital gains taxes depended on your total income. 
• He said promised he would make it quicker and easier to pay our taxes. Nothing has happened that would remotely make that a possibility.
• He said that he would have the most transparent administration in history. James Risen (NY Times - hardly among his chief critics) said - "He’s the greatest enemy to press freedom in a generation.” ABC (also, hardly your normal Obama critic) Ann Compton said it is day to day the most opaque of the 7 administrations she has covered. It's not even close.
• He said he would wait 5 days before signing non-emergency bills so that the public could read them online. One of his first promises. Nope.
• He said that he would cut the deficit in half by end of his first term, but has only ever sought to increase it. 

I'm going to stop here because I'm trying to write shorter posts. There are others. I didn't even include the Obamacare deficit because some argue the point (I don't know how, but they do) and it is very hard to argue something that has not happened yet.  You get the point.


By the way, was Romney the most forthright guy? No.  But, I really do think that if our president has not set the gold standard, he is among the worst, and that is bad enough.