Another Letter of Mine Published!
Of interest to ‘local’ followers of Jackspotpourri, here’s a letter from me published in the Palm Beach Post on January 2. It pertains to the city of Boynton Beach which has been talking about annexing the unincorporated areas to its west. They edited it, tightening it up a bit, but it is pretty much what I wrote:
‘The Post’s editorial of December 18 pointed out that the city (Boynton Beach) lacked ‘the luxury of swatches of oceanfront property, a big generator of tax revenues and tourist dollars for any community with beachfront access.’
Things were not always that way. In 1931, over a tax dispute regarding the rising debt load of the Town of Boynton, then on the verge of bankruptcy, Boynton sold off almost all of its oceanfront, giving birth to communities like Ocean Ridge and Briny Breezes, and hypocritically changed its name to Boynton Beach, although it was left with no more than a small beach reserved for a park.
Apparently, their present efforts at annexation of the areas to its west are just another attempt to solve the financial problems for which a quick fix, giving up its oceanfront property, left it practically beachless 93 years ago. There is no reason to believe the problems of 1931 have gone away or that the present government is capable of permanently solving them, either within the city’s present or hoped-for expanded boundaries.’
(I reside in ‘unincorporated’ Boynton Beach.)
JL
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Wrestling with the Truth
Professor Heather Cox Richardson (in her ‘Letters from an American’ posting of December 26) in discussing the president-elect’s treating politics like ‘professional’ wrestling, quoted German-American historian and philosopher Hannah Arendt.
In her 1951 ‘The Origins of Totalitarianism,’ Arendt wrote that “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction…and the distinction between true and false no longer exist.”
The absence of those two distinctions well describes ‘professional’ wrestling, to which Donald Trump often refers. I am awaiting to see what ambassadorship ‘Hulk Hogan,’ whom you may recall tore off his shirt, a trademark stunt of his, at the Republican Convention, gets. (I hear he may end up in Copenhagen where his musculature might be useful in Trump’s desire to annex Greenland.)
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| Hulk Hogan at the G.O.P |
Meanwhile, Trump has already named Linda MacMahon, former CEO of WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) and a former wrestling performer herself to be Secretary of Education, a post he plans on abolishing anyhow. Not without government experience, MacMahon did serve in Trump’s earlier administration as an administrator in the Small Business Administration.
With her background in ‘professional’ wrestling, she is already familiar with the challenges presented by this most ignorant, gullible, if not stupid, portions of our population, those who take that species of entertainment seriously, and are sorely in need of ‘education.’
MacMahon’s experience is not in the kind of wrestling which is a true ‘sport’ and takes place internationally in the Olympics, in colleges, high schools, and serious amateur groups. These true athletic activities should not be confused with the ‘burlesque’ of them in which she, Hogan, and apparently the president-elect are involved. ‘Grotesque exaggeration or comic imitation’ are the parts of the following ‘burlesque’ definition that describes what they call ‘wrestling.’ Really, it has no place in Washington where there already are too many clowns.
(Here is the Merriam-Webster definition of ‘burlesque.’ 1 - literature : a literary or dramatic work that seeks to ridicule by means of grotesque exaggeration or comic imitation, 2 - mockery usually by caricature, 3 - theatrical entertainment of a broadly humorous, often earthy, character consisting of short turns, and sometimes striptease acts.)
JL
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The Seven Ages of Man
(From ‘As You Like It,’ spoken by Jacques, the Duke’s house philosopher)
Back in the Jackspotpourri posting of December 17, William Shakespeare’s comedy, ‘As You Like It,’ was discussed. These famous words of advice given to the exiled Duke were mentioned, but here they are in their entirety, with several footnotes to clarify a few points.
"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players,
They have their exits and entrances and in one man's time he plays many parts,
his acts being seven ages.
At first the infant, mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then, the whining schoolboy with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school. And then the lover, sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad made to his mistress' eyebrow.
Then a soldier, full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, (1) jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannon's mouth.
And then the justice in fair round belly, with good capon lin'd, (2)
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut, full of wise saws (3), and modern instances, and so he plays his part.
