Grandmothers at War--A Holiday Reminiscence.

The older I get, the more I hate the holiday season. Whether it’s the seasonal affection disorder that acts up in cold, dark weather, an increasingly low threshold for the disgust engendered by the stress-inducing exchange of meaningless tchotchkes, or the constant torment of having to listen to an interminable chorus of “Silver Bells,” every year, I like it a little less.

And it seems appropriate, somehow, to remember my grandmothers this season, because neither of them was crazy about the holidays, either. Or, for that matter, each other.

My grandmothers cordially despised each other from, as most people’s recollections would have it, day one. I’m not exactly sure why. They had a lot in common.

Both were tiny. I don’t think either of them broke five feet. Both were Midwestern—one from St. Louis, the other from Peru, Indiana—and neither ever lived more than five miles from where she was born. Neither of them had an aesthetic sensibility that could be described as understated. They both liked over-the-top outfits with lots of sparkles and sequins, wore way too much jewelry, and had hairdos that defied both gravity and good taste.

They were both older sisters, had two children, and grew up in reasonable affluence—one’s father had a good job on the railroad; the other’s father made a very comfortable living selling auto parts—and both were married to successful businessmen. Both were of at least partial Jewish ancestry. Neither was what you’d call spiritual, although they both gave the occasional nod to the Deity in the form of sporadic attendance at religious services.

They were both reasonably intelligent. I don’t think either of them would have split the atom, but they certainly could have been more than wives, mothers, and grandmothers had they come from times and places that encouraged higher aspirations. And, inasmuch as they were both of the same generation—one born in 1914, the other in 1917—they were of an age to see feminism emerge, but too late for them to benefit from it. You’d think they would have been thick as thieves, but it didn’t work out that way. They hated each other from the get-go. Go figure why.

Neither of them was so petty as to try and enlist their grandchildren in their war on each other. They were both too intrinsically decent to do that. But every so often, their veneer of icy cordiality would crack.

My paternal grandmother once described her own grandmother as “one of those little short kikey Jews.” She meant it affectionately, and was as far from anti-Semitic as you could get. She also used the phrase “Nigger in the woodpile” with some frequency, and you would not have found a more ardent supporter of Lyndon B. Johnson and the Civil Rights omnibus bill throughout the length and breadth of the Midwest. She simply came from a time and a place where such words were descriptive, not derogatory. But I once made the mistake of asking my other grandmother, “Are you one of those little short kikey Jews?”

Bubbe Aileen almost dropped the frying pan in which she was frying eggs in bacon grease. (Short aside: she kept a jar of bacon grease—sometimes adulterated with a liberal admixture of chicken fat—under the kitchen sink. This practice seems to have been the dirty little secret of damn near all St. Louis Jewish grandmothers of that generation. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve talked to who have all confessed that their own grandmothers had the same, and kept it in the same place.)

“Where in the hell did you hear that?” she demanded in a tone that brooked no pettifogging.

“Fruh-fruh-fruh-fruh-from my Grandma Betty,” I stammered, feeling like I’d sold the old dear out. I suspect Joe Valachi felt the same when he admitted the existence of the Mafia.

“Don’t you ever let me hear language like that out of your mouth again, God damn it,” she growled, and went back to frying my breakfast, muttering darkly about, “That Indiana peasant woman and her peasant family.”

Of which I, presumably, was a part.

Once, however, my brother and I cottoned to this mutual antipathy, we learned to turn these occasional lapses in decorum to our own advantage.

“That’s a beautiful sweater, baby,” Grandma Betty once told me. “My, but that’s a beautiful sweater. Where’d you get that?”

“Oh, thanks, Grandma,” I said in an offhand manner. “My grandma in St. Louis sent me a hundred bucks the other day. I thought I’d go shopping.”

“Hundred bucks,” growled Grandma Betty in her cigarette-scorched sotto voce. “Who does she think she is. Tacky Jewish bitch. Baby,” she said, raising her voice to audible levels again, “go look in my purse. There’s two hundreds there I want you to have.”

I’m not proud, but I was in college at the time, and exploiting my grandmothers’ feud was a better option than selling plasma.

Neither of them had any tact. My maternal grandmother once barked at me that my new glasses were “Way too small for someone with a nose like yours. You should take them back and get your money back. And if they won’t do it, you should give them to someone with a smaller nose than yours.”

Brutal? Tactless? A tad harsh? Perhaps, but that’s what I miss about both of them. There was no room for namby-pambyism or mealy-mouthishness with them. Neither had the appetite for pleasantries and niceties. They were honest, and they honestly didn’t like each other. They refrained from open warfare, but they did so through gritted teeth, and they made sure everyone could see the gritting. They were both deeply compassionate women, but deeply realistic as well. And contrary to what the more sensitive among us may think, there’s no contradiction there.  

After I’d moved back to St. Louis from Pittsburgh and had been between girlfriends for a while, Aileen pulled me aside and said, “Honey, you can tell me. Are you funny?"

"Funny?" I asked. "How do you mean funny? What are you talking about?"

"You know what I mean," she said impatiently. "Queer. Are you?"

"What the hell?!" I yelled. "Did my own grandmother just ask me if I was gay? That's real nice."

"Well, it's okay if you are," she said. "I'm a very liberal grandma. You can say."

"Well, thanks, but I'm not," I said. Somewhat huffily, I'm kind of ashamed to admit.

I'm ashamed that I was appalled by the question. These days, I’d be sort of flattered. I'm also ashamed that I got angry at her. I should have taken it in the spirit in which it was offered, which was acceptance, tolerance, and unconditional love, even if it came in a somewhat tactlessly phrased wrapper.

This is the same woman who, when I told her I was getting serious about the girl whom I’d end up marrying, thought for a minute and finally said, “Well, she does have beautiful skin. Greeks have the best skin. But my God, after one or two children, her hips are going to be HUGE.”

By that time, I’d matured enough to realize that tactless doesn’t mean mean-spirited, so I just smiled and said, “Thanks for your blessing, Bubbe.”

T.S. Eliot said of John Webster that he “always saw the bones beneath the skin.” That’s a very apt description of how I feel about the holidays. Others see peace on earth, good will towards men. I see a wasteful, pointless exercise in vulgar commercialism to celebrate the birth of a guy who wasn’t who people think he was on the day that he wasn’t even born. Or to celebrate the lovingkindness of an all-powerful Deity who couldn’t be bothered to spare the chosen people Auschwitz, but who made sure they had enough oil to keep the lamps burning for eight days. It’s all lies—pretty lies, but lies nonetheless.

Maybe that’s why neither of my grandmothers liked the holidays. And maybe it’s why during the holidays I especially miss two little old ladies who detested each other, and whose strange shared combination of acerbic and compassionate I find oddly inspiring. 

All The Children Are NOT Above-Average

Disclaimer.

I am not a child psychologist, a psychiatrist, or an educator. I have no training whatsoever in child psychology barring one or two classes I took in preparation for an abortive attempt at being a schoolteacher. I am, however, a loudmouth with an exaggerated opinion of his own intelligence. This characteristic alone qualifies me to shoot my mouth off about anything about which I feel like shooting it off.

My wife and I know a couple who don't make a ton of money, and who live in a perfectly good public school district, but who spend an inordinate amount of money each year to send their kid to an elite private school because, as the wife puts it with a self-satisfied smirk, "We think he's just a little bit gifted, hee hee."

This infuriates me.

I'm not saying gifted kids don't exist. They do. But they are few and far between. In seven years of being a parent--and thus interacting rather closely with a lot of other parents and their kids--I've only seen one whom I'd call gifted.

A couple of our acquaintance--not the couple mentioned above--has a little boy whom we'll call Jake. Jake is eerily, creepily, unsettlingly, super-smart. He read the whole Harry Potter series at three. He could draw three-quarter perspective profile pictures at four. And he was fluent--I mean like translator-ability fluent--in Hebrew at five. Jake is an undeniably brilliant child. To paraphrase Oliver Wendell Holmes, "I can't define 'gifted,' but I know it when I see it"; and this little boy, Jake, is, for lack of a better word, gifted. Most kids aren't. Including mine. Including, in all probability, yours. Deal with it.

