Sound and Fury, Signifying Something

Some observers don’t like political debates because we’re not electing a chief debater, we are electing a president.

Bah, humbug, I say. I found two nights with 10 candidates a bit exhausting, yet still worthwhile. The anti-debate argument is the same that was used in the 19th century when it was considered unseemly for men (back then it was always men) to campaign at all—the thinking being then that a head of state was not a campaigner, and it somehow tarnished the “royalty” of a president to have him do something gauche like ask for votes.

I do not think my vote for president should be solely, or mainly, based on debate performance—but, on the other hand, I think these spectacles are useful because they do give other voters and me a chance to do quick side-by-side comparisons and to “meet” many candidates. Before debates, campaigns were often contests of political advertising, so I appreciate that these events counterbalance that a bit.

Besides, while it’s true a president does not have to debate anyone directly, they do have to publicly articulate ideas and lead by what they say. They do have to make a case and counter ideas and persons that they oppose. And when they fail in that, well, consider the legitimate distress caused by the obvious communication incompetence of the clearly worst president in our nation’s history, Donald the Tweeter Twit Trump.

Anyway, I watched both debates this week. It was a bit easier for me Tuesday night—I found the Wednesday debate a bit harder to follow, a bit wonkier and a lot less positive.

Yet, I’m glad I watched.

The CNN moderators practically displaced their shoulders patting themselves on the back after the first night. I didn’t agree. They were not horrible, but their questions were often deliberately designed to pit candidate vs. candidate, which adds to the drama of the event but doesn’t do enough to show me the substance—that is, rather than provoke a fight between these people, prod them on how their ideas work or don’t work.

A few candidates did stand out to me as doing well in the two debates this week. Here is my list of debate winners, and why I liked their performances (images from Wikimedia commons or Wikipedia):

 Sen. Elizabeth Warren: She was calm, spoke well, and didn’t go after her chief rival for the progressive wing of the party, Sen. Bernie Sanders. She seems a force to be reckoned with, and I admit I would find it delicious to see her debate Donald Trump.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar: Increasingly, my girl. If I had to caucus today, I would be in team Amy. On Tuesday night, she kept more attention on the Don, and contrasting herself with Trump, than many other candidates did. I appreciate a relatively moderate Democrat with a bit of feistiness, and I like the way she emphasized the integrity card. Amy, you’re no Donald Trump. I am not declaring that I am on team Amy today—there are months before the caucus and I’m still shopping around—just that if I had to pick today, Senator Klobuchar’s Tuesday performance would seal the deal for me.

Sen. Cory Booker: I found the Kool-Aid line confusing—I doubt anybody ever knows the flavor because that odd, artificial drink rarely has a distinct flavor. But Cory stood out in being bright, witty and, above all, happy to be there. I like a warrior who relishes the battle—politics should have some sense of joy, and it looked like Senator Booker was having some fun in the fight. He also made positive appeals. “We know in this country our fates are united.” Nice reminder, sir, and on a lackluster second debate night, you spoke well. I like the idea of a Klobuchar-Booker ticket.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard: I had not given her much thought before, she seemed like an obscure, second tier candidate. I am not on team Tulsi yet—as I noted before I’m a bit more of an Amy fan, but the congresswoman from Hawaii seemed like a woman of substance and passion. I wish, like Corey, that she had a bit more fun, too, but Tulsi seemed to have more depth than I expected.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand: Her explanation of white privilege was a little odd because the context was how to appeal to white voters, not now to put them in their place, but still—damn, girl. You were totally, and startlingly, right on target.

A good debate night is not a whole campaign. I’m fond of several other candidates who did not stand out on debate night. Julián Castro is still high on my list of maybe, for example. And Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana needs to do more than point out he won a governor’s race in a Trump state—but he spoke well Tuesday night, and I like the idea of a moderate governor as a candidate.

There were many who did poorly, too. I don’t understand that attraction of Marianne Williamson, nor why some commentators thought she had a good night Tuesday. I found her to be the crazy snake oil lady who prattles on about “causes” and love—not exactly spouting nonsense, but in that neighborhood. And that voice. Who would voluntarily want to be spoken to by the stern hippie nun of the candidates? Marianne, if we need a revolution, I want Pete to lead it, please.

And then there is Pete Buttigieg. I had heard him use his zinger—the Republicans will call us socialists anyway—line before. For me, he had an off night, although he also still seems quite intelligent. I continue to list him among my maybes.

The same week we had the Democrats debate, we had continuing rants form our dumpster fire of a president. Somehow, it surprised no one that the debate moderator he singled out for criticism was the one African-American on the panel. No, Donald Trump, Don Lemon is not the dumbest person on TV. You’re still there.

Anyway, who did you like in the debates, and why?

“Rocketman”: Testing my Musical Tolerance

Have you seen the Elton John biopic “Rocketman”?

I have. And for the first half of the film, I was a bit disappointed. For a biopic, it uses fantasy—it’s like a life told in a dreamscape, and when dancers suddenly start prancing at a fair and singing “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting,” the movie didn’t quite work that well for me. I wasn’t into its universe. And I don’t like a title that uses “Alright” rather than “All Right.” It’s two words, Sir Elton.

I didn’t hate the movie. I don’t hate Elton John music. But neither is central to my universe. John’s music, for me, was an artifact of the late 1970s, not a great musical era, in my opinion.

Still, the movie grew on me and slowly drew me in. The Alcoholics Anonymous scenes that had been odd at the start become a bit more real, the segue between them and memory more powerful. By the time of the pool scene, the fantastical, dreamy nature of the story telling was going down more smoothly
.

And, in the end, I did enjoy the film. I am not even sure why I resisted at first. After all, I grew up on musicals, so I’m not one of those people who are irritated when dancers show up and interrupt the narrative. I recall a co-worker at a previous job 20 years complaining that she had watched a Clint Eastwood movie, and all of a sudden there was all this singing.

She was complaining about “Paint Your Wagon,” to me the best and most entertaining Clint Eastwood movie of all time.

The early albums my parents bought, besides Homer and Jethro, were Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Maybe it was that the music in this movie didn’t always fit or serve the narrative all that well. Maybe I didn’t relate to the fantasy early 1960s theme. Maybe the indifferent parents seemed too two-dimensional for real people in a real life.

But by the end, the rumination on the nature of rock and roll fame and its price was interesting.

And, in the end, I couldn’t help but wonder about a few things. I would have liked to see “Candle in the Wind,” for example—either or both versions. Or a bit more about his financial crash and recovery, as well as his personal one.

It seemed a more straight telling of a narrative, despite its dreamlike feel, than “Bohemian Rhapsody,” for example, and yet the Queen film was more powerful. Maybe I’m just a sucker for cheap movie emotional tricks.

Maybe I need to return more to my Rodgers and Hammerstein roots.

The Saga of Sarah Comes to a Close

From Wikipedia, official government portrait used for press secretary twitter account.

I don’t appreciate some liberals who have mocked Sarah Huckabee Sanders—sure, she graduated form a Baptist university in Arkansas, but she was never empty. I teach at a private, religious university, too--and it's a place where future American leaders can be educated. Presidents don't all have to come from Harvard. And comments about her appearance were just as misogynist as comments conservatives made about Hillary Clinton’s wardrobe choices and face.

As this New Yorker story covers, Sanders is a pretty savvy political creature. She is a smart lady.

It’s not a joke that she might get to be governor of Arkansas. She might even someday be our first female president—after all, as Donald Trump showed, truth telling is not a requirement for the highest office in the land these days.

But Sanders was a terrible press secretary. Despite private rapport with reporters, she very publicly was perfectly willing to echo to worst lies of the worst president in U.S. history, and showed his public contempt for the press. A press secretary, even one for a lying president, has no business lying to reporters, as Sanders did repeatedly.

Still, there is another side of the story. The Washington press core is elitist and liberal. That doesn’t mean they don’t have an important role that most of them take seriously and professionally try to fulfill, but I don’t see any point in denying that a particular side of the political spectrum is over-represented in the Washington press.

And yet—it’s not the White House’s place to choose who covers the White House. The press, flawed and biased as it is, is there to get answers for the American people. Journalists have an important function in our democracy, one that Huckabee Sanders, representing her authoritarian boss, publicly attacked.

The president will no doubt name a new press secretary. Who it is may make some difference, but probably not much. This deeply flawed, anti-American president has declared the media the “enemy” of the American people, and his press secretaries have merely been the front line troops in his ongoing war with truth and facts and the American way.

And the sad truth is that much of the Republican base agrees with Trump, partly out of frustration at the sense of being looked down on by media elites. And, like Trump, Sanders is not what’s wrong with the modern Republican party—her flawed press secretary tenure represented a very real, and very dangerous anti-media bias that today is common up and down the Republican party. In Iowa, too many Republican candidates have refused, for instance, to participate in media voter guide questionnaires or meetings with newspaper editorial boards. That’s a dangerous and too common precedent.

The mainstream media is an endangered species these days. The staffs of newsrooms have been severely cut back since the 2008 recession. Republicans seem to relish the extinction of the species. That’s a mistake. Liberal bias or not, journalism is the lifeblood of a democracy. The Republican party seems full of vampires who are willing to drain that blood.

And Sarah is an intelligent, determined and dangerous blood sucker who sadly is very much at home in that party.

Memoir, Michelle Style

Have you read “Becoming” by Michelle Obama?

I think you should. Robert Mueller told us all to read the report, and I actually bought a copy (along with several Donald Westlake book) in a San Francisco book store.

And while visiting the West Coast, I was visiting with Michelle, too. "Becoming" is what I read on the plane ride there and in the evening. I liked her story for lots of reasons, not the least of which that we both grew up in the Midwest in the same era. She’s younger than me, and Chicago is not Clinton, Iowa, nor Muscatine, Iowa—but it was interesting how, when Barak ran for president, Michelle Obama found that she could relate with Iowans.

Chicago is not that far away, and I felt some kinship with Michelle Obama.

The book has a point of view—it is written by a Democrat, clearly. But she is not exactly a political animal in the sense that her life partner is—in fact, I can sympathize with her desire to not be in politics, although I honestly would vote for Michelle Obama for just about anything.

She came from roots I can relate to, and struggled with her public life in terms that I could understand. I miss President Obama, partly because he had an eloquence sadly lacking in our current president. It’s nice to have proof that his life partner is similarly gifted.

I left my book in San Francisco. I hope my son and daughter-in-law will enjoy it—I did.

Loved browsing at City Lights in San Francisco--above, what came home with me, below, the store, a crowded, interesting quirky shrine to literacy.

President Trump Can’t Handle the Truth

Senator John McCain and family at dedication of ship in 1992. The destroyer is named for the Senator's father and grandfather, both Navy admirals, although he himself was a Navy pilot.

I watched, along with millions of others, the statement by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

It was a systematic take down of the fake news spread by our lying fake president, and in the next 24 hours, Trump went ballistic, showing his instinct to always lash out at anything that diminishes the glory of Trump. At first, he admitted Russia helped, but he’s quickly erased with his assertion that only he won the presidency.

Seal of the ship. Not to be seen in Japan.

In the meantime, the governments has not been focused by its Dear Leader on coordinated action to protect our democratic system.

And another little morality play has been enacted in plain sight to show the pettiness and small-mindedness of the “best people.” During a visit to Japan, the Wall Street Journal reports that the White House directed the Navy to obscure the name of a destroyer that was in port for repairs: The John S. McCain.

I have not read any reports that Tangerine Hitler was personally involved in that, and controlling the optics of any presidential visit is always a priority for any White House. But, this seems beyond business as usual for several reasons: 1) The Navy was directed to dishonor one of its own genuine heroes by the team of shysters put together by a draft dodger; and 2) The reasons the optics would seem bad are themselves bad, reflecting on the poor character of the hollow soul currently occupying the Oval Office.

White House image: "Worst President Ever"

The Mueller statement is more important, of course. This president is manifestly unfit for office, and I don’t care which of the two dozen democrats nominated runs in 2020—he needs to be ousted. By the dead bones of James Buchanan if nobody else.

Because he’s not going to be removed by the horrible old white men who run the Republican Senate, no matter how awful and lawless he seems. Trump has the Republican Party behind him, which raises the question: Why is anybody backing the Republican Party?

Anyway, this has been yet again another sad week for American government. This train wreck of an administration keeps finding new lows. The next president will spend years cleaning up the mess that Trump leaves behind.

And yet, Tangerine Hitler does have a shot at re-election. He’s got the money and the party behind him, and a hard core of supporters who won’t jump ship no matter what awful thing the Dear Leader does.

I’ve not given up on American democracy. It’s weathered dark times before. But I think we’re long overdue for some repairs in our system—and lets not cover up any names from our history as we work on that long-term project.

Trump was right about one thing during his fact-averse 2016 campaign. We will erect statues of him when he’s done. They will say: “Worst President Ever.”

The Importance of the Campus Newspaper Experience

I don’t doubt that we’re headed for a post-newspaper world, but I am not in a hurry to get there.

Take The Gazette, for instance. Our local newspaper, which arrives at my house frustratingly late each morning, nonetheless provides an important forum that both covers the news and provides important local commentary on it.

And recently, two former editors of the MMU Times, the campus newspaper that I advise, had interesting guest columns published in The Gazette.

Image posted by The Gazette on Aime Wichtendahl's column.

Aime Wichtendahl, a member of the city council of Hiawatha, a contiguous city with Cedar Rapids, wrote about the impact of proposed property tax caps at the state level. I like to think Aime’s experience as Editor-in-Chief of the MMU Times made the column a bit easier for her to write.

Erika Brighi,
posted by Gazette.

And Erika Brighi, a former managing editor of the MMU Times, explained the “100 Who Care” program in her guest column. Erika was both a writer and gifted photographer, and I know she has carried on the photography interest—it’s great to read her words, too.

I really enjoyed seeing those familiar names in print—and nice that there is still a forum for their expression in the form of a local newspaper. Of course, in the coming post-paper world, online news sites can step in and provide key forums. Today, sadly, the online world doesn’t have a great track record, but I hope that changes.

For now, yay newspapers. They are still important, and the MMU Times is still a force on campus.

Next year’s editor is interviewing students this week to set up her team—and we’ve had the biggest response to our call for applications in years, with more than a dozen students stepping forward. That young woman who will lead the Times has the enviable task of having more willing workers than she probably has slots for, and it’s the first time I recall that happening recently at Mount Mercy.

Something is in the air. The Trump bump? Whatever—on campus, the struggle is to get students interested in reading the newspaper, but a campus without vibrant student media is missing something important. At least it’s not as big of a struggle to get students who are willing to write and edit the paper.

It’s great to see that at MMU, young writers still aspire to produce the news. It’s wonderful to have future editors so ready to take on the challenges of what comes next.

Veronica Jons, next year's MMU Times editor--future Gazette guest columnist? Or editor?

Veronica takes notes.

One of the students being interviewed--Nicole was a staff writer this year.

The Dangers of Windmill Thinking

The crazy keeps piling up. This week it was windmills. Our Dear MisLeader is convinced they cause cancer, although as Colbert points out, the real danger is that listening to Trump trumpeting his nonsense causes brain damage:



And part of the problem here is that wind energy is not all sweetness and light—it does have problems, and noise and bird deaths are issues. Still, the death, environmental damage and pollution caused by fossil fuels seems to make wind a pretty good deal, in comparison—and all those windmills rich jerks like Trump like to hate are being put up by pretty hard-headed utility companies.



But I worry that Don Trump Quixote may again be distracting us. While the media are tilting at his ridiculous farcical notions--meanwhile, horrible other policies are taking shape. Take this excellent column by Lynda Waddington from this morning’s Gazette.

I have no words, no wind, no ability to summon anything but anger. In the Civil War, the question was whether freed slaves would become citizens of the United States. A wise man of the time said some wise words about African-American soldiers:

"Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letter, U.S., let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, there is no power on earth that can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship."

Frederick Douglass

Frederick had it right. Deport U.S. veterans because of misdemeanors or old paperwork errors? The sound you hear is not wind, it's my blood boiling at the very thought. I'm not a veteran, and you don't have to be one to love America, but if anything clarifies your loyalty to the U.S., wearing our uniform ought to, and citizenship for those whose breasts bore, in a symbolic sense, the brass letters "U.S." isn't even open to question, to my mind.

I hear a wind coming, and I hope it is a political storm that sweeps the Trumpers out in 2020.

Never forget—this is what this awful, evil administration has brought us to. While we are distracted by the idiocy of the war on windmills, our government is doing dark deeds that should bring us all shame.

Which means that it doesn’t really matter who is nominated to oppose Donald Trump in 2020. No, I know it matters in many ways--but it does not matter for whom a rational person a will vote that fall. As long as they aren’t Donald Trump, chances are they will at least have enough of a grasp of reality to know that the noise of wind can sway hearts and minds, but it cannot cause cancer.

As for the orange one, he is a cancer on our body politic. Let us remove him and his minions ASAP.