Monthly Archives: November 2018

The Gospel According to Aesop

Religion

In reference to several of the recent posts on this blog, my wife has pointed out, “For an agnostic, you’ve been quoting scripture an awful lot.”  And each time, I come back with the same justification, “There is a lot of wisdom in both the Old and New Testaments which should not be ignored just because you question whether it is divinely inspired.”  However, the more I thought about her comment, I wondered if it made any difference whether biblical texts were the “literal word of God” or nothing more than the writings of thoughtful individuals.

I often wonder if the teachings of Moses, Jesus and Muhammad would have more universal appeal if they were not tied to a parochial religious movement. Would the history of the world been significantly changed?  Did these thought leaders fear their message would be ignored without the backing of some almighty power?

Comedian Lewis Black reminds us the Old Testament was written at a time when humans were “one hair short of being an orangutan.”   Was an invisible “boogeyman” necessary to keep these semi-savages in line?  Did Jesus question whether anyone would listen to the sermons of a carpenter who was born in a barn?  Did Muhammad think no one would heed an orphan who spent 34 years in a cave before emerging as a prophet of Allah?

Image result for aesop's fablesWhich brings me to the title of today’s post.  In many cases, the morals contained in Aesop’s Fables are not much different from the lessons and parables in the holy books associated with any religion.  “The Fox and the Sour Grapes” is about coveting and envy.  “The Ant and the Grasshopper” reminds us hard work and good deeds are rewarded.  “The Tortoise and the Hare” is about the virtues of patience and perseverance.

So, why didn’t Aesop become the central figure of a major world religion?  Like Jesus, he came from humble origins.  He was a slave in ancient Greece believed to have lived some time between 620-564 BCE.  His stories re-emerged during the Renaissance when they were used as ethical guides in European schools.  Aesop departs from Moses, Jesus and Muhammad in that he never claimed his storytelling was a mission ordained by a divine being.  Nor did he suggest any unique connection to or communication with a god or supernatural entity.

There is one other major difference between Aesop’s Fables and the Torah, New Testament or Quran.  To my knowledge, no civilization has ever launched a crusade or jihad in the name of the ant, the tortoise or even the fox.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

 

Red Hat Comedy Tour

Politics, Religion

Besides being one of the funniest road shows in years, the Blue Collar Comedy Tour often delivers a nugget or two of common sense.  For example, Ron White, a member of the troupe reminds us:

If your eyes go bad, you can have LASIK surgery and have 20/20 vision at any age.  If your hearing starts to fail, they can put a device in your ear that will make you able to hear as good as the day your were born.  But let me tell you something folks, you can’t fix stupid.  There’s not a pill you can take.  There’s not a class you can go to. Stupid is forever!

Not to be outdone by White, Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall and Larry the Cable Guy, the Trump administration assembled its own quartet of jokesters to entertain us following the 2018 mid-term elections.  Here are excerpts from their latest album.

Donald the Cabal Guy

After a less than successful national tour in October and early November, Donald realized many of his favorite jokes–build the wall, lock her up, drain the swamp–had lost their punch.  So, this week he decided to try out some new material before hitting the road again.

On voter fraud, Trump came up with some truly fresh content.  Instead of the three million illegal immigrants who cost him the popular vote in 2016, he found multiple voting to be more riotous.  In a pre-performance interview with The Daily Caller, Trump explained:

When people get in line that have absolutely no right to vote and they go around in circles.  Sometimes they go to their car, put on a different hat, put on a different shirt, come in and vote again. Nobody takes anything. It’s really a disgrace what’s going on.

I would not be surprised if Trump provided the above FL identification as proof his humor was based on fact.  YOU CAN’T FIX STUPID!

Donald Trump, Jr.

First son Donald, Jr. thought his dad had challenged him to a game of “Can You Top This?” Trump’s oldest acorn claimed Democrats allowed convicted felons to cast ballots.  To prove his point, Junior highlighted the example of the Parkland school shooter who did, in fact, register to vote while awaiting trial.  First, at the present time, the shooter has been convicted of NOTHING and is still eligible to vote under Florida law.  You can chalk that up to ignorance of the law.  But, more importantly, the shooter registered as a REPUBLICAN.  Failing to check that out is more than ignorant.  It’s just plain STUPID.  And, YOU CAN’T FIX STUPID!

Sarah Huckabee Saunders

After no one was buying her boss’ blaming the weather and then the secret service for his decision not to attend a  ceremony to commemorate the World War I armistice at the Aisne-Marne cemetery outside of Paris, the White House press secretary took the ship of state on a different tack.  According to Ms. Sanders, “President Trump did not want to cause that kind of unexpected disruption to the city and its people.”  Sure.  Just ask the residents of Palm Beach County, Florida about disrupting the city or its people.  Or the same way Trump did not want to disrupt memorials for the Jewish victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting despite bi-partisan requests for him to wait until after their funerals.  YOU CAN’T FIX STUPID!

