Never Again

Maybe the time has come for Jews to start arming themselves. The beast has been unleashed and I don't think Jared Kushner is going to save us. The alarming spike in anti-Semitic incidents has been tracked by several organizations. The Southern Poverty Law Center compiled a list of incidents drawn from media reports and submissions to the SPLC web page. In the seventy days following the election, 1,064 hate crimes, including acts of vandalism, assault, intimidation, and harassment, were committed. Forty-two percent included direct references to the election, the president or his policies. Swastikas have appeared in public places and private homes. A wave of bomb threats at Jewish centers caused the evacuation of Jewish Community Centers for the fourth time in five weeks. Fifty-four JCCs in twenty-seven states have received bomb threats, eleven in one day. The Anti-Defamation League Headquarters was targeted and the New York City Police Department reported that hate crimes against Jews have doubled in 2017. If you believe it can't happen here, that's what they said in Germany in 1933. So before the pogroms begin, it's best that the haters know we're armed and there ain't gon' be no Inquisition 'round here anytime soon.

The most egregious demonstration of hate occurred at the Chesed Shel Emeth Society cemetery in suburban St.Louis, where over two hundred headstones were toppled and hundreds of graves vandalized. Almost immediately, scores of volunteers showed up to repair the damage, including a group of Muslims from a nearby mosque which raised over twenty thousand dollars for the cemetery's reconstruction. Soon to be President Pence made an unannounced visit to help the effort and make a speech that said there is no room for antisemitism in a Trump administration. But where was the "so-called" president?  After receiving criticism for failing to address the rise in anti-Jewish sentiment, Trump was pressed on the issue while on "60 Minutes." When asked how he might confront the problem, this goon, this slob, looked into the camera and commanded, "Stop it!" Trump then claimed, "I am the least anti-Semitic person that you've ever seen in your entire life." Isn't that a double negative? He could say he was the most pro-Semitic person ever. That would embody everyone from Moses, to Muhammad, to Jesus, and that should pretty much cover it.  After all, some of Trump's best in-laws are Jewish. I don't believe Trump is an anti-Semite, but he sure is surrounded by them. It's ironic how much the evangelicals love Israel. It's just the Jews they don't like.

When acting President Steve Bannon was chairman of Breitbart.com, he declared the site to be a "platform for the alt-right." The term "alt-right" is a smokescreen description obscuring white nationalism, Islamophobia, racism and antisemitism. Senator Al Franken recently attacked Trump's Senior Adviser by quoting headlines from Breitbart.com when Bannon was at the helm. A sampling includes: "Would you rather your child had feminism or cancer?" "Gabby Giffords: The gun control movement's human shield," and "Bill Kristol: Republican spoiler, renegade Jew." Bannon told the gleeful crowd at CPAC, the annual gathering of obstructionists, that his objective is the "deconstruction of the administrative state," whatever the hell that means. President Bannon said the cabinet officials who hate what their agencies do were "selected for a reason, and that is deconstruction." A conservative legal source claimed the plan was "to eliminate the vast administrative apparatus that does so much to dictate the way we live." In simple terms, they're trying to trash the New Deal and LBJ's "Great Society," and return power to the very same people who wrecked the economy and left hapless citizens destitute.

Just days ago, it was reported that more than five hundred headstones were overturned or vandalized in a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia. That takes some dedication. Within three hours, a contingency of Muslims arrived to help repair the damage. Maybe Trump is bringing us together- only in solidarity against hatred and evil. Imagine how you would feel if it was your family whose final resting places were desecrated. My mother is from St. Louis. My father went to Washington University. Those are my relatives buried in that Jewish cemetery. A list was posted of the names of families interred there. My great grandparents were among those listed. Thanks to social media, I was able to contact cousins who assured me that the graves of our family were untouched. I guess after the first two hundred headstones, the vandals got tired. My relief is cold comfort to those affected by the shock wave that convulsed the St. Louis Jewish community. In this toxic atmosphere, armed guards should be required at every Jewish center that's accessible to the public. To paraphrase Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, when the world's Jewry cries "Never Again," its not just a slogan, its a promise.

 

Cruel and Unusual

The President is mentally ill. No, seriously. Pundits and mental health professionals are throwing around the words "malignant narcissist" lately, and although our giant, man/baby Chief Executive fits that category like one of his baggy suits, there's another term that may be more apt in describing the president's bizarre behavior: psychopathy. According to the Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders, the Hare Psychopathy Checklist (created by Professor of Psychology, Dr. Robert Hare) is a diagnostic tool used by professionals to measure "psychopathic or antisocial tendencies." There are twenty items on the list, each of which is scored zero to two, depending on how well it applies to the subject. A prototypical psychopath scores a forty, although a thirty score or above qualifies for the diagnosis. I'll just give you a sampling here, and since Donald Trump has proclaimed that "bullet points" are his preferred way of receiving information, that's how we'll do it.
  

• Glib and superficial charm
• Grandiose estimation of self
• Pathological lying
• Cunning and manipulativeness
• Parasitic lifestyle
• Poor behavioral controls
• Sexual promiscuity
• Impulsivity
• Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
• Many short-term marital relationships
• Lack of conscience or sense of guilt

Hell, I count thirty points right there. Tea-Party conservative Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah, the scourge of the Benghazi committee, was so disturbed he has suggested that all presidential candidates undergo a thorough mental exam in the future. For the rest of us, the future is now.

With the possible exceptions of Attila the Hun or Napoleon, I can't recall a single historical figure who has done more damage in one week than President Trump. Millions of people are marching in the streets worldwide, there's chaos and confusion in international airports, innocent people have been detained, our allies are nervous, North Korea is preparing to launch an ICBM capable of reaching California, and Germany has replaced the United States as the world's moral authority. Trump's nocturnal tweets are causing nightmares for his staff and his obsession with crowd size and the popular vote is Nixonian in its paranoia. Other presidents have used their first days in office to lay out a plan of accomplishment. Trump's first week was all nullification. We've just said goodbye to our first black President and now, welcome to the Bronze Age.

Thrashing about like a harpooned giant squid, Trump stood in front of a memorial wall at the CIA and bragged about how many times he's been on the cover of Time Magazine. He sent his stammering spokesman, the hapless Sean Spicer, out to scold the press on their inauguration coverage, then criticized his suit. He approved construction of the XL Keystone Pipeline, despite owning shares in the company that oversees the project. He signed a directive to build a taxpayer funded wall on the southern border, The Great Wall Of Trump, while stripping funding for cities that shield undocumented immigrants. He launched a major investigation into voter fraud, even though he won, claiming three million illegal votes were cast, all for Hillary Clinton. He threatened to send federal troops into Chicago and fired the head of the agency which serves as landlord for Trump's new hotel. He stunned the National Security Council by giving a seat to his chief political strategist, Steve Bannon, the white nationalist and former head of the alt-right Breitbart News, while demoting the Director of National Intelligence and the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who will now be informed on a "need to know" basis. And a new phrase has been added to the lexicon; "alternative facts." If these are signs of an administration that doesn't know what they're doing, just imagine the potential damage they can do when they figure it out.

I'm fortunate Trump wasn't president in 1900 when my grandfather immigrated from Russia or you wouldn't be reading this. The Muslim ban, whatever they care to call it, is blatantly unconstitutional, but that's beside the point. It's also cruel and heartless and preys on the helpless. The quarantined seven middle eastern nations are, co-incidentally, all places where Trump has no business interests. Because his own staff wasn't even notified, airports from Dallas to Seattle were caught unawares and in-flight passengers were unlawfully detained and threatened with deportation. In return, Iran banned all visitors from the U.S. just as the hard work undertaken by the Obama administration was beginning to thaw relations frozen for decades. Trump's translators were quick to note that the ban is temporary- not for Syrian refugees however. They are barred indefinitely. Trump likes to watch TV. Maybe someone should show him footage of the wretched people, mostly women and children, who are merely trying to escape from what Trump casually calls "carnage." In Trump's America, that poem by Emma Lazarus on the Statue of Liberty about "huddled masses yearning to breathe free," should be replaced by a big sign that says, "You're Not Wanted." Or better still, now that Rex Tillerson has been approved as Secretary of State, the sign should read, "Welcome to the United States, brought to you by Exxon/Mobil."

Elvis at Eighty-Two

An auspicious date on the musical calendar arrives January 8th. That's when we celebrate Elvis' eighty-second birthday, otherwise known as Winter Elvis Week. In case you haven't been paying attention, the Elvis business is bigger than ever. Forbes Magazine said that Elvis earned twenty-seven million dollars in 2016, second only to his son-in-law, Michael Jackson, among deceased entertainers. His estate is estimated to be close to four-hundred million dollars. Graceland is gearing up for an influx of visitors with a menu of movies, concerts, and receptions, including one for fan club presidents at the new, posh resort/hotel, The Guest House at Graceland. I have yet to visit, but the photographs look luxurious and my musician friends are raving about the four-hundred sixty-four seat theater and concert hall. Among other activities, the Memphis Symphony Orchestra plays the Cannon Center with celebrated Elvis impressionist Terry Mike Jeffrey. Also, there is an auction of Elvis stuff acquired from third party collectors. Listen, if I can't make it by, will somebody pick me up an authentic "TCB" necklace? I'm starting to think that Elvis is never going to give me one. But, then again, you never know.

It still amazes me that forty years after Elvis' death, the crowds just keep growing. Of course, there are still scores of fans who are convinced that Elvis faked his death for a multitude of reasons, and that he is still with us today. In fact, he's about to come out of the closet, or coffin, as the case may be. According to the Portly Gazette, it began with a mysterious fax sent from Graceland to Time Magazine saying only, "It's time." But I suspect that's one of those fake news sites we've been hearing so much about lately. A more credible source called Empire News reported that a homeless, eighty-year old man with a white beard was found deceased under an overpass in San Diego. The only thing anyone knew about him was his friends called him "Jesse." So a curious coroner ran his DNA through a national data bank and came up with an exact match to the King. The episode received so much press attention that experts were quick to deem it a hoax, which only proves that Elvis is still out there somewhere. He's been sighted so many times in Ottawa, Canada, that a street has been renamed "Elvis Lives Lane." He's been spotted in Kalamazoo, in a grocery store in Vicksburg, Michigan, and fishing on the Salmon River in Idaho. He also made a quick cameo appearance in 1990's "Home Alone" movie. The most probable explanation comes from the FBI, only it's still classified. An unnamed agent claimed that Elvis lost ten million dollars in a property deal connected to the Mafia. Fearing for his life, Elvis gave secret grand-jury testimony against the mob and went into the Witness Protection Program in 1977, living mostly in South America on a farm.

Go ahead and scoff but there's even an "Elvis Presley is Alive" Facebook page with fourteen-thousand followers. The administrator, who prefers anonymity, says they promise "one post per day," leading up to the proof that Elvis staged his own demise, and any person asserting otherwise will be banned from the page. The most recent online frenzy was caused when someone posted a YouTube video of a groundskeeper at Graceland with long, white-hair and beard that was surreptitiously filmed and supposedly of Elvis at eighty. The problem was he looked like a middle-aged man with a pony-tail and a beer gut, wearing a red, "Elvis Week" T-Shirt, a crumpled, blue baseball cap, and baggy jeans with a wallet sagging from the back pocket. That was the dead giveaway. When was the last time Elvis needed to carry a wallet?  He was also doing groundskeeper-like things such as pulling weeds and watering. At one point, a bald man appeared in the scene. Maybe it was Carl Perkins. The Express UK newspaper sent investigators to Memphis and discovered the man's name is Bill Barmer, an employee of Elvis Presley Enterprises and current internet sensation.

The most bizarre YouTube video is called "Elvis Presley- I'm Alive," posted by the Knights of the King's Realm, in which they assert that recordings have emerged with Elvis singing songs from the nineties. When the tapes were unearthed, a "Las Vegas TV special investigative unit," rushed out to run the new tunes through a computer voice print analysis and found an "exact match," to one Elvis A. Presley. Naturally, the songs have been collected in an album you can purchase titled "KINGTINUING," featuring the title tune, "I'm Alive." The track list includes: "Tears in Heaven," "La Vida Loca," "Sweet Home Alabama," "Have I Told You Lately," (which I guess is a remake of his classic 1957 version, unless the King is covering Van Morrison), and "Candle in the Wind," with both the original Marilyn Monroe version and the "Goodbye England's Rose" version. "E" had a thing for Princess Di in the nineties. The singer sounds vaguely like the seventies' Elvis, backed by revolting, nineties, techno music. Possibly the worst of both worlds, but the video has two million views. You think this is going away? I'm not an Elvis impersonator, but I am an Elvis channeler, and being a conduit, the King has asked me to deliver a message regarding the "I'm Alive" phenomenon. Elvis sayeth thus, "Ya'll cut that mess out before I have to come down there from sitting at the left-hand of the Lord and karate-kick some ass Kang Rhee style." 

