BIG TWEET ... Donnie Goes to Mexico

Would be kinda cool to be a cucaracha on the Wall ... il Presidente's Wall.

Wasn't invited!

Ah, well ... Mr. Smith went to Washington ... and Donnie's gone off to Mexico City. I assume they'll let'em out. It would, indeed, cause both an international mess an animated national dialogue if they don't "Let My Donnie Go" ... that is, put him back on the Golden Goose to fly off to Arizona in order to be on time to read his speech-writer's tele-prompted and brilliant analysis of the solution to the US problems with illegal immigration. It could get a little sticky. 

After all, Mexico is a Catholic country and they follow the Jimmy Carter Clause of the New Testament (Matthew 6) ... the one that equates even "adultery of the heart" with just plain old Donnie and Dirty "adultery." And, as far as I know, there's no statute of limitations on such sinfulness. Admittedly, don Trumpito, you could apply for a dispensation from Pope Francis. 

Oops, Donnie! Me thinks you mighta burnt that bridge to the Holy Sea/See.

Too bad, Old Boy!

But imagine with me, if you would and for just a moment, the Domestic Dialogue that might occur if il Presidente pulls a Joseph in Egypt who decided about one of his brothers:  "I'm gonna hold on to this one." I dunno. 

Goddamit! No dispensation ... 

Doc Bornstein said no libation. ... 

And Barak Kenyata Obama? He's still on vacation!

"OK," Donnie says to his-self, "What would Jesus do?? 

Never-mind that, don Trumpito, the real question is ...

What would Paul Ryan do? and all the others, too.

John MacCane might not like you any more, now that you're captured.

Book-traders could stop handing out free copies of the Constitution.

Paul Ryan might think you could be cured of your textbook racism 

if you stayed in Tijuana for a couple months ... just to chill.

McConnell might smile like a Burrito busted open instead of his usual turtle-self.

Obama might offer up a trade with some Guantanamos ... You'd get a good tan!

Or ... wait a minute ... he could send you to live with his family in Kenya!

Jeb Bush might be heard saying something 

about being as High-Energy as Mexican Jumping Beans.

Little Marco ... I think he'd jump higher ... maybe six feet high!

The Mexican People could relinquish their fear

that you'd claim Pica was the result of Mexican Zika.

Crooked Hillary could get on with the task of the Governance of Nations.

Lyin' Ted could endorse Trump Steaks from afar!

You might learn to live with you Big Head and Little Hands.

And me? I'd feel safe for the first time in a year.

(Next Blog: ... on being censored by other anti-Trump therapists)

The Fourth Estate, AGAIN

I remember in the 2000 election cycle ... Bush v. Gore. I needed to call a distinguished psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who was editor of a journal to which I was submitting some work. His wife answered the phone and before putting her hubby on the phone opined:

Maybe you can talk my husband down from the ledge. 

He walks around the house spouting: 

FFFFUCK! 

Not like him. Not like him, at all.

Well, it wasn't like me, either but it bears some resemblance to my behavior at home during this 2016 cycle. Having a tough time wrapping my head around a Trump candidacy ... never mind a Trump Presidency. I suppose I'm about the age of that Psychiatrist and dealing with my discomfort (rage?) by blogging. My experience thus far has been mixed in the success of walking myself down from the ledge. America the Beautiful with 40% of the Country willing to get on board with someone who attacks by innuendo, has little-to-no respect/empathy for others/women/Muslims/those-who-differ, and ... I could go on.

What strikes me hardest, though, remains the unwillingness of the media to do other than treat his Bad-Boy Delinquent Bull-Pucky as just another balanced view of the World. This morning I was back on the ledge as I listened for a moment to Joe Scarborough talking about the latest Trump juggle of reality in placing the fault for the Inner City pains of the poor folk and the difficulties with Obamacare on the Democrats. 

Hey! It's the Democrats in Power in the Cities, isn't it?

Are the poor any better after 8 years of Democratic Governance?

