4-Letter Words & Our Anglo-Saxon Heritage

           The shock value of all our 4-letter words has come a long way since I grew up in my staid little community in my prairie hometown—come a long way down to nearly not shocking at all. In many of the current films, the language is as blue as the deep blue sea and can desensitize the ears to the point that viewers almost no longer even hear the Anglo-Saxonisms.

          When I grew up, there were almost no f-words and certainly no m-f-words. Salinger’s Holden Caulfield tried to scrub away that one little f-word so that his sister wouldn’t see it, and The Catcher in the Rye was banned for years and years from public and high school libraries. The most titillating thing I ever read was from a book published in 1933, with that infamous page 69 in Erskine Caldwell’s God’s Little Acre. I and my lascivious buddies had to read it surreptitiously for fear of any adult catching us at it. But when I read it now, I realize how innocent it was, how innocent I was.

Another example of my age of innocence is the time when I, about ten-years-old, gave my sister a middle finger. She slapped me so hard I thought my head would come off, screaming at me, “Don’t you know what that means?” I blubbered that no, I didn’t know what it meant, just that it meant something insulting. “Well,” she told me, “it means something really bad and don’t ever do that again.” And I didn’t, at least not for quite a few years.

          Later, when I was in army basic training, then an older, more sophisticated but still linguistically innocent 18-year-old, I first heard the m-f-word and my brain buzzed at its awfulness. How could anyone, anyone, ever say such a thing about one’s mother?

          When I was a young lad, I and my home-towners were so loathe to use such language that we couldn’t even tolerate visually referring to anything pertaining to the human anatomy or bodily functions. Boxes of Kotex were wrapped in plain brown paper before they were put on grocery or drug store shelves. We even called them sanitary pads, and heaven help those who might consider a tampon and the ill-considered way it would be used. Even menstruation had to be called a period, like a unit of time, in this case a girl’s monthly visitation by some old lady. Some, though, more lewdly called it “Aunt Flo,” more crudely called it “got the rag on.”

          For the main bodily functions, we considered the Latin acceptable—defecation, urination, flatulence, and copulation. But we also resorted to cuteness and euphemisms. Take urination, for example. In my family, we called it “to squizzle.” As far as I know, this was strictly a term of my mother’s and that we’ve always been the only ones who called it that. She may have sort of got it from “squirt,” which describes male urination, and “splash,” more female descriptive. Others, in other parts and other times, have come up with equally innocent ways to avoid burning little ears: from softest and safest to more and more lewd (and, or, comical)—to tinkle, pee, go pee pee, wet, piddle, go number one—all labels for either sex—and, more crude, making them more masculine—to take a leak, piss, drain the lizard, and (my favorite of all) shake hands with the president.

Blacks in Basketball & Football

          Well, a few days ago I stuck my foot (my nose?) in the prostitution pool, so now I may as well take a dunk in other controversial waters even though this might be considered more situational than controversial—the present status of Blacks in America (Should it or shouldn’t it be capitalized?). Even that racial term gives me pause and I really dislike the label “African Americans,” since almost none of the blacks now here are from Africa. Granted, many of them are descendants of African slaves from that despicable time in our nation’s past, but most are an amalgamation of other races with widely diverse shades of skin color other than black. So, again, I suggest that “colored” may be the most accurate term even though that leads me back to the other question: Aren’t we all, then, colored? Or, best of all, aren’t nearly all of us American Americans? Asians, Indians (both from India as well as native to this country), Muslims, Europeans, Africaners, Hispanics all stirred in that metaphoric pot, all melded into various hues?

          All right, now for my plunge in the pool. First, I’m in no way a racist, in no way a white supremacist. I recognize how far we’ve come since 1965 and the Civil Rights legislation and how far we have yet to go. I’ve lived long enough to remember when there was no one but whites in films or later on television. All television commercials were restricted to whites. In the music industry, blacks were prominent in Dixieland jazz with someone like Louis Armstrong, in big-band jazz with leaders like Duke Ellington and Count Basie, in jazz vocalists like Ella Fitzgerald and pop artists like Nat King Cole, but most other stars in the musical genres were white as snow.