The word "gifted," in my opinion, is a euphemism for "having parents who are A) white, and B) pushy." It's a horseshit category, and by "horseshit", I mean "absolutely utterly meaningless, and worse than that, pernicious." What it means is that the parents realize that their kid is no prodigy--not a Bobby Fischer, not a Midori--but they simply cannot accept that their kid isn't better, even marginally, than all the other kids.

When parents insist that their completely normal, completely average kids are "gifted," it really isn't about the kids at all. It's about the parents and their egos.

We have a tendency to look at kids as extensions of the parents. In effect, the kids become the parents' proxies. It's a pretty natural tendency, but it's one that should be fought against nonetheless, because not only is it dangerous, it's irritating as hell, once you see what's really going on.

No one wants to hear people bragging about themselves, but it's perfectly acceptable to brag about one's kids. It's a socially acceptable way of blowing your own horn. Because, you see, when parents brag about their kids, what they're really doing is puffing their own intelligence, genetics, or superior parenting skills. They aren't kvelling about their kids, they're bragging about themselves.

Likewise, when we compliment kids, what we're really doing is complimenting the parents. It's no longer socially acceptable--hell, it's even legally actionable--to tell a woman how hot she is. But if you say, "Your children are absolutely beautiful children," that's perfectly okay.

Thus, when parents insist their kids are gifted when, all evidence to the contrary aside, they aren't really looking for the best educational opportunity for their child. They're just asserting their belief that there's no way in hell that they, THEY, with their superior genetics, intellect, or parenting skills, could have whelped a young 'un who isn't above average in SOME way.

Earlier I used the word "pernicious" to describe this phenomenon. "Pernicious" is one of my favorite words. It moves this tendency of parents insisting their kids are gifted from the "merely annoying" category into the "potentially dangerous" category. Here's why.

There is currently a raging debate in this country on the medicating of children for ADD, ADHD, and a zillion other "syndromes", "disorders", or "conditions." (My personal favorite, the one that I've been diagnosed with, is ODD--Oppositional Defiant Disorder: "an ongoing pattern of disobedient, hostile and defiant behavior toward authority figures." That's from Wikipedia, so you know it's good. Turns out I suffer from a syndrome. I have a disease. And here I thought I was just an asshole for all those years! Also, I like the acronym. I've always been odd.)


But I digress. I have a sneaking, scientifically-unverifiable suspicion that the rash in what I believe to be the overdiagnosis and overmedication of children has little to do with actual real syndromes, disorders, or diseases. Once again, I suspect it has to do with the parents' egos. 


Their kid, their unbelievably gifted Billy/Susan/Evan/Olivia, is simply not performing up to his or her parents' expectations. For some unfathomable reason, the kid ISN'T splitting the atom at seven! For some unfathomable reason, the kid talks too much in class! In fact, the kid is--gasp--acting like... like... well, like a normal kid, God forbid. A normal, gleefully rotten, poorly-behaved, not-particularly-spectacular-at-math-chess-or-music-kid. A kid like--shudder--all the other kids. Unacceptable!


But why, you can hear the parents' anguished voices asking? What, oh what, could be the reason for this? Surely my child is gifted. My superior genetics, intellect, and parenting skills guarantee THAT. There's no way a kid who originated in MY balls/ovaries is anything less than gifted. 


So there must be something in the way. There must be something keeping my child from standing out from the crowd. It must be a syndrome. Which must be medicated. So that Billy/Susan/Evan/Olivia reaches the heights to which my superior genetics, intellect, and parenting skills have destined for him or her. That must be it. My kid is brilliant, but his or her ADD is in the way! My parenting skills are superb, but my kid's ADHD is making him or her act out! 


And in order to salve our own egos, we first turn the kids into freaks. We stigmatize them by making them the victim of a psychological disorder. And then we medicate the living shit out of them, and turn them into little junkies who are unable to exist in the world without pills. 


I can't even begin to imagine the effects of this on a child's physiology or self-esteem. In order to maintain the fantasy that we, the parents, are exceptional, we tell them they're defective in some way--and then we teach them that the answer to all life's problems can be found in a pill. And then we wonder why drug use among teens is at epidemic proportions. 


As much as it pains me to admit it, my kids do not appear to be particularly gifted. Nor do they appear to be of more than average intelligence. By all accounts, they are perfectly normal, perfectly average, unapologetically rotten and ill-behaved, happy, healthy kids. Thank God. Admitting it doesn't mean I don't love them. In fact, it means I love them more than the parents who insist their kids are gifted, because it means my love for them isn't conditional. They don't have to be above average for me to love them. They just have to be mine. 


Here's a thought. The next time you're tempted to compliment a parent on his or her children, refrain from doing so. Don't feed their bloated egos. Instead, ignore the parent and compliment the kid directly. It'll do a hell of a lot more for the kid and his or her self-esteem. Plus the look on the parents' faces when you ignore them and their self-promotion is absolutely priceless. 


Of course, that's probably just the ODD talking. Ignore me. 

Why I Love Joseph Pulitzer--Part Two of a Two Part Series

I’ve mentioned before that, fresh on the heels of the really mindblowing success of my first novel (Ozymandias and Other Stories—get it on Amazon, or at Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, and other fine bookstores) (but not Borders) I’m blazing through another one—this one about Joseph Pulitzer.

There are two lies in that previous paragraph. My first novel has experienced nothing like mindblowing success. Nor am I exactly blazing. The Pulitzer novel—tentatively titled A Jew in America—has taken up the last five years of my life. It’s nowhere near done. It may never be. But every man needs a hobby, and I suck at carving ships in bottles.

It’s been an interesting process. This is the first novel I’ve ever attempted (there are five unpublished ones moldering away at the bottom of my file cabinet) that’s required me to do actual research. It feels like work. And in some ways, at some points, I’ve found myself paralyzed because I’m constantly asking myself if I’m smart enough to write this book. Do I know enough about 19^th century America? The Gilded Age? American journalism? St. Louis? New York? Hungary? Chauncey Depew, Grover Cleveland, William Whitney, Carl Schurz, and the rest of the 19th century luminaries who played a role in Pulitzer’s life?

It hasn’t been a completely barren run. I’ve gotten pretty decent mileage out of a  monograph I wrote based on my research, which consequently appeared in Gateway: The Journal of the Missouri Historical Society, The St. Louis Journalism Review, and now, apparently, an upcoming issue of the St. Louis Jewish Light.

It’s been a while since I was in therapy, but I suspect there are a few other unconscious reasons why I’ve dragged this out so long. I’m actually enjoying the research. I never much cared about American history, but it’s been a fascinating trip, and I’ve gotten to read a lot of good books at which I would not otherwise have looked twice. And I think I really don’t want to let Joseph Pulitzer go. Even though he’s been dead for precisely one hundred years, I enjoy his company.

In a weird way, I’m sort of glad that Mr. Pulitzer did fall into relative (and unmerited) obscurity, because he avoided the inevitable hagiography that happens to any well-known American hero. Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, Roosevelt, Daniel Webster, Noah Webster, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Woodrow Wilson, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton—all of them have been turned into the American version of plaster saints. It’s taken more than fifty years of pretty hardcore Revisionist history and some nasty battles to uncover certain uncomfortable, but humanizing, truths about them. Washington was a bit of a fop. Lincoln had nastily authoritarian tendencies. Jefferson had a thing for black chicks and didn’t believe Jesus was the Son of God. And on it goes.

And while some traditionalists and conservatives might fume about treating our national heroes disrespectfully (and I’d quibble with this. I personally think telling the truth is a pretty decent sign of respect), for me, at least, knocking the idols off their pedestals makes them more human, more approachable, more comprehensible, and, ultimately, more likable.

Which is, I suppose, part of what attracted me to Joseph Pulitzer in the first place. Never having suffered the secular beatification we ram up the asses of better-known American heroes, he remains so defiantly human, flawed, and, in the end, likable in spite of his unlikability, that I had no choice but to fall in love with him. In an earlier post, I explained why he was important. Now, I’ll explain why I like him.

He was brilliant, eccentric, profane, self-pitying, mean-spirited, noble, funny, foreign, conceited, vain about clothes, and arrogant as all hell. He was arrogant enough to think that he knew better than the Americans how America should be.

