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Ruling by Ukase

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More Executive Orders on the Way

It is the perfect Trumpian moment. Surrounded by the usual wooden MAGA manikins, the Imperial President holds up for view his latest executive order. There is a grumpy look on his face, because he suspects that, somewhere, a sword of Damocles hangs over his head. But who is holding it? Not the Democrats. And certainly not the Republicans, who exist only to worship his very excrement. Why, oh why isn’t he happy?

Perhaps what we need are more executive orders, and as I write these words, even now they are coming into being:

Wind. We all know the Trumpster doesn’t like wind power. Now he tells us his is banning wind altogether. I hope you like your recent weather, because without wind to move those high and low pressure areas around, that’s what you’re going to be stuck with.

Floundering Father. Did you know that the Donald signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the Constitution in … whenever it was? He was truly one of our Floundering Fathers.

Third Party. The Democrats do not appreciate him; and even the Republicans are becoming restive. Trumpian logic requires a new political party—the Trumpian party. Oh, and the two existing parties are being outlawed. Even now, ICE is rounding up the Communists and Traitors.

Trump House. Since he saw fit to add a perfect ballroom to the president’s mansion, it should be called the Trump House. White no more, the Trump House is now coated with a thin layer of 24 karat gold to match with the plumbing fixtures. Besides, who else will ever be in residence?

Deity. Henceforth, the Supreme Being will be referred to as Trump rather than God.

Trumpida. To honor his palatial Mar-a-Lardo residence, Trump is changing the name of the State of Florida to the State of Trumpida.

When Will We Invade Canada?

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Maybe it’s the heat; maybe it’s the constant nibbling away by this administration at anything that makes sense. I just have this feeling that our Presidente, Donald Trump, is planning to invade Canada. He didn’t get his way by bullyragging Denmark to get Greenland. Maybe he figures that Canada, being right next to Greenland, would be even better bets to insure America’s “security.”

As the second term revenge tour continues apace, Trump is getting as nutty as Caligula and Heliogabalus combined. Is ICE his new Praetorian Guard? Will we have a new Presidential Election, or will the Donald generously insist on continuing on as Dictator for Life?

It surprises me to see the United States coming apart like a cheap suit. I guess that 250 years were all we were entitled to enjoy as a nation before becoming a shithole country.

The Supremes

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The Supreme Court Justices in 2022

I feel sorry for the three liberal members of the Supreme Court. They are trying their best to see that justice is done; the conservative members, on the other hand, are trying their best to see that the whims of Donald Trump are rigidly enacted into law.

This is nothing short of infamous. I keep thinking of the court of the damned in Stephen Vincent Benét’s story “The Devil and Daniel Webster.” They may have been convoked by the devil, but they actually produce a just verdict and free the New Hampshire farmer, Jabez Stone. The real-life Roberts court, on the other hand, will go down in history as having gamed the system to please the most unworthy president this country has ever had.

The fact that the judicial system of the United States can be gamed so readily indicates to me that the Constitution is badly in need of revision. Part of the gaming, however, is that three-fourths of the states—which are required for any amendments—will never accede to going against a totally corrupt president’s wishes. The thirteen states which could kill the amendment would be rural Southern and Midwestern states which, together, would constitute a small minority of the population of this country.

Unfortunately, the Founding Fathers of this country chose to mistrust the voters rather than the politicos.

What to do?

After the Trump madness is over with, the following justices should be pressured to resign: Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and Brett Kavanaugh. They are nothing less than traitors.

By the Skin of Our Teeth

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Political Cartoon about the South Carolina Nullification Crisis

As I read more about Andrew Jackson’s presidency, I begin to realize that what the United States is experiencing now with Donald Trump is not atypical in a democracy. Although the Southern states remain restive over a hundred fifty years after their defeat in the Civil War, and there is talk by a few morons about a new Civil War, it does not seem as threatening as what Jackson faced with the threat of South Carolina to secede in 1832.

At that time, muskets were being collected in South Carolina under instructions from the secession-oriented governor of the state. Fortunately, Jackson, himself a Southerner, was ready to counter the secessionists by appointing a Unionist Southerner to command the U.S. armed forces in the state.

I tended to think of American history (at least up to the firing on Fort Sumter in 1861—in South Carolina, no less) as a well-ordered pageant. It wasn’t. Powdered wigs and all, the early days of my country were pretty ragged. And, of course, they still are.