As recently as 1967, there were still state miscegenation laws banning interracial marriage or even cohabitation. Affirmative action regarding college admissions and scholarships attempted to set a more equitable standard for admittance based on racial proportions. The same became practice in the work place. There are many examples of our attempts to make our lives more equitable regardless of our race. The Academy Awards have tried to become more balanced by expanding the voting membership to include a proportionate number of blacks. Every year more and more films and television shows are based on the black experience. Every year brings us more black actors and directors and writers. Every year America gets closer to racial equality.

Now, that elephant in the room. Should the black community still deplore the inequalities while at the same time extolling (and, yes, in some ways exploiting) their uniqueness. Whatever happened to Paul McCartney and the wonderful Stevie Wonder’s “Ebony and Ivory,” a song that so powerfully attempted to bring us together. Should a black magazine called Ebony be exclusively black without offending any whites? What if today (and, yes, I realize many magazines in the past were exclusively white) a publisher tried to put out a magazine called Ivory that was exclusively white? Would blacks be offended? Should we still have an annual contest to pick a Black Miss America that excludes all women but blacks? What if tomorrow (and, yes, I realize there was a time when exactly this happened) there was an annual contest to pick a White Miss America that excludes all women but whites? In both cases, both races would be and should be offended.

          And now . . . wait for it . . . wait for that other shoe to drop . . . or the other elephant to show up . . .

For at least the last decade or maybe longer, two sports on all levels have become nearly exclusively black—high school about half, college almost three-quarters, professional about ninety percent. I’m talking about basketball and football. I now think of the NBA more as the BBA and the NFL more as the BFL. I’m not complaining, merely observing, and wondering how these stats came to be. The 68 teams in the current March Madness madness made it even clearer. Almost every team’s starting lineup was black, with only two or three whites on the bench. It wasn’t at all uncommon to see all blacks on the floor for part of or for the entire game. The same is even truer in the NBA with nearly every star being black. Then there’s college football and the NFL. There also, the ratio of blacks to whites may not be quite as high as for basketball, but is certainly close, like 80% black. It was once, unfairly, said that there’d never be a black quarterback because blacks weren’t smart enough to play that position. That label has, thank god, been put to rest. And though there are still quite a few white quarterbacks, they account for only about half. Most of the white players are on the offensive line, especially as centers.

Why are there so many blacks playing at all levels in these two sports? Is it because blacks really can jump higher, run faster, dribble better, shoot, throw, catch, tackle, rebound, and dunk better? Or is it motivation and expectation? The greater the possibility of success in these sports, the greater the motivation, and the more one believes the hype and sees the success rate of black athletes in basketball and football, the greater the expectation.

But where is the equity of opportunity? Should whites be given positions in all walks of life in an equitable ratio, like three whites for every one black to reflect the ratio of blacks to whites in the general population? Certainly not. But shouldn’t we all be hoping we can and will soon reach a place where we no longer need to ration out places in our society based on race and instead base them on skill and ability? Let’s just forget color and look only at individual skills and abilities for athletes and employees. That will be the time when we truly achieve equality in America.

Trump & Robert Kraft

            Because I can’t seem to find anything worth writing about, my blogging days are apparently near an end. Nearly all my thoughts these days center on Donald Trump, the things he says and tweets, the things others say about him. I daily scour the newspapers for editorials about him or letters to the editor on one side or the other; I watch those tv news shows that aren’t biased against him even though he accuses and accuses all but Fox News of being “fake news.” It’s driving me crazy and if I didn’t already drink, he would drive me there, screaming all the way. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Crying is more likely than laughing, despite his laughable displays of ignorance, since he is no longer a laughing matter. Now, he’s a fearful matter.

I fear so much for our future. Just the thought that he might actually find enough support to be re-elected in 2020 makes my blood run cold. In my entire life, 85 years now, I’ve never felt so politically alienated. Unless I know absolutely where someone stands on Trump, I’m afraid to mention him or anything in current politics. The two sides on left and right are now so far apart that any civil discussion would be impossible. So, I say nothing.

