Lack of Perspective

Two issues so absurd came to light this week despite the fact that both are easily reconciled with reality.  That they come on the heals of all gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over Prince's death comes as no surprise.  I just shake my head and wonder where our perspective has gone.

The first and least relevant -- although to determine which is least relevant is quite the chore -- is the outpouring of support and/or grief that Michael Strahan has decided to leave the Kelly & Michael Show (I think that's what it's called, at least) which, to the uninitiated, is a weekday morning talkfest that caters to stay-at-home moms and those of us unfortunate enough to home sick without cable television.  I've only caught snippets of it, which is an outgrowth of Live! With Regis and Kathy Lee, which morphed into Live! With Regis and Kelly, which in turn became Live! With Kelly and Michael after Regis hung it up. 

Apparently, Mr. Strahan had taken a full-time gig with Good Morning America unbeknownst to Kelly Ripa and waited until after a show last week to inform her of his decision.  Ms. Ripa flew into a huff and took some days off for an allegedly scheduled vacation with her husband.  Then she returned in full glory to public acclaim and played Norma Desmond to her adoring audience.  Mr. Strahan did and said all the proper things for public consumption, but apparently that wasn't enough.  I guess there's some protocol that says that in the entertainment industry, prior notification to one's co-workers is necessary in order to take another job.

I know that when I leave for another job, I don't consult my co-workers.  This notion that prior consultation is necessary is foreign to me.  Apparently, however, it's enough of an issue that it caused a kerfuffle that when Ms. Ripa walked onto the set this morning, the audience gave her a standing ovation, with Mr. Strahan joining in.  Perceived slight or not, this is ridiculous.  I'm shocked that anyone gives this much of a damn.

Then there's the idiot ex-professor at the University of Missouri who was fired after video of her asking for muscle to remove a student photojournalist from a rally late last year and after another video showed her shouting profanities at a police officer.  A newspaper actually did a profile on the lunatic wherein she claimed that her firing was due to racial politics.

The woman is white.

"I'm a white lady.  I'm an easy target."

So if I understand this correctly, she was fired by the University for defending black people because she's white.  Or an easy target.  Or both.

"Am I going to be one of those people who stands and watches another brutal moment against black people, or am I going to step in and make sure they’re safe?”  she asked rhetorically (I think).

(It should be mentioned that this woman looks like Carrot Top's fraternal twin from whom he was separated at birth. That's catty, I know, but I can't ignore it.)

But by far the best justification for her errors, if they can be called that, is her assertion that "Black people love me."

Yes, people, that's the perspective she has that allows her to bully student journalists and scream at cops, despite the fact that the student journalist's rights are protected under the First Amendment and the video shows no abuse by the police.

Even so, there's one more level of juiciness to this pancake of perspective:  The woman is an ex-professor of journalism.

You just can't make this stuff up.

(c) 2016 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Hagiography and Popular Culture

The recording artist Prince died last week.  You might have heard about it.  Incessantly, that is.  Because the press has lost its mind over his death.  One would have thought the Second Coming had occurred, only in reverse.  The attention being paid to his departure is beyond ridiculous.

Prince was a very good recording artist.  He was, by all accounts, a great showman.  Women loved the diminutive star's freakishness.  That women found him attractive at all boggled my mind, but sex appeal, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.  I truly liked his music.  He was a great, great artist.

But that's all he was.  He didn't cure cancer.  He didn't bring peace to the Middle East.  He didn't put an end to AIDS.  He wrote and sang songs.  He put entertained.  To hear the media tell it, though, he wrote the soundtrack to our lives.  Generations molded their collective existences to his music.

Already, there have been retrospectives on his Super Bowl show in the rain, a collection of his Saturday Night Live appearances and countless reminders of what a prolific songwriter he was, citing the hits he wrote for Sinead O'Conner, the Bangles and Chaka Khan.  His life is being examined and repackaged so that we understand the depth of his impact on society. 

