PAUL RYAN AND C.T. GOPINATHAN

My name is C.T. Gopinathan, Gopi for short.  My owners take good care of me.  I like it when, once in a while, they settle down on the couch--with me invariably between them--and watch TV.  They are getting older, and more placid.  They have seen a lot, and, generally, accept the world as it is--with a smile.  Sure they still try to change it for the better, but not with missionary zeal.  For the last three nights, we have gathered to watch the National Republican Convention.  I started out looking like this: (Picture of a sleeping cat to follow.)  By the end of the second night, I looked like this: (Picture of a frightened cat to follow.)  These calm, sedate, mature people were yelling--screaming--at a young man giving a speech.  My male owner was shouting what humans call expletives--something I've never heard him do before.  The woman was yelling, "Liar, liar!  You dishonest, dangerous, terrible man!"  I was shocked.  What got into them?  From listening to many of their conversations, I know that they are not quick to anger, and eager to listen to those with different views.  What got into them that transformed these sanguine bunny rabbits into raging beasts?  I do not possess nearly enough neurons to solve this mystery, so I will turn it over to one of my owners, Thomas Dorsett, who does. What follows is his brief account of the past three days.

We expected lies from the speakers, but decided to listen anyway, to learn precisely what lies we would hear--and, perhaps, what truths; we are both open to rational arguments.  The first speaker we heard was an enormous tough, the governor of my home state, New Jersey.  Nirmala and I looked at each other toward the end of the speech and laughed, What an egotist!  He went on and on about himself without ever mentioning Romney.  He hardly ever smiled; mostly frowned, while looking at the teleprompter, not at the audience.  I got the feeling that his implied message was his intent of running for the presidency in 2016.  He lied and lied.  Said he balanced the budget, but forgot to mention that New Jersey has just about the worst employment situation in the nation.  Lies, lies, lies.  We looked at Gopinath as if he were America and the enormous Governor Christie was getting ready to sit on him.

The next day Governor Huckabee spoke.  A better delivered speech; he spoke with animation and looked at the audience, with whom he was obviously engaged.  Again, lies, lies, lies.  One example: he called the president, as did Gingrich, the Food Stamp President, because many more are on food stamps now.  Never mind that President Obama didn't change the regulations at all; there are more on food stamps because of the economic mess the previous regime has caused.  And the horrible canard that President Obama was referring to small businesses when he said, "You didn't build that," thus denigrating the great spirit of entrepreneurship in the country, is reprehensible--President Obama, of course, was referring to the infrastructure--roads, schools, etc--that are necessary for businesses to succeed.

Condaleezza Rice was good.  She talked about the importance of education--wrong convention, Secretary Rice!  She spoke movingly about her childhood in Birmingham where the racist laws wouldn't allow her to order a hot dog at so many places--her mother told her, however, that  she could be anything she wanted.  And she did indeed go far, thanks, in no small part, to government-enforced  civil rights.  I do have one question, though.  Didn't she see any irony in talking about such things to a crowd that looked like a White revival meeting?

Then came a female Hispanic governor.  I really enjoyed listening to someone who was able to speak Spanish correctly.  (Remember Hillary Cinton's Si, se pueda?) It was a pleasure to hear "El sueno americano es en el exito."  She told us that she works with a democratically controlled state legislature and actually gets things done.  (I'm afraid to fact-check; I hope it's not a lie.) She was obviously there as a means to woo both women and Hispanics, who seem to be flocking to the Republican cause with the same zeal as sparrows flock to Gopinathan.