No reference to the State Legislatures on starving out Social Welfare Programs. Not a mention of the Republican agreement to Shut Down Obama. Not a word about the fact that a goodly percentage of States refused to cooperate with parts of the Affordable Care Act, nor any mention that they recommended that people not cooperate and not even that the ACA was, in no small measure, the Republican expansion of healthcare coverage and neither Clinton's 90's plan nor Obama's plan for a single payer system.

The Game? 

Block and Tackle ... 

and then Blame!

Need I say that we can never know what might've occurred had Mitch McConnell and John Boehner chosen to accept the Voice of the People in their choice of President Obama. We'll never know ... not knowable ... And the Fourth Estate is quiet ... essentially complicit.

The professionals are all quite balanced, as well. Journalistic neutrality ... Professional neutrality and intellectual commentary! The attraction to DJT is an affective storm ... How many millions of people will repeat the lines:

He knows business.

He tells it like it is.

He speaks his mind.

To think that apologeia or rationality will reach these folk ... will reach the Affect (borrowing the title of a book by Manny Hammer 50 years ago) ... Choose any demagogue you like ... Go to his rally ... Hold up a reasonable sign ... and ... then ...  

RUN FOR YOUR LIFE! 

& your kids' and grandkids' lives, too

The charismatic demagogue ... whether he has cheated in business ... lies through his teeth ... or is wearing a facade of concern when all evidence is that he 'could shoot somebody on 5th Avenue and not lose a single vote ... the charismatic demagogue and those who feel strong through his power will not be defeated by mere logic ... Somehow, we must tap into the affect ... a counter-affect.

Sad!

WHAT IF I'M WRONG?

What if ...

What if der Drumpf is, indeed, the Great Hope for America?

What if DJT really knows how to bring peace to the World and prosperity to America?

What if when he says I can BELIEVE him, I really can?

What if DJT is not just a rich little boy acting a role?

What if he knows better than all the Generals how to defeat terrorism?

What if he's not a serial adulterer?

What if DJT really is a follower of the Gospel of Peace?

What if he's right about NATO?

What if DJT never barred Blacks from living in his buildings?

What if he never cheated contractors out of payments for contracts on buildings?

What if DJT isn't hiding disqualifying facts by not releasing his Taxes?

What if he really is as healthy as Dr. Bornstein says?

What if DJT really understands International Relations?

What if he really knows better than all the Climatologists?

What if DJT really is Pro-Life?

What if he really is the Greatest Father of All Time?

What if DJT was really the author of The Art of the Deal and not that Schwartz guy?

What if he is not the "Black Hole" that Schwartz said he was?

What if DJT put together a really fine University and never cheated his students?

What if he never made things up as he went but really has a plan?

What if DJT was really admiringly respectful of Mrs. Khan?

What if he never indulges aggressive behavior unless provoked?

What if DJT really never previously heard of David Duke?

What if he really cares deeply about inner city folk?

What if DJT never hired Polish illegals and when he did paid them fully and fairly?

What if his taxes show him to be charitable and honest as Old Abe?

What if DJT was really being kind to the other 16 

men who shared the nomination process with him.

What if he was right about heroes being the ones who were never caught?

What if DJT was right about Judges of Mexican heritage?

What if he was right about Mexico sending their scum across the border?

What if DJT is right that the Constitution needs to be suspended on 

the matter of there being no religious tests for entry in the States?

What if he is right to crucify by innuendo ... Presidents? Senators?

What if DJT is, indeed, the Harbinger of the Second Coming?

.....

Well, then, in that case, 

I shall have really been premature 

and unjust in my judgement of Herr Drumpf 

and I shall apologize profusely to him and don 

the Costume of Scary Clown, myself! Promise!

Apologetic? Apoplectic?

And then will I publicly

read the closing lines of Malachi 

that describe the imminent Messianic Era:

And behold, I send to you Elijah the Prophet 

before the day of God ... the Great and Awesome ... 

and he shall return the hearts 

of the parents onto the children 

and the hearts of the children 

onto their parents.