He shot people he didn't like, he yelled at his employees, he liked the employees who yelled back at him, and the first time he got in a fight with his editor, Frank Cobb, Cobb quit. Joe said, "I liked that young man. I liked the way he swore." Long pause. "God damn it, go tell that idiot I will not LET him quit!" and then every time they'd get in a fight, Cobb would quit and Joe would say to people, "I suppose you know Frank quit again," and then Cobb would show back up for work the next day like nothing happened.

He once kicked Cobb off his yacht and abandoned him on the Jersey shore and made him walk home. The next day, Cobb showed up for work right on time (and no one's ever figured out how he managed that one). I love that.

I like him because when he was appointed Police Commissioner in St. Louis (which was a largely honorary, ceremonial post), he let the guys who served liquor on Sunday get away with it. I like him because he was the cruelest, most cutting man in an argument there ever was. He made grown men cry.  I like him because he lost his temper at the drop of a hat and was the best boss in the world to work for. People died for him. Literally. I like him because he threw things at people when he got really ticked off. I like him because he'd get antsy at the opera and then yell during the performance, "For God's sake, I'm dying of boredom. Get me out of here. Let's go."

I like him because it was on his paper that comic strips were invented (and from comic strips came comic books. Yep. The world has Joe Pulitzer to thank for the comic book. God rest his sweet, saintly soul).

I like him because he took a perverse glee in ramming it up the butts of the wealthy whenever he got dirt on them. He genuinely enjoyed sticking it to them. Even more so after he became wealthy himself. He would giggle with glee every time some new revelation about someone rich came out.

I like him because when he was in residence at Jekyl Island, and J.P. Morgan told him that attendance at the Episcopal chapel on the island was "strongly encouraged," he sent his personal physician, an obnoxiously outspoken atheist, to drop a five dollar bill in the collection plate, and announce loudly, "Mr. Pulitzer has now attended church."

I like him because when he was in the House of Representatives, he got blitzed one night in Washington, and was about to be arrested for being drunk and disorderly, and his friends told the cop, "This man is a member of the House of Representatives," and the cop said, "That holds no water with me," and they said, "But this man is Joseph Pulitzer, the editor of the World!" and the cop said, "Jesus, why didn't you say so? Let's get him home quick."

I like him because after he went blind, he would say, "Do you mind?" and then without waiting for an answer start feeling people's faces. Including the Secretary of State of the United States of America. I like him because he said to an employee, "How much do you weigh? Two hundred pounds? And you're only five feet five? My God! You'd better train down."

I like him because he was a visionary who couldn't see, a crusader with the soul of a carnival promoter, an uncompromising moralist who broke the rules every chance he got, a humanitarian who reduced people to tears, an adoring father who hated his kids,  an idealist who couldn't stand people.

I like him because he was the furthest thing from a hypocrite there ever was. I like him because he was irreverent as all hell. I like him because I can picture him standing at the gates of heaven and shouting at God Almighty for creating such a fucked up world.

He’s always been vibrantly, gloriously, horrendously, humanly flawed. He screwed up. A lot. And he knew it and tried to fix it.

Reading over this, I realize that, try as I might, I probably will not be able to do his character justice with my meager skills. The man is beyond my ability—and very likely anyone’s, since Dostoevsky’s dead—to capture accurately. But, as Bob Dylan said about folk music, “There’s magic, the Bible, and mythology in those old songs. I can’t hope to touch that. But I’m going to try.”

Perhaps there’s just something in my ODD-afflicted, naturally contrarian character that’s drawn to a guy like Joseph Pulitzer. But I’m not the only one. I recently read a biography of Richard Hofstadter, another famous contrarian—another perpetually, and probably by design, permanent fish out of water—and came across this passage, which literally made my eyes bug out of my head:

“[Hofstadter’s] office itself is large, sparsely adorned except for forbiddingly high history-stocked bookcases and a large lithograph of Joseph Pulitzer against the institutional light yellow wall.”

Perhaps Hofstadter just put Joe’s picture up out of gratitude—after all, he did win two Pulitzer Prizes. But I’d prefer to think he did it because this most discerning and critical of all American historians, like me, saw in Joseph Pulitzer a kindred contrarian and a flawed, but ultimately both lovable and absolutely indispensable American hero.

A Plea for National Disunity

I’ve mentioned it in previous blog posts, but there is a constant—and pernicious—tendency in our national discourse to blame the public. Whatever happens, it’s our fault.

Now, I don’t know if this tendency on the part of our media to excoriate the people is inadvertent or purposeful, but it has the very convenient effect of shifting both blame and attention away from the real culprits.

There’s a national childhood obesity epidemic? It’s the parents’ fault—certainly not the food manufacturers, who stuff our food full of trans-fats, high-fructose corn syrup and sugar. There’s a credit crisis? It’s the consumers’ fault, not the banks’ irresponsible and predatory lending practices, and their paid whores, the legislators who yanked away all forms of regulation.

And now, with the biggest budget crisis in our history looming and the credit rating of the United States of America downgraded like a college kid who ran up a bunch of debt on his MasterCard—again, it’s our fault.

Yes, American public, you did this. Damn you and your greedy, gimme-gimme entitlements and your low voter turnout. Why, you miserable sons of bitches would rather sit at home on your fat asses, watching “Hoarders,” guzzling cheap beer and gobbling Twinkies than come out and vote.

Well, malarkey. It’s true that the U.S. does have embarrassingly low rates of voter turnout. Even in the most hotly-contested Presidential election of modern times—2008—only 56.8% of registered voters actually bothered to do so. Barely more than half. And in the 2010 mid-terms, only 37.8 could be bothered to hit the polls. That’s pathetic, all right. But the real question—which I don’t hear, or read, people asking—is why. No one asks why people don’t exercise their right to democracy. It’s just assumed that Americans are too stupid, lazy, and apathetic to exercise their privileges.

But Americans aren’t lazy. We’re the hardest-working people on the planet. We spend more time working than any other nation in the world. And we’re not stupid, either. Its current woes aside, no sane person would argue that free and compulsory public education is one of the great success stories of the species.

The real reason voter turnout is so low is simple. We know damn well that whoever wins, it doesn’t matter. There just won’t be any appreciable difference in our lives. American voters, for all our blowing our own horn about Democracy, Democracy, Democracy, do not really have any choice.

America is stuck, seemingly permanently, with a two-party system. That by itself is bad enough. How in the hell can a meager two parties hope to represent the plurality of opinion and interests in the most diverse and heterogeneous nation in human history?

But it gets worse. We have two parties, but only one ideology. We have the pro-business party, and we have the crazy right-wing lunatic fringe pro-business party.

The Republicans have, throughout most of the 20^th century, had a lock on big business, which means more money for them. Which forced the Democrats to abandon small business, minorities, and labor, and, cap in hand, go begging from Corporate America. Which effectively turned them into the second pro-business party.

Some elected representatives may differ on non-substantive, window-dressing issues like abortion, gay marriage, prayer in school, DADT, and teaching evolution. But at the end of the day, when it comes to what really matters, our political process is tantamount to being forced to eat at a restaurant with only two dishes: fried chicken, and extra-crispy fried chicken. Neither’s good for you. One’s slightly less bad for you, but it really isn’t a choice at all. So you might as well just not eat—which is what most American voters opt for most years.

While some individual Senators and Representatives genuinely care about their constituencies, their parties as a whole do not. If anyone thinks the Democrats still represent labor, then riddle me this, Batman: where was President Obama during the recent walkouts in Wisconsin and Indiana? Why was the White House dead silent on the right to collective bargaining? Or if you think they still give a rat’s ass about consumers, why wasn’t Elizabeth Warren appointed? Why is Dodd-Frank dead in the water? Why did what’s called, apparently as a cruel joke, Healthcare Reform benefit only Big Pharma, the insurance industry, and for-profit healthcare providers?

When our only parties represent only the interests of the super-wealthy, then we no longer have a democracy. We have an oligarchy.

Neither most Republicans nor most Democrats of my acquaintance are whole-hog supporters of their respective party’s platform. They are, at best, uncomfortable members of their party simply because there’s nowhere else to go. Plenty of Democrats, for example, are pro-life. And plenty of Republicans despise Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Todd Akin, and the rest of those nutcases, who are pro-choice, and who know that Darwin, not Genesis, was right. But they have nowhere else to go.