The sixth age shifts into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon, (4) with spectacles on nose, and pouch on side, his youthful hose (5) well sav'd, a world too wide for his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice, turning again towards childish treble, pipes and whistles in his sound.
Last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. (6)”
Footnotes:
(1) I think Shakespeare was confusing leopards with lions, which have manes or beards.
(2) Capons, then ‘luxury food,’ were often gifted to justices as bribes.
(3) Sayings.
(4) From a character in the Venetian theatre, an ‘old geezer,’ already ‘losing it.’
(5) Full length tights, not just footwear.
(6) Even though the play was set in England, written in English, Shakespeare concludes in French, which he and most theatregoers understood.
Agree with ‘Jaques’ or not, this contains some thoughts to carry into 2025, regardless of one’s station in life.
JL
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Some think David Brooks, New York Times columnist is a liberal. Others think him to be a conservative. I see him as trying to be on all sides simultaneously, speaking his mind. Here is his Dec. 27 piece from the Times in which he explored the growing conflict within the Republicans, and specifically, among its MAGA devotees.
Why the New Fight Inside MAGA Matters So Much (Dynamists versus Stasists) By David Brooks - Opinion Columnist
“Americans used to be enthusiastic about the idea of progress. If you had attended any of the World’s Fairs that were put on over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries in cities like Philadelphia, St. Louis, Chicago and New York, you would have seen great festivals celebrating the wonders of the future. If you went to Disneyworld, you could have visited Tomorrowland and the Carousel of Progress.
But gradually intellectuals and then lots of other people lost faith in progress, in the idea that growth, technology and innovation would make the future better than the past. In 2011 Virginia Postrel published a book called “The Future and Its Enemies,” arguing that the true division in politics is not left vs. right but dynamists vs. stasists. Dynamists believe in open-ended change. Stasists are in protective mode. We don’t need to rush pell-mell into the future, they say; we need to take care of our own.
This conflict is now roiling the Republican Party. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are dynamists. They want to welcome talented immigrants to the American economy for the same reason the New York Mets are spending over $700 million to sign Juan Soto. You could field a team with all native-born players, but you couldn’t hope to compete with the best in the world.
This has elicited howls of outrage from those who want to restrict immigration, including supporters of canceling the H-1B visa program for skilled immigrants. We should be employing Americans in these jobs, those on MAGA’s rightward edge respond.
The vaunted technological progress the dynamists worship has ripped American communities to shreds.
This is not a discrete one-off dispute. This is the kind of core tension you get in your party when you do as Trump has done: taken a dynamic, free-market capitalist party and infused it with protective, backward-looking, reactionary philosophy.
We’re going to see this kind of dispute also when it comes to economic regulation, trade, technology policy, labor policy, housing policy and so on.
It’s normal for people like me to have contempt for the reactionaries. We’re in an epic race with China over the future, over who will master A.I. and other technologies. Of course we need to attract the world’s best talent.
But the reactionaries have a point. One of my favorite sayings from psychology is that all of life is a series of daring explorations from a secure base.
The reactionaries are right to point out that the past few decades of go-go change have eviscerated many people’s secure bases — stable families, vibrant hometowns, plausible career paths for those who didn’t want to go to college, the stable values that hold communities together.
I don’t know if Trumpism will ever evolve into a serious governing force, but if it does, then resolving the tension between its dynamists and its stasists will be its chief mission — that is, giving regular people a sense that they are being taken care of and seen, so that they feel secure enough to welcome all the bounty that skilled immigrants and technological change bring to our lives.
In its own cranky way, MAGA is now having an interesting internal debate.”
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(In her Dec. 27 “Letters from an American.” Professor Heather Cox Richardson also wrote about this internal debate within the G.O.P. citing many specific examples. By now, you should know how to find her site. That both of these pundits have chosen to address this issue emphasizes its importance.)
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And guess who blamed a series of 1990s TV sitcoms for what he saw as a decline in U.S. dynamism in science and technology, leading tech companies to hire more qualified foreign-born and first-generation workers over their mentally lazy American counterparts!
Vivek Ramaswarmy, that’s who, a loyal Trumpster also involved in seeking government efficiency along with Elon Musk in their proposed DOGE program, recently wrote that ‘a culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,’ and that ‘a culture that venerates Cory from Boy Meets World or Zach & Slater over Screech in Saved by the Bell, or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in Family Matters will not produce the best engineers.’
Obviously in favor of the H-1B visas and similar ‘doorways’ for foreign engineers and scientists, along with Elon Musk, this angered the hypocritical MAGA supporters who oppose all immigrants as job stealers from Americans, but who are quite willing to hire them to mow their lawns, pick their fruit, and do the construction industry’s dirtier and most dangerous jobs.
JL
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Looking in the Mirror
Few people (at least down here in semi-literate Floriduh) read newspapers any longer. Even their ‘online’ circulation is dropping. But I still do, and I will, until they go the way of outdoor pay telephone booths, continue to pass on important items from the papers, like the David Brooks New York Times piece included above.
Another one worthy of your interest, is a ‘Your Turn’ column from the December 28 Palm Beach Post, and is here reproduced:
Your Turn - T. Robinson Ahlstrom - Guest columnist
“I’m starting with the man in the mirror, Take a look at look at yourself and then make a change.' … Michael Jackson
“
America’s recent election handed us a mirror in which we can see ourselves as we really are. The votes of 155,992,024 citizens present a faithful image, 'warts and all.'
It was a close election in which the winner received 49.9 percent of the vote while the runner-up received 48.3 percent. While neither candidate received a majority, the disturbing visage in the mirror demands a close look.
We see a nation in which deceit, debauchery, corruption, and outright criminal behavior have become entirely acceptable. After a decade of excusing the inexcusable and accepting the unacceptable, we have become thoroughly demoralized. Eighty percent of those fine, church-going folk who fashion themselves as 'the moral majority' led the charge to make an infamously immoral man our chief magistrate.
For a plurality of Americans, character no longer counts.
But race does. This election reminded the whole world that racism is not merely America’s original sin, but our besetting sin. The winner, who launched his first campaign by calling Mexican immigrants 'rapists,' kicked off his second with the oft-repeated claim that 'undocumented immigrants are poisoning the blood of our nation.' Racism was not a footnote to his campaign. It was his campaign. Carefully crafted racial slurs, thinly veiled as concern over immigration, public safety, or employment security, formed the heart of his message.
The man we chose to become our 47th president ran the most consistent, cynical, and cleverly racist campaign in American history.
Democrats, always talking about the future and 'the arc of history,' can’t face this reality, and Republicans, who always varnish and venerate the past, won’t admit it but racism still sells in America. This narrow election was not decided by the price of eggs.
Like it or not, the man in the mirror is not only amoral and bigoted. He is also proudly anti-intellectual — a characteristic as American as apple pie.
Since the nation’s founding, a key component of our national character has been what Isaac Asimov dubbed 'a cult of ignorance' — a perverse notion that, in a democracy, one person’s ignorance is just as good as another person’s knowledge.
In the 2024 election, this quintessential feature of American culture manifested itself as a virulent popular distain of the educated by the less educated, a suspicion of science and science-based facts, and a distrust bordering on disdain for all expertise and institutional authority.
The man we just elected is no Thomas Jefferson. He boasted that he 'loves poorly educated people' and promises to close the Department of Education. He gives face and voice to their contempt for those of intellect, virtue or expertise. Sadly, the man in the mirror — Time Magazine’s 'Man of the Year' — is who we have become.
The election of 2024 featured the world’s richest man, who had recently purchased and poisoned one of the world’s premier information platforms, contributing $277 million to the corrupt and corruptible candidate of his choice. From Monterey to Montauk, races were bought and sold as openly as a used Toyota on Craigslist.
Before you protest that 'the man in the mirror is not me,' remember that elections produce a family photo and we are all in it.
Religion without morality. Racism without apology. Ignorance compounded by arrogance. Corruption and greed without shame. That is who 'we the people' have become.”
(T. Robinson Ahlstrom is a university administrator and Chair of The George Washington Scholars Endowment. He is an independent who has consulted with and written for office holders in both political parties.)
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Sad indeed.
JL
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Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it.
JL
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