#####################################

And then America Will be Great, Again, 

The SUN Will SHINE and

The WORLD SHALL KNOW PEACE.

#####################################

AMEN!

Goldfinger, Golden Showers, Goldwater Rule ond der Trumpster

Remembah?

Hey, so ... before I begin another red rant from whatever/wherever in me:

I'm asking you ... I ask you ... Believe me ... I'm really asking you 100% 

to listen to Shirley Bassey perform the Theme Song to Goldfinger:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=51Wg6k9cWhM

OK, OK! Y'didn't wanna go to a weblink ... So, here are the lyrics and you likely know the tune:

(guy on right in Stetson is Goldfinger; 

Someone told me that Lewandowski is the guy in the middle; 

and that Bannon is in disguise, on the left ... 

but I'm not sayin' that ... I'm not sayin' that)

Goldfinger

He's the man, the man with the Midas touch

A spider's touch

Such a cold finger

Beckons you to enter his web of sin

But don't go in

Golden words he will pour in your ear

But his lies can't disguise what you fear

For a golden girl knows when he's kissed her

It's the kiss of death from

Mister Goldfinger

Pretty girl beware of this heart of gold

This heart is cold

Golden words he will pour in your ear

But his lies can't disguise what you fear

For a golden girl knows when he's kissed her

It's the kiss of death from

Mister Goldfinger

Pretty girl beware of this heart of gold

This heart is cold

He loves only gold

Only gold

He loves gold

He loves only gold

Only gold

He loves gold

Yeah, Yeah ... I'm being dramatic. But here's my problem:

Given the The Goldwater Rule. There are people out there saying ... you know who they are ... you know! ... that it's not ethical for a psychotherapist to talk about someone who they've never met/examined and who has not given informed consent to be examined and permission to be publicly discussed. This ethical rule resulted after a magazine (Forbes, maybe) asked a hefty group of psychiatrists to comment on whether Barry Goldwater was fit or unfit -- in their estimation -- to become POTUS in the 1964 Election Cycle. 

Given, as well, that I believe in confidentiality in communication of all kinds ... guaranteed not only  by HIPAA but by Leviticus 19 some years before HIPAA-HIPAA-Hooray was uttered or even a twinkle in the eye of some psychotherapist:

Don't go loose-lipped among your people, 

Don't stand by (idly) as your neighbor bleeds;

I am God!

Now, that's a scriptural sentence!

Yeah, yeah ... I'm being sarcastic ... well, facetious but there are some people too stupid to know the difference. It was a long time ago that Leviticus was found ... pieces even in the Dead Sea Scrolls! I don't recall the exact reference though even the Hebrew words remain:

לא תלך רכיל בעמך

 ולא תעמוד על דם ריעך 

... אני הי

(Now, print that out, 

enlarge it and hang it on your kitchen cabinet!

The ancients thought it led to long life!)

Given, also, that the Tarasoff ruling and subsequent decisions on who in their professional capacity and in what circumstances are they required to keep their maws shut and who, on the other hand, legally and ethically is bound to report the possibility of imminent danger to a fellow human being.

In walks Scary Clown:

Well, Given all the above and his claim that he and he-alone holds the key to keeping my grandchildren safe and my children employed  and the Barbarians a safe distance from the Gates of City on the Hill ... Given all that and a professional opinion that one of the candidates is a Loony-Toon, what is a girl to do? ... Hey ... Hey, What the Fuck am I to do? Lemme be more specific.

Bozo comes along in full attire ... I don't know who is in the suit or if anyone is in the suit. Maybe he's nothing more than spontaneous spurts from some aging urethral sphincter ("dang, this polemicist finally got around to Golden Showers, aye") controlled by an RPG (Random Procedure Generator). He's running for President and I am a Citizen and Member of this Polity of Mutual Concern and Interest with certain skills. I am sufficiently concerned about a Man: 

Who Would be King ... 