The American political system’s devolution into a two-party, one-ideology system was bad for the country. What’s desperately needed isn’t a third party. What’s desperately needed are a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh party—parties which do not claim to represent ALL of their constituents’ concerns, and which DON’T take a stand on every single issue out there, but which, instead, concentrate on specific issues.

1. How about a children’s party—one devoted to protecting the rights and needs of the most vulnerable members of our society? A party that campaigns and pushes for better schools? Affordable and accessible prenatal and pediatric care? The death penalty for child molesters and the producers and consumers of child pornography? More stringent FDA regulation of children’s food? Increased paid maternity leaves?
2. How about an actual Green Party? A party that doesn’t take a stand on abortion, gay rights, and all the other stupid shibboleths of the (in so many goddamned ways ridiculous) American Left, but instead concentrates purely and simply on environmental issues, like subsidies for sustainable energy research, tax incentives for green construction and green rehabs, recycling, reforestation, protection of public lands, etc.?
3. How about an old people’s party, which campaigns for public transportation, reduced cost of medicines, geriatric research, and affordable and accessible retirement homes?
4. What about a Farmers’ Party, which campaigns for agricultural subsidies, more aggressive trade regulations concerning what’s imported and exported, and more federal funding for farmland reclamation and development?
5. Why doesn’t the Tea Party just spin off, create their own independent party and campaign for whatever the hell it is they want?
6. How about a genuine Labor Party, which campaigns for higher import duties on goods manufactured overseas, stronger collective bargaining laws, and against tax breaks for corporations which relocate their manufacturing facilities overseas?

I could go on and on, but you see my point. What I’d desperately love to see happen is the shattering of the two lumbering, out of touch, and imbecilic behemoths that we currently have into a zillion new parties that concentrate on specific interests and which don’t fraudulently claim to represent the interests, in toto, of half the population.

Not only would we have a political system that actually gives the people a voice—we might actually get something DONE. In countries with a multiparty system, in order to get legislation passed, they can’t simply engage in bluster, political posturing and theatricality and histrionics like our government. They actually have to practice politics. They form coalitions based on specific legislation. These coalitions are not permanent. They come together to accomplish something, and then break up, spin off, and re-form on different issues in different combinations. That way, the country and its people, actually make progress.

Wouldn’t that be nice for America? If we had a wide array of parties to choose from, we might actually progress as a nation. We might actually get representation that’s receptive to our needs and wants. And we, as a people, might actually become engaged in the process.

And you know, as long as I’m dreaming, I’d like a pony, too. 

Why Joseph Pulitzer Still Matters--Part One of a Two Part Series.

This is Joseph Pulitzer. 

Of all my heroes—many of whom appear on the banner across the top of this blog—Joseph Pulitzer is the top of the pops. I’ve published one article about him in the journal of the Missouri Historical Society, and I’m writing a full length historical novel about him. In a subsequent post, I’ll explain why I love the man. But in this one, I’ll explain why he still matters. Joseph Pulitzer died in 1911, but he’s more relevant now than ever.

The recent revelations of phone-hacking, police corruption, and intimidation by that venomous old reptile Rupert Murdoch come as no surprise. His career—that trail of fecal slime smeared across two centuries and four continents—made abundantly clear his callous and utter disregard for truth, accuracy, journalistic ethics, and the responsibility of the press in a free society. So it shouldn’t be shocking that he—and the equally amoral minions who flocked to his employ like flies to filth—had a similar disregard for the rights of individuals, basic human decency, and finally, the law.

This is a venomous old reptile. 

A lot of fatuous comparisons have been made between Murdoch and Pulitzer, some in as enlightened a publication as the New Yorker. And there are some superficial similarities. Both had an uncanny ability to appeal to the common man and a mastery of sensationalistic journalism which them financial success and political influence. But philosophically, Pulitzer and Murdoch couldn’t further apart. The damning coziness between the Murdoch’s News Corp. and the governments of both Great Britain and the United States stand in stark contrast to Joseph Pulitzer, the relentless opponent of both corporate and federal power.    

His newspapers’ independence was sacrosanct to Pulitzer. He was almost paranoiacally scrupulous about avoiding any entanglements—personal, financial, or political—which could have compromised his ability to report the news. He didn’t even trust himself with safeguarding his newspapers’ independence. He once told an editor, “Boy, as you know, I am a large owner of stocks. If ever I order you to write a piece favoring one of those companies, or kill a piece which might damage one, you are to disregard those orders and remind me of this conversation.”

But instead of Pulitzer’s independent and vigilant press, we have today an unholy collusion between media and government. Our government relies upon a media increasingly controlled by a tiny cadre of corporate conglomerates—only 16  corporations now control 95% of the world’s media—to get elected. And our press now relies completely upon the government for its information.

During the Valerie Plame affair, the New York Times went to great—some would say heroic—lengths (even to the extent of letting reporter Judith Miller go to jail) to, as publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger II piously declared, “protect our friends in government.” Which, while sounding noble, ignores Pulitzer’s dictum that “a newspaper should have no friends.” And he was right. Once you become dependent upon sources within the government for your information, you have, ipso facto, ceded control of the flow of information to that very entity.

Which uncomfortable fact the Times learned to its chagrin when it published a false story that Dick Cheney’s office “leaked” about weapons of mass destruction buildup in Iraq. And the exact day that story appeared on the front page, Cheney himself appeared on “Meet the Press,” citing that selfsame story—which his office had planted—as justification for our government’s horrendous and lethal actions in Iraq. Cheney and company played the Good Gray Lady like a fiddle. This would not have happened on a Pulitzer paper. And that’s why we need a man like him today.

Pulitzer’s detractors—and there were, and are, many—would disagree. They look at his rabid partisanship and no-holds-barred sensationalism and say good riddance to bad rubbish. But they were wrong then, and they’re wrong now.

Pure objectivity is an impossible standard. All our information is twice filtered through our own preconceptions—when we receive it, and when we dispense it. So long as humans remain human, we can’t be objective or dispassionate, and we shouldn’t try. Journalism is, by its very existence, activist—journalists make a value judgment simply by deciding what to write about. Their objectivity disappears as soon as their fingertips touch the keyboard. So let’s dispense with attempting the impossible.

As for sensationalism—screaming headlines, lurid copy, shocking pictures, and all the rest of the practices that separate the tabloids from the respectable press—what’s the matter with it?

There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with sensationalism as a style of journalism. It’s neither inherently trivial nor inherently dishonest. Sobriety and respectability are no guarantee of truth or accuracy as the Jayson Blair/New York Times and Janet Cooke/Washington Post debacles so clearly illustrate. For all his sensationalism, Pulitzer was obsessive about accuracy. Moreover, it served a very practical purpose.

The press is a crucial component of a free society. It’s the watchdog; the oversight branch of government. And in order to play that role, it must be independent of either government or corporate control. But maintaining that independence demands money. That’s where sensationalism comes in. Sensationalism brings readers; readers bring advertisers; advertisers bring money; and money brings independence.

Pulitzer’s papers had what today’s media doesn’t: popular trust. Many of his readers despised him and his politics, but they knew they weren’t being lied to, because they knew that he wasn’t in bed with any political party, company, or industry. Now, precisely one century after his death, we have lost faith in our government to represent our interests. More ominously, the shenanigans of people like Murdoch and his foul ilk have eroded our faith in the media to tell us the truth. And when that happens, you can kiss democracy good-bye. Because once people no longer believe in the system, they will stop participating in it. And that’s the death knell of a democratic society.

Joseph Pulitzer, in 1904, said, “A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself." Tragically, he was as accurate a prophet as he was a journalist. 

Your Great-Grandmother Will Win In The End, So Don't Even Bother Struggling

For some years now, I’ve been in the running for the title of Rudest Man in St. Louis. This isn’t an actual contest, but I wish it was, because it’s one contest I might actually have a chance of winning.

Dispensing with conventions of polite conversation has several advantages. One, it allows me to cut right through the conversational red tape of small talk and start talking about stuff that actually matters. Two, it weeds out the boring types with nothing BUT small talk at their disposal, so that I can move on swiftly. And three, it identifies kindred spirits. If, after the initial bewildered blink, they come back at me with gusto, then I know I’ve got someone I can do business with.