Marco Rubio

There is nothing a Red Cap Comedy Tour audience appreciates more than a good biblical gag.  And Senator Rubio did not disappoint.  Yesterday, he brought the crowd to its feet with a punchline straight out of Ecclesiastes via the digital Bible, TWITTER.

15  What is crooked cannot be straightened, what is lacking cannot be counted.

If only he had not taken the sentence out of context.  The overarching message in Ecclesiastes 1:1-18 is how fruitless it is to assume we can understand all we observe and learn.  It ends with King Solomon admitting, “For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.”  Mario, thanks for warning us.  As you inadvertently suggest, the more we learn about Trump and his complicit supporters, the more we grieve for the nation, democracy and the rule of law.  YOU CAN’T FIX STUPID!

But as we learned last week, you CAN vote it out of office.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

 

Fraudian Slips

Politics

…a slip of the tongue that is motivated by and reveals some unconscious aspect of the mind.

Definition of Freudian Slip/Merriam-Webster

…a slip of the tongue which reveals a conscious fear resulting from exposure of the truth.

Definition of Fraudian Slip/Dr. ESP

Since last Tuesday’s mid-terms election, Donald Trump, Rick Scott and Marco Rubio have become the modern equivalent of Sigmund Fraud.  Consider the following two examples.

Trump’s Tax Returns

Related imageAt his less than coherent press conference on Wednesday, Trump again defended his decision not to release his tax returns due to a claim (not verified) they are still being audited.  He also returned to his patronizing and elitist argument they are so complex no one would understand them.  He made this case in lieu of his usual declaration that there is nothing to see in his IRS filings.  Perhaps he was referencing the attached photo in which he claimed to be signing his 2017 return beside a stack of paper on which some claim there was literally nothing there.

In the spirit of post-election reconciliation, I will again ask you to assume everything Trump says is true.  Taking him at his word, I am willing to accept his tax returns are incomprehensible and there is nothing there.  Makes sense.  If I had a chance to review his annual IRS filing, I must admit I CANNOT UNDERSTAND how someone who lives in a gold-plated penthouse, claims to be a billionaire, has to pay off ex-wives and mistresses and declared bankruptcy four times could do it with NOTHING.

Maybe the tax specialists in the special counsel’s office will eventually explain it to us.  Forget connections to Russians and Saudis.  What Trump fears most is being exposed as a shadow of the smart genius he claims to be.

Rorida Flecount

The chances of a recount overturning the results of last Tuesday’s senate and governor’s races in Florida are minuscule based on recent history.  Here are the facts compiled by FAIRVOTE.ORG between 2000 and 2015.

  • Of the 4,687 general elections in the United States, only 27 resulted in a recount.
  • Of those 27, the outcome changed three times.
  • In the 2008 Minnesota contest for senator, Al Franken defeated Norm Coleman by 312 votes following a recount where Coleman led by 206 votes on election night.
  • In 2004, a shift of 303 votes in Washington state, resulted in recount victory for Governor Christine Gregoire over Dino Rossi by 42 votes.
  • In 2006, Thomas Salmon defeated Randy Brock for Maine state auditor by 102 votes after a recount which reversed a Brock initial margin of 137 votes.

Folks, we are talking about about 12,500 votes in the race between Scott and Bill Nelson for Senator.  Scott is the prohibitive favorite despite the machine recount to be completed by noon this Thursday.  But that has not stopped him or Trump from claiming voter fraud even though Florida Circuit Court Judge Jack Tuter, state law enforcement officials and the state supervisor of elections (a Republican) say there is no evidence of wrongdoing.  As more than one person has pointed out, this does not make sense.  It is the equivalent of a robber telling police to “stop searching my house for stolen property.”

On today’s airing of Morning Joe, co-host Willie Geist raised a possibility that may explain why GOP protests are just one more Fraudian slip.  He asked, “Does Scott know something we don’t?” While the focus is on heavily Democratic Broward County, pay attention to recounts in jurisdictions which supported Scott.  We know Trump is a master projectionist.  He calls other liars while he decimates the truth.  He claims the press is responsible for lack of civility while he vilifies anyone who opposes him.  What if he and Scott are crying foul in Broward County because they know this is what may have been done in deep red parts of the state?

Highly improbable.  But then again, we’ve witnessed more than our share of improbable events during the past three years.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

 

A Man, No Plan, Pandemonium

Politics

 

Imagine, just for one moment, everything Donald Trump has said during his time in the White House is absolutely true (a quantum leap of faith).  I raise this possibility because it is more terrifying than the thought of having a sociopath who cannot or consciously chooses not to distinguish fact from fiction sitting in the Oval Office.  Here is why I make that assessment.

Let’s start with the appointment of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general following the forced dismissal of Jeff Sessions.  On Friday, Whitaker was exposed for the political hack and con-man he is. In Trump’s latest example of “the buck stops somewhere else,” he told reporters, “I don’t know Matt Whitaker.”  Forget the Fox News interview just last month when Trump said, “I can tell you Matt Whitaker’s a great guy.  I mean, I know Matt Whitaker.”  Forget Whitaker attended almost every White House meeting between Trump and Sessions since becoming the latter’s chief of staff.