Who knows more than Generals about War ... 

Who is way more wise than Climatologists about thePhysical World We Live In ... 

Who got it better than the Economists about the Economy ...

Who knows more about women ... well, because he's had more of 'em!

(Nevermind, he also, lost more of 'em!)

Indeed ... ... Some people have been saying that since he knows more than his Doctor-Bornstein-with-The-Good-Hair (looks a little bit like a 60's Stoner-Einstein), he had to dictate the one page health clearance to stand instead of his Too-Hard-for-Mere-Mortals-to-Understand Tax Return. Hey, "Why is everybody always pickin' on me?"

So, Aye, here's the Rub ... It was Aristotle, I think in his Ethica Eudemia, who painted a picture of virtuous behavior. The virtuous person easily chooses Right over Wrong, as they see it, but is willing, too, to battle those situations where Conflicting Goods are mutually excluding. The Lovin' Spoonful asked along these lines: "Did y'ever have to make up your mind? to say yes to one and leave the other behind." The World and its Ethical Dilemmas? which certainly not to the Pyrrhonian Skeptics of Olde Greek Town and not to me, are not Well-Orderable along a linear continuum with < and > signs. 

It don't work that way. 

So ... In walked Scary Clown ... 

And his brother, Charlie Brown, suspected to be inside the mask ... together, they plan to maybe use nukes (rhymes with cukes) ... to disband NATO ... to threaten to bring out his troops to the polling places ... is at least verbally disconnected from his aggression ... (You know what they woulda done? Carried him out in a stretcher! I'm only a Counterpuncher, Boss ... Didn't mean to kill'em.) ... Not only disagrees with his adversaries but shows evidence of a wish to eviscerate them ... Shows no evidence of empathy before diving in to political diatribe (maybe I'm doing that, too ... that's for others to decide) ... Spreads rumors and takes no credit for them ... (Guess that when he went to church they didn't read 19 Leviticus) ... Seems to suggest that it's good business practice to grease the political wheels and that fair with subcontractors is "I take all the marbles and you go home crying") .... ...

Now, I don't know any of these things for a fact but the corrupt low-lifes of the media like Katy Tur (escorted out of his rally by those silly Secret Service Folk who had nothing better to do than walk a pretty young woman out for a constitutional) ... those corrupt low-lifes who maybe should be taken out and shot (Now, I'm not sayin' that but SOME are) are saying these things. Heaven forefend!

Zo! Goldwater Rule or Tarasoff Ruling? Mouth closed? Mouth open? What to do? It is in the Book named after her that Queen Esther fears for her life if, as Uncle Mordechai suggests, she tries to sway the King against Haman the Black Hat without being first beckoned by the King. Uncle Morty says (pardon the loose translation -- Bogey style):

Look here, Sweetheart. 

If you think you're gonna save your pretty ass in this heist, 

you're just kidding yourself, Sweetie. 

Somebody else is gonna come along with a prettier one 

and your's and your peoples' asses will be toast. 

****************************** 

Emile Zola said he came to live loudly ... Give a shout! What the Hell!

Viagra, Bullies and the 2016 Election -- a detour into seriousness?

"Got a Rocket in Your Pocket?" 

(Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story)

This whole thing about how Big Drumpf's Shtick Is is Puzzling.  Ah, well. "They say it ain't easy" (who said that?) Shoulda been applied to mature Men and Women. Aches and pains, for sure. Occasional fractured metatarsals and the inevitable vagaries of Gravity ... I have long found it humorous that emphasis is placed on menopause when so much else is occurring. 

"Stay Cool, Boy!" 

(Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story ... continued)

I was ambivalent -- at least initially -- when Sen. Sanders (not the designated RNC candidate ... Kentucky Fried Sanders ... but Bernie) backed away from the Mic when the Black Lives Matter folk demanded to be heard at a rally that seems now quite distant in the fog of the past year's kerfuffles. Being of Gen-Bernie, myself, it ain't easy to pass the Mic or, in images from antiquity, to Pass the Golden Bough, from one Generation to the next. But Pass-It-Must and Pass-It-Will! Kudos to Bernie!

