Toiletgate

Our Commode in Chief may no longer be on the seat of power, but he occupies the headlines daily.

Axios reported this week that Donald Trump routinely flushed White House documents down the toilet, in violation of the Presidential Records Act, which requires their preservation.

Aides regularly found the papers clogging his personal toilet.

Trump, of course, pronounced the story "fake."

But I think the story holds water. Far too many White House aides saw this Super Bowl to doubt it.

If Trump were half as smart as Richard Nixon was, he'd have called the White House Plumbers to fix things.

The Washington Post called called Trump’s action a "wrenching testimony to his penchant for wanton destruction.”

I agree wholeheartedly with The Post, as I agree with Harvard historian Heather Cox Richardson's assessment of Trumps' document dump.

"The idea that he was flushing so many documents that he periodically clogged the toilet seems a commentary on his regard for the American people."

Trump promised a "Great America;" but he dealt us a royal flush.

Now can we please flush Donald down history's drain?

Heroes

A Hero of Liberty is a person who either promoted freedom, faith, or family values.

— Heroes of Liberty website

A new publisher of kids' books hopes to combat wokeism in grade schools with a series of books that glorify so-called "Heroes of Liberty," including John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Amy Coney Barrett.

Fox News has called the series, written for second grade readers, "phenomenal," failing to recognize that it's above the reading-skills of 99% of Fox News' viewers.

As right-wing Supermoms move to ban classics like Maus, Animal Farm and Fahrenheit 451 from curriculums and school libraries nationwide, the Delaware-based publisher has released its first title in the series, John Wayne: Manhood and Honor.

House editor Bethany Mandel, formerly a staff writer at the Heritage Foundation, thinks John Wayne: Manhood and Honor can rescue kids from the wrongs of feminism.

She told Axios the book "counters the narrative that 'masculinity is toxic.'

"Boys are conditioned to behave like women," Mande said. "We wanted to give boy readers a glimpse of a positive male role model who doesn't apologize for being manly and masculine."

While she wants the "Heroes of Liberty" series placed in school libraries, Mandel also wants "inappropriate" books removed.

You can guess what those books might be.

For my part, the only heroes I want to celebrate are the sandwiches that go by that name.

I want to see them removed from federal watchlists and made a standard menu item in every school cafeteria. And I want to see September 14 made a national holiday.

Which is why I recommend Delawarean Vince Watchorn's A Meal in One: Wilmington and the Submarine Sandwich.

A Meal in One tells the story of how the foot-long gut-bomb first came about—and why. It's an enthralling book about poor immigrant laborers and the small-time entrepreneurs who kept them fed.

You want to talk about "family values?"

There are more family values packed between two halves of an Italian roll than than in all the bombast ever spewed by Wayne, Reagan, Thatcher, or Barrett.

None other than President Biden wrote, in the foreword to A Meal in One, "I frequently stop in one of Delaware’s established sub shops to pick up lunch, dinner or a late-night snack without thinking twice about the role the sub played in putting Delaware on the culinary map.

"I must give credit to the Italian-Americans who settled in Delaware’s Little Italy and developed and popularized the culinary creation Wilmingtonians simply and affectionately call the 'sub.'

"I give further credit to Vince Watchorn for publicizing this relatively little-known fact about our proud city to everyone who loves good food."

John Wayne may know a thing or two about manliness, but I prefer my heroes to come with capicola, sweet peppers, and an extra dab of mayo.

Con

Con: a ruse used to gain another's confidence.

— Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary

Texas is suing a Christian "influencer" for falsely claiming she could cure eating disorders, Insider reports.

The state accuses Brittany Dawn of misleading customers about her expertise and of falsely promising custom nutrition plans she never delivered.

A self-proclaimed "Jesus seeker" with a half million Instagram followers, Dawn also promised customers regular phone check-ins that never occurred and charged them "shipping fees" for emails.

Allegations against Dawn first surfaced in 2019, when followers began to call her a "scammer" on her Facebook page. Their complaints led to an investigatory report on ABC's Good Morning America.

When the heat grew too much to bear, Dawn shuttered her nutrition business and turned to monetizing Jesus, producing hotel shows for vendors of Christian tchotchkes.

    Jesus clears the "den of thieves"

Brittany Dawn is only one of thousands of scammers we innocents encounter on line every day.