It's balderdash. The man wrote and performed music.  I can understand his family and close friends being distraught at his passing, but the notion that some people can't imagine a world without him in it is senseless.  How many of these fans actually knew the man?  How many of them can say they exchanged more than a few words with him?

From media reports, Prince actually seemed like a very generous person.  He was a gentle soul, a genuinely nice person.  Fine.  The world's lost another generous, gentile, genuinely nice person.  Here's a news flash:  The world loses people like that by the thousands every single day.  Most of those who die aren't celebrities whose work is as public as Prince's is.  Their lives value as much as his does, but because of his celebrity, his death is magnified beyond reason.

That people flock to Paisley Park and put notes and flowers and stuffed animals in the fence surrounding the compound is just plain stupid.  First of all, the man's dead, people.  He can't read the notes anymore, smell the flowers anymore or even cuddle the stuffed animals anymore.  And if one believes in the afterlife, Prince can tell all about this without the physical reminders stuck in his fence.

When Michael Jackson died, we saw the same gnashing of teeth, rending of garments and lamentations about how life just wasn't worth living.  Perhaps a few misguided souls took their lives, but that was their choice.  The sun still came up in the east, set in the west and allowed life to go on.  The same is happening now despite Prince's departure.  And it will happen again after Beyoncé, Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars die, whether their deaths are suddenly tragic or sadly expected.

Too often celebrities are inflated to have importance far beyond what it should be.  By no means do I mean to diminish Prince's contributions to popular culture.  But perspective is sorely lacking yet again.

(As an aside, Billy Paul, who sang Me and Mrs. Jones, died over the weekend.  Lonnie Mack died the same day as Prince did.  It's been a hellish year on the music industry.  I don't recall a year in which so many notable members of the same industry have died.)

(c) 2016 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Evaluating Candidates

Lena Dunham, one of the Left's darlings, is a Cankles supporter.  This comes as no surprise, although were she a Bernie Sanders supporter, that wouldn't stretch credulity, either. 

Ms. Dunham, who has no trouble lecturing society about its shortcomings, has recently declared that her chosen candidate is being subjected to more and therefore unfair scrutiny simply because she's a female candidate, and that male candidates are not being subjected to the same level of scrutiny.  If that's true, that's wrong.  I take issue with the notion that that's happening.

To begin, let's list what her supporters love to tell us in support of the notion that she's qualified:  She's the former First Lady, a former Senator and a former Secretary of State.  If titles alone made one qualified for President, Cankles would win in a landslide.  For whatever lofty titles her challengers, Democrat or Republican, possess, she clearly has more notches on her political belt.  Yet, it's fair to ask whether there's any substance to her involvement in those roles, first, and whether there are any scandals to which she is attached, second.  I don't believe those are unfair questions.

Given the number of scandals to which she's been attached -- Whitewater, the Rose law firm, Vince Foster, a philandering husband, Benghazi, CGI, poverty, home-brew servers and emails, Monica Lewinsky, for starters -- I don't think any level of scrutiny about her involvement or her ability or lack thereof to manage them is unfair.  Especially when her attempts to brush off the importance of these matters is as ham-fisted as it's been. 

Donald Trump has certainly received criticism and scrutiny.  So has Ted Cruz.  About the only major candidate still in the running who hasn't been really challenged to the same degree is Mr. Sanders, who for me still remains an enigma more worthy of comparisons to Larry David.

The question really is an academic one, in my mind.  As regular readers of this blog know by now, I loathe Cankles.  Simply by virtue of the fact that I can't utter her proper name it's evident that I have no use for the woman.  But if we were to ask the question about a faceless, nameless female candidate, would it be a fair question?

Much like the question Megyn Kelly asked Donald Trump about his attacks on women, I think it's a fair thing to scrutinize a candidate regardless of gender.  What's more, the higher the office, the greater the scrutiny should be, within bounds.  I don't believe personal, intimate details are germane to the discussion.  But probing questions about fitness to lead, ability to manage and explanations for a record are legitimate.

But if we're going to say that someone because of her gender should be given a pass, or have less scrutiny, aren't we implicitly saying that that person isn't fit to lead?  It's the same thing as affirmative action, where added credit is given simply for skin color.  I'm of a mind that unless there's some verifiable reason to take the foot off the gas, or give someone added credit for being held back by forces outside the person's control, men and women, whites and other races, should be held to the same standards.  To do otherwise suggests that somehow, the person who's being given a pass or a credit is inferior and therefore needs help.

By the same token, I don't think that a person's race or gender should subject them to more scrutiny, because the same result obtains.  To ask more questions, to scrutinize more closely, suggests that we doubt that the person is capable of handling the position.

In Cankles' case, Ms. Dunham can't have it both ways:  She's the best qualified candidate available, but don't ask her tough questions.  I don't think she's been treated unfairly, unless by unfairly we mean she's been given a pass that other candidates don't get.  And that, honestly is what's happened, although as the campaign drags on, there are signs that the MSM is in a quandary and unsure how to ask the questions that should be asked while at the same time ensuring their invitations to White House soirees should Cankles be elected.

If ever there was a female candidate that deserved greater scrutiny, it's Cankles.

With any luck, after November she'll go away and be analyzed with even greater scrutiny by history.

Then what will Ms. Dunham have to say?

(c) 2016 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Sergeant First Class Charles Martland

Sergeant First Class Charles Martland deserves better.  A combat veteran and member of our Special Forces, Sgt. Martland is being drummed out of the military for upholding the best of American values.  In short, he's a political pawn that can be sacrificed for the greater, or lesser, good.

Sergeant Martland is being kicked out of the military for shoving a member of the Afghan Local Police force.  Were that all that had happened, it might be understandable.  But the reason Sgt. Martland pushed the Afghani is far darker:  The Afghani in question had tied a young Afghan boy to a post and had repeatedly raped the boy over a ten-day period.  When informed about the ongoing violations, Sgt. Martland and his commanding officer, Capt. Daniel Quinn, slammed the ALP rapist into a wall, body slammed him and kicked him in the ribs before kicking him out of the base.  According to the account of Sgt. Martland gave, at no time was the ALP rapist beaten senseless or even hit in the face.  At best, the rapist lost face in the community.

Despite what seems to be a clear case of intervention to save a victim from an unspeakable crime, the military removed Capt. Quinn and Sgt. Martland from the base for their "vigilantism." 

The resulting furor is understandable.  We preach against crimes victimizing women and children in this country.  Jared Fogel, late of the Subway promotions, went to prison for having sex with an underaged girl.  Rolling Stone magazine published a now-debunked story of a date rape at the University of Virginia.  The infamous Duke lacrosse rape case recently was featured in a 30 for 30 episode.  Presumably, our troops are supposed to support the rule of law, not subvert it. 

I'm no expert in Afghani law.  I don't know whether rape of a minor is condoned there.  But when the mother came to the commanding officer begging for someone to help her son, what were they supposed to do?  Stand by and do nothing?  Couldn't that expose them to a charge of complicity?

I can understand perhaps removing the two from the theater.  I can even understand giving them a legal slap on the wrist.  But dishonorably discharging Sgt. Martland?  Do we not expect our military to uphold American values?  Beyond the UCMJ, isn't there a moral imperative that should be obeyed?

I've often complained about ROE's and how they unnecessarily tie the hands of our military.  I'm not advocating that our troops be turned loose like a Western posse to do justice as it sees fit.  At the same time, I don't believe punishing our military for bravery even in non-combat situations that may not comport with an ROE.  Sgt. Martland did what any civilian in this country would be praised for doing in a similar situation.  That he's being sacrificed, at great loss to his reputation, for political expediency is immoral.  He should be promoted in the ranks for showing the kind of leadership we should expect from our military.

The feckless Obama administration could stop all this.  The President, after all, is the Commander-in-Chief.  I've heard precious little from the White House about this case.  Of course, when it suits its political purposes, the administration declares that the legal process run its course.

Unless, of course, Bowe Bergdahl is involved.  If he's convicted in his court martial, I predict that the President, if the conviction occurs before he leaves office, will pardon Bergdahl for his treason.

The President should do the right thing.  Congress should do the right thing.

Free Sergeant First Class Charles Martland from the theater of the absurd into which he's been thrust for being a hero.

(c) 2016 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Unrelated Thoughts

I don't think I have enough to say on any one topic for a coherent blog entry, so I've decided to cheat and put together a list of topics with some thoughts about each.  Each of them has been bumping around in my head for awhile, so I may as well clear the decks and get ready for truly substantive stuff.

--  Manliness is defined by many different people in many different ways.  As such, there is no specific definition of what true virility or masculinity is.  But it occurred to me that insofar as I'm concerned, I don't really share a lot of the more masculine traits other men who are regarded as truly manly have.  I don't smoke cigars, I don't play poker.  I couldn't care less about cars, makes, models and their engine sizes.  I don't drink beer all the time or drink shots.  I don't like The Three Stooges and never have.  Movies like Ted or Point Break or the Fast and Furious franchises are imponderable to me.  I can't rebuild engines or repair small engines.  I can't locate an alternator much less tell you what it does.  I've never hunted or fished.

Does this make me less masculine?

I say thank you ma'am and open doors for women and the elderly.  I read books and am fluent in Spanish.  I chop firewood and now own a rifle, although I expect to buy more weapons.  Rain doesn't bother me, nor does snow.  I can cook or I can eat of a can. 

By my own measure I'm masculine.  That's all that matters to me.

--  This has been a bad year to be a musician.  So far -- and we're only at April 6 -- the following musicians have died:  David Bowie, Gavin Christopher, Joey Feek, Andrew Loomis, Ray Griff, Conor Walsh, Merle Haggard, Tommy Brown, Daryl Coley, Frank Sinatra, Jr., Lee Andrews, Scabs, Jimmy Riley, Roger Cicero, Gato Barbieri, Long John Hunter, Nicholas Caldwell, Signe Toly Anderson, Paul Kantner, Maurice White, Paul Gordon, Lennie Baker and Lemmy Kilmister.

I haven't heard of many of the above names.  I had to search online to find most of them.  People were all upset about Lemmy Kilmister's death, but I'd never heard of him. 

Even so, it does seem to be a weird year for musicians' deaths.  Usually, they say that celebrities die in groups of three.  We're only at the beginning of April and some pretty huge names in the music industry have died (insert Kanye West joke here).

Musicians, however, are different than actors in that they don't actively seek the spotlight.  Sure, a few do, but the vast majority of them don't.  When someone like Mr. Kilmister dies and there is such an outpouring of grief, that means more because the people who follow those musicians usually are moved more by their artwork than by their celebrity.

--  When does the nostalgic become the ancient?  Well, perhaps not ancient, but the old.  I got to wondering about this when CNN announced it was airing a show on the 80's.  I lived through the 80's -- OK, I mostly studied through that decade -- but I remember a lot of that period quite well.  It's nearly thirty years ago, but I remember it as if it were yesterday.  For me, it's not nostalgic...yet. 

For me, the 50's are nostalgic, simply because I didn't live through them.  I was born in 1961, so the 50's are nothing more than other people's memories foisted on me with a patina of longing.  What they represent to those people strikes a chord with me, although not nearly as resonant a one as the 80's, for the simple fact that I didn't live through them.

Yet for many people now, the 50's are no longer nostalgic, having been replaced by the 60's and the 70's.  Sure, baby-boomers may well recall the 50's fondly, but Gen-Xers and millenials have no such fondness for that period.  Instead, to them the 50's are ancient history or what to me are the 20's, the 30's and the 40's. 

After a certain point, people with actual memories die away and the next generation, who may have been influenced by the people with actual memories, sustain the nostalgia for that period.  But when they die, does that signal the end of nostalgia?  Or are there people out there who were born in the 70's or later who actually look at the 50's with nostalgia?

(c) 2016 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

The IRS Scandal

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling last Monday that may not have garnered a lot of public attention.  Critics of the decision will complain that, like the ongoing Benghazi hearings, the IRS scandal is much ado about nothing.  But like their complaints about the Benghazi situation, these critics refuse to acknowledge that the emperor isn't wearing any clothing.

The decision boils down to one line of the opinion for me:

Section 6103 was enacted to protect taxpayers from the IRS, not the IRS from taxpayers.

At issue is 26 U.S.C. §6103.  That statute governs returns and return information that is to be held confidential.  The historical underpinnings behind that statute are lengthy, but the germane part of that history involves former President Nixon who used tax information against political opponents.  As most people are aware, the present-day IRS scandal involves the IRS putting conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status through so many hurdles and hoops so as to discourage them from continuing on with the process, thereby hamstringing them for elections in 2010 and 2012.  The outrages are well known:  onerous demands for documentation, frivolous requests for meaningless information, visits from other governmental agencies based on false complaints, years of non-responsiveness, etc.  The chilling effect of the IRS's actions is overwhelming.  Finally, an outfit called NorCal Tea Party Patriots had enough with the IRS's BOLO program -- Be On the Lookout -- that effectively neutralized conservative political action during midterm and presidential elections during President Obama's first term.

The appeals court wasn't buying what the government was selling:  That the plaintiff's discovery requests were barred by section 6103's requirements of confidentiality.  Any attorney worth his salt could see through the red herring:  Section 6103 deals with returns and return information; the discovery requests had to do with applications, applications that, obviously, were never processed because of the demands from the IRS for a neverending stream of information, most of which had nothing to do with the group or its cause.

The Sixth Circuit was more diplomatic than I would have been.  It ended its opinion thus:

In closing, we echo the district court’s observations about this case. The lawyers in the

Department of Justice have a long and storied tradition of defending the nation’s interests and

enforcing its laws—all of them, not just selective ones—in a manner worthy of the Department’s

name. The conduct of the IRS’s attorneys in the district court falls outside that tradition. We

expect that the IRS will do better going forward. And we order that the IRS comply with the

district court’s discovery orders of April 1 and June 16, 2015—without redactions, and without

further delay.

The petition is denied.
 No matter what good it's done in the past, the IRS is dead wrong in this instance.  Not only was it engaged in political activity but it ignored two federal court orders while it continued to delay and demur.  Even if it ultimately concedes and produces the documentation that will almost certainly prove that it had a political agenda -- why else would it fight so hard to release this information? -- the net effect is to delay the establishment of these organizations long enough so that they aren't able to get donations to allow them to put out their political message, i.e., free speech, in time for the next election.

What's particularly irksome about this is that the IRS is part of the Department of the Treasury which, as a cabinet level position, forms part of the Executive Branch.  That's right.  Mr. Obama, were he so inclined, could order the IRS to release the documents sought by the plaintiffs, but he's already on record as saying that the IRS did nothing wrong.  Having already determined the culpability of the IRS as being non-existent, it's unlikely he will do the right thing and order the IRS to release the documents.

In the meantime, the time the IRS has bought by dragging its heals, filing frivolous appeals and prevaricating has allowed it to cull its files of damaging emails, memoranda and other documents.  Call me cynical, but I don't see how that hasn't happened.  If, on the other hand, I'm wrong and there still remains plenty of damning documents, President Obama's legacy -- already tarnished by so many scandals -- will almost guarantee that he goes down as the worst president in the history of the Republic.