I get away with it because I look slightly goofy, and, thus, harmless. I may be rude, but it’s easier to take it from a smallish, slight, bald nebbish in glasses than from a huge hulking roidasaurus of a guy.

Having established myself as someone who gives a rat’s ass for social niceties, one of the first things I ask people about is their ethnicity. I’ve been known to ask a person of exotic appearance, “So what the hell are you, exactly, anyway?” or someone whose pronunciation differs enough from mine that it’s noticeable, “Where the hell do you pick up an accent like that, anyhow?”

I’m fully aware that it’s none of my business and that many people are sensitive about this. Please believe me when I say that I genuinely do not give a fuck. What I gain from doing it far outweighs the benefits of social convention. I ask because once you know someone's background, you’ve got them half figured.  

Those of a Deconstructionist bent out will disagree with me. Context tells you nothing,” they say. "What counts is what we make of ourselves." They’re wrong. Contextualizing people tells you everything, because there are two perspectives to use when sizing people up:  who they are, and what they are.  

Who we are is comprised of those characteristics that we control—the choices that we consciously make, the characteristics that derive from the picture of ourselves which we choose to present. Things like political opinions, the shows, books, or movies that we like (or say we like—lots of people say they like things that they don’t really like because they think it’ll make them appear to be smarter than they really are. For example, if anyone tells you what a huge fan of jazz they are, grab a blunt object and beat them for being a pretentious fuck), the clothes we wear, the neighborhoods where we choose to live. These are all the characteristics within our control—they reflect who we choose to be.

On the other hand, the characteristics that we cannot control make us what we are. The religion in which we were raised, for example, or the socioeconomic class into which we were born. The city or country where we’re from. Our physiognomy. Our chronology. These are all factors beyond our capacity to decide, and which make us what we are.

There is a significant amount of overlap between them—the choices that we make are frequently determined, sometimes unthinkingly, by what we are. And there are some characteristics that we can, with the right amount of effort, change. But there are many characteristics about which we have no choice. The painter James McNeill Whistler once said he’d been born in St. Petersburg, Russia—a little zingier a spot than his real birthplace of Lowell, Massachusetts. And when called on it, Whistler replied, “I do not choose to be born in Lowell, Massachusetts.” Sorry, James. As Tony Soprano once said, “You are what you are. You’re born to this shit.”

For the last four years, I’ve been working on a historical novel about my hero, Joseph Pulitzer. The point I’m trying to make, should I ever finish it, is that you can’t truly understand who Pulitzer was until you know what he was:  a Hungarian Jew born on the eve of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, and none of his biographers have adequately taken that into account. If I ever finish this fucking thing, it’ll change the way we think about a man who changed the way we think. But I digress.

My reference above to Tony Soprano was not made simply because I enjoyed juxtaposing James McNeill Whistler and Tony Soprano. It was also a good segue to my next argument: organized crime.

The three ethnic groups most prominent in traditional American organized crime were the Italians, the Jews, and the Irish. More specifically, it was Mezzogiornese , or southern Italians (Sicilians, Neapolitans, Abruzzese); Russian Jews; and southern, Catholic, “shanty” Irish.

The predominance of these three groups led to a lot of nonsensical speculation about certain ethnicities having a genetic predilection for crime and violence, Catholicism and Judaism being religious petri dishes for criminals, and a lot of other horseshit propagated by numbskulls like Cesare Lombroso (the guy who also believed that phrenology was a legitimate science—thus my use of the term numbskull. Wasn’t that clever? Ironically, Lombroso was himself an Italian Jew. Double whammy). But while the early 20^th century criminologists were feeling the bumps on thugs’ skulls—most of which had been placed there by other thugs—and looking for signs of congenital criminality in the shape of the nose and jaw, they overlooked something far more basic: the persistence of cultural patterns.

What these groups had in common was a history of oppression. The English treated the Irish like dogs. The Russians treated the Jews worse than dogs. And the southern Italians suffered a centuries-long parade of oppressors—Normans, Moors, Spaniards, and, most recently, Northern Italians who still despise their southern brethren with a viciousness that wouldn't shame an Alabama Klansman. “The mezzogiorno is more like Africa than it is Italy,” I was once told by a straight-faced Venetian. “They really shouldn’t be considered Italians at all. Just look at them, they even look like blacks.”

Centuries of oppression taught these groups some similar lessons. One, authority isn’t your friend. Two, survival dictates that you HAVE to screw the system.  And three, they’d evolved pretty sophisticated ways of doing it. In the old country, bribery, intimidation, illicit production and smuggling of goods, and hiding your assets weren’t crimes. They were a matter of survival.

Emigration didn’t erase centuries of conditioning. They just carried these same patterns of behavior to Brooklyn, or Chicago, or St. Louis, or Philadelphia, or any other city where organized crime took root.

The fact that the old organized crime syndicates and families are going away has very little to do with law enforcement—it has to do with eventual acculturation and assimilation. But the persistence of the ethnic structure of American organized crime bolsters my contention that ethnicity and nationality has a hell of a lot to do with what we are, and, eventually, what we do. 

In a recent piece in the New Yorker on why Greece is utterly fucked, James Surowiecki points to an ingrained culture of tax evasion among the Greeks (having been married to one for twelve years, I can attest to their being a skeevy, yet lovable, bunch of swarthy little fuckers, God love ‘em). He cites a study by the economist Martin Halla showing that tax morale—our willingness to actually pay our taxes—among second generation American immigrants reflects their country of origin. If you didn’t like paying taxes in the Old Country, you won’t do it over here. Neither will your kids. Or grandkids.

Q.E.D.

We pass things down. We can’t help it. Often, what is transmitted across generations is encoded or encrypted in, or under, or behind, other stuff. It’s unconscious. But it happens. Let me end this post with an anecdote illustrating my point.

My daughter was recently having a disagreement with a little boy at her school. Because I am an enlightened and progressive parent, I discussed the issue with her instead of merely barking, “You’ll behave at that school I pay twelve large a year to send you to or I’ll break your head.” As we spoke, she flipped her hand dismissively—a gesture eerily reminiscent of my grandmother of blessed memory, olov hasholem—and said, “Him I don’t like.”

What struck me was that she’d put the direct object before the subject—a sentence construction that sounds a little weird in English, but would sound totally natural to a Yiddish speaker, in which language it is the norm to put the predicate before the subject: “Good I don’t feel.” “Beautiful her dress was.” “Milk we’re out of and we need to go buy.”

My daughter is precisely one-quarter Jewish and speaks not a word of Yiddish. But she’d used a very Yiddish-sounding grammatical construct. She did this because I do it; I do it because my mother does it; and my mother does it because her mother did it, because her parents were Yiddish speakers. That’s five generations, in case you’re counting.

Imagine what else we pass on to our children without noticing. Imagine what other echoes of the Old Country are encoded in our gestures, our language, our reactions, our values. We are palimpsests, we humans—we’ve been overwritten a thousand times, and yet, as the old Roman poet said, “Scripta manent”—what is written remains. 

Coming Out of the Closet as an Anti-Abortion Type Person

A good friend of mine, who is a school psychologist, recently diagnosed me with something called Oppositional Defiant Disorder. This condition is, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, is “an ongoing pattern of disobedient, hostile, and defiant behavior toward authority figures which goes beyond the bounds of normal childhood behavior.” Yep, that sounds about right. 

I get a huge kick out of this for two reasons:

1. With all due respect to my good friend, I’m a little skeptical about all such disorders. I have a sneaking suspicion that this and many other such “disorders” are what used to be called “traits.” In the old days, the technical term for what I suffer from would have been “being an obstreperous, contrarian prick son of a bitch.” No cure. But I probably think this because not believing in disorders is, most likely, a symptom of my disorder.

2. I absolutely LOVE the acronym.

At any rate, if there is such a syndrome, it’s genetic, because my pater, JP Senior, also suffers from it. “It’s part of the condition of being a P, JP Junior,” he says, in his expansive Indiana good ol’ boy manner. “We’re Democrats in a roomful of Republicans, and Republicans in a roomful of Democrats.”

This is a figure of speech. It would take an awful lot for either of us to self-identify as Republicans. Nonetheless, it is true that we Ps do take a perverse glee in being contrarian. For some reason—probably because we’re ODD—we just like to disagree with people.

Because I am virulently anti-capitalist, I tend to associate with fellow Lefties, but I often find myself simultaneously bored and uneasy in the presence of those who agree with me. So it is always brings me great glee to express my rejection of one of the shibboleths of the American Left. Yessir, I'm pro-life. Or anti-abortion. Or opposed to a woman’s right to choose. Or whatever you want to call it. 

Doubtless because I have ODD, I love watching the horrified expressions creep across their faces when I say this. 

“Are... are you... religious or something?” they frequently stammer. “Hell no!” I like to say. “Let's take a chainsaw to the Bible. Nope, I’m right there with ol' Denis Diderot, him what said, “Mankind will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest!’”

The thing is, though, I’m not just saying it to be contrarian. I genuinely am opposed to abortion. More than that, I believe the pro-life position is more consistent with the political Left than it is with the political Right.

It’s the political Right that likes to pride itself on its pragmatism, its Social Darwinism, and its “get the gub’mint out of my life! Regulations are evil! The stop sign is an encroachment on my civil liberties!” brand of Libertarianism. It’s the Right that fights welfare, universal healthcare, immigration reform, and all other legislative initiatives that have their origin in the idea that it might be a good idea to help people.

It’s the Left which is more closely identified with compassion (there’s a reason liberals are called, dismissively, “bleeding hearts” by those on the Right), civil rights and equality under the law for everyone.

You’d think that, based on these two sets of descriptors, that it’d be those on the Left arguing against abortion, and the Right arguing for it. But it’s just the opposite. The right to an abortion is inextricably tied up with women’s liberation, which is a traditionally Left position. And there’s a mean-spirited, punitive streak in the religious Right’s pro-life rhetoric: “Well, if those broads are going to fuck out of wedlock, then they should damn well have to suffer the consequences of raising a kid!”

But at the end of the day, here’s what it comes down to: a fetus is an innocent human being, and killing innocent human beings is wrong. Period. End of story. Premeditated murder is wrong, war is wrong, and abortion is wrong. It’s just that simple.

Now, I should point out that I’m not completely in bed with the Pope on this one. I was never an altar boy for one thing (HIIIIYYYOOOHHH! Badum bum CHING).  And arguing for abstinence is absolutely ridiculous. People like screwing, and you’re not going to change that. Condoms ought to be standard issue in high school, and their proper use ought to be taught in health class—Christ knows parents aren’t doing it. Same goes for the Morning After Pill. “Welcome to high school. Here’s your locker combination, and here’s a bottle of Morning After Pills. Might want to take one right now!”

Moreover, as the best and wisest friend I have once pointed out, caffeine, as well as about a zillion other chemicals, can induce abortions. What would you do to the woman who doesn’t even know she’s pregnant, drinks too much coffee, and unknowingly aborts her fetus? Of course you wouldn’t imprison her for manslaughter or reckless endangerment—that’d be barbaric. So, in the interest of consistency and common sense, regretfully, I find myself unable to argue against first trimester abortions.

But beyond that, I’m as pro-life as it gets.

I don’t argue for the pro-life position because of my religious convictions. I don’t have any. And it should be patently obvious, even to an imbecile, that the Bible’s authors did not consider the fetus to be a person with any legal standing. Don’t believe me? Fine. Ask the Bible.

"And if men struggle and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is no further injury, he shall be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."

Exodus 21:22-25

See? If you cause a miscarriage, thereby killing a fetus, you pay a fine. Just like you would if you harmed someone else’s goat, sheep, or cow. But if you kill an out-of-the-womb human, you forfeit your own life. Quite obviously, the Bible is a pro-choice document. It’s also a pro-slavery, pro-genocide, anti-gay, and pro-rape document. Why the hell anyone takes it seriously in this day and age is an utter mystery to me. I wish the religious would chuck it and find a book with a better set of tenets to live one’s life by. I recommend “Tuesdays with Morrie.” But I digress.

But in any case, do we really need an old book--or religion of any kind, really--to tell us that killing a kid is wrong? 

The thing is, no one, unless they’re truly demented, actually likes abortion. I don’t think there’s a sane person out there who thinks abortion is a good thing. I think everyone would consider it a tragedy. Where decent people can disagree is whether it’s

a)      justified,

b)      necessary, and

c)      ethically supportable.

I would argue that it’s none of the above. But I’d argue further that the issue of abortion itself is a red herring.

The real issue, to my way of thinking, is what drives women to have them. Generally, it’s economics, stigma, and convenience. So let’s start thinking about attacking the root causes.

What about a federal subsidy of $10,000 to be spent in education credits to every woman who carries her child to term, but who then gives that child up for adoption? That’d save lives, educate women, and pump more money into the economy, and if we can drop $30 billion a month in two wars we don’t need to be fighting, we can sure as hell spend it on saving lives. What about permanent tax abatement for couples who adopt children? We pay people to be foster parents, essentially subsidizing a completely fucked system. Why not help out couples who want to raise a child?

And, while we’re at it, isn’t it hypocritical as hell to deny women healthcare coverage, but expect them to carry a child to term?

It’s not an easy issue, but, as with so many other issues—in fact, every issue—once you get rid of the shriekers on either side of the issue and apply common sense and common decency—solving the problem, or at least improving it, becomes a hell of a lot easier. 

To see what someone smarter than you--and me--and you and me combined--namely, Noam Chomsky of MIT--has to say about it, watch this video. 

Barbie Must Die: A Primer on Implementing Feminism for Dads of Daughters.

There was a period of my life when I spent a lot of time among the Lubavitcher Hasidim in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. Why I was there is a long and difficult story for a different post. For the purposes of this one, all you need to know, if you’re neither Jewish nor from New York, where they are just about ubiquitous, is that the Lubavitchers are a community of ultra-Orthodox Jewish fundamentalists—or, as they are colloquially and somewhat derogatorily known among their less observant coreligionists, the Black Hats.

Because this time of my life coincided with the time of my life when I would have screwed any chick who gave me the time of day, I misguidedly attempted to chat up some of the Lubavitcher girls. This was, to put it mildly, utterly futile. The Lubavitchers, like all the Black Hats, are stringently observant of every jot and tittle of the 613 laws (and you thought there were only ten). They’d as soon have done me as don a bikini to grill shrimp kebabs on the Sabbath. But I did get some interesting conversations out of my attempts.

To my question of, “Do you ever feel resentful that your observance of Judaism forces you to wear long sleeves and long skirts all year round, and doesn’t let you go to college, and basically relegates you to a life of churning out and caring for a damn near constant stream of lil’ Hasidim?” (albeit more tactfully phrased), the answer was, universally, “We hardly think women outside are ‘liberated.’ We consider ourselves liberated from all the expectations that women on the ouside are subjected to.”

On one level, this sounds a lot like those female apologists for Islam who claim that they feel protected by their burqas (and, presumably, don’t miss their clitorises at all, either). But on another level, the Hasidic women did make a powerful argument—one which I didn’t think of at all until I had a daughter.

Since I blog more or less anonymously, I’ll cop to being a closet misogynist in the way that every single man in the world is a closet misogynist. I fully admit to having objectified women, muttered horrible imprecations against all women every time I got shot down by one, and having either stated, or agreed with statements, that they’re just not as smart/organized/logical/practical as men.

But that all changed when the ultrasound technician handed me a slip of paper with the words “Think Pink” written on it. Suddenly, the divide between me and the Fairer Sex—the distance which allowed me to objectify them—disintegrated. Suddenly, there was going to be part of me in a woman, and not in the good way. Suddenly, a woman—a female—was going to share my DNA, my personhood, that ineffable quality that makes me who I am. And in that moment, I ceased to be a pig the way, arguably excusably, all men are pigs, to being the father of a daughter. At which point, being a pig ceases to be excusable.

As I drove away from the hospital with the words “Think Pink” tolling around in my head like Big Ben, I remembered being in Crown Heights, talking “feminism” and “liberation” with women who had no interest in either. And I found myself torn. Because, while I was repelled by the thought of my daughter in the situation of the Lubavitcher girls—never having the chance to go to college, for example—I was equally repelled by the thought of my daughter suffering all the horrors that our post-70’s world foists upon girls.

