Me and My Stubb's

I'm not a hypochondriac, I'm an alarmist.

— Woody Allen

How many times a day have you decided you've caught the coronavirus? 

In my case it's four, at least.

But I've managed to avoid routine trips to the emergency room thanks to the sage advice of a Detroit-based MD.

Dr. Susan Malinowski published her advice in Medium back in early April, when the pandemic was new and tests nonexistent. 

She had already caught the virus and lost her sense of smell.

"Until we have adequate testing, don’t ignore this simple symptom," the doctor wrote.

"Yes, there are other causes for loss of smell, but take it from someone who’s been there, the loss of smell is profound. 

"Get a jar of chopped garlic and monitor your sense of smell along with temperature every day. If you can’t smell the garlic, even in the absence of other symptoms, quarantine for 14 days and wait for it to return."

I had no garlic at the time, but I did have have a bottle of garlic-laden Stubb's. 

So I unscrewed the cap and took a whiff from the conical bottle first thing every morning—plus any time my inner alarm sounded (again, about four times a day).

Stubb's became my Covid-19 test kit.

Stubb's doesn't need outside marketing advice; but I'll give it, anyway. 

Should sales of BBQ sauce ever decline, Stubb's might take a page from Arm & Hammer, which boosted flagging sales of baking soda with the claim that it kept refrigerators smelling sweet.

Although at-home Covid-19 tests may soon be plentiful, you can't store them in easy reach, alongside the baking soda.

Nor use them to spark up a burger.

The Late Hunter S. Thompson Answers My Question

NOTE: I awoke today to find this mysterious note on my bathroom sink.

Bob,

You addled bastard, you approached me in your fetid dream last night and asked my advice. 

At least, I think you did—I had the Cowboys game on at the time, and Washington was stomping them, like they were a gang of sick junkies.

My attention wasn't fully yours. 

If I grasped your question, you asked what America should do with 45, now that the maddened crowds—like Bond in the grand finale—have dispatched his fat diapered ass.

The Ephedrine supply is practically nonexistent here, so I must keep my answer brief.

America doesn't have to do anything about 45. 

Come mid-December—too chilly for tubby to golf in Virginia—45 will depart DC permanently for his rat-hole in Florida, announcing by Tweet a "hard-earned" Christmas vacation. 

From there, Snowden-like, 45 will flee to Moscow, requesting permanent asylum.

Putin will grant the asylum, glad for yet another thing to lord over fatso. 

But when Putin learns 45 is broke and knows no Top Secrets the Kremlin doesn't, he'll graciously deliver one of his infamous gifts.

The only question for America: where to dispose of the remains?

I suggest the ruins of Reactor 4 in Chernobyl.

— Hunter

Anything You Want

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant.

— Arlo Guthrie

Last year, my wife and I spent three late-summer days in leafy Stockbridge, Massachusetts, the home of the now-derelict Alice's Restaurant. The restaurant's front door was padlocked, but I managed to sneak inside through the adjoining building (another greasy spoon, this in full operation). Not much to see of Alice's Restaurant except dust, cobwebs, and a few splintery tables and counters.

This year, I'm grateful for many things, not the least of which include the annual airplay of Arlo Guthrie's anti-war song—the only song about Thanksgiving that isn't insufferably schmaltzy. I'm also grateful Covid-19 hasn't ripped family members and friends from my life or denied me a cozy, if crimped, lifestyle.

Millions of other Americans can't say that.

Behavioral scientists believe gratitude, the "affirmation of goodness," survives from our primate-days, when we thrived by helping others and being helped in return.

Psychotherapists believe gratitude is as much a "practice" as an inborn emotion. Counting your blessings makes you upbeat, sociable and generous; combats depression; and wards off many unhealthy emotions, including envy, resentment, anger and contempt. AA calls the practice an "attitude of gratitude."

Although few Americans know or care, Gettysburg is the reason we celebrate Thanksgiving every year. The holiday—intended by Lincoln as a "day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficient Father who dwelleth in the Heavens"—was instituted by executive order three months after the Federal government's Pyrrhic victory outside the Pennsylvania town. 

Seven score and seventeen years later, we mark the holiday not by thanksgiving and prayer, but by overeating, watching football, and avoiding any mention of the "party of Lincoln."

Quite the comedown.

So let's set things aright.

This week, I challenge you to write down three good things that have come your way in 2020, and imagine your life without them. The items you list are up to you: they can be can be people, ideas, objects, or events. Anything you want.

Fishy

Holocaust deniers love a red herring.

A red herring is a statement meant to divert our attention from evidence. For example:

All Jews weren't exterminated. So there was no Holocaust.

The Holocaust-denier's favorite, this red herring ignores the fact that victims have survived genocides throughout history.

Right now, Rudi Giuliani is peddling red herrings. He employed one in a federal court this week:

Republicans weren't present for every ballot-count.
So Trump won the election in Pennsylvania.

Rudi's red herring ignores the fact that the election results in Pennsylvania were carefully audited by state and county election workers. Republican poll watchers, although they should have, failed to visit every election-return warehouse in the state. But Republicans' laziness doesn't reverse the outcome.

The noun phrase red herring dates to the early 13th century, when, to compensate for the lack of refrigeration, fish peddlers would salt and smoke fresh herring. A red herring was smoked so long—usually 10 days—it would turn from white to red. Poor people and British sailors lived on the tangy treats; so did Catholics throughout Lent. Red herrings were—and are—known as kippers, a favorite British breakfast food.

Two centuries later, writer Gerland Langbaine noted in The Hunter that you could train your hounds to follow the game's scent by trailing a kipper on the ground.

A century after Langbaine's handbook appeared, newspaper journalist William Cobbett related a fable about a boy who used a kipper to distract a pack of hounds from their prey. Cobbett compared the hounds to sloppy journalists who chased after "false leads."

Cobbett cemented the metaphor in English speakers' minds when he wrote that a false lead is a "red herring," because "its scent goes cold" in a day.

In Nonsense, grammarian Robert Gula defines a red herring as "a detail inserted into a discussion that sidetracks the discussion." It's purely and simply a logical fallacy.

Red herrings are bull—and bad for you. 

And, frankly, Rudi's are giving me a haddock.

Trifles

A trifle consoles us, because a trifle upsets us.

— Pascal

Trifle is an 11th century word that derives from the French trufle, meaning "tiny deception."

A trifle can ruin a day—or make one.

Bob Dylan captures the ominous power a trifle yields when he sings: 

Yes, I received your letter yesterday,
About the time the doorknob broke. 

When you asked me how I was doing,
Was that some kind of joke?

Trifles deceive. 

They lead us to believe the world either has our welfare in mind, or is out to get us, when neither is the case. No, the world, as Wittgenstein says, is all that is the case. When it comes to you, the world is more or less unconcerned. Only the narcissist thinks otherwise.

If a trifle makes you unhappy, don't sweat it; a good one's bound to turn up soon.

And if it doesn't, rejoice in the fact that there's always coffee.

Make it your mantra: I won't latch on; I will let go.

Meet Me at the Fair

I invite you to grab your sweetheart, don your mask and come see my exhibit of original oil paintings for sale at the Center for the Creative Arts’ Annual Artisan Show, next Saturday, November 21, and Sunday, November 22.

At the event—a weekend marketplace for fine art and handmade crafts—you’ll meet over 20 artists of the Brandywine Valley. 

They’ll be offering original paintings, jewelry, ceramics, wearables, leather goods, decorations and more.

Original oil paintings make wonderful gifts for the holidays.

The show takes place Saturday and Sunday, November 21-22, 2020, 10 am-5 pm and 11 am-4 pm. Admission is $5 (kids 10 & under free). Proceeds go to help the Center. 

Buy your timed tickets in advance.

Strict CDC and State of Delaware guidelines for health and safety at events will be followed.

The Center is located at 1149 Yorklyn Road, Yorklyn, Delaware 19736.

Meet me at the fair!

A Confederacy of Crepehangers

All events are linked together in the best of all possible worlds.

— Voltaire

Most of the 78 million Americans who voted for Joe Biden—myself included—are chirpy this morning, now that the election has been called.

But whether their pleasure will last more than a morning I doubt.

Most liberals I know are Cassandras. Cassandras seem to prevail under our tent and, often, I feel awash in them.

Cassandra, of course, was the fusspot daughter of the king of Troy. Apollo made her a seer in exchange for a toss in the hay. She used that power to warn the Trojans the city would be invaded by Greeks hiding in the belly of a wooden horse. No one listened to her; but, gosh darn it, she was right.

Other liberals I know are Doubting Thomases. There are plenty of them under the tent, too.

Doubting Thomas, you'll recall, was the Apostle who refused to buy into Jesus's resurrection. "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were I will not believe," he told the disciples. But unlike Cassandra, Thomas had to eat crow.

Because I'm a cock-eyed optimist, I prefer liberals who are Pollyannas.

Pollyanna was the character in a 1913 eponymous novel whose father taught her the "glad game." The game demands that, so you'll never be disappointed, you "find something about everything to be glad about." When you shower in saccharinity, the novel preaches, you're never disappointed.

Speaking for myself, I'm a Pangloss.

Pangloss was the talkative tutor in Voltaire's 1759 novel Candide. He is a baseless, feelgood optimist and follower of the Enlightenment philosopher Leibniz, who insisted we live in "the best of all possible worlds."

While crepehanging liberals lament the future of  America—cursed as it was by the shameless slaver, germ-spreader and colonizer Christopher Columbus—I'm content like James Brown to say: I feel good.

America's an okay place.

And I'll point out, like Pangloss did, that without Columbus we wouldn't have Mallomars.

NOTE: Writer Robert Brault said it right: "You can look at optimism and pessimism as two different outfits in your closet, and you decide each morning which one you're going to wear."

Snowflakes

In arguing, what people lack in intellect they
usually make up for in name-calling.

— C. Vallo

Yesterday, I resorted to name-calling on social media, in violation of my own principles.

I labelled GSA Administrator Emily Murphy a "porker."

The point of my tirade against Murphy: because the Trump appointee refuses to affirm Joe Biden won the election, she threatens the progress of the president-elect's work on the pandemic.

"Nearly 1,500 Americans will die each day," I wrote. "That's a World Trade Center Collapse every 48 hours. She's a home-grown, overweight terrorist. Like the boss."

I admit, I called her a name. I didn't solve anything. But my ill manners stemmed from a frustration I share with 77 million other Americans.

My post "triggered" two conservative male colleagues, who said I should be ashamed of my "vicious name-calling."

In deference to them, I replaced the hurtful word "porker" with the more affectionate "blimpie pie."

It's undeniable: name-calling is wrong; fat-shaming is cruel. 

But it's worth noting that snowflakes can't take the heat; and that conservative ones, in particular, cannot tolerate the name-calling of women. (Unless their last names are Clinton, Harris, Pelosi, Omar, Ocasio-Cortez or Gaga.)

I applaud the snowflakes' chivalry. 

And I offer them a deal: I'll never call another woman an offensive name, if you grant every woman her right to a safe and sanitary abortion.

Do we have a deal?

Winner

Joe Biden won the election by more votes than any challenger to an incumbent president since 1932, when FDR beat Herbert Hoover.

I finally predicted something correctly!

Suckers

Never give a sucker an even break.

— W.C. Fields

Broke, Trump is fleecing the dopes who worship him.

Don't be deceived. 

The challenge to President-elect Biden is all about Trump's pockets.

POSTSCRIPT, NOVEMBER 15: Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen has predicted the windbag will soon flee Washington and start the "Trump Network." I predict he will flee not to Mar-a-Lago, but Moscow.

Shot Heard Round the World

Drugmaker Pfizer announced today it has developed an effective vaccine against Covid-19.

Despite the good news, public health officials are insisting that anti-vaxxers, by refusing the new vaccine, are likely to weaken its role as a safeguard.

In only 10 months, Covid-19 has infected 50.5 million people, and killed over 1.25 million. 

The new vaccine could cut the number of infections by 90%, according to Pfizer.

But not if anti-vaxxers—estimated at 7% of the world's population—get in the way.

Anti-vaxxers have tried to sabotage vaccines before.

In 1956, the influential newspaper, television and radio columnist Walter Winchell told audiences—inaccurately—that Dr. Jonas Salk's new polio vaccine was a "killer" because it contained a live strain of the disease.

To rescue the truth, Elvis Presley agreed to be inoculated in public.

On Sunday, October 28, backstage before his second appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show," Elvis posed for the cameras while two New York City health care officials gave him a shot of Salk's new vaccine.

Americans witnessed, close up, that the King was no anti-vaxxer, and agreed, right then and there, they wouldn't be, either. 

Thanks to Elvis' stunt, vaccine adoption rates surged, polio contraction rates plummeted, and polio outbreaks—once the scourge of every American summer—soon faded from memory.

Repudiation

This summer, I volunteered to help a primary-election challenger to one of Delaware's two Democratic senators. 

The experience reminded me why I don't fit into the unworldly organizations run by progressives. The longer I had a view into the candidate's, the faster darkened my view of her chances of winning. 

No sucker for lost causes, four weeks out from the primary, I quit.

The trouble with the campaign, as I saw it, was two-fold:

• The candidate. Cast in the image of AOC, she was a bright, brassy outsider who championed progressive talk. But she had no strategy for getting elected and put most of her efforts into landing endorsements from disgruntled community organizers and sketchy, far-left websites.
  
  
• The staff. All twenty-somethings, the campaign staffers were sincere, but overbearing, and lacked all understanding of Delaware's centrist electorate. 

Neither the candidate's nor her staff's enthusiasm contributed much in the end. 

She captured only 27 percent of Democrats' votes in the primary—a measurably worse showing than that of the progressive candidate for the Senate in the 2018 primary. Her campaign was deemed by the media to be a flop and a death toll for the progressive movement in Delaware.

Democrats everywhere should heed the lesson: lean center.

Despite Biden's victory, last week's election was another consummate flop, failing to capture the US Senate for Democrats and dramatically thinning the party's majority in the US House of Representatives. It also left statehouses around the country in GOP hands.

Prudently, House leaders are warning fellow Democrats to shun leftist messages. “If we are going to run on Medicare for All, defund the police, and socialized medicine, we’re not going to win,” Rep. Jim Clyburn said on a phone call Thursday.

And so are pundits. "This election for the most part was an absolute repudiation of the Democratic Party as a brand," MSNBC's Joe Scarborough told Fox News yesterday.

How Can They Believe This Crap? Episode V

Fifth in a series wondering why Trump still has adherents

In Episode I, I suggested Trump's supporters have been brainwashed by their betters; in Episode II, that they simply find him entertaining; in Episode III, that they sympathize with him; in Episode IV, that they believe he's a useful idiot.

I have one more theory.

The 70 million Americans who voted for Trump this week don't believe in Trump, because they don't believe in anything.

Like Trump, they're narcissistic solipsists. They believe nothing exists outside their own minds.

NOTE: It's tempting to ask. "What's wrong with America?" But realize only 2 in 10 Americans voted for Trump. The rest of the population—80% of Americans—did not. 

You Cannot Download Experience

 

We event dinosaurs—who've witnessed and dealt with the long- and short-term effects on face-to-face marketing of recessions, travel-bans, terrorism, pandemics and the web—are frustrated by the industry's vivid demonstration of inaction and incompetence in reacting to Covid-19.

Experience stems from bad judgments. 

But in a youth-oriented, know-it-all society like ours, the lessons learned from bad judgments made in the past are considered trivial; and the dinosaurs who made them, annoying.

It's too bad you cannot download experience with a click.

Wierdo

An artist must regulate his life.

— Erik Satie

Fin-de-siècle composer Erik Satie, best known for his "Gymnopédies Suite of 1888," was, to be blunt, a wierdo. To wit:

• Satie carried a hammer with him wherever he went, a lifetime habit he acquired while living in Montmartre as a young bohemian. He also slept with one eye open.

• He wore only a grey velvet suit and kept over 100 umbrellas in his apartment.

• He detested the sun and only ventured outside on cloudy days.
  
  
• He washed only with a pumice stone, never using soap. 

• He ate only white food: eggs, sugar, salt, rice, cheese (white varieties only), fish, chicken, veal, animal fat and ground bones, turnips, pastries, and coconut.

• He regulated his daily life to the minute. Every day, Satie awoke at 7:18 am; composed from 10:23 to 11:47 am; ate lunch at 12:11 pm; rode a horse from 1:19 to 2:53 pm; composed again from 3:12 to 4:07 pm; relaxed from 4:27 to 6:47 pm; ate dinner at 7:16 pm; read aloud from 8:09 to 9:59 pm; and went to bed at 10:37 pm.
  
  
• He founded an occult religion with one follower—himself. He named it the "Metropolitan Church of Art of Jesus the Conductor."
  
  
• He composed a surreal ballet that caused riots outside the concert hall during the premiere. The ballet landed Satie in a Parisian jail cell for eight days. The charge: "cultural anarchy."

• He had only one girlfriend his entire life, Suzanne Valadon, a beautiful painter of portraits who lived in the apartment next door to his for six months. Satie's penury and compulsive nature drove her nuts and she left him and married a stockbroker. 

Satie barely graduated music school and throughout his life suffered rebuke from critics, who labelled him a "clown" and called his music "worthless." 

Satie called his compositions "furniture music"—what today we'd call "Muzak"—and would scatter his ensemble throughout the room during performances, commingled with the listening audience.

The public liked what it heard—and still does.

You can hear Satie's greatest hits here.