Give Lois Lerner credit for this:  At least she pleaded the Fifth.

(c) 2016 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Liberal Dissent

The primaries are winding down and it would appear that we're headed for a Trump v. Cankles showdown, unless the Republican establishment throws the convention into turmoil with brokering.  Obviously, for any American who loves his country this is not an optimal situation.

In the meantime, it's quite interesting watching people rail against Mr. Trump.  Make no mistake:  Mr. Trump revels in making intemperate and injudicious comments that only serve to offend a lot of people.  Still, unless his speech is seditious or otherwise inflammatory to the point that imminent bodily injury may occur, Mr. Trump's speech is protected.  Keep in mind:  His right is protected only from government infringement by the First Amendment.  Those who wish to silence him by obstructing him know this and are trying to use this loophole to their advantage.

In the first place, I believe this is backfiring.  By using such tactics are shouting at him, obstructing people from attending his rallies and branding him a racist, the dissenters are encouraging more people to align themselves with Mr. Trump simply because not to be with him means that one agrees with the dissenters, and there's a sizeable portion of the population that finds these tactics un-American.  The dissenters probably see themselves as heirs of dissenters in pre-war Nazi Germany who, they believe, didn't do enough to stop the dictator from unleashing his brand of terror on their country and the world which, in turn, justifies their actions.

Leaving aside for a moment the question of whether Mr. Trump is this century's Hitler, the tactics being employed are interesting for a couple of different reasons.  First, shouting down a speaker and trying to disrupt a political event because one disagrees with the speaker isn't exactly emblematic of tolerance.  Intolerant behavior is not the same as dissent.  The glue that holds together the Republic is the free and robust exchange of opposing ideas to distil which idea is best for the country and her citizens.  Ironically, these liberal zealots who want free everything deny the very same thing to Mr. Trump because they disagree with him and in so doing liken themselves more to the Islamofascists who would sooner cut off their heads than allow them to continue with their antics.

Civil disobedience has a long and treasured history in this country.  What the likes of Martin Luther King, Jr., did in opposing discrimination is unlike what these political wannabes are doing.  Storming the dais, taking the microphone, blocking access to an event, engaging in violence with members of the opposing group -- how does this show that the opposing viewpoint is superior to that which is being aired?  This is especially telling when compared to what isn't happening on the other side.

When Cankles or Bernie Sanders talks, there may be a boo here and a hiss there.  Unlikely, but possible.  When's the last time people have stormed the stage a la the Black Lives Matter sect, or prevented people from entering a venue, or stormed into the crowd to engage in fisticuffs with their opponents?  Conservatives have their younger members, yet the behavior is markedly better than that of young liberals.  Conservatives are noted for being gunowners, yet no liberal's been threatened by a gun, much less shot.  Imagine what would happen if liberals owned guns like conservatives do...

...The point is very clear:  Liberals don't dissent in a responsible, mature fashion.  They act like petulant children who are told they have to go to bed and don't want to go to bed.  That the majority of them support Mr. Sanders is to be expected.  Just this week, the darling of the Left, Lena Dunham, complained that she's been treated more harshly by Sanders' supporters than by right-wingers for her support for Cankles.  That's quite telling, when someone who is virulently anti-conservative actually calls out someone for being ruder than a conservative.

Again, this is unlikely to change anytime soon.  The only hope is that both sides show little tolerance for this immature, sophomoric behavior.  Anyone who's had child knows that at times the child has to be left to cry or that child will always cry to get whatever it wants instead of growing up and learning how to deal with reverses.  That grown adults still tolerate such behavior is unacceptable.  That the MSM rewards such behavior under the guise of journalism is to be expected.

The election can't happen fast enough.  Then again, should Mr. Trump win, it'll be interesting to see how these protesters deal with the Secret Service and myriad law enforcement agencies when they try to rush the stage or block access to a venue for the President's motorcade.

(c) 2016 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles