American Sharia Fundamentalism is about unwavering attachment to irreducible beliefs. What is an irreducible belief? Whatever someone wants it to be to serve his purpose. And that purpose can be for the greater good or it can have a high coefficient of self-interest, usually cloaked in false righteousness. What would we define as American fundamentalism? Technically, it represents the views espoused by the Niagara Bible Conference in 1897 that tried desperately to build a wall…
Trumpster Fire The New York Times (aka Failing Fake News) has landed with both feet on Donald Trump’s neck in a big way. They have laid bare his tax record (or approximations thereof) from 1985 – 1995. The bottom line is that he was, for much of that time, THE most unprofitable individual in the United States. This Master of the Universe, self-proclaimed best of the best businessman. He wrote-off more than $1 billion…
The Pit in My Teeth Life’s a bowl of cherries and Erma Bombeck wondered if that’s so, why did she alwasys find herself in the pits. I would change that a bit (pun intended) by asking, if life’s a bowl of cherries, why do I always have the pit in my teeth? Or maybe you like a more Forrest Gump approach. Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna…
The Best Horse The Kentucky Derby made history yesterday by taking away the winning crown from Maximum Security and awarding it to Country House. Never has such a controversy and claim of foul so upended this historic horse race. The foul claim was that on a muddy track, Maximum Security drifted outward in its lane and bumped another horse to box it out. No one thinks it was intentional by the jockey, but rather…
Steady Teddy I have a 10-inch high bust of Teddy Roosevelt that I was given as an award for something or other a few years ago at a ceremony held at Federal Hall. Federal Hall is the building at Wall and Broad Street that is thought of as the center of the capitalist universe. On the other three corners sit, 16 Wall Street, 23 Broad Street and the New York Stock Exchange building. 16 Wall…
Vini Vidi Vici Venezuela I blame the crisis in Venezuela on my mother. At the end of 1953 my mother had already lived in Venezuela, working for the Rockefeller Foundation, for seven years. She had married a Venezuelan citizen, bought a house, joined several social and sports clubs (Mom was an athlete), given birth to two daughters (the second born in Caracas, so a natural Venezuelan citizen), hired a governess and even bought a dog.…
Worship Yet another AR-15 assault, this time on a Chabad Jewish Center in San Diego on the last day of Passover. This follows the Sri Lankan anti-churchgoer attacks on Easter Sunday and the mosque attacks in New Zealand. That’s three for three for the Big Three. As it turns out, worship is risky these days. Some would say that worship is more needed than ever. Anti-religious terrorism and gun violence are horrific acts that deserve…
Inside My Head These are strange times. They are strange for me, strange for my family and strange for my country and the world. I am certainly the first human being in the history of mankind to pass into irrefutable old age (65) and spend too much time thinking about my state and the state of the world. I am sure that no one thinks about stuff as clearly as I do. This is why…
I Cry for Stalin I recently watched for the nth time, The Death of Stalin and found it hilariously tragic or perhaps tragically hilarious. It is fun to imagine that powerful men might be the bumbling yet funny idiots that the Politburo of 1953 appears to be in this movie. The scene of them discovering and then moving Stalin’s non responsive body into his bed may be one of the funniest scenes in movie history.…
Renegade Nation Our mantra as a nation has always been E Pluribus Unum or “Out of Many, One.” Our new mantra might be more accurately changed to Quid Dicere, Quid Faciunt , which translates to “Say anything, do anything.” The recent news from Washington is that as Congress moves to enforce its constitutionally-given obligation to balance back against the Executive Branch of government, the President has decided that he’s not having any of it. He…