Thank you

In 15 more days, it will be Thanksgiving, but I can’t wait that long to give thanks to the tens of millions of fellow Americans who voted for Donald J. Trump. My heart and gut are so burdened with emotion that I must express my gratitude now.

A simple thank-you will not suffice. Each blessing must be recognized separately.

Thank you, dear countrymen, for giving us a leader who appalls the whole world (with the important exception of Russia).

Thank you for the trade wars to come and the setback to international cooperation.

Thank you for giving hope to the coal workers of America, who will once again dig tons of pollutants out of the ground.

Thank you—especially to Oklahomans—who assured frackers they can destabilize the Midwest with impunity.

Thank you—especially to those on the Gulf Coast and in our sweltering cities—for putting the Paris climate accords in jeopardy. My grandchildren send their thanks as well.

Thank you for ringing the death knell for Obamacare and ensuring its replacement by something laughably inadequate. The newly uninsured will certainly add their thanks.

Thank you for accepting a more impoverished life so that the 1% can grow even wealthier.

Thank you for bravely facing a certain recession that will throw many of you back into unemployment.

Thank you for ruining the Supreme Court for a generation.

Thank you for ensuring no abatement in gun violence.

Thank you for giving no hope to people whose lives mean little to police officers everywhere.

Thank you for ignoring the callous mistreatment of women.

Thank you for making life scarier for American Muslims and immigrants from Mexico and Latin America. We know how to deal with their anger and frustration.

Thank you for keeping desperate refugees from finding a place among us.

Thank you on behalf of all the homophobes among us. We can proceed to abolish gay marriage and all other forms of sexual deviancy.

Thank you for reaffirming that we are a Christian nation and will mince no words about it.

Thank you for giving us a leader whose virtues will inspire us and serve as a model for our children.

Thank you for serenely accepting the coarsening of our lives.

Thank you for blotting our history with an ugly, indelible stain.

And most of all, thank you for your foul, steadfast ignorance.

There… sometimes vomiting is the only relief available.

Owning our sins

I want to introduce a new word—or repurpose an old one; I’m not sure which. The word is “bibliopath,” a person whose thinking is disordered by blind reverence for a book or a particular interpretation of that book. In most cases, the book is a sacred text, like the Holy Bible or the Quran.

In America, most bibliopaths live in Red States, with a heavy concentration in the South. They think of homosexuality as an abomination; that’s the biblical label for it. I don’t think the Bible has a classification for changing one’s gender, but doing so repudiates what God has made, so I guess it’s an abomination, too. Gays who marry defile both themselves and a holy institution. They double down on sin.

Today, in Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina, and other enclaves of superstition and ignorance, a war is raging. Small bands of activists who abhor intolerance and discrimination are squaring off against a bibliopathic majority. So far the outcome is inconclusive, but Big Business, fearing a setback to their profits, has linked arms with the activists. This may well be a telling alliance.

Still, I’d like to be more sure of the outcome, and I have a plan for making success much more probable. We need to widen the war with a full-court press.  All of us are multiple sinners, but we don’t own our sins. This has to change. No more asking for absolution in a confessional. That’s exactly the wrong thing to do. We have to acknowledge our sins openly, even flaunt them! Therefore, I propose that we follow the LGBT example and parade our sins.

It’s pretty easy to imagine what a Sin Parade would look like. It would consist of one or more floats for each of the seven deadly sins—Pride, Envy, Wrath, Gluttony, Lust, Sloth, and Greed. I’ll elaborate…

The Pride floats. I envision several of them. One is a swath of red carpet on which celebrities pose and strut. See-through designer dresses are de rigueur. Deep cleavage and side-boob are encouraged. (Any Kardashian who volunteers is given priority.)  Another float features a body builder, totally ripped from head to toe, wearing only a Speedo brief. He strikes various poses, grins, and flexes. Next comes a bevy of well-endowed young women in wet T-shirts. They thrust their chests out and smile proudly. Their T-shirts read “YEAH, THEY’RE REAL!” Last, there’s a pudgy guy dressed as Elvis and bedecked with bling. He combs his hair in front of a mirror while muttering, “You ain’t nuthin’ but a hound dog.”

The Envy float. There’s only one. A handsome fellow and a killer blonde are in a Corvette convertible with the top down. They’re talking, laughing, smooching. As they go at it, several people covered with green body paint circle the car, crouch, and snarl. They’re at liberty to hop off the float, hop onto any other, and act out their displeasure again.

The Wrath floats. They present two kinds of enactments: murderous fury and sublimated fury. For murderous fury, there’s a staging of the rumble scene from West Side Story. True to the story, two stabbing deaths are acted out. For sublimated fury, a guy sits in front of a TV with a beer in one hand. A hockey game is in progress. The viewer shouts, “Kill the bastard! Smash his face! Hit him with the stick! Yeah! Ha ha!” He’s allowed to ad lib, of course. Profanity is encouraged.

The Gluttony floats. Three of these have the same theme: an obese couple lovingly feeding each other something that’s horrifyingly fattening. It might be Lappert’s Coconut Macadamia Nut Fudge ice cream or Kettle Krinkle Cut potato chips with sea salt or chocolate chip cookies from Neiman Marcus. Whatever it is, the gluttons make orgasmic noises between mouthfuls. Another float features a woman in a muumuu sitting at a table with a heaping plate of spare ribs before her. Her mouth, chin, and fingers are smeared with barbecue sauce. A pile of unused napkins is at her left, a mound of used ones at her right. The last float is nothing more than an obese man in a too-small Hawaiian shirt trying to get into a pair of jeans. He grunts and strains but closure is impossible. He curses in frustration, plops down on a chair, stands up a minute later, and tries again.

The Lust floats. These are pretty basic. One features a stunning, half-naked pole dancer, another an Adonis who strips down to his skivvies. On the platforms of each is a large sofa. They dance and gyrate provocatively. After several minutes of this, they point to a cheering onlooker and shout something like, “You in the plaid shirt (or you in the blue, V-neck dress)—come on up!” Nudity and copulation are recommended. At the least, the performers should test the enforcement of the public indecency statutes.

The Sloth float. Again, there’s just one. On the platform, we see a man in a La-Z-Boy recliner. He’s dressed in pajamas and a bathrobe. Behind him stands a woman costumed as a French maid. Beside her are miscellaneous objects on a counter. The man snaps his fingers and commands, “Coffee with cream and sugar, two lumps!” Minutes later, snap, “Pipe, tobacco, matches!” Still later, snap, “Newspaper—the Sports section!” Eventually, she brings and removes all the objects that were on the counter. As a finale, she washes and massages his feet.

The Greed floats. The model for these is a four-person poker game, The players represent the greediest people on the planet. For example, Charles Koch, David Koch, Martin Shkreli, and Sheldon Adelson sit at one of the tables. (The actual people are invited to participate, but in the likely case they refuse, look-alikes are used.)

All the players wear casual clothes with mics attached. The Koch brothers smoke cigars. Shkreli fidgets and drums his fingers on the table. Adelson sits in a wheelchair, a cannula in his nose with a tube to a portable oxygen concentrator. A private nurse stands behind him. The dialogue is typical:

Shkreli: I’ll bet $200,000.
Adelson: I’ll see you and raise you a day’s take at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino. And I’ll throw in my nurse.
C. Koch: I’ll see you and raise you the value of my chemical holdings.
D. Koch: Hey, you can’t bet those! We own them jointly.
C. Koch: Okay, look. You can bet our energy, finance, plastics, petroleum, pulp and paper, and ranching holdings, but I get to bet our asphalt, chemical, commodities trading, fibers, fertilizers, and natural gas holdings. Deal?
D. Koch: Deal. I’ll see you and raise you the value of my energy, plastics, and petroleum holdings.
Shkreli: Shit—I’m out!

The avaricious are everywhere, so it should be easy to find players for a second float. Carl Icahn, Donald Trump, Larry Ellison, and Carlos Slim come to mind.

The onlookers. They are, of course, the most important component of the event. Very likely, they’ll be enthusiastic, but that’s not enough; they have to identify with the sinners on the floats. To facilitate, members of The Friends of Sin are planted among them. The FOS volunteers are easy to spot: they wear orange and red jumpsuits. They offer “PROUD SINNER” stickers to random onlookers. If an onlooker points and shouts “That’s me!”—or, if it’s a Lust float, “I wish that was me!”—they receive a Dollars-Off Coupon, as long as supplies last. The coupons are redeemable at virtually any fast food restaurant, even in Utah. (Anyone who identifies with the French maid or Adelson’s nurse receives only pity.)

There you have it—my plan to vanquish the bibliopaths. Some of you will think it’s extravagant and even a bit odd. I get that. I also get that we won’t overcome pious fanaticism until we fully embrace our humanity.

Wretched excess

When I opened my email inbox the other day, there, among the flotsam, was an ad from Amazon. Usually I zap spam the moment I see it, but this item had a title that pressed a button: “Get Ready for St. Patrick’s Day for Your Home.” I had to see more. The ad showed trays and dishes, both bearing a four-leaf-clover design; green dishtowels, body towels, and shower curtains; and a table runner also in a clover motif. Even a metal sign reading “Irish Parking Only” was featured. Obviously Amazon and other retailers think the whole public, not just the Irish, wants to bask in Irish pride, if only for a little while each year.

When I was a kid, I had to wear something green every March 17th. Otherwise, I was harassed. Now no one comments about the absence of green, but I still have a mild paranoia about it. Everyone’s looking for green and wondering why I won’t join in the fun!

What other ethnic groups do we indulge this way? Do we make sure to eat a burrito on Cinco de Mayo? We predominately speak English, and the foundation of our laws is English law, but does anyone know the feast day of St. George is April 23rd? We owe our freedom from England to France, but who can recite a single fact about St. Denis? Is Columbus Day celebrated as Italian Pride Day? Well, maybe by some Italians, but the rest of us think of it differently.

The odd thing about St. Patrick is that he wasn’t even Irish! He was born in Roman Britain, in what is now Wales. While on a sea voyage, he was kidnapped by Irish pirates. He escaped his captors but unaccountably developed a fondness for Ireland. Then he had a religious awakening and returned to Ireland to convert as many as he could to Christianity. I doubt he drove the snakes out of Ireland. It seems probable to me that he drove the devil out of his converts, so to speak, and we know the devil is a serpent. (In a way, so was the dragon that St. George supposedly slew.)

What about St. Patrick the man? Was there something in him that was “great-souled,” as there was in Mahatma Gandhi? No, he was just very good at turning pagans into Christians. Of course, this counts for a lot among Irish Catholics, because he was, in effect, their path to salvation. As an atheist, it isn’t a talent I hold in high regard.

However, this doesn’t mean I’m unimpressed by all the Christian saints. Several capture my imagination. Foremost, there’s St. Francis, who revered all life. To him, life was sacred in its own right. He sought to comfort people of every station. He was born into a wealthy family yet chose a life of poverty, I suppose to be more accessible to the poor and wretched. It was the life that Christ had chosen.

I’m also fond of St. Jude, also called Thaddeus. His original name was Judas, which posed an obvious problem. In no way did he want to be associated with Judas Iscariot. Nevertheless, as he spread the gospel, he was sometimes mistaken for Christ’s betrayer. He wanted to prove his usefulness so deeply that he would intervene under the most desperate circumstances. This may be why he’s thought of as the patron saint of lost causes. We all suffer from lost causes, or what I think of as broken dreams. There is a nobility in people who can empathize and comfort when they hear of a dream that will never be fulfilled.

The legend of St. Christopher, the “Christ bearer,” is also appealing. In typical depictions, we see him fording a stream, a staff in his right hand, the child Jesus perched on this left shoulder. His head is turned in loving concern toward Jesus as he grips him securely with his left arm. He’s the patron saint of travelers. In an effort to keep up to date, the Catholic Church has listed automobile drivers among those he protects! (I wonder if passengers on trains and planes are now included.)

But the Church has somehow missed what I like most about St. Christopher: his priorities. He knows that nothing is more precious or more worthy of protection than children. They are our legacy, our commitment to better days ahead. As I look at dozens of artists’ depictions, I repeatedly see it in his face.

Perhaps your cup of tea is someone who was your contemporary. That would be Mother Teresa, who died 18 years ago. She’ll be canonized later this year, probably as St. Teresa of Calcutta.  In 1946, while on a train trip to a convent in Darjeeling, she got the call: Leave the convent; live among the poor; comfort them. She sounds like a latter-day St. Francis, only she spent months in Patna getting basic medical training. Then she went to Calcutta and began caring for the ill, the starving, and the destitute. The rest, as they say, is history.

On March 17th, if you come across a one-day Irish wannabe wearing a silly, green party hat and a shamrock pin on his shirt, just recall the words of Mr. T: “I pity the fool!”

Gunther the Green-Nosed Reindeer

’Tis the season. Shoppers congesting streets and highways, shoppers clogging malls, shoppers straining etailers’ servers, lawns and facades glowing in ostentation, electricity bills spiking, yule logs blazing, air quality declining, waistlines expanding, holiday songs whirling in our heads. And among those songs is one originally made popular by Gene Autry, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

It was composed 65 years ago by Johnny Marks (no relation), who took the story from a holiday coloring book that his brother-in-law had put together for Montgomery Ward. We all know how it goes. One of Santa’s reindeer, Rudolph, is the victim of a genetic accident that has left him with a red, glowing nose. The other reindeer mock him for this oddity and exclude him from their games. He seems doomed to a life of misery, but he’s saved by a stroke of good fortune. On one particular Christmas eve, it’s so foggy that Santa can’t make his rounds without a bright light to guide the way. Of course, Santa thinks of Rudolph’s nose and puts him at the head of the reindeer team. Christmas is saved, and Rudolph’s a hero. Generations of kids have loved the story. The popular animated version with Burl Ives has now been on TV for 50 Christmases!

The theme of a sympathetic figure going from shunned to celebrated is so powerful that we willingly set aside the alarming aspects of the story. For example, we overlook the cruelty of the other reindeer. They’re really an awful bunch and, even more disturbing, they’re Santa’s reindeer! You’d think their behavior would be exemplary. What of Santa himself? This is the fellow who knows who’s naughty and nice, yet he’s clueless about his own reindeer. Or maybe he just doesn’t care that they’re so shallow and mean. And what if there had been no fog that Christmas eve? I suppose Santa would have ignored Rudolph’s plight indefinitely. Something’s rotten at the North Pole, but no one gets that from the song.

I’m determined to write a “counter-story”—one with a message that’s much more constructive than “adulation heals all wounds.” It’s about Gunther, another of Santa’s reindeer. He’s got an odd nose, too. It’s green, just plain green. It doesn’t glow or sparkle or radiate. It’s just another nose mutation. (Such oddities are inevitable in a small herd of flying reindeer that has been interbreeding for a least two millennia.)

When the other reindeer realize that Gunther’s nose has no fog-piercing qualities, they begin tormenting him, just as they had tormented Rudolph. They’ve learned nothing. Vixen is the worst of the lot. Whenever she sees Gunther, she calls out, “Hey, Gunth, put some shoe polish on that thing for heaven’s sake!” It gets very grim for Gunther. He goes off his food, becomes reclusive, and starts muttering to himself.

One evening, Santa and Mrs. Claus—her name is actually Emma—are having a quiet dinner. Suddenly she pours her heart out: “Nick, have you taken a look at Gunther lately? He’s utterly wretched, and it’s getting worse. He’s making himself sick!” “Yes, I’ve seen him, Em.” says Santa. “And I think we’ve put up with him long enough.” “What? Put up with him?!” she exclaims. But Santa doesn’t answer. He throws down his napkin, stands up, and heads for the closet where he keeps his rifle. “Oh, no!” shouts Emma. “No, no, no!”

Well, for the first time in centuries, Emma stands up to her husband. She says, “You’re as much a beast as your reindeer. You can just sleep in the toy factory with your elves!” Then she goes to the tool shed where Gunther is cowering and tells him, “I have a new home for you, Gunther… with me!” From that evening on, Gunther gets the love that every living thing deserves. And what of Santa and his other reindeer? Rumor has it that a team of sensitivity trainers is taking up permanent residence at the North Pole.

That’s the kind of story that deserves to be broadcast every Christmas. If anyone out there wants to set it to music, I’m ready to collaborate.

Consolidation

Every American should be concerned about any loss of productivity in our labor force. We are, after all, living in the most economically competitive world in history. The competitive threats from Asia and the European Union are daunting, not to mention the menace of the BRIC nations. Many recommendations to improve our productivity have come forth, but no one has yet addressed an obvious problem: holiday creep. I refer to our deplorable inclination to commemorate all our notable people, events, movements, and cultural symbols with a national holiday, some of which last two days! I’d like some economist to calculate the annual hit we take to our GNP because of these labor interruptions. It’s got to be considerable.

The cure for holiday creep is consolidation. Instead to adding new holidays, let’s fold up a bunch of them into one monster holiday! Specifically, I propose that we consolidate Martin Luther King Day, President’s Day, Memorial Day, The Fourth of July, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving into a single day. Further, I propose that this day be Super Bowl Sunday! That gives us the bonus of having the mega-holiday occur on a Sunday.

The Super Bowl spectacle has everything that all these separate holidays have. Jets fly overhead. Flags fly on the field. Bands play. The Star-Spangled Banner is sung with flamboyant flourishes. Racially and ethnically diverse gladiators use teamwork to achieve victory. The masses go wild in the stands. Pop culture is lavishly celebrated at half time. Madison Avenue proudly airs its best commercials. Testosterone and beer drinking are honored. The nation’s elite are featured in their opulent boxes. Disneyland gets a callout. Victory is celebrated in the winner’s locker room: hulking men douse each other in champagne; a trophy and commemorative jewelry are awarded. And fittingly, the heroes are given due recognition with a Presidential Phone Call. It doesn’t get any better than this!

Write to your representative today. Let’s get this done for the good of America!

Trickle, trickle

Thanksgiving, one of our most beloved national holidays and one of the two pillars of the Holiday Season, is a sad thing. It’s a feast day, but an impoverished one. It lacks the most important quality of feast days: symbolism. Consider a Passover seder for the sake of comparison. Every part of it is symbolic. Here’s a sample of the symbolism you’ll find on a Passover table:

• Roasted lamb, a reminder of the lamb sacrificed the night the ancient Jews left their bondage in Egypt.

• A bitter herb, commonly horseradish, to recall the bitterness of slavery.

• Charoset, a mixture of apples, nuts, wine, and cinnamon that represents the mortar used to make bricks.

• Matzo, unleavened bread that signifies the hasty exodus from Egypt. No time was allowed for the bread dough to rise.

• Wine (or grape juice). Four small glasses are drunk, each representing a letter in the unspeakable name of God.

That is a proper feast. You not only fill your belly but also partake of a cultural experience. You come away with an affirmation of who you are. No such thing happens at a Thanksgiving dinner. (The impression you’re supposed to take away is that you live in a land of plenty and share in its bounty. As we will see shortly, this is an illusion.)

The task, then, is to infuse Thanksgiving with symbolism that reflects the American experience. To succeed in this, most of the traditional Thanksgiving dishes—all but two—must be discarded, and everything served must take on a symbolic meaning. This is what I propose for the new Thanksgiving table:

• Pigs in a blanket, to represent the scum of the Occupy Movement—the “takers”—who huddled in streets and buildings for months, making demands and obstructing daily business. Ideally, the “pigs” should be wrapped in a pancake and covered with…

• Maple syrup, which represents the drippings that trickle down from the wealthy and make existence sustainable for the rest of us. (This is what passes for the “bounty” we share.)

• Stuffing (without the bird), to denote the preposterous girth of most adult Americans. Given our racial and ethnic diversity, this is the only physical characteristic that uniquely identifies us to the rest of the world.

• Corn on the cob, which honors America’s quintessential cash crop and brings to mind our country’s dithering energy policy. Far more corn is used for ethanol—29% at last estimate—than for any other purpose, and by law we must continue to blend it with transportation fuels until 2022. Slather on the butter and go at it, especially if you’re a corn farmer. The use of corn holders is discouraged.

• Cranberry sauce, as an alternative topping for the “pigs.” The fact that cranberries grow in bogs reminds us that our federal government is nothing more than a immense bog where good ideas go to die.

• Huckleberry pie, in lieu of the traditional pumpkin pie, which has no symbolic value. The Urban Dictionary notes that a “huckleberry” is a small, unimportant person. Plainly, we are a nation of huckleberries. We are unworthy in so many ways. Our children don’t deserve the leg up that an early childhood education can afford, nor do they deserve a college education without the burden of debt. We don’t deserve an indefinitely extended safety net when economic hardship strikes. We don’t deserve protection from medical bills that can take away our savings and our homes. If we don’t have what it takes to be well off, we deserve whatever hardships life holds for us. To think otherwise is a perversion of what our country stands for.

• Mineral water, a diet drink, or black coffee without sugar. Yes, this requirement makes no sense, given the fatty foods on the table, but that’s the point. It reminds us that our consumption habits are irrational, as is so much of our national life. We love nature but have life styles that pollute it. We abhor violence but allow people to own horrific weapons with no effective regulation. We thrive on competition but support an education system that makes us uncompetitive. We believe in a fair shake for everyone but vote for representatives who create huge advantages for the wealthy.

There you have it. A feast remade, and fraught with symbols that remind us of who we are. Give it a try this year. And when the celebration is over and your guests take their leave, be sure to call out after them, “Happy Drippings!”