Follow the Money

A grifter scams people. 

Grifter is a 20th century Americanism that stems from the English word graft, meaning “the obtaining of profit by shady means, especially bribery, blackmail, or the abuse of power.”

Grifters abound, particularly on the right.

Trump's "Stop the Steal" is a scam, and it turns out Michael Flynn's endorsement of QAnon is, too. 

QAnon itself is a scam.

Before there was QAnon, there was Glenn Beck, another grifter. 

Beck monetized right-wing conspiracy theories, prying millions from the pockets of gullible followers. In a bold show of cynicism, Beck named his company Mercury Radio Arts after Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre on the Air, whose 1939 broadcast of War of the Worlds famously faked out gullible fans.

Beck was a grifter, and proud of it.

The next time you hear another crackpot claim about Dominion Voting or Lizard People, remember to follow the money.

That phrase came from the late William Goldman's script for the 1976 film "All The President’s Men," the political thriller about Watergate.

Deep Throat told Woodward and Bernstein that if they hoped ever to understand how Washington worked, they should "Follow the money."

Just Jake

America was going on the greatest, gaudiest spree in history.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

Astute economists predict we're on the brink of another Roaring '20s, according to Axios.

"The economy may be close to consolidating years of technological advances—and ready to take off in a burst of productivity growth," Axios says. Those advances include digitization, AI, robotics, remote work, solar, and biomedicine.

A spree is overdue.

Although World War II drove three decades of productivity gains, that growth all but stopped in the 1970s. Despite a blip in the 1990s—attributable to computers—productivity has stagnated ever since.

But businesses have been investing in the new technologies over the past decade, and are mastering their use, Axios says. As a result, they're situated at the very bottom of a "productivity J-curve." 

They are ready to skyrocket. A survey by the World Economic Forum reveals 80% of businesses are accelerating digitization; 80%, remote work; and 50%, job automation. A big productivity leap is right around the corner.

That's just jake, as they would have said in the 1920's.

Bad Breaks

Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on
in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace,
like a clock during a thunderstorm.

— Robert Louis Stevenson

While 2020 brought misfortune to so many, it was kind to me—so much so, I often felt spooked. 

The things that went well for me all went exceedingly well, while the things that went wrong were without consequence.

I often felt like Jean-Paul Sartre's fearless skier, who enjoys such complete dominion over the slopes that he glides down them weightlessly, not even leaving tracks in the snow. (He is Sartre's metaphor for the unbounded ego.)

I felt like that skier, anyway, until last Sunday, when a fall on the ice in my driveway left me with five breaks in the bones that form my left ankle.

Now I'm an invalid; in pain and facing surgery; and will be laid up in a cast for over three months.

The caregivers in the ER were all quick to point out, "Just be happy you didn't conk your head on the pavement."

They were absolutely right, of course.

I'm happy I didn't hit my head. I'm also happy for the good neighbors who rushed to my rescue; for the ambulance drivers who arrived in 10 minutes and wheeled me out of the house and into the hospital; for the doctors and nurses on duty in the ER last Sunday, and for the surgeon who's going to install plates and screws in my leg next week; for sympathetic friends and relatives; for my oldest son, who played sitter while my wife finished her last week on the job (she's retiring); and for my wife, who's playing sitter now—and will for another 12 weeks, provided I behave.

As she pointed out, given the lockdown, I picked an excellent time to break five bones. Or the excellent time picked me.

She's sleeping right now and I'm perched on the sofa with my splinted leg up on a hassock. The only sounds are those of the windchimes outdoors, an occasional car on the road, and the tick-tock of the kitchen clock.

I pray for a quiet mind in 2021. "Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace," Stevenson said.

Even a fortunate son is liable to bad breaks.

How about you?  

Above: "Clock" by John Murray.

Christmas 1779

Christmases tended to be tough on the Father of Our Country.

In 1740, George Washington's boyhood home burned to the ground on Christmas Eve. The family sheltered in the cook-house for what the eight-year-old later called "a cheerless Christmas Day."

In 1753, while stationed on the frontier with the Virginia militia, Washington spent Christmas Eve at a trading post named Murdering Town, where his troops did battle with the French and Indians.

In 1759, during the couple's first Christmas together, George and Martha Washington stayed in separate rooms at Mount Vernon, because Martha was violently ill with the measles.

In 1776, on the darkest Christmas of the American Revolution, Washington crossed the Delaware.

In 1799, only two weeks before Christmas, Washington caught a wicked head cold and died.

Washington's Christmas of 1779 was quite a bit better.

The day saw the commander-in-chief and his Continental Army hunkered down in bucolic Morristown, New Jersey. 

Three weeks before, Washington had chosen the village as his army's winter quarters, because a nearby mountain chain made it invulnerable to British attack. He summarily ordered his troops to build log cabins to live in, and threatened the villagers with martial law, if they failed to open their homes to his officers. 

A merchant named Ford loaned his home to Washington, a house so luxurious it prompted George to ask Martha to travel from Mount Vernon to the Ford Mansion, to join him there for the holidays.

On Christmas Day, the couple dined in comfort in the Ford home; and while they dined, in a tavern two blocks away Benedict Arnold stood trial for war-profiteering—a charge he'd be cleared of, but barely.

Nine months later, Arnold would betray Washington, committing the deed that still makes his name synonymous with treason: conspiring to surrender West Point to the British.

A Cunning Plan

George Washington died of a throat infection 221 years ago this week.

But he almost didn't.

Aware he was dying—and afraid of being buried alive—Washington begged his personal secretary to assure him his body would not be interred until three days after his death. 

Accordingly, Washington lay on view in the "saloon" of Mount Vernon for the three days after his last breath.

But a certain Dr. William Thornton wasn't having it.

He had a cunning plan.

A European-trained physician, Thornton had been summoned to Washington's bedside three days before, in order to save the dying president through tracheotomy. Arriving late, Thornton found Washington not in bed, but "laid out a stiffened corpse" in a wooden casket in the saloon.

So the good doctor pivoted, as he described years later in a scientific paper:

"The weather was very cold, and Washington remained in a frozen state for several days," Thornton wrote. "I proposed to attempt his restoration, in the following manner: first to thaw him in cold water, then to lay him in blankets, and by degrees and by friction to give him warmth, and to put into activity the minute blood vessels, at the same time to open a passage to the lungs by the trachea, and to inflate them with air, to produce an artificial respiration, and to transfuse blood into him from a lamb."

Washington's relatives rejected Thornton's ghoulish plan, asking would it be right "to recall to life one who had departed full of honor and renown; free from the frailties of age; in the full enjoyment of every faculty; and prepared for eternity?”

Scorned, Thornton asked the family to consider replacing Washington's wooden casket with a lead one, so the dead president might some day be removed from Mount Vernon to the new US Capitol.

The family gave the late president his lead coffin; but the body still lays in the family vault, just a stone's throw from the saloon.

Above: George Washington's life mask.