How can his support be growing? Gun owners and members of the NRA, fearing for their 2^nd Amendment rights, vote for him. White supremacists, seeing the influx of immigrants from Muslim regions and South American countries, fear that America will become mongrelized and they vote for him. The ultra-wealthy, who fear high taxation on their wealth, vote for him. Populists who hear and fear any mention of socialism vote for him. Most of the Evangelical community see him as a saving grace and vote for him.

In 2020, we have to make America sane again. We have to find someone who can get this dreadful man out of the White House. I hope it’s sooner than 2020, but impeachment doesn’t seem likely, and we may never see the results of Mueller’s investigation. And we, as a nation, become ever more divided.

* * * * * *

            First, I need to preface what I’m about to say. I don’t want anyone to be offended by it and I’m sure most won’t agree with or understand it, but so many stories in the news these days confuse me, Trump, certainly, but also many other news items. In fact, I’ll probably live to regret having explained my confusion.

One such news bite that confuses me is the arrest of New England Patriots owner, Robert Kraft, on charges of solicitation of a prostitute in the Florida sting on various spas and massage parlors. The public outrage about his alleged crime seems to me to be out of proportion to what he actually may or may not have done. To some, the idea of prostitution is abhorrent, disgusting, criminal to such a degree that those involved in it should be imprisoned and the key thrown away. “The World’s Oldest Profession” it’s been called, with a wink-wink to show how broad-minded the speaker is. And there are so many levels and kinds of prostitution that the term shouldn’t be a catch-all. Cities and police forces have nearly always tended to overlook the illegality of their “red-light districts” or their streets that cater to “street walkers” or their high-end hotels that provide “escort service” for their wealthy patrons. They overlooked it all because there didn’t seem to be any victims, either in those doing the soliciting or in those who were solicited. The pimps or madams kept everyone and everything in line. No harm, no foul. A successful Broadway musical, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, painted a rosy picture and sang happy songs about the profession, so it couldn’t be such an abhorrent crime, could it? Or was that just putting new makeup on a very sordid face?

There are many other levels of the sex trade in which there are victims on both sides: children sold like meat to anyone willing to pay, young women from other countries who were promised employment here but were instead enslaved in sex trafficking, drug addicts who resorted to prostitution to pay for their habit. Different levels, different crimes. In a Google search (ProCon.org), I found a poll that said from 15 to 20% of all males in the U.S. say they have at least once paid for sex. That means that 15 to 20% of all males have committed the crime that Robert Kraft is being charged with. Whoa, that’s a lotta men. And, yes, I’m one of them. But that was a very long time ago when I was so very young and so very naive.

            I grew up in a tiny upper plains town in South Dakota. One of the things most noteworthy about my hometown was the fact that we had a whorehouse just outside the city limits. Everyone in town knew what it was and that it was there, but nothing was ever done about it. Oh, I guess there were attempts by one church group or another every several years to get it shut down, but it remained. It was called The West-End Tavern and it must have been established about the same time as the town, early in the 2oth century. The local story was always that it was a way-station for young women who wanted out of the national string of prostitution businesses run by the Mob or by other gangster groups, a place where they could be safe from the dangers of regular sex trafficking, where they (six to eight of them at any one time) could earn enough money to make it out of the life. According to local belief, they were not held there against their will nor did they have to give up nearly all the money they made to some pimp or madam. I always assumed that they paid half their earnings for room and board and they kept half. They could leave whenever they wanted, either permanently or temporarily on vacation to visit friends or relatives. I know that one of them often took the train east to visit her family, and would then return. I don’t know how long she stayed at the West-End Tavern but probably not very long. What were the reasons for our townspeople or the law not shutting the place down? It was said that the local young men would be less likely to impregnate a girlfriend, that they could learn all about sex from a professional and not from just lame tame tales about birds and bees, that the regular medical checkups of the girls prevented anyone from contracting any sexually transmitted diseases. But finally, in about 1960, the best little whorehouse in South Dakota was closed.

            Back to Robert Kraft and my confusion. Why was that spa in Florida targeted for the sting regarding human trafficking? Why weren’t all illegal prostitution sites shut down and those who operated them arrested? Why is it so important to expose Robert Kraft to this public, national humiliation? In this age of public scrutiny of anyone, everyone, by Big Brother and forces we don’t know about or understand, aren’t we all subject to public exposure of every detail of our lives? Aren’t we all in danger of being spied on and listened to without our consent or knowledge?

Anyone who chooses to run for public office these days had better be absolutely certain his or her past is spotless. If I had chosen to run for public office, could my admission of having once paid for sex have prevented it? I’d like to think not, but that’s just my naiveté talking.

Personally, I don’t feel any guiltier of a criminal act than Robert Kraft probably does.

Road Signs

In my exploration of past journal entries, I found one about a trip I made to Arizona to find a house to buy. This was in 1994, only a few months before we would finally get our New York house sold and we could escape from spring and winter woes in Upstate New York to find refuge in sunny Arizona.

Along the way on Highway 40 (what was once called Route 66), I noted some amusing signs. Just west of Kansas City, a sign beckoned me to stop for a drink or two at a bar called Shenanigan’s. Clever.

Then, at fifty-mile intervals through Oklahoma, big signs warning “Do not drive into smoke.” Now what do you suppose that means? Does Oklahoma have smoke problems peculiar only to Oklahoma, or is it simply a warning to Oklahomans (who must be related to Pennsylvanians) not to do what no one else would do even without the warning? Strange.

A sign in western Oklahoma warned me not to pick anyone up because “Hitchhikers may be escaping inmates.” Whoa, now that’s an effective deterrent. They don’t tell us not to pick anyone up, just that whoever we do decide to pick up may be a knife-wielding, babbling, bloodthirsty psycho who's  just escaped from some prison or asylum. No way in hell I’m picking anyone up with that image in mind.

I saw a bumper sticker on a pickup, “Old truckers never die—they just get a new Peterbilt.”

At a restroom stop in the middle of the Texas Panhandle, in the spirit of the old Burma Shave signs, graffiti on a stall wall: “Here I sit, / Cheeks a-flexin’, / Givin’ birth / To another Texan.” I’m guessing the poet must have been a disgruntled (pun intended) Oklahoman.

And last but not least (certainly not least), a sign for a steak house called Big Texan that claims to serve the best steak in Texas, and has a standing offer of a FREE! meal involving a 72-ounce steak “if eaten in an hour.” Double whoa!! It’s not just the monumental size that astounds me; it’s the very nature of the offer. Picture this: a big meat-eater (and I mean a really big meat-eater, like a grizzly bear or a saber-tooth tiger) takes them up on the challenge. Would there be an official standing by with a stopwatch to keep track of the time? And what if, as Mr. Bear or Mr. Tiger is finishing his steak, the official says, "Sorry, Time's up. You lose." Or “Nope, you left a little on the bone. No deal.” Would Mr. Bear or Mr. Tiger be presented with a bill for $172.36 to pay for a meal involving a four-and-a-half pound steak? I’m not sure I’d want to be the one who gives that check to anyone big enough to take the challenge in the first place. Another thought struck me: this could hardly be called a meal since no one in his right mind would try to consume this steak as well as all that went with it—the salad, potato, veggies, and rolls. This deal puts a whole new spin on gluttony. Maybe they should also tie his hands behind his back and make him eat it like they do in a pie-eating contest. Just pitch forward and start chomping, jowls bloody, juices dripping down chin and neck. “Arrrggghh!” as the old pirate would say, “Now that’s a real man’s meal!”

English Curiosities

English is such a peculiar language, with so much diversity in pronunciation and spelling that I can’t believe those just learning English as a second language can ever wrap their heads around some of it. I guess even native speakers avoid such linguistic traps for fear of showing their ignorance. For example, how could one explain the difference in meaning between these two seemingly exact same words—offensive and offensive? “He was going on the offensive” and “He was offensive.” The first seems to be a positive word describing a course of action that’s positive, and the second is a negative adjective about someone’s rude behavior or bad odor. Now look at the parallel pair, defensive and defensive. “He was going on the defensive” and “He was defensive.” These two are exactly the same. Curious and peculiar, right? It’s a little like the principle/principal problem. Or the all together/altogether conundrum. Or the tortuous/torturous painful twisting. Or the lay/lie positioning. Or the “Which do I use?” affect/effect puzzle. There must literally be a billion examples of such linguistic curiosities. Or do I mean there must figuratively be a billion examples of such? You get the point. The painful point of our verbal vagaries.