Then came Mr. Ryan.  It was just too much.  Yes, we began to scream at the screen.  He blames Obama for blaming Bush--which President Obama doesn't do often at all-although he should. Never mind that in 2008 began the worst recession since the Great Depression, from which it  took over a decade to recover. Even if Obama's sensible strategies hadn't been obstructed by the loony Tea Party, this downturn would not be as easy to reverse as previous ones..  He blamed the President for a plant closing that occurred before President Obama took office--and he knew he was lying, since this fact was pointed out to him before.  He also blamed the President for making matters worse by the stimulus package, which every objective analyst says was of considerable benefit.  He presented himself as a warrior against spending.  What a lie!  Ryan is a big, big spender.  True he wants to cut down drastically on social programs, but he also wants to give the military much more, and supports truly egregious transfers of wealth to the wealthy through tax cuts, therefore increasing the deficit by trillions.  Yes, we were screaming at this dreadful liar.  What chutzpah!  He blamed Obama for the bond downgrading of the United States--those who did the downgrade, however, blamed the Tea Party types who would not compromise at all and almost drove the nation to a temporary default.  There is no way that the United States can resolve its debt problem without tax increases, the bond gurus inform us; they fear, with the Tea Party (I call them the Me Party) acting like bad kindergartners. reasonable tax restructuring will not occur. So they downgraded our bond status.  If Ryan ever gets his way and cuts the budget as he would like to, we would be plunged into another recession.  That's exactly what happened in 1937, when Republicans persuaded Roosevelt to slash spending.

And Medicare!!  When a Republican--especially one like Ryan-- tells you he's out to save Medicare, believe that as much as a Democrat who tells you she wants chastity belts covered by all insurance programs.  Believe Republicans on Medicare  and you might as well light a candle to an icon of Rush Limbaugh as the patron saint of the working poor.

Ryan is a dangerous fanatic.  All of us must fight to guarantee that he will never be a "heartbeat from the presidency." What's left to say?  I will let my good animal friend, C.T. Gopinathan, close:

We gathered on the third night and listened to Romney's speech.  I must admit that if I were human, I would have been yelling at Romney for a speech full of  platitudes, lies and saber-rattling, but my owners behaved admirably. I suppose they were weary from all the nonsense of the past three days.  They had a good sleep.

ROMNEY AND THE TRIUMPH OF THE EGG

All right, Governor Romney, I'm going to give you some very much needed advice.  It would not take you very long, Governor, to learn that I'm not in your camp.  But I am an American citizen and do believe that both camps should have some standards.  And I'm not writing about the negative advertising and speeches, which both sides are wallowing in.  I'm talking about the way you present yourself.  It's not only often embarrassing for you--and us-- it has also gotten you into unnecessary trouble.

I'm referring to your disastrous attempts to entertain.  You tell jokes about as well as you can sing. The latest example of your humor falling flat is when you visited Michigan. where you and your wife were born. "No one has asked to see my birth certificate.  They know that this is the place where we were born and raised," you told a crowd of supporters.  This is of course a very bad joke; it is indecent to make an allusion to the racist birther movement.  I might be wrong, but I don't think you meant this viciously.  I think you were just trying to be witty, and, once again, failed miserably in the attempt.

Here is my advice: Please stop trying to be funny.  You're not.  I'm sure you cracked an occasional joke during board meetings at Bain Capital, but I'm fairly certain that  those who laughed at your jokes were either trying to ingratiate themselves or, like you, had no sense of humor. Another piece of advice:: don't try to think on your feet; whenever you do, your feet take over.  Going off script has gotten you into trouble; memorize what you have to say and try not to add another word.

I know what you're trying to do.  You've never dealt much with regular people, that is, the poor and the middle class, and you're a bit nervous.  You're trying to break the ice, as they say.  Those who give business speeches and lectures often start with a joke to win over the audience.  (My favorite opening joke before a lecture was given by my anatomy professor during freshman year at medical school.  He was mentioning all the organs of the body, and ended with a question: why is the penis the lightest organ of the body? None of us said a word.  Then came the one-liner: Because it only takes a thought to lift it!  The professor recounted this with perfect timing.  I shudder to think of how you, Governor Romney, would have delivered that joke.) Your jokes will not break the ice, never. Skip the humor and stick to the issues.

You'll never win over the American people by wearing those silly jeans, by laughing that silly laugh when you're asked a difficult question, or by trying to tell a  joke.  You have the timing of a photon, an elementary particle that doesn't experience time at all.

I have some good news for you, though.  To get to the good news, I would like to briefly contrast your situation with that of two others, one of whom is my grandfather, the other one a character from a Sherwood Anderson short story.  These two characters--my grandfather was indeed a character--and you share a common trait in spades: you both wish to entertain and fall flat as a map when you try.

MY GRANDFATHER

Walter Hammond was a working-class artisan who never even made it through grammar school.  He did, however, have a small business which did, relative to our poor neighborhood's standards,  quite well.  He made lamps and objets d'art  out of some often very valuable objects his largely upscale clients brought to him.  I still have a beautiful decorative jade piece that he fashioned in the 1940s or early 1950s.  He taught himself to play the guitar and would often participate in jam sessions with friends, during which he also sang.  Nothing great, but everyone had fun.  (I got my musical abilities, such as they are, from him.)  He also was a bit of an egoist and thought he was a great entertainer. In fact, he thought he was so good that he was determined to get on television.  His self-assurance landed him an interview for The Merv Griffin Show, a popular TV variety show at the time.  Grandfather's shtick was reading verses and choruses of old songs.  We had a lot of sheet music--I still have them--from the 1890s on.  He would read the lyrics of his favorite songs  as if they were as moving as a Shaespearean soliloquy performed by a great actor.  He would practice reciting these texts before a mirror, thrilled with his own performance.  I will never forget the verse of one song:
                 
             
                                     Tetrazini has a horse,
                                     a horse that can't be beat;
                                     Mildred Parker is a hit
                                     because of her big feet;
                                     but just to get one look at you
                                     I'd swim across the Nile--
                                     For you have something they don't have,
                                     a million dollar smile--

Then came the chorus, which I have blisfully forgotten.  (No, I did not make this up.)  Gandfather had no talent, and worse, he thought he was a first-rate entertainer.  His failures didn't bother him; to his way of thinking, it was the world's fault he failed, not his.  I will close this section with an anecdote of one of his many aborted attempts at being a great entertainer.  At a couple's fiftieth anniversary party, my grandfather walked up onto the stage and picked up the microphone.  My mother, heading toward the exit in a hurry, was asked by a guest at the door, "Why are you leaving, Mabel, don't you know that your father is about to entertain us?"  As she rushed out the room, my mother replied, "You'll find out why I'm leaving now!"

THE TRIMPH OF THE EGG

This is a wonderful story by Sherwood Anderson which was published in 1921.  It tells the tale of a small-town failure.  His son, who became--what else? a depressive writer--begins by telling the story of his father's and mother's unsucessful attempt at chicken farming.  They sell the farm and move to the nearby small town and open a coffee shop.  The father has taken along his collection of deformed  chickens, preserved in alcohol, in the belief that showing these freaks to clients will help make his business a success.  If they worked hard, they might have eked out a living, but the father had a fatal flaw: he wanted to become popular by entertaining his guests.  One night, a young man was stuck at the coffee shop for three hours, because the train he was waiting for was running late.  Here. at last, was the opportunity to launch his entertainment career!  He tells him an incoherent story about Christopher Columbus and eggs; he tells it with the timing and entertainment skills of, well, you, Governor Romney. The customer is shown the collection of deformed chickens, which nauseates him.  The narrator's father tries to make an egg stand on its end, by rubbing it with his hands, thus giving the egg "a new center of gravity."  After about a half hour, he succeeds--the egg stands on its end a few seconds before tipping over.  But the customer, who has understandably lost interest, wasn't looking.  Now the narrator's father goes into high gear.  The young man by this time thinks he is insane.  The father will now make an egg slip though the neck of a bottle by heating it in vinegar, thus softening the shell.  He is unable to do it, all the while talking in a manner the customer deems to be that of a madman.  After an hour, an egg begins to slip though the bottle neck, but only halfway.  By this time the train is about to arrive; the man gets up to leave.  The father starts screaming, picks up the egg, which breaks in his hand, and throws it at the young man, just missing him as he escapes through the door.  Then comes the most moving part of the story: the narrtor's father goes up to the bedroom, kneels before his wife and cries like a baby.  He knows now that he will always be a failure.  The egg has triumphed, not him.

I mentioned that I would have good news for you, Governor, and here it is.  You are not like my grandfather was, a semi-literate working-class man with no connections to the powerful.  He really wanted to entertain; the only reason you wish to entertain is your belief that it would help you satisfy your ambition to get the job of the most powerful man in the world. You are also certainly not like the poor, desperate shlepp in Anderson's story.  Yours is an outstanding American success story. You obviously connect very well with your own kind, the superrich. (You do indeed have a--political--need to reach out to the rest of us; attempts to do this through humor, as you should know by now, will only make things worse.) You have no desire to entertain per se, so give it up.  Once again my advice: when you think of doing stand-up, please sit down.

I will end with a postscript:: when asked by a reporter about what you meant with your birther joke, you replied, "We were having fun about us, coming home."  This is neither English nor Chinese; it sounds like a little bit of both.  So if you lose the election, I have another suggestion: return to vulture capitalism.  Buy up several Chinatowns across the country.  As you said in one of your spontaneous asides, "I love to fire people!"  In order ta make the Chinese restaurants more profitable, you would undoubtedly have the opportunity to indulge this love by terminating many employees.  Why not give them personalized fortune cookies in tribute to their years of grueling work?  Your reply to the reporter indicates that you would make a great writer of fortune cookie messages, such as, say, "Trees and you in Michigan just right size."

You're certainly not funny, but I don't think you're a bad man.  You have, however, compromized yourself far too much in order to become the nominee of what has become an extremist party.  I could never vote for a man for whom people like my grandfather count for absolutely nothing.  You could (and would) do worse than being a writer of fortune cookies.  If that's the way you end up, I, along with millions of other ordinary Americans, would feel pleased--and relieved..


Thomas Dorsett's blogs:

thomasdorsett.blogspot.com
bachlittlepreludesandfugues.blogspot.com
dorsetttranslation.blogspot.com

PAULAYN RYAND

Romney, who has taken on diametrically opposed values from his previous incarnation as governor of a liberal state, has the deserved reputation of doing anything to realize his ambition for the presidency.
The latest addition to these anythings is his selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate.  He is everything that Romney is not--he is an ideologue who has never budged from his core values.  Now can you have any doubts, Romney seems to be saying, that I am a severe conservative!

By now everyone knows that if the Republican Party were less extreme, Romney would be touting himself as a moderate, standing by his record  as governor of Massachusetts.  Like a chameleon, he adopts the shade of his party's background--which is now very red--without a hint of any permanent hue.  Ryan, however is a "severe" conservative indeed.

You have probably already heard that over 60% of the massive cuts Ryan proposes will come from programs that hurt the most vulnerable.  You have probably also heard that his cuts will not save any money for a long time, since they are offset by tax reductions for the wealthy.  You have probably also heard that this would be the greatest transfer of wealth from the middle class and the poor to the already wealthy in the nation's history.  These are not the policies of someone trying to balance the budget; it is the attempt to stiff the majority of Americans by means of a rigid, specious, extremist ideology.

It all comes down to individualism vs. collectivism, he tells us.  He also tells us that it is the philosophy of Ayn Rand that has shaped his identity.  He hands out copies of her novel, Atlas Shrugged, to his interns and staff.  He gives the book to various people as a present at Christmas.  In TV commericals for his reelection to Congress in 2009 he mentioned that America is, as it were, in the dire situation depicted in the novel.  For any American politician to mention a novel during a TV ad, he must indeed be a true believer of its author's philosophy.  He has mentioned Ayn Rand so much that his inner core is a combination of the two, Paulayn Ryand.

As you know, Ryan is an active noodler, which entails shoving your hand down a catfish's throat and wrestling it to shore.  I suggest a new sport: randling.  This entails throwing Atlas Shrugged, which is over 1,000 pages long, at a  pesky Canadian goose, followed by a copy of The Fountainhead to finish him off. I think, though, Ryan would prefer to continue throwing those books at us.

Ayn Rand was a Russian immigrant who suffered much during the Russian Revolution.  The Bolsheviks confiscated her father's successful pharmacy business; the family fled to the Crimea.  When they came back to Petrograd (as St. Petersburg was then called) the situation was so dire that at times they were close to starvation.  She was allowed to visit relatives in New York in 1926 and never returned.  It is understandable that she hated the extremism of the Soviet Union.  But she countered it with an extremism of her own, laissez-fair capitalism, without any regulation at all.  In fact, she referred to the highly corrupt pre-trust busting era of the late nineteenth century America as the Golden Age.

If you haven't read Atlas Shrugged, don't.  It is a terrible novel.  I'm not talking about content, I'm talking about craft.  It is the story of a strike of all the so-called productive members of society against the rest of society--which in Rand's eyes is the useless, needy majority, composed of people who put restraints on the creative ones.  The Social Contract in any form is a as heinous as the Nuremberg Laws.  Well, the master race goes on strike and society falls apart.  The leader of the strike, John Galt, ending the strike on his own terms, gives a radio apeech at the end of the book describing his (that is, Ayn Rand's) philosophy.  You make your own values, you create your own life, you have no obligations to anybody you choose not to have obligations to.  You follow reason and unadulterated self-interest.  John Galt presents this philosopy in seventy (small print) pages, yes, seventy pages full of language so abstract and tedious you just can't get through it.  I propose the Dorsett Aesthetics Test.  Those who can finish reading this speech and like it have absolutely no aestheic sense and should not waste their time with art.  Those who either fall asleep or start laughing after a page or so are Mozarts, the majority of us giving up well before the seventieth page.

Ayn Rand was modest too.  She referred to herself as the greatest thinker alive.  She said there were only three philosophers of importance, Aristotle, Aquinas and Ayn Rand.

This advocacy of extreme individualism, which Ryan so assiduously supports, makes the dialogue which we should be having impossible.  There can indeed be too much government; there can indeed be detrimental effects of unregulated capatalism.  I would think that sane conservatives and liberals could agree that there should be minimum standards for everyone: adaquate schools, adequate health care, clean, simple housing in a safe environment.  The debate would be between those who claim that we can only afford the bare minimum for the needy, while the liberals would claim we could do a little bit more.  Once these minimum standards have been achieved, well, then, let's talk about tax cuts.  Similar sane conversations could be had regarding defense, bank regulation, etc.

Any effective modern country must have both collective aspects and  aspects that foster entrepreneurship.  The balance can tip in either direction with damage to the country's well being either way.  That's the word that both Ryan and Rand lack: balance.  Any program such as Social Security, Medicare, Food Stamps, Pell Grants, and God, forbid, Obamacare, is, to their way of thinking making the mumified Lennin smile in his mausoleum.

Why can't Ryan realize that all Americans must be represented, including the poor, weak and elderly?  In Ryand's view the poor are exploiters of the rich.  Alan Greenspan in Wonderland.  The Bland Hatter is running for president!  The True Believer has been taken through the Looking Glass to help him get elected!  This is no fiction: the choice this November is between extremism and moderation. Let's agree to have a battle.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE CATHOLIC CHURCH?

Well, if you are considering or even participating in the good deeds nuns and Dorothy Day-type Catholics are doing around the world, there is nothing wrong at all--to the contrary, more power to them.  But if you're considering the imperious, power-hungry bishops, well, that's another story.  It's the story, if fact, of this article.

These bishops stirred up a hornet's nest--I think they are the ones who will be stung the most--by their accusation that the Obama administration is severely restricting religious freedom by requiring that all health insurances comply with doctors' orders, including, of course, prescriptions for birth control.  Never mind that many Catholic institutions had been doing just that, the bishops decried Obama's alleged curtailment of religious liberties. Deeply offended by the administration's alleged anti-religious stance, Ross Douthat, the ultraconservative columnist, wrote:

If you want to fine Catholic hospitals for following Catholic teaching...then don't tell religious people that you respect our freedoms.  Say what you really think: that the exercise of our religion threatens all that's good and decent, and that you're going to use the levers of power to bend us to your will.

To whose will?  An old friend of mine, the great poet Samuel Menasche, wrote in one of his most famous poems, "Zion ground down must become marrow."  In other words, governments must strive to pass laws that reflect the very essence of religion.  Every religion has at least a few non-humane tenets.  Everything should be done to avoid a showdown, but when one occurs, the decision must be in accord with love and wisdom.  What is the essence of religion?    Compassion; perhaps best expressed in the biblical injunction to love one's neighbor as oneself.  And you can't love your neighbor while destroying the world.

Is the desire to prevent the use of birth control in accord with this quote from Leviticus?  I can understand the opposition to abortion, but opposing both abortion and birth control is nothing short of immoral.  We are already sharing the planet with six, almost seven billion people.  The environment is being decimated; due to overpopulation, ours is the greatest period of mass extinction of wildlife since the age of the dinosaurs.  Before birth control and medical advances which greatly increase the lifespan, women had many children.  Just like baby crabs, though, many didn't survive.  Can you imagine if every married woman had a dozen or more children today--not to mention those mothers who never marry? The admirable progress toward gender equality would vanish overnight: what mother could balance a career with a dozen kids at home?  I remember I once treated the fifteenth child of a thirty-four year-old woman in a pediatric clinic.  I looked over her record, and found out that she had been pregnant every year since marriage except one.  She was an Irish Catholic.  How long would  civilization last if everyone behaved like that?  If loving one's neighbor includes neighbors not yet born, and I am sure it does, unprotected sex is a very heinous policy. In this case, being a good Catholic makes for being a very bad citizen.  (We don't have that problem today, because very, very, very few Catholics and others follow the immoral teaching that birth control is wrong--98% of American Catholic women, in fact, have used birth control at some time during their reproductive lives.)

One of the central characters of Jonathan Franzen's good novel, Freedom, is a bird-lover and ardent defender of nature.  Every year he sees the birds' habitats being decimated by encroaching suburbia.  He views the Catholic Church as public enemy number one--and he has a point.  Life on this planet would become unbearable within a few generations if one followed the Church's teaching that birth control should never be used.

Perhaps, you might say, that this teaching is God-inspired and thus should be followed no matter the consequences?  But if a teaching is not in accord with love and wisdom, it is certainly not God-inspired.  Let's examine the flimsy theological reasoning behind the ban. (Before Humanae Vitae, a papal encyclical from 1968, there was no ban on birth control.)  The Catholic view (or should I say the Vatican view) is that God made the genitalia for procreation.  Any use of the genitalia that abrogates the possibility of conception--including masturbation--is therefore immoral.  This view, I think, is ridiculous.  Let's consider, to make an analogy, the mouth.  The mouth, as the first part of the digestive tract, has the essential function of introducing nourishment into the body.  The mouth is also used for communication--who could speak without one?  It is also used in sexual communication.  If God has given the mouth at least three purposes, how can one be so sure that He only gave the genitalia one?  Is it not possible that God created genitalia with the additional purpose of communication between two individuals who love each other?  If the genitalia has an additional purpose than procreation, birth control is certainly not sinful.  I think banning it is as silly as teaching that the mouth should be used only for eating, and not for singing.

The self-righteous bishops, who are more interested--at least in regard to birth control--in power than in love and wisdom, should be humbled on at least three accounts: 1.  How can you be so sure that you're right when virtually no other religion agrees with you on this issue?  2.  How can you advocate the ban on birth control which would endanger if not destroy civilization and the environment including all living creatures?  3. How can you ban birth control on such shaky religious grounds?

The last thing the Obama administration wants to do is have a dispute with the Catholic church.  This is why he pussyfoots around the issue.  The administration won't say that banning birth control is immoral,  since this would provoke a war with parochials with parochial views, but religious tenets that harm people must be opposed in the name of the Greater Good, namely in the name of God Himself.

Regarding this issue, you now  know why that I, a religious person, am on the side of President Obama--and why, in the struggle between truth and power, I am on the side of the nuns.