They've made the web a den of thieves.

But who was America's first big scammer?

The credit goes to William Thompson, known to history as the original "confidence man."

Operating in New York City in the 1840s, Thompson would dress up as a gentleman, walk up to a wealthy mark on the street, and begin a conversation, as if an old acquaintance. After a minute, Thompson would borrow the mark's watch, then disappear from his life forever.

Thompson's haul each time was considerable. A gentleman's watch in the 1840s cost $4,200 in today's money.

Thompson capitalized on the instinct of the genteel to avoid a faux pas at any cost; in this case, the cost of a fancy watch. His consummate skill at appearing trustworthy earned Thompson the newspaper nickname "Confidence Man," a moniker that quickly became synonymous for scammer; and, in its shortened form con, synonymous for scam.

Herman Melville immortalized William Thompson's nickname in 1857, by using it for the title of a novel. 

The Confidence Man features a cast of characters who are card sharps, stock swindlers and snake-oil salesmen, cheats who Melville thought symbolized all that was wrong with America.

NOTE: The word scam, by the way, entered American usage in the 1960s. Meaning a "trick," scam is a carnival barker's term derived from the 18th-century British word for a "highway robber," scamp.

POSTSCRIPT, FEBRUARY 10. 2022: Axios today announced that Maggie Haberman's Confidence Man, the "book Trump fears most," will be published in October.    

Openly Gray

The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.

— Oscar Wilde

Marketing researchers have known for decades we think we look 10 or more years younger than we really are.

The discrepancy is due to the workings of a psychological defense mechanism against anxiety—anxiety over our inevitable physical and mental decline.

I suffer more than my share of that anxiety, so my defenses work on overtime and I think I look... great!

Until I pass any plate-glass window.

That's when my defense mechanism breaks down.

But generally speaking, I like to think I'm openly gray and proud of my chronological age.

No age fabrication for me! 

I'm authentic through and through.  

Besides, I like a senior discount now and then.

The trouble arises when I get away from plate glass for a while and my defense mechanism kicks back into gear.

Then, I begin to speak and act once again like I'm a decade younger.

I go outdoors in flip flops and a tee-shirt when it's 20 below; eat cookies and candy like a famine is coming; and drive like Mad Max when I'm cut off on the highway.

These are not the behaviors of a 70-year-old.

Comedian Jack Benny had the solution.

He perpetually claimed to be 39, because "there's nothing funny about 40."

There's even less funny about 70.

Maybe I'll go for 29.

That was a very good year.

Who cares if I'm gray?

Or grey, for that matter.

Gray, ICYMI, can also be spelled grey.

The former is just the American English spelling of the British English grey, meaning the "color between black and white."

Despite our preference for gray, grey is used a lot in the US. 

There's Grey Poupon, Grey Goose, "Grey’s Anatomy," and, of course, Fifty Shades of Grey.

But that's another story.

Our Caligula

I judge you harmful and cruel, selfish and conceited, but I cannot hate you since I believe you’re unhappy.

— Albert Camus, Caligula

Caligula, Rome's emperor from 37 to 41 AD, was so capricious and cruel that his name became synonymous with despot.

Infamous for his misdeeds, Caligula humiliated enemies, butchered allies, plundered the treasury, chased after vanities, and even declared himself a god. While wallowing in vice and luxury, he taunted and tormented those who served him, dressing in weird costumes and staging vast orgies with senators' wives. 

His favorite expression was, "I have the right to do anything to anybody.”

But Caligula discovered he did not have that right. After four years on the throne, he was assassinated by the head of the Praetorian guard. A Roman historian said, "Caligula learned by experience he was not a god.”

We have our own, home-grown Caligula.

In his four years on the throne, he too humiliated enemies, plundered the treasury, dabbled in vanity projects, and tormented the people around him—all the while wallowing in luxury.

So, like a modern-day Praetorian guard, we deposed him.

I've been bellyaching about Donald Trump since January 1, 2017. It's been wearying to have had him around.

 

Like the majority of Americans, I wish now he'd simply vanish from the earth.

Though he's harmful and cruel, selfish and conceited, we cannot hate him, because we know he's unhappy.

But we can hate the sight of him, and the sound of his despotic voice.