The sexual revolution was a good thing. My daughter, thank God, will not be disqualified by her gender from becoming a doctor, an astronaut, an archaeologist, or a zoologist (her current career plan). But she also won’t live in a community whose mores and customs protect her, and the vast majority of whose members will not value her purely for how hard she can make their shmeckels. Women used to be objectified for their dowries and their ability to birth kids. Now they’re objectified in new and, arguably, worse ways. We’ve replaced the tyranny of the patriarchy with the tyranny of pilates, waxing, plucking, hair salons, aerobics, weight obsession, food issues, bulimia, anorexia, and all the other horrendous baggage that goes along with having your self-esteem rely upon your ability to attract attention with your looks.

All of which makes me think that feminism, for all its great strides, has one hell of a fuck of a goddamn of a long way to go.

Granted, I’m not claiming any originality here. This has all been said a zillion and seven times before. But if you’re the father of a daughter, and you aren’t thinking this way, then you don’t deserve to be the father of a daughter.

I really don’t have the answer. I haven’t finished raising the girl whom I hope will be a happy, successful, well-adjusted woman who’s comfortable in her own skin. But I do know that the first step is killing Barbie.

My house has a strict no-Barbies rule. I hate that bitch. I hate her silky blonde hair, I hate her long, perfect legs, I hate her sparkling blue eyes, her wasp waist, her retrousse little nose, and her smooth, hairless plastic body. I hate her because, if genetics are any indication, my kid is not going to look anything like her. My kid is going to be short, hippy, busty, swarthy, hairy, and frizzy-headed. In other words, she’s going to look a lot like her mother, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers on both sides.

In other words, she’s going to be absolutely beautiful.

The Barbie moratorium at chez JP is fanatical, obsessive, and absolute. And I realize that, by enforcing it in clear contravention of my daughter’s expressly stated wishes, I am behaving patriarchally. So sue me. I’m a patriarch.

But, because I do try to teach my children both to challenge, and to demand accountability from, authority, I did sit her down and try to explain why Barbie was persona plastica non grata at stately JP Manor, and this is, essentially, what I told her.

“Kiddo, you’re not going to look like Barbie. And I’m glad, because your mother doesn’t look anything like Barbie, and she’s absolutely beautiful. But more importantly, I don’t want you to think that you have to look like her to be pretty. You don’t.

“We don’t have Barbie in this house because Barbie doesn’t teach the right lessons. Barbie teaches you that you have to look a certain way, and that having  a ton of stuff will make you happy. Barbie teaches you that you need a Dream House and a convertible and a bunch of clothes and jewelry to be happy, but that’s a lie. Happiness doesn’t come from what you have. It comes from what you do.

“You won’t become happy by looking like Barbie. People spend their whole lives trying to look different than they do, because they think it will make them happy. It doesn’t. Happiness is finding people who like the way you look--but more importantly, it comes from finding people who like you for who you are, not how you look or what you have.

"Barbie teaches you that people will give you stuff if you're pretty. Sadly, this is sometimes true. But it's sad. It means that girls who could have been doctors, or scientists, or artists, or businesswomen, never discovered what they could have done, because they spent all their time trying to look pretty to get stuff for themselves. It's sad for all the people they could have helped, and didn't; it's sad for all the cool things they could have done, but didn't; but mostly it's sad for those girls, because they lived an empty life that never made them happy.

“Remember that, babe. Remember that happiness doesn’t come from having stuff, or by looking the way you think other people want you to look. That’s why, every day, I tell you that I love you not because you’re pretty, but because you’re smart, and funny, and compassionate and kind to others. That’s what’s important in life—not being pretty.

“Oh, and incidentally, Ken’s gay.”  

There Is No Goddamned Frog In The Water.

Want to know if someone’s nuts? Well, I have an absolutely infallible test. It works every time. It is, I guarantee you, 100% accurate.

1. Engage test subject in conversation.
2. Bring up the topic of politics.
3. Listen carefully. If they ever, ever, ever use the words “slippery slope,” “frog in the water,” “thin end of the wedge,” “foot in the door,” or any other phrase describing the concept of gradual desensitization and infiltration by sinister forces, back away slowly and call 911. 

Because the person to whom you are speaking is completely, utterly, probably irredeemably and incurably bug-fucking, stark-raving bonkers. 

The whole concept of the “slippery slope” is one that I wish I could rip out of the collective American psyche, and I wouldn’t be gentle about it, either. I’d carve it out with a scalpel. Or, failing that, a chainsaw. I say “American,” because I genuinely do not believe that any other nationality out there—with the possible exception of the Germans in 1933—is as susceptible to such an asinine concept as we Americans. Frankly, I can’t understand why we are. We’re not stupid. If we were, we wouldn’t be as successful as we are. But for some reason, we’re suckers for the “Frog in the Water” idea. 

The concept, by the way, is utter bullshit. And let me tell you why. Because it implies the existence of a baleful and malevolent conspiracy.

Whenever anyone uses any of the phrases denoting the concept, it implies that there actually is a sinister group of people out there who have a Master Plan. And they’re working in concert to delude the public into quietly going along with this sinister Master Plan, not noticing anything, until BAM... it’s too late and we're all fucked. Gotcha. 

That’s Conspiracy Theory. Plain and simple. And Conspiracy Theory, regardless of who the purported conspirators are*, is insane. As is anyone who believes it. Conspiracy Theory is invariably wrong because it's based on two faulty premises: one, that human beings are smart enough to come up with a Grand Plan. And two, that they have the discipline to stick with it long enough to actually accomplish it.

You show me one successful conspiracy in the history of humankind. Just one. French Revolution? Don’t make me laugh. Russian Revolution? Nazi Revolution? Establishment of the State of Israel? Not one of those was a conspiracy. The conspirators, such as they were, were pretty damn open about what they planned to do. Adolf Hitler published a book detailing precisely what it was he had in mind. So did Theodor Herzl. The Bolsheviks published newspapers. Not just one, a whole bunch of them. So did the Jacobins.

I’d also point out that every one of those undertakings was riven with dissent. Far from being pulled off by a tightly unified band of conspirators, most revolutionary undertakings lurch wildly back and forth, tugged hither and yon by those who hold one opinion and those who hold others, and when the event DOES actually take place, it’s usually by accident.

And when it does happen, it shocks the living shit out of the people who were trying to get it to happen. We’ll never know now, but I bet you dollars to doughnuts that after the Twin Towers were hit, no one was more surprised than Osama. 

Americans, however, buy conspiracy theory hook, line and sinker. I’m truly not sure why this is. I suspect it’s because that, with all the flaws in its execution since 1776 and our tendency toward oligarchy, we were the first actual working democracy since Athens. And deep down, we actually want someone to be running our lives for us.

Whatever the reason, Americans on both sides of the political divide are equally susceptible to the Froggie in the Water Fallacy. And cynical operators on both sides of the political divide shamelessly, and disgustingly, exploit the gullibility of their fellow Americans. Here are three examples.

Boiled Toad One: Gun Control Will Land You in ObamAuschwitz.

The boiled toad here is a pretty simple one. If we let those Comm’nist Faggot Lib’rals exercise one, even jest oooooooooone lil’ ol’ lim’tation on our God-given, Sec’nd ‘Mendment guar’nteed rights to defend ourselves, they’ll take our guns away and force us into FEMA-run concentration camps!

Okay, this is just horseshit that flies directly in the face of common sense. Anyone who’s ever watched “Swamp People” knows how deeply ingrained guns are in American culture. And, at the risk of horrifying my fellow Liberals (and go fuck yourselves anyhow. I’m not a Liberal. I’m a goddamned fire-breathing dyed-in-the-wool full-fledged fire-breathing Radical. I spit on your pansy-assed Liberalism), that’s probably not a bad thing.

I’m not saying that we need guns. But we have them, and, properly taught, used, and regulated, I don’t see why we shouldn’t. We have cars. They kill more people than guns do every year, by a very wide margin. And if, God forbid, someone ever pulls the Giant Plug at the North Pole and we lose electricity forever (as I firmly believe will happen), we might very well need to shoot our own food and defend ourselves. Or if the Zombie Apocalypse ever happens (as I firmly believe will happen), we’ll need something besides a baseball bat to kill those undead sons of bitches.

