Fauxbohs

 

In a magazine article about the home of interior designer Dallas Shaw, I encountered the unfamiliar term gypset.

"With this gypset-style approach, Shaw started with her favorite room," the article said.

A Google search shuttled me to the website of travel writer Julia Chaplin, where I found the definition.

"I coined the term gypset (gypsy + jet set) to describe an international group of artists, entrepreneurs, surfers, seekers, and bon vivants who lead semi-nomadic, unconventional lives." Chaplin writes. 

"They are people I’ve met in my travels who have perfected a creative approach to life that fuses the freelance and nomadic ways of the mythologic gypsy with the adventurous freedom of the jet set."

Martha Stewart-like, Chaplin has built an empire around the so-called gypset lifestyle, replete with branded clothing, books, excursions, and events.

While gypset describes the lifestyle, its practitioners are bohos, Chaplin says, free-spirited folks who are "nomadic entrepreneurs," and who plan the path to bohemianism with precision NASA would envy.

It ain't easy being laid back.

Chaplin's term inspires me to coin my own: fauxboh.

A fauxboh is a fake bohemian, someone who spends a fortune to look non-materialistic; uses a travel agent to book a spiritual journey; and works all day long to appear a carefree slouch. 

A fauxboh is the 2020s' version of the 1960s' plastic hippy, only better traveled. 

A fauxboh should not be confused with a fauxbo, a well-off poseur who dresses like he's homeless and penniless; in short, a fake hobo.

Nor should the term be confused with FOBO, the "fear of better options" that cripples most college applicants, job seekers, home buyers, and diners at Denny's.

Finally, a fauxboh should not be confused with a bobo, the term coined by journalist David Brooks to describe a bourgeois bohemian. 

A bobo is a well-heeled yuppie with a guilt complex. When he shops, he "shops organically," to offset the carbon footprint his five cars, two homes, and jet ski, snowmobile and motorboat leave; and when he buys, he "buys American," to compensate for the fact he outsources all his business to Mumbai. A bobo is a big-spending bohemian.

All these terms raise the question: who were the original bohemians?

The answer: gypsies.

Parisians were the first to call artists and dilettantes “bohemians,” in the early 1800s. But they borrowed the term from the one they'd been using for 400 years to label gypsies, the stateless Roma.

Banished from India to wander Europe and the Middle East for centuries, in 1423 the Roma were granted citizenship in the Kingdom of Bohemia. 

When they were cast out of the kingdom 274 years later, the gypsies migrated to France. 

The French called the Kingdom of Bohemia La Boheme, and the strange and nomadic newcomers from that land les Bohemiens.

Chips on Their Shoulders

If there is one thing I dislike, it is the man who tries to air his grievances when I wish to air mine.

— P. G. Wodehouse

"Modern" families can stand down.

Mr. Potato Head is no longer a mister, according to the AP.

Toymaker Hasbro announced yesterday that its spud-shaped figure will now be referred to by the gender-neutral name "Potato Head." 

The company's Potato Head kits, moreover, will now include enough parts to allow kids to create same-sex potato couples.

Whether Hasbro's move anticipated passage of the Equality Act the same day is unknown, but its choice to stand on the right side of history did not escape company spokespeople.

"Hasbro is making sure all feel welcome in the Potato Head world," the company announced on its website.

Those spokespeople did not announce whether the toymaker will remove "bro" from its name, however.

A spokesperson for the National Potato Council (NPC) applauded Hasbro's decision, pointing out that potatoes, in fact, are genderless.

"Let me explain what happens when one potato loves another," NPC's spokesman told Goodly. 

"The parts of their flowers, which do have genders, become, if you will, 'intimate.' Pollen from the male part migrates to the female part. The female part then grows into a potato, but that potato is neither male nor female. So, scientifically speaking, Hasbro's decision to remove 'Mr.' was absolutely the correct one."

But Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, newly elected Republican from Georgia, criticized Hasbro and challenged the National Potato Council. 

"This is fake botany," Greene told Goodly. 

"Everybody knows God made two sexes when He created potatoes. Hasbro and the Council are just kowtowing to you-know-who: libtards from the land of fruits and nuts."

Unlike Greene, the majority of gendered trade characters, including Mr. Clean, Mr. Bubble, Mrs. Butterworth and Lille Miss Sunbeam, support Hasbro.

Although unavailable for interview, Mr. Peanut told Goodly through a publicist, "I'm a 'nut' for LGBTQ rights and salute Hasbro for its bold decision."

Names

A man's name, which is supposed to be just the sound for who he is, can be an augur of what he will do.

— William Faulkner

The Kardashians, "America's First Family," are notorious, among other things, for picking saccharine baby names. Kim, Kourtney, Khloé and Kylie have burdened their kids with names like True, Dream, Saint, Psalm, Reign, Mason, Stormi, North, Chicago and Scotland.

"The name of a man is a numbing blow from which he never recovers," Marshall McLuhan once observed.

The Kardashians would do well to remember McLuhan when naming their unborn.

In 1976, The Paris Review published a 14-page book entitled How to Name Your Baby, said to be among the most highly stolen books in history.

The book comprised a "gallimaufry of actual names" purportedly assembled by a "worldwide network of correspondents" in order to help parents avoid the "lifeless" when choosing a baby's name. 

"A dull name often means a dull child, and in an age of mass-men America scarcely needs more nonentities called 'Chick' or 'Buddy.' No; the times call, instead, for new generations of pioneers and founders, men of strong characters... and strong names."

Among my favorite names in the book are:

• Brooklyn Bridge
• Cigar Stubbs
• Halloween Buggage
• July August September
• Katz Meow
• Moon Unit Zappa
• Positive Jackson
• Rosetta Stone
• Welcome Darling

Absent from How to Name Your Baby is my all-time favorite name, Capability Brown. 

The "Shakespeare of landscape design," Capability Brown was King George III’s royal gardener and the chief landscaper for scores of well-heeled English aristocrats.

Christened Lancelot by his parents, Capability earned his name by praising clients' yards not as yards, but "capabilities," by which he meant opportunities for dining, meditation, sports, and recreation.

Who Will Mourn the Confederate Dead?

Sleep sweetly in your humble graves,

Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause!

                             

— Henry Timrod

Last year, 160 Confederate memorials—19% of the Confederate memorials across the South—were removed from public view, according to the AP. Meanwhile, cities and states removed the names of Confederates from hundreds of streets, schools, public buildings, parks, and forts. 

“These racist symbols only serve to uphold revisionist history and the belief that white supremacy remains morally acceptable,” Lecia Brooks, chief of staff of the Southern Poverty Law Center, told the AP. “Exposing children to anything that falsely promotes the idea of white superiority and Black inferiority is dehumanizing.”

But cancelling the Confederacy rankles the unreconstructed, who, despite the words and actions of contemporaries, insist the American Civil War was not about preserving slavery, but the "rights" of White Southerners.

Yesterday, Representative Liz Cheney, the maverick Republican from Wyoming, begged her party to assert “we aren’t the party of white supremacy” in the wake of the January siege of Capitol Hill. "You saw the symbols of Holocaust denial, for example, at the Capitol that day; you saw the Confederate flag being carried through the rotunda, and I think we as Republicans in particular, have a duty and an obligation to stand against that, to stand against insurrection.”

But she's alone in her opinion.

Who will mourn the Confederate dead?

The GOP. Racist to the bone.

Figs in Winter

Figs thrive in areas with long, hot summers.

— The Old Farmer's Almanac 

Five hundred thousand Americans have died from Covid-19, a number unimaginable a year ago.

Covid-19 has killed indiscriminately, but has favored the old. 

Eighty-one percent of the deaths so far have been among adults 65 and over.

And it continues to favor the old. 

Compared to a child, the risk of death for a 65-year-old is 1100X; for a 75-year-old, 2800X; for an 85-year-old, 7900X, according to the CDC.

So what are you going to do, old bean?

My advice is to take all the routine precautions, but take them resignedly.

Mask up and let go.

"We ought not to be affected by things not in our own power," the Ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus said.

Epictetus warned against attachments—including those to family, friends, and one's own life, as well.

Only attach to a thing as if it were "brittle as glass or earthenware; that when it happens to be broken, you may not lose your self-command," he said.

"Remind yourself that you love what is mortal; that you love what is not your own. It is allowed you for the present, not irrevocably, nor forever; but as a fig in the appointed season. If you long for these in winter, you are foolish. 

"So, if you long for your son, or your friend, when you cannot have him, remember that you are wishing for figs in winter. For as winter is to a fig, so is every accident in the universe to those things with which it interferes."

Epictetus urged stoicism even in the face of death.

"A wise and good man, mindful who he is and whence he came, and by whom he was produced, is attentive only how he may fill his post regularly and dutifully before God. 

"'Do you wish me still to live? Let me live free and noble, as you desire; for you have made me incapable of restraint in what is my own. 

"'But have you no further use for me? Farewell! I have stayed thus long through you alone, and no other; and now I depart in obedience to you.'"

The James Gang

No one talked as Jesse moved—it was as if his acts were miracles of invention wonderous to behold.

― Ron Hansen

According to the US Census Bureau, "James" is the 80th most common surname in the country. 

But, despite the surname's prevalence, you have to think hard to name a notorious James.

Wild West outlaw Jesse James is always the first James who comes to mind; but the cast of characters with that surname is in fact broad, particularly when you consider famous folks from the UK with that name—where it's the 45th most common surname, according to Forebears—and Americans and Brits who've adopted James as a stage name.

The gallery includes:

The ubiquitous comic actor Kevin James (whose real name is Kevin Knipfing).

The British actor Lily James (whose real name is Lily Thomson). She stars in "The Dig."

The actor Clifton James. His casting in numerous films as as the archetypal Southern sheriff cemented his fame. 

The TV game-show host Dennis James (whose real name was Demie Sposa). The "Dean of Game Shows," James hosted TV's first such program in 1946.

The actress Susan James (whose real name is Susan Miller). She always calls herself Susan Saint James—appropriate given her support of the Special Olympics.

The singer-songwriter Rick James (whose real name was James Johnson). He's known for hits like "Super Freak." Crack addiction wrecked his life and career.

The R&B singer Etta James (whose real name was Jamesetta Hawkins). She is best know for her rendition of "At Last."

The rock musician Tommy James (whose real name is Thomas Jackson). His band Tommy James and the Shondells is best known for "I Think We're Alone Now." 

The slide guitarist Elmore James (whose real name was Elmore Brooks). He's named by George Harrison in the Beatles' song "For You Blue," as John Lennon mimics James' signature sound.

The big band leader Harry James. He's best known today for the classic "You Made Me Love You," used by Woody Allen as the theme song of "Hannah and Her Sisters." 

The jazz keyboardist and composer Bob James (not the be confused with the intrepid artist and blogger of the same name). He's best known for his "Theme from Taxi."

The novelist Henry James, author of The Turn of the Screw and The Wings of the Dove.

The philosopher William James (Henry's brother). His work inspired AA.

The British mystery writer P.D. James.

The British erotic novelist E.L. James (whose real name is Erika Mitchell). She's best known for the racy Fifty Shades of Grey.

The professional basketball player LeBron James.

The serial wife killer "Rattlesnake" James (whose real name was Raymond Lisenba). Rattlesnake James was the last man executed by hanging in the state of California. Quite an honor!

Experts

Two months ago this weekend, I slipped on the ice on my driveway and broke five bones in my left ankle.

Too late to help me, experts at the University of Amsterdam have just discovered why ice is slippery.

While physicists previously believed that ice is slippery due to a layer of water on the ice's surface, it turns out "vibrating molecules" on the surface act as a lubricant that counteracts friction, causing ass-over-teakettle spills like mine.

That settles that. Thank heaven for ice experts.

How do experts become experts, anyway?

According to "expert on experts" Roger Kneebone, no matter their specialties, experts progress through the same "guild system" around during the Middle Ages.

"As an apprentice you start by knowing nothing, so you spend years in someone’s workshop, doing what they tell you in the way they prescribe," he says. 

"As a journeyman you go out into the world to ply your trade as an independent craftsman. 

"In the final stage, as a master, you establish your workshop with apprentices of your own, and the wheel comes full circle."

If you want to be called an expert, Kneebone says, there's no escaping years of tedium, followed by years of self-reliance, followed by years of responsibility for others' work.

A six-week online course doesn't cut it.

Experts, moreover, never call themselves that, because they know full mastery of their chosen fields is impossible, Kneebone says.

Only chumps call themselves "experts."

A Useful Metaphor for Curing Writer's Block

 

Writing nonfiction is like sculpture, a matter of shaping
the research into the finished thing.

— Joan Didion

All weekend I've been obsessed about a seven-year-old who's suffering writer's block. Her challenge is no small matter: the block is so immovable, it's affecting her schoolwork.

Despite all the ready advice for overcoming writer's block, writers of every age struggle with beginnings.

I certainly did, until I encountered a metaphor for writing that helped me leave writer's block behind.

Writing is like sculpting in clay.

Professional sculptors use a metal frame called an "armature" that audiences never see. It serves to undergird the clay form. 

Your first draft is like that armature: although ugly and crude, it allows you quickly to start adding and subtracting bits of clay—words—to produce the final form.

With your armature built, creating a second, third, fourth and fifth draft becomes easy, because you're simply adding and removing words as you work to refine the form. Audiences never see that activity, either. 

All they see, for better or worse, is your published piece.

Just as no sculptor ever sweats the armature, no writer should never sweat the first draft. 

Who cares if it's weird and unsightly—no one will ever know.

The Dying Animal

 

Make no mistake, we're dealing with a dying animal.

A new survey from American Enterprise Institute reveals that one in four GOP members believes, "if elected leaders will not protect America, the people must do it themselves, even if it requires violent actions."

Who are these insurrectionists? 

You know who they are. 

They're white guys from the country with guns and trucks. 

They never read, never travel, and never watch anything on TV but Fox and A&E.

They dress like life's an audition for Born Losers; hold no or only menial jobs; and—when exogamous—are drawn to tattooed slatterns. 

They're often high all day on Four Roses or Percocet or both. 

High or sober, they despise lesbians and uppity women (who're the same thing). They despise gays. They despise Arabs, Asians, Blacks, Jews, Latinos, and Native Americans.

Most of all, they loathe the Whites whose parents demanded they apply themselves at school, grow up to be responsible adults, secure well-paying jobs, pay taxes, and save. 

They loathe Whites who have achieved those things, but don't acknowledge the last part: they believe only Jesus saves.

This Confederacy of Dunces has no future in our meritocracy. It belongs to a breed of ne'er-do-wells that's dying.

And as every game warden knows, a dying animal is a desperate one.

So how should you deal with a dying animal?

The best way, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association, is to provide them "peaceful release."

Because gassing, poisoning, drowning, decompression, electrocution and shooting are all deemed inhumane, according to the association, animal euthanasia via an injection of sodium pentobarbital is recommended.

But we're not speaking of animals—not literally; and anyway, we need first to administer all those millions of Covid vaccines.

So I recommend that the government mail every insurrectionist a $2,500 check and a one-way ticket to Uzbekistan.

The insurrectionists will feel right at home there, where the natives don't take kindly to women, gays, most people of color, and white adults, either.

A Mulligan Mashup

Everyone's entitled to a mulligan.

— Sen. Mike Lee

Utah's Mike Lee told Fox News this week that Donald Trump should be forgiven for inciting violent insurrection. "Everyone's entitled to a mulligan," he said. 

Sen. Lee's reprieve isn't Trump's first. Evangelical leader Tony Perkins also gave the former president a "mulligan" for porking porn star Stormy Daniels.

A mulligan—meaning a "second chance"—comes from golf.

Called by Sports Illustrated "the most significant innovation in the lowering of golf scores this side of cheating," the mulligan is named after Buddy Mulligan, a legendary Depression-Era golfer from New Jersey who demanded a warmup shot whenever he teed off.

Anti-immigrant sentiment among Wasps—whose exclusive clubs were being "invaded" by Irish-American golfers at the time—assured mulligan stuck. They relished the name, because, in their minds, all Irishmen cheated. (The term for a second chance could just have well been a cohen.)

Off the green as well, mulligan has a storied past, beginning in the 19th century.

In that century, barkeeps would place a bottle of whiskey on the bar for customers to sample. They called the bottle of free booze a mulligan.

Inmates called a prison guard a mulligan.

And hobos called the meat-and-potatoes stew they made mulligan. 

The hobos' mulligan derived from the name the nation's newspaper reporters gave to the dinners whipped up by Coxey's Army, a ragtag militia of 10,000 unemployed men who stormed the US Capitol in 1894, demanding federal jobs.

In labeling the marchers' meals mulligan, those reporters were recalling, of course, "Irish stew," a cheap chowder made from leftovers; but they were also recalling "The Mulligan Guard," a pop hit of the day written by the comedy team Harrigan and Hart. 

"The Mulligan Guard" mocked the low-class Irishmen who gathered in mobs to parade the streets of New York whenever they felt the urge to look tough. 

The song was based in part on an actual militia group run by James Mulligan, a horseshoer and ward-heeler active in Tammany Hall throughout the Gilded Age, and parodied the antics of the same militias Martin Scorsese depicted a century later in Gangs of New York.

Harrigan and Hart, alas, bear no relation to 20th century songwriters Rodgers and Hart, even though the latter mentioned mulligan stew in the first line of their classic "The Lady is a Tramp."

In Defense of Complaining

My primary hobby is complaining.

— Jay Duplass

I once shared an office with a coworker whose sole contribution to the company was a steady stream of complaints.

He complained eight hours a day. About the management. About the clients. About sports teams, television shows, restaurants, traffic, technology, medicine, politics, the economy and the weather.

No one ever asked him his opinion about anything, nor sought his help, expertise, or companionship at lunch. More often than not, his name was left off the invitation list for team meetings, and he was the last man in the office to learn the latest gossip.

The wry nickname he earned, after only a month on the job, was "Darth Vader."

Stoics—and most other moral philosophers—condemn complaining as depressing and fruitless. So do clerics, coaches, psychotherapists, moms, and motivational speakers.

“Don’t be overheard complaining," Marcus Aurelius said, "not even to yourself.”

But hold on a cotton-pickin' minute.

If I couldn't indulge in complaining, I don't know what I'd do. Probably lose my ability to speak, curl into the fetal position, and begin chewing on my blankie.

For me, complaining functions like hydrogen and oxygen: as a requisite to life.

For me, complaining is a lifestyle.

Surly to bed, surly to rise.

Sure, complaining can be mind-numbing; but it can also be masterful. Just consider these eight delicious gripes:

• Why is “abbreviation” such a long word? — Steven Wright

• Somewhere on this globe, there is a woman giving birth to a child. She must be found and stopped. — Sam Levenson

• Santa Claus has the right idea: visit people once a year. — Victor Borge

• History keeps repeating itself. That’s one of the things wrong with history. — Clarence Darrow

• What we call progress is the exchange of one nuisance for another nuisance. — Havelock Ellis

• Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity. — Robert J. Hanlon

• I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous: everyone hasn’t met me yet. — Rodney Dangerfield

• I’m not indecisive. Am I indecisive? — Jim Scheibel

Philosopher Kathryn Norlock argues that complaining can be a "duty" when others share your peeve. 

When they do, you become not a bellyacher but a "fellow complainer." Your complaint "extends your vulnerability," offering your fellows an "opportunity for solidarity."

"Complaining helps ameliorate isolation and helps people bond," Norlock says.

But to be an effective complainer, the philosopher insists, you have to practice. 

Practice allows you to distinguish the occasions that call for complaining from the ones that don't. 

Practice, Norlock says, lets your sharpen your "skill at sociality" and "complain excellently."

I like that.

So if you're sick of hearing my complaints, let me remind you: I'm not whining.

I'm practicing.

Best Explanation

In order to learn you must desire to learn, and not be satisfied with what you're already inclined to think.

― Charles S. Peirce

Victimhood and illogic drive many American tragedies, as they drove Nashville Bomber Anthony Quinn Warner to target AT&T on Christmas Day.

Films like "Silkwood," "Erin Brockovich" and "Radium Girls" teach us that all industrialists are avaricious and amoral victimizers, and that to stand up to them—as the Nashville Bomber did—is heroic. 

And conspiracy theorists, knowing illogic is our tragic flaw, teach us that to believe is to know, when it's not.

One conspiracy theory afflicting us now—the one that consumed the Nashville Bomber—holds that the industrialists behind 5G are killing us. Cigarette-makers killed their customers, after all, so why wouldn't AT&T?

Proponents of the theory claim that all wireless radiation is deadly, but that the research which proves it has been willfully ignored. 5G, proponents of the theory say, is the deadliest of all. Once deployed, it will expose people for the first time in history to a steady shower of super-fast millimeter waves, and cause hair-loss, memory-loss, sterility, cancer, neurological disorders, genetic damage, and even structural changes to the human body.

But physicists know a lot about wireless radiation, including millimeter waves. 

Millimeter waves—like all radio waves—carry little energy compared to other forms of radiation, and cannot damage genes or upset metabolisms. Millimeter waves are for all purposes inert, and will travel uninterrupted through human bodies—as well as the rest of the universe. If you want to worry about possible damage to yourself, you're better off worrying about your exposure to light: a single visible-light photon has a trillion times more energy than a millimeter-wave photon.

If the proponents of the 5G conspiracy theory don't strike you as paranoid, consider that some believe 5G, besides causing cancer, is a "Chinese plot" against America; that 5G is of a piece with vaccines, fluoridation, genetically engineered food, and fracking; and that 5G, designed by Bill Gates to reduce the world's population, transmits Covid-19.

The 5G conspiracy theory is an example of flouting what philosophers call inference to the best explanation. 

According to that principle, when faced with a question, you choose the theory that best explains the available data. You don't choose a theory that ignores the data, presupposes other data, adds a bunch of data, or invents data out of whole cloth.

If you're rational, when your kitchen appliances all stop working at once, you infer that a fuse blew in the basement. 

You don't infer—although it's possible—that a secret cabal of Chinese manufacturers has coordinated, to the precise second, the mass failure of your appliances; that the cabal seeks only to victimize American customers; that it's covering up its ability to plan mass, simultaneous product failures from the West; and that Bill Gates must be on the payroll.

When the Lobster Goes Bad

 

Above: Facebook ad for The Hill Store 

You gotta wonder why any sane marketer would discount a $1,200 product by 97%.

Maybe the lobster went bad.

Norma’s, a tony Manhattan brunch spot, is famous for its $2,000 omelette—the world's most expensive, according to Guinness World Records. 

Norma's omlette commands that price because it's larded with fresh lobster, and because "playful extravagance is the whole theme of our menu," according to the restaurant's VP of marketing. 

Were Norma's suddenly to cut the omlette's price by 97%, you'd likely suspect the lobster's gone bad.

Why some marketers are so stupid about pricing eludes me. 

Rock-bottom pricing makes no sense for quality brands. Never ever ever.

Quality brands are about value and trust. Value comes not from price, but from the brand's ability to deliver on its promises; and trust comes from the brand's legacy. 

When a brand trumpets a rock-bottom price, it confuses its customers—both prospective and past.

However, with the goal of driving easy sales, misguided marketers will discount, sometimes deeply.

But a 97% discount? Why not a 100% discount? In other words, a free sample. Now you're talking. Who can resist a free sample?

While not every quality brand's position is "playful extravagance," no quality brand's position is "rock bottom." 

Rock bottom only says the lobster's gone bad.

Pulpits and Poohbahs

While today we would say something's "great" ("GameStop is great!") Ragtime-era folks would say it's "bully" ("GameStop is bully!").

So in 1904, when Rev. Lyman Abbott was invited by then-President Teddy Roosevelt to preview an important speech, Roosevelt confided, "I suppose my critics will call that preaching, but I have got such a bully pulpit!"

In a chronicle of the meeting, Abbott recalled Roosevelt's words and described his bully pulpit as a license to build Americans' support for reform, while tearing down opposition to it.

Abbott's pubic mention of Roosevelt's words made the term famous overnight.

But today "bully" is a pejorative; and behind today's bully pulpit stands an actual bully—a corrupt conman who's using his platform to promote treason and panic timid supplicants.

However, access to the bully pulpit doesn't in itself turn a bully into a poobah.

The bully must do that to himself.

Poohbah—meaning a "pompous big shot"—was coined in 1895 by Gilbert and Sullivan when they composed The Mikado. 

The two songsters liked the flatulent sound of the word, later claiming it derived from every tin-pot dictator's way of dismissing a new idea by saying "Pooh!" or "Bah!"

Poohbah leapt overnight from the stage into British parlance, but didn't catch on in the US for another 31 years, when A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh first appeared.

Criminal Minds

The heart is deceitful above all things, and
desperately wicked: who can know it?

— Jeremiah 17:9

I've so far avoided mention of a close friend's deception, so heinous and unfathomable it defies explanation.

It's been just under two years since I learned that a former coworker, client and colleague had been leading a secret life as a child pornographer, a crime for which he's now serving 10 years in a federal prison; and a crime that will shadow him, no matter what, for the rest of his natural life.

I could readily forgive philandering, bigamy, cross-dressing, a shoe fetish, tax evasion, cat-burglary, drug-trafficking, assassination—even secret membership in the Boogaloo Bois. But the production and interstate distribution of child porn?

Who can know the wicked heart? Not I. 

If you asked me to describe my friend two years ago, I would without hesitation have said he's a quietly devoted family- and businessman, with a passion for thrillers and minor-league baseball; socially and politically mainstream; quick to win over others with charm, praise, and wit; and able to inspire coworkers to excel. It never occurred to me—until I read the DOJ's brutally stark press release—my friend led a separate, secret, criminal life.

A secret life, psychiatrists say, provides a safe haven in which we can explore "who we really are."

Given the magnetic power of compulsions, that's terrifying.

Believing isn't Knowing

Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time,

but it ain't goin' away.

— Elvis Presley

Wisconsin pharmacist and flat-earther Steven Brandenburg is in deep kimchi for destroying 500 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine. He insists the vaccine contains a microchip designed by eugenicists. (He also insists the sky is a shield deployed by the federal government to prevent us from seeing God; but that's another matter.)

British judges call Brandenburg's willful ignorance "blinkered," "blind-eye" or "Nelsonian" knowledge, after Lord Nelson's brave deceit. When faced with a hostile force, the admiral would hold his telescope to his blind eye and announce that he saw no enemy ships.

In the US, we like to say, "ignorance of the law is no defense." In the UK, the principle is better stated: "It is dishonest for a man deliberately to shut his eyes to facts which he would prefer not to know. If he does so, he is taken to have actual knowledge of the facts to which he shut his eyes."

Do we have the right to shut our eyes to facts and believe whatever we want?

Right now, right-wingers say we do; but that's bullshit.

Beliefs only aspire to truth; they don't entail it. Believing isn't knowing. Earth might be flat, but isn't. The vaccine might be microchipped, but it isn't. The sky might be a shield, but it isn't. It's absurd to hold any of these beliefs, as it's absurd to say, "It's raining, but I don’t believe it's raining." Believing it isn't raining isn't authoritative. The rain is.

I really don't care how you came to your asinine beliefs, Mr. Brandenburg. Maybe their source is your crazy uncle Cal; your born-again minister; your loser drinking buddies; the voices in your head; an angel named Jack; Jim Carrey; or Q. All I care about is that your asinine beliefs denied 500 people their vaccinations.

Your beliefs aren't only false, they're irresponsible and morally repugnant. You're not entitled to them.

You're woefully willfully ignorant.