Politicklers, Chanel No. 5 Aroma for Free and Kipling's "IF"

I apologize.  I thought I would be able to continue this blog WITHOUT including items of political interest.  I suppose I could but that would be like cooking without salt, pepper, cilantro, paprika, oregano, basil, curry, red wine vinegar or extra virgin olive oil … not to speak of true-down-home southern barbecue sauce.  So, this posting resumes the presence of politics on Jackspotpourri.com.

 

I got started doing this with a few friends back in 1964, when Lyndon Johnson was running for President against Barry Goldwater.  We devised a bumper sticker reading “Goldwater in 1864,” implying that the Republican candidate was a century behind the times.  We called our operation “Politicklers,” and actually sold about a dozen stickers, after running an ad in the Village Voice.  Occasionally, I’ve used “Politicklers” as a heading on this blog, and that’s what I’ll be doing in today’s posting.

Politicklers

Is This the Plan? - It’s clear that the new Attorney General will reserve the right to keep portions of the Mueller report, when it comes out, from being available to the public.  I suspect that the only content which might result in his doing that would

Mueller

involve either national security or information involving the President of the United States, the release of which might initiate an unprecedented Constitutional crisis.  When confidentially presented with this possibility, the President might choose to resign, ostensibly for health reasons, in exchange for a pledge that the information be kept permanently from the public, and the Congress not act upon it.  Should he not though, the ultimate result of the release of that information, either officially or through “leakage,” could have unpredictable and heretofore unimaginable results.

Buzzfeed Scoop (?) - Last week, online news site Buzzfeed reported that former

Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s allegation that DJT asked him to lie before investigators regarding his Russian business connections was supported by other evidence Special Prosecutor Mueller’s team had developed.  The Mueller team was quick to break precedent and deny that as inaccurate.  Why?  My gut guess is that Buzzfeed’s informants, probably not part of Mueller’s tight-lipped team, revealed that information without knowing the extent to which the Special Prosecutor had it “nailed down” and Mueller’s people felt its premature release would somehow hamper their efforts to present unchallengeable information in their final report.

Edukayshinal Kredenshils - Although I am a retired senior citizen, I still well remember those years when I was still in school.  I remember much of what I learned at Peshine Avenue School and at Weequahic High School back in Newark and at Rutgers University as well as from assorted other educational experiences I have had.  I remember some of the teachers, instructors and professors as well as a good chunk, I hope, of whatever it was they were trying get me to learn.  I think, to a lesser or greater extent, most seniors can recall the same things.

Fordham University

This causes me to wonder if Donald J. Trump ever actually attended the New York Military Academy, Fordham University, the University of Pennsylvania and its Wharton School, or whether a paid “stand-in” showed up in classes and took exams for him at these otherwise reputable institutions.  No one with this kind of supposed educational background can possibly display the gross ignorance the President exhibits almost daily.  When asked during the 2016 campaign what books he had read, he replied, “All Quiet on the Western Front.”  Conceivably, that might have been a reading assignment he remembered from the military academy he supposedly attended, but I wonder if he even knows its author’s name.  Along the way, should he not have been exposed to required Literature, History and Foreign Language courses at these schools?

Frankly, I doubt that the President has more than an elementary school education.  The other day, in denying the almost daily suspicions voiced that he was illicitly involved with Russia, he said such a claim was “a big fat lie.”  Saying that something is a “big fat anything” comes right out of any elementary school schoolyard.  It is not something adults say.  Ten yearolds use such language. Someday, someone will investigate whether his family made generous donations to the institutions Trump is said to have attended and whether he ever actually showed up there in person.

Adjective vs Noun – The presence of an adjective explains or describes a noun’s qualities. A noun itself, without such a modifier, stands alone, even if another noun is tacked onto it instead of an adjective.  When that happens, its meaning is determined by whatever pre-judgements (prejudices?) whomever is using the expanded pair of nouns may have.  If those prejudices are negative ones, they define both nouns negatively for listeners.  Example:  While someone may not be bigoted when he states that he bought something from a Jewish businessman, that certainly is not true when he says he bought it from a Jew businessman.  See the difference?  Get it?  That’s known as the pejorative use of a noun in place of an adjective.

   

Back in 1948, perennial G.O.P. Presidential nominee Harold Stassen started referring to the Democratic Party as the Democrat Party, using the noun in a pejorative sense as explained above.  He took away the benevolent sound of the adjective “democratic” leaving the opposing party’s name defined only by the naked noun, “Democrat,” which lacked the expanded meaning of the Party’s true name, which of course is the “Democratic Party.”

To this day, Republicans still do this, and most terrifyingly, its use has crept into use by journalists, particularly on radio and TV, even those favorably inclined toward Democrats. It even occasionally appears in the language of Democrats!  I heard it used recently at a Democratic Party gathering by a high Democratic official.  They should know better.  Its use makes Republicans feel good, particularly when someone other than a Republican is using this kind of pejorative language.

The “Socialism” Myth - Many Republican voters and Trump supporters believe right-wing liars (like *those found daily on Fox News) who point out that the Democratic Party is leaning leftward toward such ideas as Single Payer Health Care (Medicare for all?), free or reduced tuition at colleges and developing tax strategies aimed at wealth redistribution, and that such steps are “socialism” and to be condemned as such. They say they will lead to our country toward becoming another “Venezuela.”

Baloney!  Government at all levels does a lot of things already (our armed forces, interstate highways, financial, environmental and consumer regulation, agricultural subsidies, the Affordable Care Act, Social Security, Medicare, small business assistance, public schools, police and fire departments, parks, zoning laws, water and sewer facilities, drug and food safety regulation, etc.) and these are not considered “socialism” except by those extreme libertarians who want to privatize everything under the sun!  (These buffoons usually claim to have read Ayn Rand, but judging by the length and plodding wordiness of “Atlas Shrugged,” I doubt that they have, even Senator Rand Paul, who is named after her.)

Socialism, by definition, involves the nationalization of a nation’s means of production and distribution of goods.   Note carefully that none of the areas listed above involve producing, manufacturing or distributing anything.  Neither would more government participation in progressive programs improving health care, education or tax relief for the middle and bottom economic classes be “socialism.”  Anyone who claims that it would be, is, in the words of our President, “a big fat liar.”

* (Hannity, Ingraham, Carlson, Pirro, etc.)

Jack Lippman

Free Chanel No. 5 Fragrance

A few years ago, when my son was living with me for a while, he purchased two Ylang-Ylang tree seedlings and potted them on our patio.  After a year or so, he transplanted one out behind our house and it is now about twenty feet tall.  Last year, I had the remaining one moved to the front of the house where it now reaches up about twelve feet. 

In 1921, Coco Chanel introduced what is probably the world’s most famous perfume, Chanel No. 5.  Its unmistakable aroma is derived from roses, jasmine and the blossoms of the Ylang Ylang tree, which seems to be the catalyst in its fragrance. 

Ylang Ylang blossom

Both of my Ylang Ylang trees are now in blossom (they bloom intermittently throughout the year) and those who know where I live are welcome to come and reach for a blossom, gently remove it, sniff it and rub it behind their ears.  

For all intents and purposes, this will accomplish the same results as Chanel No. 5, for which a 3.4 oz. spray bottle of ‘eau de parfum’ is currently priced at $172.  But watch for the bees.

JL

IF

This poem by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was published in 1910.  Many of us were exposed to it back in high school.   Kipling wrote it for his son, but it still rings true today for us.

If you can keep your head when all about you
   Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
   But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
   Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
   And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
   If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
   And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
   Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
   And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
   And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
   And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
   To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
   Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
   Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
   If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—
   Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

JL

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