Exhibit A for why we shouldn't (completely) outlaw guns. Besides, you  don't need Teflon-coated cop-killer bullets to kill a zombie. That's just overkill. 

Fact is, no matter how you feel about them, we’re just never, ever going to get rid of them, and I for one don’t think we should.

However.

My brother is a self-described gun nut. He has a Glock 9, a sawed-off shotgun, and an AK-47. He likes to buy produce—watermelons, cantaloupes, muskmelons, anything big enough to draw a bead on, really—and go out in the desert (he lives in Vegas) and shoot them. And he’ll be the first one to tell you that he shouldn’t have them. “I don’t need an assault rifle, JP,” he tells me. “And I definitely shouldn’t be able to waltz right into a gun shop in Vegas, and five minutes later, walk out with one of these things.”

Outlawing Teflon-coated, armor-piercing cop-killer bullets, 50-round magazines, and assault rifles will not, regardless of what those black-hearted fuckers at the NRA tell you, result in Uncle Buddy’s hunting rifle being taken away by the jackbooted Gestapo-thugs of our Kenyan-born president. Nor will having to wait for two weeks while A) you’re sobering up, cooling down, or being forced to actually think for a minute before you do something stupid, and B) a nice thorough background check to determine whether you’re the kind of person who can responsibly handle a gun is conducted.

The Brady Bill wasn’t about taking your guns away. It was about making you wait a bit before you actually got your hands on one. It wasn’t part of a sinister conspiracy, it was common sense. But you’d never guess that judging by the fuss the NRA jackoffs kicked up. And they convinced us that this was, cue the ominous music and the deep, sinister voice, “Just the beginning, muah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah!”

And instead of the cooling off period, we got Gabrielle Giffords, her staffer, and a nine year old girl. Dead. Because some fucking conspiracy-crazed nutjob who shouldn’t have been able to buy a screwdriver got his hands on an assault rifle with a magazine big enough to wipe out a small town. 

Boiled Frog Two. Abortion.

I just happen to be pro-life. I’ll explain why, with all the nuances and subtleties of my thoughts on the subject, in a subsequent blog post, God willing and the creek don’t rise. But in spite of the fact that I do consider a fetus to be a person—kind of, sort of—I don’t think that ought to seriously compromise my contention that late-term partial birth abortion is a completely fucking barbaric and disgusting process that ought to be outlawed.

But just try mentioning this in the circles in which I generally move, and you’d think I’d suggested that black people ought to be rounded up and sent back south to pick cotton.

“How dare you!” my fellow Progressives gasp in horror, their glasses of shiraz trembling in their hands. “Why... how DARE you! Take away a woman’s right to choose? Why, you... you Christian!”

Well, I’m not a Christian. Nor am I suggesting that Roe v. Wade be overturned. Nor do I think abortions ought to be outlawed—not for the first trimester, anyhow. I’m all about a woman’s right to choose. But Jesus... come on. Partial-birth abortion is, plain and simple, monstrous. And outlawing it is not, once more for emphasis, NOT, going to result in Roe v. Wade being overturned. Nor is it going to result in women being stripped of their rights to higher education, the vote, and to screw whomever, whenever, and however, they want. Outlawing the messy slaughter of a viable human being by sawing its head off and sucking its brains out—and yes, I’m sorry, that’s precisely what the procedure entails. Call a spade a damned spade—will not result in the end of reproductive freedom. It just isn’t.

And yet, once again, the alarmniks exploit Americans’ tendency toward conspiracy theory by boiling toads and summoning up the bogeyman of the Patriarchy and its gruesome attendants from Al Qaeda country—Honor Killings, Clitorectomies, and Forced Child Marriage.

Again, can we take off the tinfoil hat, exercise a little common sense, and admit that there’s no slippery slope in the offing?

Boiled Toad Three: The Sticky Icky Icky Will Reduce Your Life to a Bit Part in “Spun.”

For Christ’s sake, let’s legalize dope already. Go Green. Free Mary Jane. Smoke Up. Embrace Buddah-ism. Admit the Need for Weed. Pack the pipe, fire up the bong, spark the bowl, flame on fattie, anoint the joint, admit Cheech and Chong Ain’t Wrong, and let’s... just... legalize... dope.

And to any nitwits—and yes, that’s what you are—on the other side who oppose it, the facts are in.

1. Marijuana has not been linked to any health hazards. It’s not a neurotoxin, like alcohol (which is legal). It doesn’t contain carcinogens, like tobacco (which is legal).
2. No one has ever overdosed on marijuana. Because it’s not possible.
3. There is no evidence—none whatsoever—that marijuana is, in any way, a gateway drug.
4. Marijuana is really, really good for you if you have cancer. Or glaucoma. Or any of a number of other horrific diseases.

Face facts, folks. MJ is good stuff. It’s a hell of a lot better for you than liquor, for example. It’s better for society. When’s the last time you ever heard of anyone getting elevated and going home to beat their wife and kids? When’s the last time you heard of a broken-bottle fight breaking out at a Phil Lesh and Friends concert? When’s the last time you heard of a carful of teenagers wrapping itself around a telephone pole because the driver’d been toking?

It simply doesn’t happen. It just doesn’t.

Our asinine drug policy is what keeps our prisons full, putting zillions of your tax dollars into the hands of private corporations (who hire lobbyists to keep MJ illegal so that they can KEEP the prisons full, and thus charge your elected representatives more of your money. Sorry if that sounded conspiracy-theoryish. But it’s true).

It’s what finances the drug lords who sell the actual bad stuff, like heroin, crack, and crystal meth.

It drains our local, state, and federal governments of much-needed money that’s used to fight a “drug war,” and deprives them of a potential fuckload of tax revenue.

It actually makes it easier for kids to get it, not harder. I’m serious about that. Every high school kid in America knows a dealer. Hell, at the age of 40, I know three of them. Every kid in America, regardless of whatever school he or she attends, can get his or her hands on a dimebag in a New York minute. Alcohol, on the other hand, is a hell of a lot tougher to get. If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t have such timeless comedies as “Superbad” and “Teen Wolf.” Alcohol is tougher to get for one simple reason: it’s legal. And, thus, regulated. Which means that, instead of visiting my Uncle Louie of blessed memory, olov hasholem, him being the guy who knew how to brew his own beer, make his own wine, and triple-distill his own slivovitz, Michael J. Fox and McLovin had to go to a liquor store. Where they got carded. And cinematic hilarity and hi-jinks ensued.

But just let any elected official except Ron Paul say, “Oh, fuck it, let’s just legalize it already,” and here come the Toad Boilers in full force, shrieking that said elected official is probably Pablo Escobar’s bitch, and that legalizing dope is the First Step toward Hooking Our Kids On Hard Drugs and the Dissolution of Traditional Society and Probably The End of Civilization, and that From Legalizing Dope, It’s Only About Three Inches Down the Slippery Slope Toward Armageddon!

God Almighty. Wouldn’t it be refreshing if we could shake off our collective psychosis, take off our collective tinfoil hat, and say, “You know what, there really isn’t a Slippery Slope behind Door #3. We have common sense. We have the ability to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and lunatics without hacking the Second Amendment out of the Bill of Rights. We have the ability to legalize, regulate, and control a completely non-toxic substance without putting a crack pipe in the mouth of every toddler in America. And we have the ability to stop a truly horrifying process without chaining every woman to a stove while her husband beats the shit out of her, don’t we? Really? Don’t we?”

But that would entail actually using that common sense. And really, it’s just so much easier—and let’s admit it, more fun and profitable—to believe that the Bad Guys are secretly in control, pulling the puppet strings. Just ask that certifiable nutcase and conspiracy theorist Mel Gibson. He actually got a pretty good movie out of believing in Conspiracy Theory.

    

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* Some of the more popular include the Jews, the Freemasons, the Jesuits, the Rosicrucians, the Liberals, the atheists, Bolsheviks, Evangelicals, homosexuals, the Gnomes of Zurich, Al Qaeda, Zionists, the CIA, the Bilderbergers, the Trilateral Commission, the Bavarian Illuminati, aliens... there are simply too many to count. And they’re all baloney. Except for the Oil Lobby. Now that’s a REAL conspiracy.