Although I avoid discussions about politics, I firmly believe in exercising my right to vote. It’s just that in politics, as with religion, everyone has his own views. Although I am fairly liberal in my views, I have friends on the Democratic side who are within an ace of believing that our next president should be a black transsexual.

Jackson

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1903 U.S. Stamp Honoring Andrew Jackson

On the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, I decided to return to reading books on American history. The fact that I refrained for so long was due to my contempt for Donald Trump and the voters who elected him to office in 2024.

Consequently I am halfway through a biography of Andrew Jackson (Jon Meacham’s American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House). Recently, I thought of “Old Hickory” as a precursor of the Trump madness. Now I begin to think that, although Jackson was highly conflicted, a slaveholder, and responsible for gross injustices toward the American Indian population of the Southern states, he was by and large an honorable man of his time and place.

For one thing, he was an excellent general, responsible for inflicting a humiliating defeat on the English during the Battle of New Orleans. He served two terms as President of the United States, and did not attempt to loot the country for his personal benefit.

He was probably one of the unhappiest of our nation’s leaders. His beloved wife Rachel died before he was sworn in as president. He had a close relationship with his Andrew and Emily Donelson, who served as his personal assistants. But then a vicious petticoat war between the Donelsons and the wife of his Secretary of War, who was a personal friend, poisoned much of his first term.

Somehow he maintained his popularity among the voters. That was because he firmly believed in following the will of the majority, even if meant stepping on the toes of men like John C. Calhoun, his vice president, or Henry Clay—both of whom craved the presidency for themselves.

I am only halfway through the biography, but have decided to continue reading one or two American histories or biographies a month for the foreseeable future. Since I am rapidly on the road to recovery after my broken shoulder, I shall look for a copy of Bernard DeVoto’s 1846: The Year of Decision for my next read in this series.

The Forever Election

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Typical Election Literature

It almost seems as if our elections are forever wars like our … well, like our actual wars. And probably just as expensive. We have one billionaire candidate for Governor of California who has bent almost $200 million on advertising … and he’s still going strong. And this is a primary election to boot!

For months, my mailbox has been full of multicolor campaign literature, both negative and positive. I keep my little flip phone shut off because the political text messages are flowing like the Garganta del Diablo at Iguazu Falls:

I am immune to all political appeals because I sent in my ballot almost two weeks ago. Would you believe that the reason I voted early is so that I can ignore all urgent political appeals? The one positive thing about this election is that I am happy with our Los Angeles Councilwoman, Traci Park, who has actually performed well in her first term. I am least happy about voting for the numerous judicial offices.

When June 3 rolls around, I plan to celebrate. I think I’ll go to the Getty Center and spend all day looking at art. That always calms me down.

Depredations of the Nome King

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L. Frank Baum’s Nome King

Who would have thought that I would find in L. Frank Baum’s The Emerald City of Oz the most perfect villain of the Donald Trump variety. In an earlier Oz book (Ozma of Oz), the Nome King and his minions had been defeated by Dorothy Gale and Billina who exploit the Nome peoples’ fear of eggs and steal his magic belt.

In The Emerald City of Oz, the Nome King is up to his old tricks: “Therefore the King stormed and raved all by himself, walking up and down in his jewel-studded cavern and getting angrier all the time. Then he remembered that it was no fun being angry unless he had some one to frighten and make miserable, and he rushed to his big gong and made it clatter as loud as he could.”

Further on:

This Nome King was named Roquat the Red, and no one loved him. He was a bad man and a powerful monarch, and he had resolved to destroy the Land of Oz and its magnificent Emerald City, to enslave Princess Ozma and little Dorothy and all the Oz people, and recover his Magic Belt. This same Belt had once enabled Roquat the Red to carry out many wicked plans; but that was before Ozma and her people marched to the underground cavern and captured it. The Nome King could not forgive Dorothy or Princess Ozma, and he had determined to be revenged upon them.

So he calls for his general and when he doesn’t get the answer he wants, he “throws him away.” This consists of the following: “Please take General Crinkle to the torture chamber. There you will kindly slice him into thin slices. Afterward you may feed him to the seven-headed dogs.”

As we know, this is Donald Trump’s favorite way of handling subordinates, such as Kristi Noem, Tulsi Gabbard, Pam Bondi, and John Bolton. The seven-headed dogs are well fed by the orange-haired Nome King of Mar-a-Lardo.