Thinking about being able to back away from a confrontation, I was never particularly enamored of Freud's presentation of Boys-to-Men as occurring in the strike zone between the upper thigh and the navel. Had to be more that was required to make it to being a contributing member of Polities of Mutual Concern and Interest. Couldn't just be how Big Your Rocket Propelled Grenade-Launcher was ... when it got goin' ... that is. Check out the picture ... It's just about a grenade shorter after launching, anyway.

"Ancient Phallic Worship!" 

(title of book by Westropp and Lake, I think)

Maybe that's the thing with Bullies. They're just too Freudian. Long time ago, I treated folk from the Italian neighborhoods of Philadelphia ... the ones memorialized in the doggerel of TA Daley. A number of women reported a comment that their Moms had made to them while growing up. Apparently, these Mothers would tell their daughters:

"Stiff Pricks have No Conscience!" 

It didn't sound like my mother but, then again, I grew up a Boy with beginnings in Brooklyn ... Yeah, yeah ... I'm another Old Jewish Man who started in Brooklyn. But back to my riff for the day. Maybe that's the largest part (admitted in spite of my revisionist Freudian writings) of the Bully, after-all. The sexual reflex-arc in both sexes is set off and then has its way with us. It may start in the prefrontal-cortical new-brain but once it gets goin' it's all old-brain ... no conscience. Decision making and even planned sequencing is lost in those darker recesses in the backs of our heads where the central category ... the only salient dichotomy ... is Limp or Shtiff with, again, no sense of Conscience. Perhaps, the simplest definition of health comes out of a three part process:

• Recognizing Wishes.
• Determining whether acting on them would cause Self or Other harm.
• Acting on those (that cause no more than minimal harm).

So, yeah. Maybe Bullying is Old Brain stuff where as the caring Italian Mothers advised ... 

Achtung! Gefahr ... 

Beware of those whose conscience is absent 

or temporarily short-circuited.  

I guess what I'm suggesting is no more and no less than the common belief that Bullies are anthropomorphized Limp-Dicks-that-Would-Be-Shtiff. Now considering that 70% of men DJT's age have problems getting shtiff-enough, they likely have varied reactions. Some may back away from the mike and accept their age or condition. Some seek medical help and wait for that promised but medically-dangerous four-hour erection that permits them to call all their Contacts and Friends on the Internet to tell them of their troubles on the way to the ER.  Some live in fear that Sec'y Hillary wants to take away their RPG-Launchers. And some others, I suppose, build tall buildings, love all beautiful women equally and run for High Office.

Disclaimer: I'm a Psychotherapist (maybe run amok, but a psychotherapist, still) and not a Urologist speaking ex Cathedra. I have no way to know what category either the pre-softened or the post-softened Drumpf falls into (see, last posting) ... maybe he's in one all his own. You can ask his Dr. Bornstein, I suppose. The movie, Dr. Strangelove, did a much better job that I can of separating these categories, with Strangelove, himself, representing one such type: raising right hand stiffly to his audience and proudly proclaiming: 

Mein Feuhrer, I kan vok!

Then, there's the Gen. Jack D., Slim Pickins' character, and the other male caricatures ...

Just sayin' ....

Maybe Freud was right (see my Oedipal Paradigms in Collision, 1998/2016) that conscience in the Male of the Species may have a great deal to do with how one handles his "whatever" ... 

"Back to sleep, Old Man"   <-(-;)-

The Softening of Drumpf's Shtick?

Joy Reed was in discussion, last night, with Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC which on the same night carried serious interviews with Rachel Maddow and Kellyanne Conway and, another, with Lawrence O'Donnell discussing similarities in their differences with Glenn Beck.

Lordie, Lordie! Bless My Soul!?

It was also the same day that Drumpf-Kopf accused Hillary Clinton of having at her convention
hollywood types who "weren't so hot, anymore."