Hey, Mr. Tangerine Man

Did you see that rancid kumquat's recent tweet, "I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally." Is the walking Orange Terror Alert admitting the election was rigged? I'm sorry. My blood pressure is at risk. I made a promise to myself to remain calm about this nasty business and concentrate only on what's positive, which is why I've chosen to tell you about my cat. I still can't believe that my country elected a dunk-tank clown as their president. I'm not a "cat person" by tradition. In fact, I come from a family that actively disliked cats. There's a word for it: Ailurophobia. What about those Russian hackers and Ukrainian "Fake news" sites that meddled in our election?  My Grandmother had a skin tag on her little finger that she always told us had come from being scratched by a kitten when she was young. It wasn't until adulthood that I found out she was lying. They plan to privatize Medicare and Social Security.This cat loathing was passed down to my mother, who, in turn, passed it down to my sister and me. I never had any experience being around a cat until college, when I lived with two of them. They didn't like me and I didn't like them, but they came in a package-deal with a young lady who wasn't very conscientious about maintaining the litter-box. When we all parted amicably, that ended my cat fraternization. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III for Attorney General? He has opposed every immigration bill for two decades. Last week he said, "Good people don't smoke marijuana." Kiss legalization goodbye.

We're dog people over here. We have three- two older black dogs and a speckled pup named Nancy. All of them are rescues but Nancy's the only one we got from the shelter. Steve, the oldest, just wandered up one day, and Carney (named after Rodney), is my step-son's dog who became part of the pack after his daddy found an apartment. The Secretary of Defense's nickname is "Mad-dog." So, we can't have visitors unless they have a lot of patience and don't mind enthusiastic barking. Heaven forbid a friend ring the bell without knowing the snarling rage about to erupt on the other side of the door. He has continually brushed-off the president's daily briefing. I don't even know how this happened, but now I share my side of the bed with a puppy who weighs ninety pounds. There's so much hair lying around that you could create an entirely new dog. And we've invested more in dog beds than some poorer countries' GDP. Are we just forgetting the twenty-five million dollar fraud settlement to victims of Trump University? There are now seventy-five open lawsuits against Trump, from unpaid contractors to angry golf club members cheated out of their dues. It's too late for obedience school. These animals don't even let the pizza delivery guy get a foot in the door. Can you imagine how they'd treat a cat?

While I was sitting on the porch one day, a kitten strolled through the bushes and sidled up into my lap. A neighbor yelled, "Do you want that cat? She's been hanging around for weeks." This habitual midnight tweeter actually demanded equal time from a comedy show. His Chief Strategist is an unapologetic white nationalist and anti-Semite. Of course, I had no intention of keeping the cat, which I named Peaches. She's very soft and a ginger color. We gave her food and water and she wouldn't leave the front porch. My wife, Melody, fixed her a basket to sleep in. There ain't gonna be any stupid wall. I visited several times a day because she was so sweet and would bump noses with me when feeling affectionate. One day, two cats were heard fighting and Peaches was gone. A large tomcat was eating her food which we immediately removed, but Peaches didn't return. The Secretary of Education never attended a public school, married the heir to the Amway fortune, believes in for-profit education, and donated 9.5 million to the Trump campaign. Fun fact: her brother, Eric Prince, was the founder of Blackwater USA mercenaries who did such a bang-up job in Iraq. She was gone a month before Melody got a text on her "Nextdoor" App that Peaches was spotted two blocks over living in a cardboard box inside a culvert. When we drove over and called to her, she came out of the ditch and jumped straight into the car. The National Policy Institute, A Neo-nazi front group, celebrated the election in the nation's capitol, with cries of, "Hail Trump," and the Hitler salute.

Peaches' new home was a garage, in which to hunt mice, and a screened-in porch to sun herself. She was afraid of the dogs at first, but after a little catnip, she calmed down. Over four hundred hate crimes have been recorded since the election. I was finding the cat to be fascinating. I watched a Netflix video called, "The Lion in Your Living Room," to help me understand her mannerisms, including the love-bite which I discouraged. Dare I mention the pending rape case? Also, she's very vocal and each "meow" means something different. We got her spayed and chipped and then it got cold. We had no choice but to bring her in and risk what canine hysteria might follow, but to our surprise, the dogs were calm- except Nancy who wants her to play. If Trump claims presidents are exempt from conflict-of-interest statutes and intends to continue involvement in his business, which one will be his day job? Peaches has her own room now and seems content to stay there. She'll come out eventually, but there's no rush. I've begun wondering, have I become a cat person in my dotage? I hear her prowling around at night, but because of my upbringing, I keep thinking she's trying to steal my credit card. Hey, Mr. Tangerine Man play a song for me. In the jingle-jangle morning, I'll come following you.