A Recurrent Suspicion

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MAGA Rally

In July 1943, the Writers’ War Board asked New Yorker writer E. B. White to make a statement on the subject “The Meaning of Democracy.” Below is White’s statement:

Surely the Board knows what democracy is. It is the line that forms on the right. It is the don’t in don’t shove. It is the hole in the stuffed shirt through which the sawdust slowly trickles; it is the dent in the high hat. Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. It is the feeling of privacy in the voting booths, the feeling of communion in the libraries, the feeling of vitality everywhere. [Italics mine]

In 2016 and 2024, I learned that, according to Mr. White’s statement, we are NOT living in a democracy. I say that because a certain individual was elected president twice by more than half the voters—voters who were not only wrong in electing him, but very probably wrong in their judgments on any subject you care to name.

I suppose I could be forgiving toward the voters who propelled Trump to the presidency, but I don’t feel like it. I have no intention of agreeing that water flows uphill, that the sun sets in the East, or that the Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces can declare war at any time against anybody. In fact, I am feeling very non-committal about our country as it begins to celebrate its 250th anniversary as a former democracy.

The Zoo Lady and the Politicos

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Sharon Matola (1954-2021) and Scarlet Macaw

I just finished reading a book about the difficulty of fighting an environmental battle in a developing country. The book was Bruce Barcott’s The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw: One Woman’s Fight to Save the World’s Most Beautiful Bird (New York: Random House, 2008). The story is set in Belize where a naturalist from Baltimore named Sharon Matola founded a zoo consisting solely of critters from within the borders of the country.

Sharon was particularly proud of her scarlet macaws. Now these are a kind of bird that is not endangered in South America; but the Central American variety, a legitimate subspecies, could be found in the valley of the Macal River, where they had their nests. When suddenly it was announced by the Belize government that a dam (to be called the Chalillo Dam) was to be built smack in the middle of the macaws’ nesting territory, Sharon went to war against the forces behind the dam.

These included not only a Canadian firm named Fortis but a number of Belize politicos who stood to gain from kickbacks and other underhanded tricks possible when dealing with large construction projects such as Chalillo. Barcott’s book not only gives us an excellent picture of what the tiny Central American country of Belize—formerly known as British Honduras—is all about, but gives us blow-by-blow accounts of Sharon’s war against the Powers That Be.

Well, in the end, the Powers That Be won, and the dam got built. The politicos were so irate about this gringo lady’s attempt to subvert “cheap electricity for the masses” that they scheduled a massive landfill to be created right next door to the Belize Zoo. Fortunately for the Zoo Lady, that project failed when it was demonstrated that a river important to longtime Belizean residents would become badly polluted.

In the end, she had other irons in the fire, such as reintroducing harpy eagles to Belize. Alas, however, Sharon died of a heart attack at the age of 66. Fortunately, her zoo continues on; and I have earmarked it for a visit if I can take a trip to Belize.

What To Talk About When Politics Is Too Grim

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In the Age of Trump This Is Becoming a Real Problem

With most of my friends, I tend to avoid any discussion about the current political situation. That becomes a sticky issue when so many people are glued to news programs. In fact, the only person with whom I am comfortable discussing the news is my brother Dan. And that is because we generally agree on most of the issues.

I am a strange kind of hybrid who is at one and the same time a liberal and a fiscal (but not a cultural) conservative. I do not belong to any political party and have even gone so far as to vote for some Republicans for local (but not national) office. As a result, any political discussion with a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat or Republican is likely to end in discord. For example, my dislike of the tent-dwelling homeless in Los Angeles has made me notorious among the woke Liberals of my acquaintance.

When I was a child in Cleveland, I was raised in a family where there were broad political disagreements. My father was a supporter of Alabama Governor George C. Wallace’s campaigns for the presidency. In 1980, my mother voted for John B. Anderson for the top office. Only my brother and I tended to agree. (In 1968, however, I was so disgruntled about choosing between Nixon and Hubert H. Humphrey that I did a write-in for Otto Schlumpf for president.)

So do I watch the news at all? Not really, unless we are talking about the weather. There are so many television channels with news all or most of the time that they really don’t have much to say, so they tend to repeat their “breaking” news ad infinitum ad nauseam. Martine watches the news a lot, but I think her problems with insomnia are attributable to her news habit.