Next time, Ms. Secretary, 

see if you can trade a Meryl Streep 

for a Chachi from Happier Days ... 

or for that HOT afternoon TV star--

what was his name? 

DJT is a card, isn't he?

Check out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLKUTxL7tkY

But back to Joy! O'Donnell began the discussion with Joy Reed by raising the question of the Softening of Donald der Drumpf. Joy Reed's Mother, I suspect, would've been shocked by her daughter's responsive difficulty in controlling a giggle that was not to be controlled.  I can hear a Mother with a tongue "Tsk ... Tsk"  ... Mine or Joy's Mother. Maybe it's my Brooklyn mind, but it was pretty obvious to me that Ms. Reed's charming and girlish giggle was related to some imagined double entendre that had to do with either the firm policies of Donald der Drumpf or with Donald's Drumpf Shtick, both of which have been talked about -- particularly between Little Marco and Big Don but, also, between Vigor/Rigor Don and Low-Energy Jeb in the Big-Tent-PT-Barnum-like Republican Primary!

Poor Joy Reed got caught in 6th grade giggles about "whatevers" that are to soften or harden, depending, that is, on their function in the so-called Down-and-Dirty which he discussed so openly with Howard Stern. Was she really giggling about one of those curious situations that older men experience when they reach the age where they can no longer remember the difference between Lunesta and Levitra ... to go to sleep, that is, or -- so to speak -- stay up? 

Joy ... "Shame ... Shame on you and me, both!!!

BTW ... Are you from Brooklyn, too?"

Well! Lemme give Donnie the benefit of the doubt on his Sweedish or German* Drumpf Shtick ... Donnie and I are about the same age and I can only empathize with another Old Man who either gets caught in somewhat repetitive social/verbal/policy shticks or doesn't, indeed, have exactly the same bedroom response he had as an adolescent and a young vigorous man. I admit it. Last night, I found it difficult to load a box of ten reams of paper into the back of my car and I do hope some young guy at the Clinton Campaign Office will carry the load into the Headquarters. 

Howard ... You're having too much fun!

I suppose so. Still and frankly, it is difficult to adjust to Tragic Farces, suchg as the Trump candidacy. A Boy who never quite grew up but would be King and those who follow him hoping that he, indeed, has found the Magic Beans that Jack sought ... the formula for a better day. His followers, I suspect, are a group like any other ... one third? really decent and thoughtful folk looking for hope in a dangerous World. Another third? perfidious swine ... who are looking for someone else to blame/hang for the exigencies of life in a culture that is struggling to redefine itself in the midst of inevitable changes. And a final third? folk who are somewhere in the middle and good to have lunch with from time to time. You name the group? It seems to trifurcate along those lines.

I/We do live in frightening times here in a country that -- thanks to young visionaries of 250 years ago -- is still having a pretty good run. Unemployment? Urban decay? Terrorism? Yeah! The Cold War of the Post-WW2 era was in many ways simpler. Two or Three megapowers busy standing off against each other ... with all of us in fear that it would end in fire! But the Cold War ended and the Industrial Era that was required to keep that Stalemated Peace has been supplanted by a Mechanized Digital Era where Armed Minor Powers -- no longer secure in their belief that the Giants are busy fending each other off -- have taken to nipping at the Giants' ankles and Manufacturing has moved to places that are still young enough to grow ... poor enough to climb socio-economic ladders. Toynbee did predict a move of progress to East Asia!

By way of self-disclosure ... I was never a fan of the Clintons and still blamed POTUS Bill and his philandering for Gore's loss to der Shrub ... but I do trust Senator-Secretary Clinton to be -- as has been popular to say during the past Year of the Potentially Tragic Farce -- the Adult in the Room who will do the best with an almost impossible situation.

With apologies for my silliness .... Joy Reed will have to apologize, herself!!!

* There are those -- but not me, need I add -- who have said that 
DJT used to claim to be of Swedish descent!