IL DUCE, IL DOUCHE & WORTHY BLADDER MATTERS
REMOTE DELUGE — How many TV remotes do you have? If you are like many of us, there might be as many as five different ones. There’s the one that turns the TV on, the one for volume only, the one for changing channels and the one that controls Roku.
The fifth one does something — not quite sure what — but when you touch it, it undoes all the others.
WASHINGTON CENTRAL CASTING — Robert Mueller is central casting as the Special Prosecutor. This former combat marine has a face and manner that delivers integrity. On film, he would have been played by Gregory Peck or Henry Fonda. Which is why he makes Trump very nervous since he judges everyone by how they look on TV. If Mueller looked like Arnold Stang or Gary Busey — game over. Have you noticed Trump has no nickname for Mueller?
BLADDERS MATTERS AT YALTA — The year is February, 1945. World War II will end in three months. President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Josef Stalin meet at the Russian sea resort of Yalta to hash out the shape of the post-war, geo-political world. Their decisions ignite a significant political divide with many accusing FDR and the Democrats of selling out to Stalin and communism.
However, there could be an alternative way of looking at what contributed to the divisive problems at Yalta. Consider this. The American delegation was housed in the dethroned Czar’s summer palace for all eight days. There were 75 of them in a building with only 3 bathrooms. History is often shaped by seemingly inconsequential natural forces.
YOU ARE AN OFFICIAL GEEZER — if you do not know most of the people in People magazine.
EMBRACE THE IMPERFECTION — When Navajo indians weave one of their rectangularly patterned rugs, they often create a flaw in each design. It is a line breaking through and out of the rectangles, a visual statement that we humans are not perfect.
AMERICA IS NOT A BUSINESS — There is a theory that an government should be run as an effective business. We, the people, are the shareholders. Our elected leaders are the CEOs who run the store.“The business of America is business,” president Calvin Coolidge famously said in 1929, the year before the stock market vaporized.
That should have been the first crack in the government-as-business myth. The other clue is how many of our presidents went straight from running a business to running a nation. These are men who were not politicians, never ran for, or held any elected office before becoming chief executive. There are only two of them: Herbert Hoover, the man who presided over the great depression, and Donald John Trump, who is depressing.
Here’s the nub. If you are Mark Zuckerberg, Tom Steyer, Elon Musk, or before that, Steve Forbes or Ross Perot, if you are a successful business person who believes he/she is qualified to run the United States — please don’t. Keep telling yourself: governance is not a business and business is not governance. Stick to what you do best.
MUSICAL RELATIVES — Isn’t rap music an American version of Gilbert & Sullivan?
IL DUCE & IL DOUCHE — Click on this safe link and you will find the image most striking:
