Just so we’re clear, I want him out of office because, as I’ve been saying for three years longer than George Conway has, his behavior demonstrates that he has a significant mental defect which – whether we call him an extreme narcissist, a sociopath or a psychopath – makes him exceptionally unfit to be President of the United States.

But unlike, I suspect, most people who hoped for a **Collusion!!!** outcome,  I really didn’t expect one.  I always thought that while Trump and his clown-car staff (clown car: full of clowns; clowns keep leaving it; somehow, there are always more clowns) were inept enough to be unwitting dupes of those crafty Russians, they were way too inept to pull something like that off on purpose.

That said, whether intentional or not (my money is on “not”), Trump has pulled off an extraordinary misdirection play.

What became the Mueller investigation started as an FBI inquiry aimed at understanding how Russia interfered in the 2016 election so that we could keep it from happening again.  One strand of that inquiry was to ascertain whether any Americans aided Russia.  One thin strand within that strand was to ascertain whether “any Americans” included Trump or anyone in the clown car.

Yet that strand-within-a-strand became the entire focus of public interest, if not of the investigation itself.  So how did THAT happen?

What really seemed to spook Trump when Russia’s election meddling was first revealed was that it might delegitimize his election.  But the investigation didn’t become focused on Trump until he fired James Comey, and then bragged to both Russian officials (in the oval office, no less) and the American people (via Lester Holt) that he did so in order to stop the FBI from investigating the aforementioned Russian meddling (see “inept” and “clown”).

That required the appointment of a Special Counsel because administrations aren’t supposed to investigate themselves.

But what Trump did next was brilliant.  He started yelling “No Collusion!” at the top of his lungs – 231 times according to the Washington Post.

Then, instead of saying, “I am committed to the integrity of our electoral process and have instructed my staff to cooperate fully with this investigation,” he stonewalled it in every way possible.  He stonewalled it so much that it really started to look like he had something to hide, which was great fodder for the media (“Fake News! Fake News! Enemy of the People!”).

This is the shell game.  He had all of us looking at the shell called “collusion.”  Yet when Mueller finally lifted it up – guess what? – no pea.  Meanwhile, nobody is looking at the shell that matters, which is that Russian meddling very likely did have enough of an impact to sway the election, and that even if it didn’t, the dissension it has sown in America has been an extraordinary coup (see what I did there?) for them.

It used to be said that Russians play chess and Americans play Pac-Man.  We don’t even do that anymore.

We just play shell games.

My favorite was attributed to FBI Agent Fox Mulder of the X-Files: “You saw the chicken cross the road with your own eyes!  How many more chickens have to cross the road before you believe it?”

On that note. . .

This week CNN commentator Stephen Collinson published a description of Donald Trump’s behavior during a photo-op with the Prime Minister of Ireland.  Of that performance, Collinson said, “A historian 100 years hence could pull the tape of the 16-minute tour de force and learn everything they needed to know about the Trump presidency.”

The article, which you can read in its entirety here,  is a description of observed behavior and is complimentary about Trump’s “irrepressible energy of a force of nature personality, . . . refusal to accept a loss and . . . instinctive reflex to seek a new opening.”

But it also uses the following phrases to describe the current occupant of the White House:

• “Willingness to trample the truth for his own benefit”
• “A selfish streak for which friend[s] sometimes pay the price”
• “A shockingly casual way of talking about. . . violence”
• “Refusal to show weakness or humility”
• “Relentless temperament”
• “Indifference to shame”
• “Indifference or rude disregard for [others]”
• “Expert[ise] at trivializing and belittling opponents”
• “A sense that he is being persecuted unfairly”

There it is.  “Everything you need to know about the Trump presidency.”

Collinson was not trying to make a case for Trump’s mental unfitness for office.  He was simply describing the behaviors that he observed.

And yet, what he produced is a stunningly accurate list of the traits of a person with psychopathic or sociopathic personality disorder. 

Go back and compare it to the actual list of traits associated with psychopathology.  I’m not asking you to make a medical diagnosis.  I’m just asking you to acknowledge that there’s a chicken crossing a road.  You can do that.  I have faith in you.

There is one trait on the list that Collinson did not mention but that Trump displays all the time – difficulty using abstract language.  He is a phenomenally effective speaker when he’s riffing in front of his base.  But when he attempts to speak on anything that requires knowledge and even a modest dab of gravitas, we get this:

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the most powerful person on earth.

And remember, that kind of speech isn’t just lazy or goofy.  It’s a telltale sign of psychopathology.

There is a psychopath in the White House.  You saw it with your own eyes.  You see it every day.  How many more chickens have to cross the road before you believe it?

I started 2018 in Key West, which is an interesting place, and one that left me with a couple of things to report, but for which I wasn’t able to get a picture.

Actually, the first of those happened in Miami Beach.  Katie and I were walking through a tourist mall and came upon a very thin young woman who was holding a pair of tropical drinks (think “caricature of a big fruit thing with a small umbrella and a long straw sticking out the top”).  She was holding them about chest high.  Katie said (and no, I’m not making this up), “Wow, look at the girl with the huge coconuts!”

It’s a good thing the poor girl was in Miami because Key West apparently is anti-coconut.

On our way out of Key West, we drove past a sign from these guys:

The sign simply said, “Got Iguanas?”  I’ve been asked many questions in my life.  Whether or not I have any iguanas has never been one of them.

Every year, I run into a few people who are having some fun and know they’re having some fun.  Here are a few.

The cake, however, is taken by this couple.  After all, if  you can’t have a little fun with your own imminent death, what can you have fun with?

Conflict or just color-blindness?

Nothing says “America in the 21st Century” like the first 2 rows of magazines on this rack.  The one in the back row presumably is there to clean up the mess.

There’s trouble all over the EU, but not at this shop, where everybody just gets along.

This sign sits in front of the National Geographic Society in Washington DC.

So do these pictures.

Perhaps visitors can be forgiven for being a little confused?

Speaking of confused, as a nation, we owe a lot to these two guys.  But if they were this confused about which way to go, it’s a wonder they made it back.

(I owe thanks to someone for sending me this picture, but I can’t figure out who.  If it’s you, please post a comment!)

Let’s say you go to a nice neighborhood restaurant, get a table in their quiet upstairs room, and want to sit down for a leisurely, maybe even romantic dinner.  But no. . .

They really want you to do something here, but it’s not entirely clear what it is. (thanks to Beckie Hayes):

There are just too many ways to go with this.  None of which is clean enough. (Thanks to John Ahlberg)

It must be difficult to be famous and to be at war with yourself.

From the Oxymoron department:

This is the aforementioned runt.  He looks like he’s winding up to win a watermelon seed spitting contest.

This is a women’s boutique in NY.  They are currently advertising for a new branding consultant.

“Lassie, put that out, now!  You promised me you were going to quit!”

From the “Remind me what business we’re in” department:

Not to be outdone:

On a “what are the odds” note, let’s say you walk out of a Starbucks, head to your car, and William Shakespeare is sitting in the next car over.  Let’s just say.

Considering that he was the best wordsmith in the history of the English language, I didn’t find him to be much of a conversationalist.

Speaking of “Look who’s in that car,” I pulled up behind this guy at a freeway on-ramp and saw something white moving around.  I thought maybe he had his dog on his lap, but no.

But there’s more.  I passed him when we got on the freeway, looked over (no picture for obvious reasons), and saw that he not only had the cockatiel you can see above sitting on his shoulder, but had two more cockatiels in his lap.  Three cockatiels.  He was being very affectionate with the two in his lap.  Very affectionate.  I don’t know how else to say this. . .he was driving down the freeway nuzzling his cockatiel(s).

Courtesy of Chris Bowers, here’s a sign that’s both clear and honest.

Here’s an interesting combination:

It’s hard to imagine that a pig who earns this honor feels really good it.

If you raised your kids on Sesame Street, as I did, or if YOU were raised on Sesame Street, you may remember the song, “One of these things is not like the other; One of these things just doesn’t belong.”

Two things to love here:  First, it turns out that pain really isn’t much of a problem.  Second, that podiatrist must be really, really good.

Some things just don’t seem like they belong on a billboard or road sign.

My friend and client Dave Hoglund saw this and said, “What, like ‘Next 20 Miles?’”

Here are two airport sightings of guys who had a lot going on.

This one is from Midway.  Again, lots going on here.  1890s mustache, 1950s goggles, 1970s helmet, beer and furnace repair?  Barkeep, please explain.

This fellow was on a flight I took to Orange County.  A lot going on here, too.

On the return trip, I saw this.  Maybe it was aimed at the guy in the last picture?

I was in Ireland last summer and went to a horse track.  Apparently, not everyone can handle the excitement.

While I was in Ireland, although not at the racetrack, I ran into Donald Trump and Mike Pence.

The NYPD’s budget must be really tight these days.

I’d been wondering why this elevator didn’t smell so good.  The veil has been lifted.

OK, so which is it?

A lesson in basic economics may be called for here. . .

We live in a very competitive society at a very competitive time.  And I’m a pretty competitive guy.  But really, do we have to compete on EVERYTHING?

Physician, heal thyself (thanks to Debbie Garrity).

In the “what were they thinking, or were they even thinking” department, this is from a meeting room door in a convention hotel.  Just plain wrong. (Photo courtesy of Mike Paton, a guy whose name frequently appears in sentences containing the words “just plain wrong.”)

And finally, this seems like really useful information, especially if you fly United a lot.

That’s what I have for you.  I hope you found a thing or two to smile about.

And with that, I wish you a 2019 that brings you as much health and happiness as a human being can have, and as much prosperity as you want, and brings me enough good pictures to do this again next year.

This election is not about policy.  It’s not about left vs. right or what we’re going to do about healthcare, and so on.  That day will come again.  But it is not today.

This election is, or should be, about only one thing: eliminating the risk that our precious republic will slide into tyranny.

It doesn’t matter what label you attach to Donald Trump’s behavior – narcissism, psycho- or sociopathology, anti-social personality, etc.  Whatever you call it, it is beyond question that he is not exactly right in the head.  Look at this list and try to explain it any other way:

• Lack of empathy or the ability to see others as humans
• Complete disregard for the truth
• Willingness to contradict himself without remorse
• Willingness to use others for his own ends, again without remorse
• Profound, deep-seated need for power
• Profound, deep-seated need for approval or adoration
• Admiration of tyrants

What makes these behaviors concerning is that while not everyone who has them becomes a tyrant, everyone who becomes a tyrant has them.

Tyranny starts when the person described above meets a population that feels deeply belittled, weakened and aggrieved.  This is post-Versailles Germany.  When that population sees a potential strongman who offers what looks like a path to feeling strong (great?) again, tyranny begins.  This is the history.

When it happens, the tyrant and those who embrace him engage in a love affair that is completely irrational.  People who are otherwise reasonable and good sometimes wind up believing and doing unreasonable and abhorrent things.  The scapegoating and dehumanizing of recognizably non-majority people is always at the core of this love.  Again, this is the history.

And then there are the people who aren’t so reasonable and good to begin with.  They find a happy home.

Tyranny may begin as populism.  It never, ever ends well.

The beginnings of this exist in America today.  Donald Trump is a would-be tyrant, even if he isn’t self-aware enough to realize it.  40% of Americans see him as their savior.  If we get to 50%, we’re done.

Can’t happen here?  It couldn’t happen in Germany in 1932, either.  There was no way Donald Trump was going to win in 2016.   And he just said that he thinks he can change the Constitution by executive order.

The risk is real, and even small odds are deeply frightening.

We are lucky that our would-be tyrant is not very competent and is something of a buffoon.  But it’s not a great idea to bet our future on that.

It is the duty of patriots to put a brake on this guy.  This is not partisan.  It’s about nipping potential tyranny in the bud.  OK, not the bud.  40% means we’re post-bud.  And that the other 60% need to stop it.

Sadly, what calls itself the Republican party these days has shown itself to be completely servile and willing to put the nation at risk in exchange for short-term political gain.

For patriots, that leaves only one alternative, which is to vote for Democrats.  Not because you like or agree with them (I often don’t), but because before we deal with policy, we need to take tyranny off the table.  We can’t wait for someone else to do it for us.  It’s in our hands.

So that’s where we are.  The single most non-partisan thing you can do in this election is to vote straight Democrat.

Who’d have thought?

With that, I give you Donald Trump, sanity vs. insanity, and why a little anonymity makes sense.

If you’ve read these posts for any time, you know that I am deeply centrist and profoundly in favor of what works.  I’ve always tried to explain more than advocate.  But before the 2016 election, for the first time since I started writing these posts, I took a specific position on a specific election.  My position was that given the choice between venal (Hillary) and crazy (Trump, whom I described as an “ADD-addled, narcissistic sociopath with a significant brain defect [underdeveloped frontal cortex leading to lack of impulse control”]), the right answer was to put 100 clothespins on your nose and vote for venal.

The only thing that has happened in the past two years to change my assessment has been learning that the single term “psychopath,” in its true clinical form rather than its Hollywood-melodramatic form, encompasses the entire collection of traits I used to describe Trump in October 2016.

Here, according to Psychology Today, are the clinically defined, observable characteristics of psychopaths.  I encourage you to read the full description.

• Callousness and lack of empathy
• General lack of emotion, but especially lack of “social emotions such as shame, guilt and embarrassment”
• Unreliability
• Blaming others for things that are their own fault
• Admitting blame only when forced into a corner, but not exhibiting shame or remorse, and not changing as a result
• Superficial charm coupled with chronic untruthfulness and “pathological lying,”
• Speech inflated and distorted to serve selfish ends
• Difficulty using metaphors and abstract words
• A “grandiose sense of self-worth”
• Impulsivity
• A “pathological egocentricity and incapacity for love”
• Inability to plan for the future ( “Carefree nonplanness”)
• Violence (“Very low tolerance to frustration and low threshold for discharge of aggression”)

That’s the clinicians’ list, not mine.  Take a serious look at it.  On the last trait, Trump talks a big game but actually displays signs of physical cowardice rather than bravery.  On everything else, he is way, way over the bar.  You know it and so do I.

It is amply documented by Wolff, Woodward and the anonymous writer of the NY Times op-ed (whose three descriptions are stunningly consistent), and by everything we know about Trump dating back to his public emergence in the 1980s.  And if you check out this assessment, you’ll find it easy to give him a score high enough to justify an actual diagnosis.

Some calls are close.  This one is not.

If you’re trying to see it otherwise, I’m afraid you are proactively looking for reasons to avoid an obvious truth.  Perhaps you’re afraid that some policies you like will get tarred in the process.  That’s not what this is about.  This is about something that looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks.  I’m sorry, but it’s a duck.  With its finger on the button.

So here it is:  We have a psychopath in the White House.

Many people, including the press, Congress, and even the Democrats seem reluctant to state this obvious truth.  They seem to be afraid that our public discourse, our security or perhaps our desire to avoid embarrassment would be threatened if we admitted that we elected a psychopath to be our president.

I don’t understand that.  I think calling a spade a spade matters.  There are some entirely legitimate reasons why millions of Americans cast a profoundly anti-status quo vote in 2016, however poor the vessel may have been.  But imagine a poll asking Americans, “Would you vote to elect a psychopath president?”  I’m guessing that fewer than 60 million would say yes.

There’s a bit of good news here.  We can stop wasting time and breath looking for reasons and rationale and rationality and clever strategies behind his behavior.  He’s just crazy.

Which brings us to the aforementioned NY Times op-ed.  The writer has been widely criticized for remaining anonymous and staying in the administration.  If this were a case of policy disagreement – you know, we had a serious debate about tariffs and I couldn’t abide the decision – then I would agree 100%.  Resign and declare your differences.

But that’s not what this writer was telling us.  He or she was saying that there’s a crazy person at the controls, and that some non-crazy people are staying in the cockpit to try keep him from flying the plane into a mountain.  This is about fundamental fitness for office.  25th Amendment stuff.  Lack of sanity.

This is not how our government is supposed to work, but we should be glad it’s working that way right now.  Because there is a psychopath in the White House.

It doesn’t matter whether he’s clothed in the garb of a conservative or a liberal or a populist or, for that matter, a Druid.  What matters is that he’s a psychopath.

One more time, get used to it: He’s a psychopath.

We all know he is, so let’s stop pretending he’s not.  Duck or spade, let’s name it.  It won’t make things worse, it will save us a bunch of time and energy, and it might even help keep us from doing this again.

Here’s what he might have said upon his arrival in Ireland this week, but did not:

“We are here to serve our flock.  It is not the other way around.  Nothing could be further from what we stand for than the abuse of bodies and souls of children for one’s own gratification.  There is no place for it in this Church and we will not tolerate it.

Some have said that we should have mercy for priests who have broken their vows.  Mercy is indeed the hallmark of the Church.  But if we are forced, as we now are, to choose between mercy for abusers and mercy for the abused, we will stand with the abused.  This would be true under any circumstance, but is especially so because these abusers come from our ranks and we did not stop them.

