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Jack is a graduate of Rutgers University where he majored in history. His career in the life and health insurance industry involved medical risk selection and brokerage management. Retired in Florida for over two decades after many years in NJ and NY, he occasionally writes, paints, plays poker, participates in play readings and is catching up on Shakespeare, Melville and Joyce, etc.

Sunday, January 15, 2017

News that Ain't News, a Wiley Cartoon, Gilbert's Lyrics and Who'll Discredit Whom?





Is it True What They Say About Donald?
The information which can be found around the periphery of the news concerning the President-Elect’s relationship with Russia is vague at best.  But it does raise several questions.
First, let us recognize that it is “unvetted” and unconfirmed information from sources which are very difficult to pin down.  It comes from the world of intelligence and spycraft where normal rules do not apply.  What we are hearing may be entirely fallacious or there may be a shred of truth to it.  Because of the kind of information it is, there may be more to it than the “unclassified” and unconfirmed tidbits which have leaked out, and let me repeat, there may be nothing whatsoever to it.  And bear in mind, the “leaking” of this information may be intentional. Originally, the source of it was hired to develop unfavorable information on the President-Elect by his opponents for the G.O.P. nomination, and later employed by the Democrats to some extent as well.  What kind of "source person" takes on such a job?  Finally, it seems that the FBI, and many in the media world, were aware of the source and the unconfirmed information involved for quite some time, and chose to keep quiet about it.
Here are some final thoughts on this subject which have occurred to me:
1.    This information, IF TRUE, is far more damaging than the thoroughly developed information about Hillary Clinton’s emails and the Clinton Family Foundation, yet up until now, it was not publicized, although it was known to some. Clearly, this was because of the extreme difficulty which confirming it would involve.  Without such verification, "news" is not yet "news."


                                            Trump in Russia for Miss Universe Contest in 2013
2.  The Russians have agreed with the President-Elect that the information is totally false.  But if the information happened to be true, they would be saying the same thing, so their agreement with Trump carries little weight. 
3.    The FBI’s not publicizing this information, into which they had been looking, contrasts with their readiness to release information in the form of letters regarding their unrelated investigation into the emails of former Congressman Weiner, which included emails from Huma Abedin, his estranged wife, and who also was Hillary Clinton’s assistant.  They jumped to release this information about Clinton before they fully investigated it and which a week later they confirmed as amounting to nothing, and which in the minds of some may have changed the outcome of the election ... while simultaneously sitting quietly on the unconfirmed information they were also investigating regarding Trump. The FBI Director is being asked by Congressional Democrats to explain this difference. Thus far, his answers have been vague and will probably never be more specific.

My personal conclusion is that the “unconfirmed’ information probably accurately describes what the Russians would have liked to have accomplished regarding their relationship with Donald Trump, but in reality, did not succeed in doing. I would expect that to solidify this view, Trump’s relationship with Vladimir Putin will become increasingly distant over the next few months.
Jack Lippman

A Non-Sequitur Cartoon

I’m a great fan of Wiley Miller’s Non-Sequitur cartoons.  Take a look at his cartoon for Sunday, January 15, 2017. Just Click Right Here, find the date and then when you see the first panel, click on “’Expand” for the full cartoon.
Its point is that “news” published by “real” media such as newspapers is usually verified, but that some material on the internet is more likely to be unverified “fake news,” preaching to those with already closed minds and who find it reassuring.  But click on the cartoon!  My words don't do it justice. 
While appearing in the “funny papers,” it isn’t funny.  Cartoonists who published this kind of thing in Germany during the Thirties disappeared … and you won’t find them in Putin’s Russia today either.
JL

Who's Doing the Discrediting?

Any attempts to discredit the incoming Administration will not be coming from Democrats so much as they will be originating in that very administration itself as it carries out Republican efforts to “drain the swamp,” and basically reduce the role of government in the lives of Americans.  Many Republicans, immersed in dreams of an irretrievable past peddled by its President, fail to recognize that our government plays a vital role in the lives of all Americans.
Messing around with Medicare, Affordable Healthcare, Social Security, Medicaid, Unemployment Benefits, Student Loans, Food and Drug regulation, Investment and Banking safeguards, Consumer Safety, Interstate Highways, Sexual Equality and basic guarantees of Constitutional Rights in efforts to “Make America Great” will disturb the millions of Americans who have come to accept and even cherish the role of government in these areas.  And for those who would scream out “socialism,” understand that “socialism” involves the government owning and operating a country’s means of production … and that is not what government does here, despite right wing views to the contrary.    
Some of these efforts will even run counter to the “promises” made by Donald Trump during the campaign and others will simply enrage the Americans who would be directly affected by any changes in the laws.
For example, on September 15, 2016, candidate Trump promised “when that (Ford) car comes back across the border into our country that now comes in free, we’re gonna charge them a 35 percent tax.”  Does anyone really expect Congress to invoke such a tariff?  When this doesn’t happen (and it won’t) and jobs lost to new technology and low cost foreign labor don’t come back, who is being discredited and by whom?  And whom will it anger?  Same thing goes for those coal mines which will never reopen.
On August   8, 2016, candidate Trump said “One of my first acts as president will be to repeal and replace disastrous Obamacare, saving another two million American jobs.”   When Obamacare is repealed, but not immediately replaced, or is finally replaced with a program more costly to the individual insureds, as is likely to be the case, who is being discredited and by whom?  Twenty million Americans insured for the first time through the Affordable Care Act will not be happy when this happens, and there is no record of Obamacare causing job losses.  Actually, increases in new healthcare jobs
far outstripped any job loss because of employers’ unwillingness to provide health coverage under the Affordable Care Act.  And those new jobs will be lost.  Whom will that discredit?
As the new Administration’s appointees, aside from the Departments of State and of Defense, reluctantly struggle to run their parts of the Executive Branch, they will confront a Congress which will make that struggle more difficult as it supports the vague promises Donald Trump made.  This will further discredit the Administration. 
The Democrats do not have to harp on the margin of popular votes by which Clinton defeated the President, the influence of Russia on the election nor the questionable pre-election role of FBI Director Comey in order to discredit the new President. All that is unnecessary.  Donald Trump, his Administration and the Republican majorities in Congress will easily take care of doing that discrediting themselves, as the Democrats watch.
Of course, to make sure America knows what is going on, a watchful and vocal press, which the President greatly fears, is necessary.  The media, including the press, is going to be the battleground on which the battle to keep America great is going to be fought over the next four years.  Their job will be to present the “truth,” which Americans must learn has neither a liberal nor a conservative bias.  Facts are facts.
The First Amendment to the Constitution includes these words: Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”  But that Constitution is not so specific in regard to what a President might do in issuing Executive Orders.  The words attributed to many great Americans, “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” must not be forgotten.
JL


The Major General Song

Having just ordered tickets for a forthcoming production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance,” I recognize that beside Sullivan’s music, understanding the tricky rhymes in Gilbert’s lyrics is vital to enjoying the performance!  They laid the groundwork for the clever lyrics of more modern Broadway musicals.  ("I got the horse right here, his name is Paul Revere," "With a little bit of luck, with a little bit of luck" etc.) Incidentally, "Pirates" did not open in London.  It opened in New York City first!

One cannot come in “cold” and expect to catch all the words of songs like the “Modern Major General” without some preparation.  They will fly by the listener too rapidly to be understood, so it’s best to be a little familiar with them beforehand. With that in mind, I googled the following lyric … and am sharing it with you.  Gilbert wrote it as a “spoof” of the British career military officer class.  And finally, “sat a gee” translates from the slang of the day to mean “sat on a horse.”


The Major General's Song


GENERAL: 
          I am the very model of a modern Major-General,
          I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
          I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical
          From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;
          I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,
          I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
          About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news,
          With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.

ALL:  With many cheerful facts, etc.

GENERAL:   
          I'm very good at integral and differential calculus;
          I know the scientific names of beings animalculous:
          In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
          I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

ALL:  In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
          He is the very model of a modern Major-General.

GENERAL:   
          I know our mythic history, King Arthur's and Sir Caradoc's;
          I answer hard acrostics, I've a pretty taste for paradox,
          I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus,
          In conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous;
          I can tell undoubted Raphaels from Gerard Dows and Zoffanies,
          I know the croaking chorus from the Frogs of Aristophanes!
          Then I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's din afore,
          And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.

ALL:  And whistle all the airs, etc.

GENERAL:
          Then I can write a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform,
          And tell you ev'ry detail of Caractacus's uniform:
          In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
          I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

ALL:  In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
          He is the very model of a modern Major-General.

GENERAL: 
          In fact, when I know what is meant by "mamelon" and "ravelin",
          When I can tell at sight a Mauser rifle from a javelin,
          When such affairs as sorties and surprises I'm more wary at,
          And when I know precisely what is meant by "commissariat,"
          When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern gunnery,
          When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery --
          In short, when I've a smattering of elemental strategy,
          You'll say a better Major-General has never sat a gee.

ALL:  You'll say a better Major-General, etc.

GENERAL:
          For my military knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury,
          Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;
          But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
          I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

ALL: But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
         He is the very model of a modern Major-General.

Now isn't that one great line, "I know more of tactics that a novice in a nunnery,"  worthy of Oscar Hammerstein or Lorenz Hart, both of whom were fans of Gilbert's work?


JL



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