Trump & Cohen

Trump's two hour rant at CPAC last week showed us a lot about how our president’s approval rating could rise to an unbelievable 46%. I call it unbelievable because I don't want to believe that 46 of every 100 of those polled could actually approve of his presidency, approve of his actions and words, approve of him despite his verifiable lying. Michael Cohen called him a racist, a con man, and a cheat. That middle label is the most accurate description. He is a perfect example of a flimflam man, one who takes enormous pleasure in playing con games with his constituents. Two hours of winging it, of "going off-script," as he smilingly described what he was doing.

Apparently he was always a con man, but his successful five years on The Apprentice made him believe he was also so charming, clever, intelligent, funny, so above social and legal restrictions that he could say and do anything he wanted without any consequences. He would still be loved by his followers. He once remarked that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and no one would care. He could treat women like pieces of meat and his good old buddies would applaud. Even the women he denigrated would overlook his grabbing them by their "pussies" and say that was part of his charm. Flimflammery at its finest.

Cohen also gave us a look at the Trump ego, which needs to be inflated regularly. Cohen described his job of making sure the Trump paintings being auctioned would be sold last and at the highest amount, a certainty guaranteed by Trump’s secretly buying them himself, using Trump Foundation money for the purchase.

When opponents accused him of using loopholes to avoid paying any taxes, he just smiled and said that just showed how smart he is. "I'm a genius," he's often said, but according to Cohen, Trump directed him to fix it so that his high school and college grades would never be released, not even his SAT scores. This genius trying to hide his genius?

Trump modesty? Trump apparently believes he's smarter than his military advisors and their threat assessments and chooses to ignore them; the daily briefings bore him so he either skips them or cuts them short; his diplomacy seems to be based more on what he thinks of as his charm than on preparation and knowledge about those with whom he meets (as was said of his recent failed meeting with Kim Jung Un). His idea of diplomacy is his charm. He can just "wing it" instead of having any knowledge or facts at hand. Just smile and shake hands and praise praise praise those you're meeting and you'll get what you want. If you want to win a debate, don't go there weighted down with facts; just "wing it" by disparaging your opponent as often and as loudly as possible. After all, that worked in his debates with Hillary Clinton and it seemed to be effective in his winning the 2016 election.

The fact that his approval rating rose after the Cohen hearings instead of plummeting shows us the fearful fact that he may actually be re-elected in 2020. What would his re-election say to the United States and to the world about our standing as world leader militarily, financially, and morally? I fear that it wouldn’t say anything good.

Michael Cohen

          The recent Cohen hearings have opened my eyes to political and governmental considerations that I never before knew or even suspected. I guess what I’m saying is that up to now I’ve been naïve about how our government works, naïve because I’ve been too lazy to learn what I should know about how our system works, too willing to let others decide who should be elected for political office from ground level to upper tier. Too many people just like me allowed Donald Trump to become our president. We can’t let that happen again, and I will do my part by knowing what those running for office stand for, what they want to do if elected, what they will do if elected. I also think that from now on I’ll base at least fifty percent of my consideration on the character of those running, on people who are demonstrably good, with good motives. Donald Trump is showing the American people and people around the world that his motives are more to feather his own nest than to do what’s right for our country. Our democratic system is becoming more and more imperiled every day—our financial system, our infrastructure, increasingly damaging weather because of climate change, and threats from Russia, North Korea, China, and Middle East extremist groups. I hope we aren’t too late to save ourselves. These next two years may give us our last chance to fix all the things that now seem so wrong. I’m even more afraid now for the United States and the world than I was in the Fifties and Sixties when we lived with the threat of a World War III that could destroy our planet and all life on earth.