Therefore, from this point forward, this is the policy of the Church:

• If you are accused of these awful things, or if you are accused of knowing about them and hiding them, we will turn you over to civil authorities for investigation and prosecution.
• If you confess your sins to us, we will allow you to stay in the Church, to go to Confession, to take Holy Communion and to receive the Annointing of the Sick and the Last Rites.  These afford you at least the opportunity to receive heavenly forgiveness and be with God upon your death.
• If you do not confess and we find you out, which we will, we will excommunicate you, thus depriving you of these rites and sacraments.  If you believe what we believe, then you know that this is close as the Church can come to condemning you to eternal damnation.  If you do not believe this and fear it, you have no place in this Church, let alone as a priest, and should leave immediately of your own accord.

Further: The policy of priestly celibacy is an anachronism from the Middle Ages.  It has no Biblical foundation and was established more than 1,000 years after the founding of the Church for reasons that were largely secular.  It may have made sense then, but it does not make sense now.  Indeed, it has turned our priesthood into a beacon and place of refuge for men who seek repress or hide sexual desires of which they are ashamed.  The Church has endless sympathy for these men and wishes to help them, but this is not a proper reason to become a priest.

It is in my sole power to change this policy and I am doing so now.  From this day forward, priests may marry and need not be celibate.  Married men may become priests.  That is enough for today.  At some point in the not-too-distant future, we will sort out whether this policy will apply only to heterosexual men.  I am inclined to think that it will not.

The requirement that only men may become priests is a matter of Church dogma, which puts it beyond my sole power to change.  I will, however, begin a process of reassessment of its theological foundations with a view toward ending it if possible.

This I do for the children.”

Pope Francis could have said this at any time during his now 5-year papacy and he has not.  Now, it has been reported that in 2013, he was told specifically of allegations of sexual abuse committed by a cardinal and did nothing.  I hate to say it because I really want to like this pope, but it makes one wonder why not.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/15/us/sisters-texts-florida-school-shooting-trnd/index.html?sr=twCNN021518sisters-texts-florida-school-shooting-trnd0853PMStory

Please take a moment to read it.  If it doesn’t move you to tears and anger, well. . .

My friend Jack Altschuler also steered me to a dissenting opinion on a Second Amendment case written by Justice John Paul Stevens in 2008.

The salient paragraph reads:

“The Second Amendment was adopted to protect the right of the people of each of the several States to maintain a well-regulated militia. It was a response to concerns raised during the ratification of the Constitution that the power of Congress to disarm the state militias and create a national standing army posed an intolerable threat to the sovereignty of the several States. Neither the text of the Amendment nor the arguments advanced by its proponents evidenced the slightest interest in limiting any legislature’s authority to regulate private civilian uses of firearms. Specifically, there is no indication that the Framers of the Amendment intended to enshrine the common-law right of self-defense in the Constitution.”

You can read the entire opinion here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZD.html

It’s a slog, but I recommend reading it.  In case you don’t, here are the headlines:

• The Second Amendment was intended specifically to give you the right, and almost the duty, to keep a musket in your house in case you were called upon to join your state’s official militia, which is how they envisioned the new nation defending itself, and the states defending themselves.
• The Framers considered and rejected proposals to make that right broader, but chose to limit it to possession of weapons for military use.
• It was intended only to limit the Federal government, and was not intended to prevent the states from passing whatever laws they saw fit regarding the possession and use of weapons for non-military purposes (which a few states did, mostly by sanctioning the possession of weapons for hunting and self-defense).

Again, the notion that the Second Amendment is in any way about you having the right to own any firearms you want in order to protect your fierce American independence is a myth.

What we’re really dealing with is not an unlimited right, but bad grammar.  Bad on you, James Madison. (Yes, he wrote the damned thing.  Think “D-; see me in my office.”)

Now, a little common sense about this.

I once heard the late Justice Antonin Scalia, whom I’m citing here because he was as conservative a judge as we’ll ever see, say that we should reserve our effort to interpret the Constitution to cover things the Founders didn’t know about, and on which they could therefore not express direct views.

Here’s a partial list of things they didn’t know about:

• A standing army that has existed for 200 years
• The institutionalization of state militias in the form of the National Guard
• The operation of those militias in complete cooperation with, rather than in opposition to, the aforementioned standing army.
• Bullets (they only knew musket balls)
• Cartridges (projectile and gunpowder in a single casing)
• Breech-loading weapons
• Weapons that could be fired at a rate faster than once every 20-30 seconds
• AR-15s and other semi-automatic weapons
• 30-round magazines
• Tanks
• Missiles
• Nuclear weapons

A strict interpretation of the back half of the Second Amendment (the front half is where all the confusion exists) would permit individuals to own all of those things because they’re all “arms.”

It doesn’t take a genius to conclude that this isn’t what the Founders had in mind.  They certainly didn’t have in mind dozens of dead children on the floors of our schools.

Repeal of the Second Amendment is a pipe dream. I know that. But I would rather see us spend our time on that than on arguments over exactly what it does and doesn’t allow.  That would free us up to apply common-sense restrictions to gun ownership that would couple entitlement with responsibility.

I would also like to see an insurrection against our real oppressor, which is the NRA.

This is not some noble organization that defends a precious American right.  As described above and in my last post, that “right” is a myth.

The NRA spends around $70 million per election cycle to ensure that we will continue to have dead children on the floors of our schools, on the floors of concert venues, in churches, and elsewhere.  Plain and simple, that’s what it does.

Very little of that money takes the form of actual campaign contributions.  It’s mostly spent directly on ads supporting or, mostly, opposing candidates based on their spinelessness.  That form of spending is largely unaccountable.  Try Googling “how does the NRA spend its money” and see how little of the $70 million you can account for.

If you know how to make the hashtag #NRAmeansdeadchildren go viral, please let me know.  I’m serious about that.

There is a bright spot in all of this.  I’m delighted to see that brave students who survived the Parkland shooting are banding together to organize a nationwide student protest to start making NRA-backed members of the House and Senate face the music.

They picked March 24 in order to eliminate any “now’s not the time” objection.  They are wonderfully, stunningly informed and articulate.  And they have a moral compass of which our elected leaders are sadly devoid.

They are also credible in a way that no one like me will ever be.  I fervently hope that this will start a long-overdue grassroots movement, and bring about a change in the national consciousness.

Perhaps they will be able to accomplish what I wish I could and almost certainly can’t.

We’re living in very strange times.  I’ll have more to say about that – from a big picture perspective – soon.  But for now, let’s stay focused.

There have been eight school shootings so far in 2018.  Taking out weekends, when they don’t happen, that’s one every four days, or more than one a week.  They’ve become so routine that you probably don’t know about any of them other than the one in Florida this week.  I certainly don’t.

What’s wrong with us that we allow this to go on?

After the Las Vegas massacre (Remember that? It’s rapidly fading?), the disgraced and disgraceful Bill O’Reilly said, “That’s the price of freedom.”

He couldn’t have been more wrong. Or more ignorant.

It’s a sound, solid, conservative principle that when the need for a law or government program goes away, the law or program should go away, too.

Stay with me. And please know that everything that follows can be validated with very simple Google searches.  Like “Why do we have a Second Amendment.”

The notion that the Second Amendment exists in order to allow fiercely independent Americans to protect themselves and their property from marauders and from the risk of government oppression is a myth.  It has far more to do with John Ford westerns than with anything the Founders said.

The fact (which is a stubborn thing, according to Founder John Adams) is that the Founders put the Second Amendment into the Constitution because they didn’t want to create a standing army.  That’s why the amendment starts with the language about a “well-regulated public militia.”  And it’s why they disbanded the Continental Army immediately upon the end of the Revolutionary War.

What were they afraid of?  They were afraid that a standing Federal army might threaten or overwhelm the states.  (Remember, the word “state” actually means “country,” as in “Department of State.”  The United States was initially a federation of 13 separate countries.)

They were also afraid that a standing Federal army might threaten the Federal government, itself.

So they decided that if armies were needed, they would rather that let the states raise them on the spot through militias.  You kept your musket at home, and if Virginia or Massachusetts called, you came.

In short, the Founders did not put create the Second Amendment in order to protect the people from an oppressive government.  They created it to protect the government from what they feared would be an oppressive army.

Well, the standing army that was disbanded after the Revolutionary War was re-established in the War of 1812, and we’ve had one ever since.  We’ve had a very large standing army since WWI, and a really, really large standing army since WWII.

In other words, that train left the station a long, long time ago.  So long ago that it wasn’t even a train.  It was a horse leaving a barn.

Here’s what the idiocracy of the O’Reillys don’t understand.

The foundation of American liberty is the notion that your right to swing your arm ends at my nose.  Before there was a Bill of Rights, there was a statement of three “inalienable” rights with which we are all endowed.  The first of those is Life.  Notice that they put Life before Liberty.  Why? Perhaps because liberty without life is a non sequitur.

17 people, most of them children, were permanently deprived of their right to life this week.  In October, 58 people in Las Vegas were similarly deprived.  Only 5 weeks after that, 26 people were deprived of their right to life in a church in Texas.  The list goes on and on.

If you consider all shootings in which four or more people wounded or dead, they happen in this country at the rate of nearly one a day.

This – and I’m not going out on a limb here – is crazy.  As The Onion famously said (sadly, four years ago), “‘No Way To Prevent This’ Says Only Country Where This Happens.”

We all know why it happens.  Gun manufacturers fund the NRA, and the NRA uses that money to threaten Congressmen/women and Senators if there’s even a whiff of gun control.  None of this is a secret.  It’s not about liberty at all.  It’s about money, manipulation and tragedy.

This is a solvable problem.  We don’t have the will to solve it, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t solvable.  Here’s a formulation that would work:

First, repeal the Second Amendment.  Yup.  S*!#-can it.  Like I said, conservatism calls for the repeal of laws that have outlived their original purpose.  This one is 200 years obsolete.

Second, change our mindset from one of “You have a right to own a gun unless we can find (without looking very hard) an overwhelming reason why you shouldn’t” to one of “In order to buy a gun, you have to prove that you can own it responsibly.”

We could enforce that mindset by requiring three things of anyone who wants to own a gun:

• Before you can buy a gun, you have to pass the same background check required to obtain a Top Secret security clearance. (Don’t be alarmed.  Top Secret is only the second rung on the security clearance ladder.)  And you have to pay the actual cost of that investigation.
• Before you purchase, and every year thereafter, you have to obtain a certification from a licensed mental health professional that you are of sufficiently sound mind to own a firearm. No mental health professional who is a gun owner him- or herself will be allowed to provide such certifications.  You have to pay for that evaluation.
• Just like you do with your car, you have to maintain liability insurance in case your gun is used (by you or anyone else) to do harm to other persons or property. Not only would this create a whole new insurance market, which would be good for the economy, it would actually price the risk of gun ownership.  Of course, you have to pay for that insurance.

That would do it.

We could also simply outlaw weapons capable of rapid firing, which is what the Australians did in 1996.  They did this after a single mass shooting incident because they couldn’t imagine not taking action.  And a bunch of fiercely proud, independent Australians were patriotic enough, and other-oriented enough, that they turned in their guns.  Australia hasn’t had a mass shooting incident since.  Meanwhile, we have one a day.  Again, facts are stubborn things.

We have a second chance to get this right.  The 535 invertebrates who represent us in Washington won’t do it unless we collectively make it clear to them that we’re mad as hell and won’t take it anymore.  We probably won’t because collectively we are more persuaded by tv ads and the Bill O’Reillys of the world than by reason and fact.

But we should.

And we should remember that this week there are 14 more children who won’t get a second chance.  And those are just the ones we know about.

Sometimes fusion works really well.  Like with cuisine. And jazz. As a retail concept, though, maybe it can be just a bit too much:

Everything I know about practicing mindfulness says that it’s a good thing.  But still, I have my doubts.

For an equally challenging version of staying mindful, there’s this:

I once heard Eric Clapton say that he is at pains not to repeat himself.  Well, friends, I am no Eric Clapton.  When I first saw this a couple of years ago, I figured it was a rare, one-off experience.  But nope, they did it again! (Look closely – you’ll see what the sign is supposed to say.)

Dammit, I think the wheelchairs deserve a little privacy!  Don’t you?

OK, if you’re this guy, how do you go back to your day job on Monday and explain to your colleagues exactly what you did all weekend?  Or this IS your day job.  In which case, what do you say when you’re making small talk at a barbecue and new turns to you and says, “So tell me, Bob, what do you do for a living?”

At last, the 2AM dry mouth explained!

This big guy moved into my building just a few days after I did.  Apparently, he prepared for Moving Day by having way too much to drink the night before.

I have to say, though, that moving can have its benefits.  The bear and I both get to enjoy this view:

Speaking of being mindful, here’s a healthy approach to life:

I spent some wonderful time in Italy this year, where I discovered that some things don’t translate very well:

A pair of relics, side by side:

My Italian is far from perfect, but this looks to me like the Institute for the Mastery of Filipino Pie:

You can’t really make it out, but the green sign says “Angri.”  Exit at your own risk.

That was from southern Italy.  The northern Italians are not to be outdone:

By the way, the Italians make cars that look like Bugs Bunny:

This is from the Colosseum in Rome.  They should have added to the sign, “But scratching hieroglyphics on them with a sharp object is totally cool!”

Interesting name for a leather boutique in Florence.  Someone’s a big James Bond fan.

To make it even more interesting, the trademark listing for this place starts with “Saddlery, whips and animal apparel; umbrellas and parasols. . .”  And, no doubt, so much more.  Yes, I look these things up.

https://trademarks.justia.com/791/99/maison-79199491.html

Best Oxy-Clean Commercial Ever!!!!

Go ahead, pronounce this.  I dare you:

These two guys are duking it out for market share in Milan, but in the most civilized of ways:

Back home, in the harbor where I now keep a boat, there’s a question. . .

And just down the pier is the answer:

Then there’s this guy:

And yes, this really is the boat he’s on:

Oh my God!  What are the poor amateurs going to use?!?!

Oops, they did it again (again)!

Food fight!!!!!

OK, this might be a repeat as well.  This little sign reminds me of two things.

First, many years ago, a colleague of mine, while asleep, managed to swallow his uvula, which is that little thing that hangs down at the back of your throat.  The result was an elongated uvula that required extensive treatment.  And, yes, I’m quite sure you didn’t wake up this morning expecting to encounter the phrase “elongated uvula.”

The consequences of ignoring this sign seem like they would be similar, only a lot more painful.

Second, it reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUWOnnaVYwo  By the way, be careful of the video channel this will lead you to.  You could disappear in there for days and come out with your sides aching:

Nothing says “Happy 5^th Birthday!” like a neon martini sign. . .

. . .unless it’s the OTHER side of the same neon martini sign:

Are you willing to entrust your life to an elevator company that counts this well?

I THINK it won’t fall down! I THINK it won’t fall down! I THINK it won’t fall down.

I received many great guest photos this year, including some that were wonderfully way too off color to use.  Here’s a sampling of the usable best.  If you sent me one that’s not here, I’m sorry.  There’s only so much time.

From Jack Altschuler:

From Tony Diaz, there’s this, which manages to turn the word “abut” into a noun.  And please don’t ask me to explain the metal pole.  I can’t.

From Lisa Manning:

From John Muller:

And finally, this last minute (literally) gift from Lou Costabile, who answers the question I know you’ve been asking yourself: “Where DOES Jimmy John eat?”

2017 was a very strange year in many ways.  In the midst of that, however, it’s worth remembering that it’s still possible to be rendered utterly speechless by the works of man. . .

. . .and nature

I wish you a healthy, happy, joy-filled and prosperous New Year.  If you’ve made it this far in the blog post, you’ve certainly earned it.

Today’s story is that I remember them having someone from the ACLU on to argue for a museum’s right to display artwork that many people found patently offensive, and just a few days later having someone else from the ACLU on to argue for something – I don’t remember exactly what – that required them to take exactly the opposite position.

It struck me as strange enough that I actually called the Today Show, got a producer on the phone, described what I’d seen and said, “I think it would be really interesting if you got a senior ACLU official on the show and asked them to explain how they could take such diametrically opposed positions only two or three days apart. I’m not anti-ACLU at all, but it seems like there’s at least a drop of hypocrisy in there somewhere.”

The producer agreed it was a good idea.  Alas, it never happened.

But that thought came back to me this morning as I was listening to the news coverage of the Anthem Antics at many of yesterday’s NFL games.

A significant chunk of the American people seems to believe that the First Amendment guarantee of free speech is a wonderful thing as long as the speakers are white and speaking about what they see as “preserving important aspects of American culture,” but that can and should go right out the window when the speakers are black and speaking about preserving something else they see as important – namely the right not to be shot in the back by the police.

Sadly, it goes without saying that the beacon for these conflicting views is the current occupant of the White House, who told us that in August that many of the pro-statue demonstrators in Charlottesville were “good people,” and said last Friday that NFL players who choose to kneel during the anthem are reprobates who should be fired.

Seems like there’s at least a drop of hypocrisy in there, doesn’t it?

Now comes the hard part.  It’s easy to point the finger at the current occupant of the White House because he’s, well, a moron.  But 60 million Americans voted for him.  Once again, we have met the enemy and he is us.