If what Trump claims is true, he is confessing several less than comforting alternatives.  Trump wanted to replace Sessions from the day the attorney general rightfully recused himself from overseeing an investigation of the Trump 2016 campaign in which he was an active participant. So, either Trump had 18 months to select a successor and ensure a smooth transition and did not.  Or, at the last minute, he randomly picked someone he “did not know” to be the acting head of the Justice Department.  Or,  as he told his supporters at a November 2nd Huntington, West Virginia rally, in response to the possibility of blue wave overtaking the mid-term elections, “My whole life, you know what I say? ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll just figure it out.’  Does that make sense?  I’ll just figure it out.”

Fast forward to Saturday, November 10 to see how well that philosophy works.  As part of the commemoration (which Trump wrongly called a celebration) of the 100th anniversary of the World War I armistice, the White House had scheduled a trip to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery 55 miles outside of Paris to lay a wreath honoring veterans of WWI and especially the 1,800 U.S. soldiers interred there who died during the Battle of Belleau Wood.

But, as they say, “The best laid plans…”  It rained and the secret service advised against using the helicopter in bad weather (a reasonable decision).  So, how did Mr. Be Prepared “figure it out?”  He cancelled the visit and spent the afternoon watching television at the U.S. ambassador’s residence.  Somehow, White House chief of staff John Kelly and chairman of the joint chiefs General Joseph Dunford, Jr. were able to assemble a motorcade to make the trip from Paris to the Marne Valley.  And other world leaders such as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron braved the elements to lay wreaths at sites where their countries’ respective war casualties are buried.

Obviously, this is just one more example of Trump being an embarrassment in front of an international audience and an affront to American veterans.  However, the question we should be asking today is, “How much confidence should we have in a leader who can’t figure out how to get from downtown Paris to a national cemetery 60 minutes away by car? If he doesn’t have a Plan B for something for which there was weeks of advance planning, what can we expect when he is expected to respond to a national emergency without any warning?”

Every time Trump says, “I don’t know this person” or “I knew nothing about this,” I care less about the fact he is lying than the scarier prospect, he believes every crisis can be resolved on the spur of the moment or as he claims now about global climate change, it will take care of itself eventually.

Postscript

On Memorial Day, 2005, our family had the honor to be in Normandy, France.  We had planned several stops including Omaha Beach and the American cemetery in the nearby village of Collevile-sur-Mer. It was a less than perfect day as you can see from this picture of the cemetery’s memorial structure.  Despite the weather, there was no way we were going to forego this historic reminder of how America emerged as the leader of the free world.

And the rewards were worth the effort.  At each marker–Christian cross, Star of David and Islam star and crescent–was placed an American and French flag, a reminder of the trans-Atlantic partnership which defeated Nazi Germany. The same partnership which has been responsible for preventing a similar conflagration for the past 73 years.

We “figured it out.”  To combat the cold, we all bought sweatshirts at the gift shop in the information center at Omaha Beach.  Too bad Trump could not have followed his own advice and “figured it out,” realizing a little rain was nothing compared to the hardship and sacrifice endured by those who rest at Aisne-Marne and every member of the armed forces before and after.  On this Veterans Day, they deserve more from the commander-in-chief.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

 

Fear Today, Gone Tomorrow

Media

On October 30th, I posted a parody of the Orson Welles 1938 radio broadcast of War of the Worlds.  It appears the similarities between H.G. Wells’ story of a Martian invasion and the refugee caravan bringing crime and disease to the United States does not end there.  Below is the front page from the October 31, 1938 New York Times.

Image result for war of the worlds 1938 newspaper

Besides the coverage of the radio play, one cannot help but appreciate the irony that the story appeared next to an article about rising anti-semitism in Europe.

As reported, the fantasy about visitors from the Red Planet was a false alarm.  And now we know the same is true about the fabrication of an imminent threat at our southern border.  Not based on coverage of the story.  From the lack of coverage.  For two weeks, Fox News dedicated its nightly unholy trinity of talk shows with tales of rapists, drug-dealers, murderous gangs and middle-eastern terrorists on the verge of destroying the American way of life.

Yet, within days of the mid-term elections, the threat had miraculously disappeared.  How do I know.  Consider this morning’s FoxNews.com website, below.

Not a single word about the caravan or deployment of armed forces poised to retaliate against rock-throwing thugs.  Equally telling, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col Jamie Davis told CNN, “We are not calling it ‘Operation Faithful Patriot,’ we are calling it ‘border support.'”  I wonder why.  Maybe it was neither an ‘operation’ nor ‘faithful’ nor ‘patriotic.”  Rumor has it, the new moniker is “Operation Costly Political Stunt.”

Image result for gif klingon cloaking deviceSo, one of two things must have happened.  Either the refugees seeking asylum discovered the secret to the Klingon cloaking device.  They are still there and we just cannot see them any more.  Or, like Orson Welles’ broadcast 80 years ago, there just simply was no there there to begin with.  Too bad the New York Times did not take a lead from its 1938 staff and publish the following edition on Thursday morning.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP