31 August—America just lost another war she never should have entered. Live with it. It’s bound to happen again.

Special but not extraordinary: Is the solecism in the (lack of) proofreading?

Delighted to have missed the opportunity

30 August—It was back in 1964 that I turned down the opportunity to go to Afghanistan. I was doing an MA in linguistics at the time. My thesis advisor—to me, those things are theses rather than dissertations—thought I might be interested in assisting him on an overseas project the following year, to be funded by a Fulbright or a grant from some offshoot of the United Nations, I can’t remember which.

It was bound to look great on my curriculum vitae, the linguistics professor reminded me. In those days, I took things like that seriously and even attended boring Modern Language Association conventions (but only when they were in New York) to suck up to professors I might have wanted to work with. (Could that really have been me?)

The project in Afghanistan had something to do with Farsi, the predominant language of that country. Having worked in Afghanistan a few years earlier, the good professor was up-front about the place. He warned me that I’d find even Kabul, the capital, to be somewhat primitive. But that didn’t matter because we’d likely be doing most of our research in less developed areas anyway. Wow!

The friendly professor asked if I’d ever used a Turkish toilet or a privy. I didn’t know from Turkish toilets, so he explained that they were holes in the ground with handles to grab onto if they were fancy; they allowed (or required) you to squat, which was the best position for the job. Very interesting. And it turns out I had in fact seen but not used one in the south of France, but had no idea what they were called.

Privies I knew. The summer camp where my brother and I were incarcerated in 1950 had a few, in addition to primitively plumbed toilets in the spartan bunkhouses. And we had friends with a cabin in the Nova Scotia woods, which had neither electricity nor plumbing. But it had a two-holer. And fond memories do not extend to it.

And there was even more to attract a kid for whom roughing it was staying at a pension on the continent without private baths. But we’ll leave it at that. Besides, I knew Afghanistan only from Afghan Hounds and afghan blankets. And I’d decided to do my doctorate in mediæval English anyway.

So I chose to forgo the linguistic research project in Afghanistan. And I’ve never regretted it . . .

Sunday Special: To leak or not to leak

A small step for a boy, a giant leap onto the path of perdition

28 August—Just after the war—World War Two; in 1947, it was simply The War—when I was in kindergarten at PS 122 in Brooklyn, NY, one of my classmates was a kid called George. I didn’t like George. He was what in those days we were allowed to call a Negro. But that’s not why I didn’t like him. No, I didn’t like him because he constantly taunted me with the reminder that his father was a surgeon, but my father was only a doctor. He always emphasized “only.”

George’s father was indeed a surgeon. And my father, even though board-certified in surgery and pediatrics, was a dedicated general practitioner—only a doctor, as George reminded me—and damn proud of it to his dying day.

When I was four years old, I was particularly innocent. (In my senecitude, I still am, but that’s another story.) I didn’t know about race; it hadn’t occurred to me that George and the other Negro kids I knew were different even though they were darker; I don’t think I even knew what darker people were called. And I didn’t know any dirty words. I didn’t even know there were dirty words that nice people didn’t utter.

George was more worldly than I and, I reckon, most of the other kids in the kindergarten class. So, one autumn day, during recess in the schoolyard, George picked the teams for batless baselessball, using a little poem that I and most of the other kids had never heard.

The poem was short and easy to remember, useful for choosing up sides. So George was good enough to teach it to us kids.

And I was so impressed with the little poem that I recited it to the family at the dinner table. “Eeny meeny miney moe,/Catch a nigger by the toe./If he hollers, let him go./Out goes Y-O-U.” I absolutely loved it and was proud because I remembered the whole thing without a single mistake.

My brother, a couple of years older, chuckled. My father’s jaw dropped. My mother hit the ceiling. “If I ever hear you use that word again, I’ll wash your mouth out with soap. Where did you hear it?”

“What word, Mater? George taught us the whole song.” (Mater? Sounds better than Mommy in an essay.)

“Nigger.” She hesitated when she said it. “George taught you?” she gasped. “You and who else?”

“All us kids. What’s wrong with it?”

“Nice people don’t say it. It’s a bad way of saying Negro. It’s filthy. Never say it again.The word is supposed to be tiger. Catch a tiger by the toe. Never, never say nigger. Say Negro.”

“What does Negro mean?”

“It means a colored person, like George. George is a Negro. Did he really teach you that word? I’ll have to talk to his parents. They wouldn’t like it.”

“But George isn’t colored, Mater, he’s brown.” (Luckily, George wasn’t black, because that surely would have led to a discussion of the physical and philosophical aspects of the color black, which—when not capitalized, of course—connotes evil and is actually the complete absence of color.)

My mother, being a very liberal teacher, explained the facts of what we now call critical race theory and woke life to me and apologized for losing her temper. After all, I didn’t know any better. My brother, who had never taught me the important stuff, was disappointed because he didn’t get to see or hear me have my mouth washed out with soap. We used Ivory.

Why didn’t it occur to me to ask Mater if it would be okay if I said “Catch a Negro by the toe”?

And George went on to teach me another word—and concept—I hadn’t known: shitpot, not as a toilet or chamber pot, mind you, but as a term of derision and abuse, which he regularly called a nasty little girl who teased him at school. I don’t recall ever having heard that word in any context after George and his family moved to Larchmont.

That was the year before my family moved to Queens and I learned to separate the two parts of shitpot at PS 174.

And I expect that George grew up to be a politician . . .

Life is full of no-surprises

27 August—President Joe Biden muttered all the platitudes expected of any CEO in the circumstance, after the crazy ISIS-K suicide bombers did their dirty in Kabul. To be clear, none of what’s been going on in Afghanistan—or anywhere else, for that matter—is really gentle Joe’s fault. But, he’d probably be willing to admit, the buck stops with him.

“We will not forgive, we will not forget,” President Biden insists. But we will get out of Afghanistan on schedule and we will get all the people out who are supposed to be gotten out. Really? If we leave it up to the people who have been doing the wonderful evacuation up to now, we certainly shouldn’t count on it.

Incidentally, ISIS-K is an offshoot of the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, along with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, starting several years ago, which has attracted super-ultra-crazy militants from other ultra-crazy extremist fringes. Evidently, it makes the original Taliban look fairly liberal.

The K stands for Khorasan, an historical region incorporating parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. And ISIS is the English acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. It’s also known as ISIL, which acronym, you may recall, Barack Obama preferred, for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Of course, it’s officially just the Islamic State, IS, although it’s not recognized as anything but a bunch of terrorist crazies, even by the paper tigers of the United Nations. The acronym for IS in Arabic is Daesh.

Do all the Taliban, like extremist Christians and other religious fanatics, really believe that murder and mayhem will actually get them to heaven and a great afterlife? Or are they merely homicidal and suicidal sociopaths and psychopaths?

How to be a woke, politically correct feminist without really trying

26 August— Yesterday, along with the extortionate August-September Cablevision bill, the less extortionate 2021-2022 sewer use bill (whoops, sorry, make that the water pollution control bill), and the September American Rifleman, I retrieved from my extortionately priced post office box the “Our best new hunting gear” catalogue from my good friends at L.L. Bean. More accurately, everybody in Litchfield’s good friends at L.L. Bean, judging by all their catalogues in and around the inadequate, overflowing recyclables/trash receptacle.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I have finally seen the light, I have had an epiphany. For I am now a woke, politically correct feminist. And in my new persona I couldn’t help but notice some disturbing, indeed, egregious lapses in that nasty little catalogue.

Start with the cover. Along with what appears to be an Irish red and white setter, two presumed men are pictured on the cover, one white, long-haired, and bearded (or just unshaven), the other black, short-haired or bald, and clean-shaven (or just unable to grow a beard). For convenience, they will be addressed with masculine pronouns. Both men are dressed appropriately (and expensively) for upland shooting and most other means of slaughtering innocent fowl, and have his-and-his orange caps as well as shotguns safely opened at the break, the white guy’s a side-by-side, the black guy’s an over-under. Those shotguns are more sporting than pumps or automatics, though single-shot would be even more sporting; and not hunting the poor creatures would be more sporting still.

All that’s fine, except the brotha is walking several paces behind the honky. His hunting buddy? More likely, the black guy is the white guy’s ghillie. Of course he is; and in the Scottish Highlands (and Glasgow, of course), he’d be called the schwartzeh ghillie. Why else would he be walking a respectable distance behind? We assume the brotha is a trusted retainer because he appears to be carrying ammunition in addition to the shotgun. But you never know.

Then we go to page four. There the brotha has been replaced by a white person of what appears to be the female gender. But you never know. For convenience, this person will be addressed with feminine pronouns. Anyway, she is carrying what’s probably the brotha-from-the-cova’s open over-under, is wearing a cap to match the white guy’s (it may even be the brotha-from-the-cova’s), and, like the brotha-from-the-cova, is walking a respectable distance behind the hirsute honky. And she appears to be carrying not only the ammunition, but also a cell phone or walkie-talkie as well as an orange whistle. That’s obviously because she doesn’t trust the honky with the beard. Or any men. Probably with some justification.

But, as the late Ron Popiel liked to say (when he was alive, of course), that’s not all. It goes without saying that people shouldn’t be allowed to carry or use firearms of any sort for any purpose. But I’ll say it anyway, because it must be said and repeated and repeated again and again even though it goes without saying. And it’s part of being woke and politically correct.

So now to the verso of the cover, commonly referred to as page two, of the new L.L. Bean offensive hunting gear catalogue. Not only is there a full-page picture of the female-looking person resting the brotha-from-the-cova’s over-under shotgun on her shoulder, not only does the weapon appear to be closed, locked, and loaded, but she has her finger menacingly close to the trigger. What has been cropped out of that picture? Talk about adding possible injury to insult.

For shame, L.L. Bean . . .

Pedestrians versus drivers and cops

25 August—It wasn’t until 1978 that Connecticut law required drivers to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks, “provided,” as the Office of Legislative Research put it several years ago, “the pedestrian was in the half of the road in which the vehicle was driving or crossing to it from the opposite side. The pedestrian also had to be approaching so quickly, or be so close to the portion of the roadway on which the vehicle was traveling, that he or she ‘was in reasonable danger of being struck.’”

In 1994 and 2007, pedestrians gained some more ground; and statute specified that crosswalks didn’t need to be marked unless they weren’t at intersections.

And now, effective 1 October, besides all the existing pedestrian protections, the driver now must yield to the pedestrian if he or she “indicates his or her intent to cross the roadway by moving any part of his or her body or an extension thereof, including, but not limited to, a wheelchair, cane, walking stick, crutch, bicycle, electric bicycle, stroller, carriage, cart, or leashed or harnessed dog, into the crosswalk at the entrance to the crosswalk.” Sadly, the politically incorrect statute ignores non-binary pedestrians, thereby putting them at even more unacceptable risk.

The catalogue of body extensions is most impressive and pretty comprehensive. The bottom line, in all events, is that a pedestrian doesn’t have to actually be in the crosswalk for the vehicle to be required to give way. He or she (but not they) merely has to signal intent to cross. And that’s as it should be.

Truth be told, drivers are pretty good about yielding to pedestrians in crosswalks. Especially when there’s a police cruiser around. Drivers who appear to be male are more courteous, attentive, and law-abiding than drivers who appear to be female; and males, from my observation, are less likely to be on mobile phones or otherwise distracted. Commercial truck drivers are by far the most law-abiding and courteous.

Not infrequently, when a driver simply obeys the law by stopping to let a pedestrian cross the street in a crosswalk, the driver acts like he, she, he/she, or they is or are doing the pedestrian a favor.

Trouble is, when drivers don’t observe the law and come close to killing you, you can’t get a cop to do much about it. Case in point: Several years ago, when the Scotties and I were already in the crosswalk of the northbound lane of South Street at the Historical Society, a red pickup truck that had been speeding screeched to a halt in the crosswalk, barely missing the Scotties.

The female driver then rolled down the power window, leaned across the seat, and shouted an imprecation: she told me to go fuck myself. I managed to get the truck’s marker number as the vehicle sped away. As it happens, there was a witness to the near-tragedy.

I naturally reported the incident to the resident trooper, who took statements from me and the witness. Sure enough, the investigation confirmed that the marker was on a red Toyota Tacoma pickup registered to a resident of Bethlehem.

But the woman told the trooper that I and the witness must have been wrong, because at the time of the incident her husband had the truck in Waterbury. And that’s where the trooper left it. No further investigation. It wasn’t something for the major crime squad, to be sure, but you’d figure the “coincidence” of the marker on a red truck confirmed by two people would at least have motivated the cop to do his duty and follow up on the veracity of the woman’s statement.

In the real world, however, that’s too much to expect . . .

Taste nazis versus the right thing and common sense

24 August—I originally wrote about the issue of solar panels on Litchfield’s Russell Street town garage for the former Litchfield.bz back in May. Here’s an updated version, enhanced by comments from a piece I had done in 1997 for The Litchfield County Times, before that unfortunate newspaper was castrated by JRC and then further mutilated by Hearst.

Litchfield’s notorious and dreaded taste police are at it again. This time, the Borough of Litchfield’s sociopathic Hysteric District Commission has a problem with solar panels on the west-facing roof of the town garage because the non-colonial panels would be visible from Russell Street, the showcase and epicenter of Litchfield’s colonial architecture. Oh, the horror! (I’ve been using that exclamation a lot lately. Always with good cause.) In fairness, the solar panels probably couldn’t pass for Georgian, but maybe they could pass for late Victorian.

But that’s not good enough for the taste nazis. Because the inappropriate solar panels would be seen by all the tourists and architecture mavens as they walked down beautiful, historic Russell Street, gawking, marveling at the hulking eighteenth-century cinder-block-and-steel building and artistically quaint industrial rock piles, the plastic-roofed sand bunker, the huge steel early Georgian snowplows, the revolutionary-era gasoline and diesel-fuel pumps that contribute to the street’s authentic, dreamlike, undeniable post-colonial ambiance.

North, South, and Prospect Streets have nothing on beautiful, historic Russell Street.

Remember how the borough’s taste gauleiters have through the several decades of their malignancy made colossal asses of themselves over insignificant little trifles like window boxes and door removals? Remember how they were bought off for $75,000? Remember how they’re currently costing borough taxpayers $650,000—ironically and sadly, for doing the right thing, for a change?

Remember how the power-crazed hysterics considered post-modern houses built by the right people to be appropriate and approved their construction with nary a dissent?

The Litchfield Hysteric District Commission—like all such bodies in this state—is nothing less than a force of self-important taste police, a prig patrol, a squad of busybodies empowered by broad, imprecise state statute to inflict its will, taste, and bile on unwitting, captive property owners whose ideas and/or tastes may differ from those of the hysteric prigs. Unfortunately, Connecticut General Statute 7-147 encourages these nazified nabobs to get away with all that crap.

The absurdity of hysteric district commissions is summed up admirably in a pontification issued some 24 years ago by the stitting commission chairman and borough warden at the time: “They didn’t put flower boxes on colonials. The concept is not appropriate for that house.”

Give me a bloody break! The taste police are colonial purists when it suits them. And they’re great at rationalizing when it doesn’t. And, for that matter, when it does.

The Hysteric District Commission’s implicit motto: When you have the power, abuse it.

The town would do well to ignore the borough Hysteric District Commission and just do what’s best for the town. Damn the borough and full speed ahead! With the precedent having been set over a decade ago by a private party (even after she had prevailed in the state trial and appellate courts and was likely to make it a hat-trick with the state supremes), the town could be charitable and slip the needy borough a few thou to buy a coveted certificate of appropriateness. But it won’t have to.

Because if the town were to do the right thing and tell the less-than-useless Hysteric District Commission where to get off by installing the solar panels without a certificate of appropriateness, given the HDC’s abysmal track record in state and federal courts, it’s highly doubtful—but not impossible, mind you, given their inestimable hubris—the borough’s hysteric gauleiters would dare litigate the heinous aesthetic offense and guarantee yet another unconscionable legal bill for borough taxpayers . . .

CRAF to the rescue—and it’s high bloody time

23 August—The Pentagon has finally decided to activate the Civil Reserve Air Fleet to expedite the evacuation of American and Afghan personnel, as well as others who have been depending on the United States to honor its commitments. The CRAF program has been in place for seven decades but only now have those morons had the sense to charter—make that compel—private airlines to supplement the evacuation flights of military aircraft out of Afghanistan.

So what else is new? Of course, with our air bases and most civilian airports in Afghanistan now in the hands of the Taliban, no airplanes will be flying evacuees and refugees directly out of that chaos. That would be too easy. And that’s not the way governments work. So getting the evacuees out of Afghanistan now involves schlepping them to air bases as far afield as Germany, where they’ll be loaded on flights to the United States. Probably.

Now, if some thought had been given to the evacuation process before it started, not only would our forces not have been ordered to abandon our air bases, but arrangements would have been made to use huge passenger planes like the Boeing 747-400 that can carry over 500 passengers and the Airbus 380-800 that can carry over 800 passengers. (Two of those Airbus behemoths could carry the whole population of Warren. With some seats left unoccupied.)

Instead, poor Afghans were desperately clinging to fuselages of aircraft not intended for passengers but pressed into service anyway. Again, nothing surprising there . . .

(Is it coincidental that today, as Storm Henri menaces the northeast, is late photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson’s birthday?) Sunday in the Republican

22 August—On 2 August, I posted a letter on LitchfieldMonitor.com that I had written to the Republican-American. It was printed in today’s Sunday Republican, with only minor changes, like the capitalization of black with reference to what used to be called Negroes, then African-Americans (in this country), then blacks. Next thing you know—no offense intended, of course—they’ll be BLACK.

Also in this morning’s Waterbury rag is a column by Marc Thiessen (who graduated from the Taft School in 1985, as we’re incessantly reminded, as if we care), “‘Team of sycophants’ reigns.” In his essay, Marc criticizes Joe Biden for having “surrounded himself with a team of sycophants and enablers who share his worst instincts.”

Well, isn’t that what presidents and kings—and bosses in general—do? Thomas More kowtowed to Henry VIII; until he didn’t and lost his head for not doing it. And, just to be clear, despite what Marc Thiessen implies in his essay, Joe Biden’s alleged sycophants and enablers are nowhere near as sycophantic, enabling, or deferential as Donald Trump’s obsequious cadre of cronies, crooks, cretins, and creeps, who, as you may recall, grovelled embarrassingly with unctuous appreciation and admiration for their lord and master when they snivelingly announced their appointments in the divine presence of HSM (His Scumbag Majesty).

Just for the record, the United States shouldn’t have been involved in Afghanistan in the first place. That goes back some four decades, when we sent matériel to the mujahadeen to fight the Soviets and protect the opium trade. After 9/11, Bush Junior sent troops to Afghanistan, among other places, under false pretenses. Obama funked on taking them out. Trump said he’d do it but made no plans. And poor old Biden is taking all the flack. And, as an ugly aside, the Taliban, besides cornering the opium market, are now recovering and using the valuable military matériel we’re abandoning as our troops flee ignominiously. The troops and the Afghans who have believed in and depended on the good faith of the United States of America deserve much, much better . . .

The best new motto for Connecticut

21 August—This essay originally appeared in Litchfield.bz a couple of years ago, after the constipated Hartford, Waterbury, and Hearst rags refused to run it. I was surprised to discover that a number of LitchfieldMonitor.com readers hadn’t in fact seen it in Litchfield.bz because they didn’t and don’t read it. In all events, it’s been updated.

It’s reported that Connecticut is still looking for a slogan to replace “Connecticut: Still Revolutionary,” which, besides being criminally deceptive, has to no one’s surprise proved a dismal failure in the seven years it’s been used in a half-baked effort to attract tourism and commerce. As it happens, our woebegone state also should be looking for a motto to replace the antiquated and clumsy Latin “Qui transtulit sustinet,” which in English means “He who transplanted sustains,” but probably has nothing to do with arborists or gardeners.

In the spirit of 21st-century rhetorical accuracy and economy, then, it behooves Connecticut to come up with a new combination motto and slogan. Neighboring New York State, whose marketing slogan is the memorable “I Love New York” (often seen as “I Love NY” and abbreviated “I [heart] NY”), has long used the concise Latin motto “Excelsior,” which simply means “higher,” although the few New Yorkers who actually know it prefer to construe it as the more inspirational “ever upward,” doubtless alluding to taxes and anti-gun legislation, which excesses New York shares with Connecticut.

Ideally, Connecticut’s motto-slogan should exemplify the state and be short and sweet, easy to understand, entirely truthful, and (of course) in English. For now. The obvious and perfect motto-slogan, in that case, must be “Forever Upward, Connecticut!” Is that inspirational or what? Take that, New York! And don’t bother reminding us that Connecticut has nowhere to go but up.

We know it.

In addition to not needing a picture, still another advantage of “Forever Upward, Connecticut!” is that it’s conveniently abbreviated as an initialism, in which the letters are pronounced individually, as in the clandestine government agencies “CIA” and “NSA”; as well as an acronym, in which the letters are pronounced as a word, as in the White House’s currently inseparable and most appropriate “POTUS” and “FUBAR.”

Thus, “FU,CT!” could be pronounced as individual letters or as a word. Talk about conciseness and versatility. “Forever Upward, Connecticut!” and “FU,CT!” say it all about our state in only three words or four letters. With no pictures, only simple punctuation. “Wow!” as an unimaginative hack copywriter or eBay seller would put it.

It must be noted that the United States Supreme Court not too long ago ordered the Patent and Trademark Office to approve “FUCT” as the brand name of a line of clothing. So, even though deleting the comma would without doubt sharpen the point of our incisive acronym by reminding Connecticut taxpayers of the pain they’ve been suffering far too long, the comma must nevertheless be included at all times in order to preclude litigation for trademark infringement.

Similarly, in the interest of intellectual and political honesty—as well, of course, as to foreclose litigation—the exclamation point (commonly known as a bang) must never but never be deleted, ignored, or disparaged. Because, besides rubbing it in to the foolhardy masochists who haven’t yet fled Connecticut, the bang emphasizes beyond any doubt not only the course of Connecticut’s taxes but also the attitude of virtually everyone in the state Capitol with regard to virtually everyone not in the state Capitol.

So shout it proud and loud: Eff You Comma, See Tee Bang!

And here’s a 2021 update: New York State has made its license plates somewhat less dull by, among other devices, replacing its outworn “THE EMPIRE STATE” nickname at the bottom of the plates with with the somewhat more dynamic motto “EXCELSIOR,” both inscriptions in all caps.

So it behooves Connecticut to dump the misleading caps-and-lower-case “Constitution State” moniker on the bottom of its lackluster license plates and replace it with either the dynamic “Forever Upward, Connecticut” in caps and lower case, or simply the versatile “FU-CT” in all caps . . .

Government motto: To preserve and protect itself

20 August—Do you trust your government? Leaving aside party politics—who is president or governor or mayor, which party rules the roost, and all that—do you trust government in general? Not an invidious question, by any means.

You may appreciate whatever handouts and favors various levels of government have given you and others in entitlements, gratuities, and other goodies, and what your particular government has done for its own and other societies. But that’s not really government in action, but, rather, politicians sucking up to voters, doing what motivates them more than anything else: keeping their jobs, staying in power.

It’s really the civil servants who keep governments running. They’re also motivated to keep their jobs and stay in power.

But never forget that there’s no free lunch. Somebody is paying for all the largess enjoyed by you and everyone else. More than likely, though, you’re one of the payers: a lot out of one pocket, a little into another—unless you’re indigent, old, or politically connected.

And that’s precisely what government is all about: staying in power, self-preservation, furthering its own interests. It doesn’t matter whether a government is democratic or tyrannical, benign or malign. Government’s first duty is to itself. Any level and form of government is not simply a machine that needs to be maintained, but an organism, not unlike a person or a jackal or a slug, that does what it must in order to survive and thrive.

Building on that metaphor, governments also do what they can to grow and reproduce. Consider the various empires of history, as well as the tensions—cold and hot wars—of the present day. Details like communism and capitalism, freedom and oppression are irrelevant to governments.

If you don’t like the government that controls your being, you have three choices: grin and bear it, find another place to live, or protest and rebel. Protest by itself–blowing off steam—is pretty useless. Rebellion sometimes does the job . . .

Scofflaws, racists, and guns

19 August—Earlier this week week, the Waterbury Board of Alderman did two things worth noting. First, it passed an ordinance to permit municipal authorities to enforce Connecticut registration of out-of-state scofflaw motor vehicles. Last month I wrote about the new state legislation that clarifies and simplifies local enforcement.

The Waterbury City Clerk was nice enough to send me a copy of the new ordinance, which I forwarded to the good people at Litchfield Town Hall. There’s absolutely no reason why Litchfield and every other municipality in Connecticut shouldn’t pass and enforce such an ordinance ASAP. If municipal officials refuse to do the right thing, it takes only 20 signatures to force a town meeting.

Second, the aldermen tabled a request to declare racism a public health crisis—not an ordinance, mind you, just a declaration, a resolution; not an outright defeat, but better than nothing. In addition to legal problems such a resolution would engender, it’s just silly—make that just plain stupid.

It’s every bit as stupid as the attempt by the American Public Health Association a few years ago to declare gun violence a public health crisis. And then there are physicians asking patients (or customers, as we are these days, with too many physicians and facilities) whether they keep guns in their homes. (Physician gag laws in some states prohibit that, but they’re unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds.) Some physicians even refused to treat customers who refused to answer.

If a physician asked me that totally irrelevant and impertinent question, I’d tell him, her, him/her, or them where to get off. Then I’d fire the nosy quack and tell my insurer not to pay him, her, him/her/, or them for the visit . . .

Religion: Believe it or not

18 August—Observing the mess in Afghanistan, you can’t help but wonder at the motivation of the Taliban and other religious fanatics. Does it really matter to them if people believe in their theology, practice their rituals, and observe their laws? Do they really care what happens to nonbelievers in life or death?

Certainly, we’ve seen true Muslim believers kill themselves while murdering others in the name of Allah, with the guaranty—not just the belief—they’d make it to Jannah, their Paradise, and then make it with 72 virgins. Impressionable? Delusional? Hopeful? Just plain gullible and stupid? Take your pick. (Not in the Quran, to be sure. But see Boris Johnson’s comic novel “Seventy-Two Virgins.” Yes, that Boris Johnson.)

Do violent and punitive religious fanatics really believe they’re doing the dirty for their god by forcibly inflicting themselves on whomever, by harming or murdering people just because of theological differences? Do fanatics justify or rationalize their own dishonesty, theft, and other criminality by claiming they’re doing their god’s work?

Or is it all just about power and control? There’s nothing like belief in and fear of an omnipotent god to keep the great unwashed under control. And, in all events, God and gods are not only a great explanation for the unexplainable, but also a fantastic excuse for the inexcusable . . .

Making history. Or not

17 August—On this day in 1972, history happened in Litchfield. In actual fact, history happens every day, every second, everywhere. And nothing changes the course of history because everything changes the course of history. Think about it. But I digress.

On 17 August, 49 years ago, the Rosenberg family, as then constituted, moved to Litchfield. At that time we were Simon and Schuster, Sherry, and me. Simon was a wire fox terrier, Schuster was a Scottish terrier, Sherry was a wife, me was a pain in the ass. In the case of me, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Simon and Schuster were named for my publishers. Sherry was named for a fortified wine. She was fortunate in that her parents weren’t more specific; she could have been called Oloroso, Manzanilla, Fino, or even Dry Sack.

Paul (i.e., Me) was named for the saintly apostle—after he had converted to Christianity, to be sure. Otherwise I’d have been called Saul. Among my favorite quotations of my namesake is this: “Bad company ruins good morals. So eschew the company of politicians and lawyers.” The part about politicians and lawyers appears only in the unexpurgated Acts of the Apostles Apocrypha . . .

PC entomological encounter

16 August—Just the other day, I found a little Musca domestica—a common housefly—on the kitchen floor when I went to check the progress of the bread I was baking. Just a basic farmhouse loaf. Can’t beat it. A fly in my immaculate kitchen? Heaven forfend! The nerve of the little bugger. Anyway, the muscine interloper was dead. On my kitchen floor, where even ants fear to tread. (They prefer the counters.) Oh, the horror!

I have so far avoided using pronouns when speaking about the little fly because, besides being entomologically challenged, I’m politically correct, and I couldn’t tell whether the fly was male, female, transgender, or nonbinary. In all events, on second glance, it was obvious the little fly, who was on his, her, his/her, or their back, wasn’t dead at all, but moving his, her, his/her, or their six little legs ever so slightly. Was he, she, he/she, or were they just sleeping on his, her, his/her, or their back or was he, she, he/she, or were they having a stroke?

I still don’t know whether houseflies sleep on their backs or have strokes.

Anyway, I gingerly flicked him, her, him/her, or them onto a convenient tablespoon, fully expecting him, her, him/her, or them to either die or fly away. But he, she, he/she, or they surprised me by waiting patiently on the tablespoon till I opened the screen door, intending to give him, her, him/her, or them a little fresh air and sun, hoping that would animate and inspire him, her, him/her, or them. And it did. Because after a few seconds in the fresh air, he, she, he/she, or they looked at me with those marvelous compound eyes, saluted me with one of his, her, his/her, or their forelimbs, and happily flew away to go about his, her, his/her, or their muscine business . . .

Trump, trump, trump, the boys are marching

15 August—Yesterday, Trump supporters were on Litchfield’s west green (and who knows where else), reminding us that Biden isn’t their president. Kind of reminds you of the nuts on the other side of the political spectrum who, after Hillary lost the election in 2016 (thank the lord), insisted that Trump wasn’t their president.

And let’s not forget all the celebrities who vowed to move to Canada. Did any actually do it?

The Monitor’s money problem

15 August—The Litchfield Monitor has a money problem. So what else is new? And well you may ask. But it’s not what you may think. On the contrary. In the short time the website has been up and at it, a number of appreciative readers have sent 35-dollar checks to pay for their subscriptions. That’s what Litchfield.bz subscriptions cost. But unlike Litchfield.bz, LitchfieldMonitor.com doesn’t do paid subscriptions. Just as bz was originally intended to be, The Monitor is absolutely free to anybody and everybody who wants to read it. No need to log in to prove you paid for the privilege.

And, just to remind you, The Monitor and bz are not—repeat, not—in competition. Litchfield.bz posts mostly news, while LitchfieldMonitor.com posts mostly comments: on this website, the news is in the views.

As I had mentioned shortly after opening the website three weeks ago, subscriptions aren’t necessary for two reasons: first, The Litchfield Monitor is free; second, subscriptions are a pain to administer, because I’d feel obligated to email subscribers virtually every day to remind them to visit the website in order to catch the latest material.

If I can believe the website’s visit counter and the comments I’ve been receiving (even from people who disagree with some of my pontifications), however, reminders aren’t at all necessary. Word of mouth and email appear to be great publicity, because readership is growing at an encouraging and ego-tickling rate.

So I’ve returned the checks to the kind readers and asked them to donate the funds to animal welfare charities of their choice. But if some benevolent soul wants to send anonymous cash . . .

Censors be damned!

14 August—On left-wing radio (NPR) this morning, a guest commentator, a regular contributor to The Nation, went on about how the right—i.e., Republicans—bans books. Without doubt, that’s shameful, disgusting, reprehensible, and totally unacceptable, regardless of the subject matter.

What the commentator neglected to mention is that the left—i.e., Democrats and so-called progressives—also bans books. For instance, just a few months ago Amazon.com announced that it won’t sell any books that portray transgender, other gender identities, and sexual orientations as mental illnesses. Accepting that gender identity and everything related to it isn’t mental illness, is that any reason to ban books?

The next step is burning books. That’s been going on since well before the Nazis. And since. For all sorts of unpalatable reasons. In 2019, for instance, library officials in the Gansu province of China burned books banned by the regime; and a Catholic priest in Gdansk, Poland, burned books in the Harry Potter and Twilight series.

Back in 2013, a pair of San Jose State University professors, in the Flake State, publicly burned an anti-climate-change book they obviously disagreed with—and naturally the university, which initially had posted the picture online, quickly took it down.

Unhappily, book banning, as opposed to book burning, is practiced by all levels of governments and public and private libraries and schools all over the world. And, sadly, according to a six-year-old Harris poll, about half of America thinks there ought to be more book banning, with Republicans outnumbering Democrats two to one, for reasons running from pornography (Republicans) to political incorrectness (Democrats).

And then there’s limiting speech. That’s where the liberals and regressive-progressives take the cake. Especially on college campuses. Private institutions can limit speech any way they please. But public institutions have the First Amendment to limit their options. Yet the public universities do seem to get away with limiting whatever they and/or their students consider offensive (i.e., non-liberal) speech.

The social media—Facebook, Twitter, and the like, all of which subscribe to liberal politics, and which too many people of varied intelligence waste too much time and energy on—are every bit as guilty of censorship as universities. Like for instance: YouTube just suspended U.S. Senator Rand Paul, an eye surgeon in real life, for a week because he had the gall to post a video questioning the efficacy of face masks during the novel coronavirus panic, contrary to the consensus of the pro-mask majority. Agree with him or not, he is a credentialed physician, after all, and his educated opinion deserves to be heard. Even if he weren’t a physician, there’s no good reason to stifle his opinion.

Any way you look at it, censorship of any sort just plain stinks and should never be tolerated . . .

Chabad: Jewish Taliban

13 August—Thank the well-meaning Constitution, the whoring Congress, misguided federal courts, and Northwest Connecticut’s notorious judgement-proof Lubavitcher Goniff Momzer for all that he and his fellow Chabadnik goniff momzers have done to cause the once vital, thriving building at 85 West Street, as well as many others owned and occupied—or just as likely unoccupied—by Chabad Lubavitch all over the world, to deteriorate into a decrepit haunted house. The beautiful, historically significant old Methodist church just a building away from the haunted house is doomed to suffer the same fate.

The fading sign in the former Wilderness Shop’s vitrine window proclaims that it will be the future home of a Chabad community center. Yeah, right—when the Lubavitcher Rebbe is resurrected. It wouldn’t surprise anyone if the Litchfield Chabad klavern’s clever kludd-kleagle never had any intention of doing anything with the building anyway, other than using it to shake down the poor, victimized Borough of Litchfield.

And the kludd-kleagle certainly has no intention of making the beautiful old Methodist church into a holocaust museum of tolerance, whatever that means, even if the klavern could come up with the scratch to do it; or even using it as a temporary house of worship pending completion of the haunted-house community center; that claim is merely an end run around land-use laws. Since it’s unlikely that either building is insured, we can pretty well rule out Lubavitcher lightning. Of course, blockbusting is another distinct possibility. The buggers doubtless have something up their slimy sleeves to screw as many marks as they can find.

Learning the language

For the benefit of those few readers who aren’t acquainted with the mamaloshen, here are some definitions: First, mamaloshen itself is literally the mother tongue, i.e., Yiddish, the lingua franca of Ashkenazi Jews. Goniff, as defined on Chabad’s own website, is Hebrew and Yiddish for thief, and has come to refer to anyone who is a swindler, a cheat, or just plain dishonest. And Chabad certainly knows all about that. Last, momzer in Hebrew—mamzer, as Chabad.org spells it—refers to a child born of an incestuous or adulterous relationship between people who by law cannot be married; in Yiddish, it just means a good old-fashioned bastard.

And then there’s the klavern, a local group. And don’t forget the likes of kleagle, kludd and klexter, which terms I’ve used for Chabad klavern personnel; klaliff, klokard, and kligrapp; klabee, kladd, and klarogo; klazik, klokan, and klonsul. But they’re not Yiddish or Hebrew or even Aramaic. Rather, they’re all titles of Ku Klux Klan officials and hangers-on. No kidding. Why would I use such terms to refer to Chabad Lubavitch? Guess.

In all events, S.J. Perelman and P.G. Wodehouse couldn’t have come up with more laughable titles. But klezmer music, despite the kl, has nothing to do with the Klan. Except, perhaps, when it’s played at klar mitzvahs and Klewish weddings . . .

Good riddance, Andrew. Your father wouldn’t be proud of you

12 August—Congratulations, Andrew, for finally doing the right thing, you sick bastard. Even though your resignation as governor wasn’t really voluntary and was for the wrong reasons. New York State won’t miss you. Your alleged sexual misconduct may never be proved. And it’s sad—make that positively shameful—that one of your former bosses, Slick Willy Clinton, a legend among sexual predators, got away with most of his predation and was able to retire lucratively to (honorable?) senior statesman status, along with his enabling harridan of a wife. But, then, Willy is brilliant and charming. On the other hand, you’ll probably be back like most other disgraced politicians.

No willy puns here . . .

Global warming? Don’t worry, be happy!

11 August—If we were looking for a reason to doubt that man-made global warming was really man-made or something to worry about, the nice folks at the United Nations have been good enough to give us that reason—beyond doubt, no less. Because the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a function of the United Nations, has just released its latest report that insists global warming is all that and more—and warns of a bleak future in the bargain. And given everything we know about the United Nations, what’s there to believe?

The 31-year-old IPCC is nominally supposed to provide objective scientific analysis and data about climate in general and the impacts and risks of, as well as possible responses to, dreaded climate change in particular. But its very name reveals that its real mission is above all to push the change part of climate change. And the politically motivated implicit charge to the IPCC likely was to make sure climate change was anthropogenic—man-made. Otherwise, why bother at all?

The 3,000-plus pages of the just-released report naturally cite indisputable empirical evidence like recorded temperatures and precipitation, sea levels, and storm frequency. While many of the observations may be somewhat disturbing, they’re not overly worrisome. Haven’t climate extremes and related catastrophes been recorded since way back when?

But it’s the suppositions that are—and are intended to be—more disturbing and worrisome. Because, while the observations are presumably securely based on sound scientific principles, the causes and effects are purely speculative. The report asserts unequivocally that the climatic woes are caused by humans, just by humans. But that’s mere conjecture, guesswork, political alarmism in action.

Consensus among scientists may serve politicians well, but it’s not scientific proof. And that’s all there is to it.

It’s an indisputable fact that Earth’s climate has been changing since the planet was created and will continue to change as long as the planet Earth exists. Climate changed before humans existed and before the Industrial Revolution is said to have polluted the atmosphere. It’s speculation at best as to how much of the climate variation has been affected by Man and what Man can or will do to affect it in the future.

Another nail in the coffin of the glorious alarmist report is that when the IPCC shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 with Albert Gore Jr., the Nobel committee said it was “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.” Q.E.D., baby, and Jesus save me!

Everything the IPCC has ever done has been to justify its existence by reinforcing its “objective” mission to further the interests of global warming alarmists and profiteers like former vice president Albert Gore Jr. Because that’s what it’s all about.

And keep in mind that IPCC’s enabler, the United Nations, is an international political parasite that feeds off the United States while expecting us to wallow in its frass . . .

Orchids and onions you want? Balls you’ll get

10 August—“Orchids and onions” is a clichéd trope newspaper editors like to use to headline favorable and unfavorable opinions. But what’s so great about orchids and what’s so terrible about onions? Nothing on both accounts. And it all comes down to balls. For the record, the word “orchid” comes from the Greek word “orchis,” meaning testicle, supposedly because of the shape of the tuberous roots of most species of that fancy plant. And a monorchid, for instance, isn’t a single flower or plant, but a person (being PC and woke, we won’t get into gender identity) or animal with one testicle.

In the interest of total accuracy, it must be added that testicles, although informally referred to as balls, are in actual fact egg-shaped. And Yiddish has it here, because the Yiddish slang word for testicles is “beitsim,” (baits-im), one of the words for eggs.

Onions are related to orchids because of balls and comestibility—you can eat virtually all varieties of onions and many varieties of orchids. You’ll never forget that orchids are named after balls and you may even remember that many varieties are in fact edible. On the other hand, orchids are tubers while onions are bulbs. Not that it matters. In all events, can you imagine not having onions to add interest to so many foods?

So let’s give orchids to onions and not insult those flavorsome great balls of fire by awarding them to whomever or whatever we want to criticize. Rather, bestow that obloquious distinction on something really disgusting. Like Brussels sprouts or truffles . . .

Scoop! Told ya so again

9 August—I’d normally leave scoops to Litchfield.bz, but:

At the Litchfield selectmen’s office early this morning (i.e., the ungodly hour of 9:15), it was decided by all the right and right-minded people to make haste more slowly in the laudable drive to form a sorely needed new Region 20. Just as I had suggested on 4 August, though for some reason that didn’t come into the discussion. Now all parties involved will cross their eyes and dot their tees—because the state has to be involved—and the win-win academic consolidation will become a legally defensible reality before we know it. Well, maybe not that soon.

And, walking back from Town Hall, having nearly been killed by a moron in a grey or silver Subaru Legacy who was waiting till I entered the crosswalk (with no traffic coming either way on West Street) to turn from the side-cut and speed into my path, I snapped this picture of a cute moth waiting for a jewelry shop to open. I hope it’s not one of the verminous varieties:

Sunday special: Terror in inner-city Litchfield. When will it end?

8 August—In serendipitous observance of the second mensiversary of the discharge of a firearm in inner-city Litchfield (a.k.a. The Borough) on 7 June, shots were fired yesterday in front of the Congregational Church. Oh, the humanity!

Now is the time to seize the opportunity to ban all firearms in Litchfield and everywhere else. Constitution be damned! And, while we’re at it, let’s retain a team of predacious ambulance chasers to sue the firearm manufacturers and sellers for all the noise their products make . . .

Hang in there, Andrew!

7 August—The late Mario Cuomo, embattled New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s father and predecessor four tenures earlier as governor, although a smart lawyer and clever politician, was nevertheless what in Yiddish is known as a mensch—an honorable, trustworthy, thoroughly good person. You didn’t have to agree with all his politics to respect and even admire him.

Andrew is nothing like his father, never was, never will be. There are myriad reasons he should be impeached, myriad reasons he should never have been elected to any office in the first place, myriad reasons he shouldn’t be allowed out in society. But impeachment sentiment is running at fever pitch now only because he’s been accused of sexual harassment, not even assault. And—most of all—because it’s politically expedient.

The operative words are accused and politically expedient. Andrew is refusing to resign. Good for him, even though it’s just about certain that if he doesn’t resign he’ll be impeached and convicted and removed from office—because impeachment is a strictly political process. Remember that Donald Trump’s two impeachments were dog-and-pony shows, travesties, staged by the power-crazed Democrats only to make themselves look better. Which, of course, they didn’t succeed in doing.

Andrew Cuomo can be accused by one or a hundred women (or men or transgenders or non-binaries or donkeys or goats) of doing whatever. But notwithstanding what self-serving political whores, pundits, and the press might say, he is innocent until the accusations are actually proved. True, even the juridical process is flawed—especially when it’s politicized or involves, inter alia, firearms, police, or children, as we’ve all seen—but it’s far better than the mere political process. So when’s the trial—any trial?

So hang in there, Andrew! You sick bastard . . .

Welfare state gone wild

6 August—The latest farce out of Boston is that air conditioning is being touted as a human right. And that nonsense isn’t really all that new; it’s been making the rounds of the more tropical states for several years. The hotter states, as you may know, wouldn’t even have been overrun by developers, of course, had it not been for air conditioning. But Boston? Massachusetts? A human right?

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, dating back to 1948, specifies 30 rights. They’re things like freedom, equality, privacy, asylum, religion, opinion, assembly, and no torture or slavery. There’s also the right to work, as well as rights to culture and art, ownership, marriage and family, rest and holiday. Not to mention the rights to education, social security, and social service. And a few more, including the right to democracy, however broadly-defined that may be in the declaration.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was passed by 48 of the 58 members of the United Nations at the time, meeting in Paris. (There are now 193 member nations.) No negative votes, eight abstentions, two not voting. Abstentions were the ones dictated by Moscow: USSR, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Byelorussian SSR, Ukrainian SSR, and probably Tito’s Yugoslavia; Saudi Arabia and South Africa abstained for their own obvious reasons. Honduras and Yemen didn’t vote. No surprises.

Without going into detail about any of the rights, many if not most have been and are pretty much ignored or abused by many if not most of the laughable united nations today, including a good number that ratified the declaration.

The rights to housing and medical care are subsumed under social service. And so-called progressives will make a case for lots of other rights not mentioned in the declaration and possibly not even imagined in the good old days—rights naturally advantageous to people who can be expected to vote for progressives.

But a right to air conditioning? Give me a bloody break! Talk about mollycoddling the fæx populi and buying votes. If you didn’t know, fæx is the singular of fæces, or feces as we know it—or them, the word being plural—today. And they certainly are. And now they’re going to be cool. Leave it to progressives to make shit cool . . .

Told ya so! Told ya so!

5 August—I ended my 30 July rant, “Juridical perversion gone wild,” with the prediction that SCOTUS’s refusal to review the Sandy Hook parents’ novel suit against Remington based on successful advertising would encourage “a whole new specialty of ambulance chasing.”

Well, Mexico—yes, our incredibly corrupt neighbor to the south—has just sued several U.S. gun manufacturers for something like $10 billion. The defendants don’t include Remington, of course, because its empty pockets are riddled with holes. Mexico filed the suit in federal court in Massachusetts, allegedly because that’s where some of the manufacturers are, like Smith & Wesson; but really because the district isn’t particularly friendly to firearms. So why, one wonders, wasn’t the suit filed in Connecticut, home to defendants Colt and Ruger, whose federal district and circuit courts are notoriously hostile to firearms?

I heard on left-wing radio (National Public Radio) this morning that there’s only one legal gun shop in all of Mexico, but that gun smuggling makes up for the lack of retail outlets. It’s obvious that the corrupt officials at all levels of Mexican government make sure of that. And the ludicrous lawsuit claims that advertising that targets [pun intended] the Mexican underworld is responsible for the burgeoning illegal gun trade and thousands of deaths.

I’d have thought the officials made enough money from the illegal gun trade, but you can’t blame the buggers for trying something new. That’s capitalism in action, after all.

Need it be said that the corrupt Mexican officials cited the Remington court massacre in justifying the money-grab? The officials claim to have been considering the suit for two years, so it’s pretty obvious why they decided to file it now.

Of course the suit should be tossed summarily. But we know it won’t be . . .

Regionalization recommendation is premature

4 August—Yesterday, I read the online “booklet” (it’s really rather more than a booklet) of the Workgroup on Collaboration, containing recommendations for merging the Litchfield and Wamogo school districts into Regional District 20, supported by lots and lots of historical and statistical data. The workgroup and its booklet evidently had been presented to the Litchfield selectmen a couple of weeks earlier, but few knew.

So I asked the Litchfield-Wamogo Superintendent of Schools and the chairman of the Litchfield Board of Education, Why now? The advantages of regionalization are pretty much a no-brainer on all fronts, to be sure. But the workgroup’s modus operandi and timetable are questionable on many fronts. Popular and statutory, for instance.

It’s entirely understandable and to its credit that the workgroup should want to get the job done ASAP. But there’s a proper—and legal—way to go about it, which the workgroup in its unbridled enthusiasm and ignorance has failed to see. Instead, the workgroup has jumped the gun in what appears to be an effort to bulldoze the merger through the voters on Election Day of this year, if I may mix my metaphors.

In all events, such a rush to decision casts doubt on the actual merits of the merger and gives opponents a bullet, if not a cannonball, to start shooting it down, citing incompetence at all levels. Of course, that’s nonsense, but anything goes.

Like the illegal legal notices in the 30 July Republican-American announcing a public hearing to discuss a potential referendum. Are they kidding? Totally misspent taxpayer money by both regions. And is whatever has been spent by the regions on the workgroup booklet entirely legal, given that it essentially presents only the one-sided argument for the merger? That’s what PACs do. The road to legal problems and fines is paved with well-intentioned oopses like that.

Coincidentally, the Litchfield selectmen took up the process issue at last night’s meeting. And it looks like the merger referendum will not be on this November’s ballot. And for reasons having nothing at all to do with state statute, it shouldn’t be on the ballot. Slow and steady wins the race, says the cliché. If Region 20 is to become reality, the statutory and public-relations processes, however tedious, must be followed deliberately, diligently, and patiently.

The booklet is well worth reading, by the way. It can be found most easily by clicking on either litchfieldschools.org or rsd6.org (same slick website, different URLs), then to MENU, then to DOCUMENTS, then scrolling down to Workgroup on Collaboration Recommentation. You’ll learn a lot . . .

Selected for nothing special

3 August—Talk about luck. I’ve been selected to apply for a coveted PayPal credit card. Me! Selected! Big whoop! The PayPal people remind me of this signal honor through email at least once a week and perhaps monthly through snail mail. Last month I actually responded to the snail-mail solicitation, using the franked business-reply envelope rather than the Internet (which is supposed to be capitalized, by the way, like Black) because the United States Postal Service needs the business and I bear no grudges.

In my business reply, I asked the nice people at PayPal three questions: One, what are their criteria for selection? Two, if I could get their credit card even if I hadn’t been selected to apply for it? Three, assuming an affirmative answer to question two, what the hell is so special about being selected to apply? I’m still waiting to hear back.

Selected to apply? Gimme a break!

Evidently being selected to apply is just like being pre-approved but not until you actually apply. Because looking at a pre-approved credit-card offer made to another lucky PO box extortion victim—this one retrieved unopened from among several on the floor under the always-overflowing inadequate albeit omnivorous trash receptacle at the Litchfield post office—I see that Capital One gives the lucky addressee less than a fortnight before the coveted pre-approval expires. Only two weeks? What kind of consumer-unfriendly bank is that? Shouldn’t Capital One’s pre-approveds be given a more reasonable window—say, a year—to consider the merits of growing their unused credit-card collection versus overstuffing the inadequate trash receptacle?

If I were really nice, I’d hang out at the Litchfield post office and open all the solicitations I could find in the overflowing bin and on the overlittered floor around it—as well as the ones fellow PO box extortion victims gave me—containing business-reply envelopes. Then I’d rescue and mail the business-reply envelopes back to the senders with nothing in them. Because the USPS needs the business and I bear no grudges . . .

Wright is wrong

2 August—I just sent this off to the Republican-American, but don’t count on reading any version of it there. Robert H. Wright is a race-baiter whom I’ve called out in the RA on a number of occasions. That said, enjoy the read . . .

Not content with simply blaming everything he disapproves of on non-liberals and other de facto racists, Robert H. Wright has crossed the line yet again in his 30 July letter, “Reader offered an enlightened view of democracy in U.S.”

It’s entirely understandable that Mr. Wright, a confirmed liberal, would appreciate the eminently compatible views and pronouncements of Penny O’Connell and others of his political persuasion. But for Mr. Wright to boast that Ms. O’Connell would have been at the top of his guest lecturer list when he was a college professor is pretty convincing evidence that he really was a stereotypical close-minded academic who, rather than simply encouraging his students to think, preferred to tell them what to think.

Mr. Wright probably would consider that a compliment. Now he’s is a stereotypical close-minded retired academic. One wonders if any of his students ever were fortunate enough to experience non-liberal lecturers or reading assignments in his classes. In all events, I won’t speculate on his own lectures.

Mr. Wright’s most disturbing statement is his warning or promise that unless Republicans—and he specifies Republicans—give blacks the right to vote, they “are still here and will defend this right by any means necessary.”

Well, in the first place, if, as Mr. Wright wants us to believe, blacks don’t have the right to vote, it can’t be defended. You can’t defend what’s not there. Unless, of course, you’re a non-liberal defending voter suppression, Mr. Wright’s alleged status quo.

More to the point—and far more alarming—is Mr. Wright’s minatory assertion that the blacks will resort to “any means necessary” to achieve their end. That’s a threat if ever I heard one. And it makes Robert H. Wright and the gang who subscribe to his woke racist preaching every bit as obnoxious, belligerent, and dangerous as the far-right neo-fascists they purport to disdain . . .

Support Litchfield.bz and LitchfieldMonitor.com

31 July—Litchfield.bz subscribers tell me they’re disappointed—pissed off, as more than one has put it—that my letters are no longer posted on that website because the primary reason they gave up their 35 dollars was to read my delightful polemics. A couple even reminded me that when Litchfield.bz was born, the one rule of the founders was that in order to give everybody access it had to be absolutely free. The late founding partner Doug Parker had mentioned that to me on a few occasions. So much for good intentions.

After thanking my enthusiasts for their loyalty and directing them to LitchfieldMonitor.com, I explain that when Litchfield.bz announced that in order to survive it would need to sell subscriptions to augment evidently declining advertising revenue, I offered to write a regular op-ed column instead of contributing occasional ad hoc letters. Also at no charge to BZ Media LLC, of course, since I’m such a nice guy. John McKenna categorically refused my offer. I assume he discussed it with Tom McDermott.

As it happens, I’d been toying with my own vanity websites for a while—just to shoot off my figurative mouth and show everyone how brilliant or smartass I was. So the time was right to get serious. And here we are. And I’m loving it. And one of these days I’ll even know how to fiddle with the website mechanics to make it work better.

I assure the people who want their money back from Litchfield.bz that even without my letters it needs our support because it’s the only source of local news we have these days. We simply cannot depend on any of the surviving newspapers. I won’t comment on bz’s editorials and orchids and onions. So the bottom line is that for 35 bucks you have Litchfield.bz for news and absolutely free you have LitchfieldMonitor.com for views—yours as well as mine, if you care to contribute them.

And if you still want to see my comments posted on Litchfield.bz as well as LitchfieldMonitor.com, I’d have no problem sharing a weekly Monitor essay with bz. Because I’m such a nice guy and have a colossal ego. But at the moment it’s out of my hands . . .

Juridical perversion gone wild

30 July—Soto vs Bushmaster exemplifies the miscarriage of American justice—or, rather, the perversion of the American juridical system, since justice certainly doesn’t come into it. Soto vs. Bushmaster is the very short title of the civil litigation brought by the estates—survivors—of many of the Sandy Hook school massacre victims against Remington Firearms, the company that manufactured and marketed the firearm used to murder the children and faculty.

I won’t go on about the unspeakable mass murder or the unhinged murderer. But the very idea of holding the manufacturer of a product responsible for the way the product was used is as crazy as the Lanza kid. It just doesn’t make sense in reason or in law. But when has that ever stopped a clever lawyer?

You’ll recall that the Connecticut trial judge threw out the plaintiffs’ original case because it was contrary to federal law. So the plaintiffs’ attorney—one of the state’s top medical malpractice lawyers—came up with the novel expedient of blaming it all on the manufacturer’s targeted advertising. That’s like holding Ford responsible when a young thug steals a Mustang because he saw it advertised as a fast car and kills a pedestrian while doing a hundred.

It won’t be long before desperate ambulance chasers who have no other way of plundering deep pockets will be preying en masse on perfectly innocent manufacturers who advertise their products effectively, simply because that’s what capitalism is all about. For manufacturers and lawyers.

And it’s disturbing that the allegedly apolitical Connecticut Supreme Court let the plaintiffs get away with the feel-good predation on innocent industry. Except that the industry involves firearms and Connecticut is renowned for excessive and questionable firearm suppression. But it’s not at all surprising when you consider that six of the seven justices had been appointed by Dastardly Dannel Malloy.

What’s equally disturbing and totally surprising is that SCOTUS denied review of this hot-button juridical perversion, thus encouraging a whole new specialty of ambulance chasing. The Supremes probably dodged a possible ruling of first impression only for PR reasons . . .

A signal honor indeed

29 July—Forget about Phi Beta Kappa for academics, Tau Beta Pi for engineers, Alpha Omega Alpha for physicians, Pi Iota Sigma Sigma for urologists, and all those parochial quotidian honor societies. I’ve just received an email confirming that I’m in the Bio Bidet Honor Club . . .

Chabad and scofflaws go together

Chabad and scofflaws be damned

29 July—Last Saturday, as I strolled down West Street to confirm that Chabad Lubavitch’s historically appropriate Cross of David was still standing proud and invincible on the magnificent steeple of the crumbling, derelict Church of the notorious judgement-proof Lubavitcher Goniff Momzer, I counted the cars parked on both sides of the street: 72 all told. Of those, 34 displayed out-of-state license plates, most from New York. I’d wager that most of the out-of-state plates were in fact on cars belonging to Connecticut residents; I know for sure that three belonged to full-time residents who are registered voters in Litchfield.

Residents of Connecticut—and it’s pretty safe to assume that registered voters are residents—who don’t register their motor vehicles in the state are flouting the law, almost certainly to avoid paying local property taxes on their costly vehicles, rather than from ignorance. They’re scofflaws, petty criminals. They’ve been able to get away with their petty crimes for reasons we won’t go into here. But there’s a new state law that breezed through both houses of the General Assembly which allows municipalities to deal with vehicle-tax evaders much more directly, easily, and positively than in the past, through local citation ordinances.

Waterbury looks like it will be enacting such an ordinance pretty soon. And as long as Connecticut remains one of roughly half the states that inflict a local property tax on motor vehicles, all the other towns and cities in the state should follow Waterbury’s lead. Talk to your town officials to get the ball rolling—or do the dirty yourself with a petition; it’s win-win for the towns, lose-lose for the scofflaws. And about time . . .

“Insurrection” hearing just another dog and pony show

28 July—My utter contempt for Donald Trump is no secret. But I really don’t think he intended to foment the over-hyped 6 January “insurrection” the Democrat whores in DC are using to nail him to the cross of sedition. Trump is certainly the scum of the earth who never was a businessman but has been a con man all his good-for-nothing life. As a con man, of course, he’s a natural politician. And he may indeed be a narcissistic idiot, but he’s not totally stupid. So even he isn’t going to put himself in the legally and patriotically indefensible position the Democrats are going to typically partisan pains to force him into. If he keeps his mouth shut, he’ll probably survive the congressional inquisition. (And then, hopefully, get his just desserts as a tax-evading con man.)

Thus, the congressional hearing on the 6 January violent Capitol incursion by Trumpian extremist morons is pretty much a dog and pony show, a farce, yet another waste of time and taxpayer money. And as blatantly partisan as it gets. But when has that ever stopped the whores in DC? Or Hartford? Or any legislative knocking shop? And it’s not just the Democrats . . .

Yet another sick joke from ConnDOT

27 July—The Connecticut Department of Transportation, known to admirers and critics alike as ConnDOT, has just issued its latest recommendations for screwing up traffic in the middle of Litchfield. The rationale for this report is the improvement of pedestrian safety. It doesn’t do that at all. And, as usual, it’s a sick joke. What else would you expect from ConnDOT?

After all, ConnDOT is the selfsame agency that can’t (or simply won’t) maintain state roads to an acceptable safe standard, puts double no-passing lines on narrow side streets, and designs and builds limited-access highways with left-lane entrance and exit ramps. Among other embarrassments, to be sure. In the nineties, ConnDOT came up with a brilliant plan for improving Litchfield traffic that included putting a roundabout in front of the Congregational Church, one problem with the roundabout being that its diameter was too small to safely accommodate 18-wheelers. So much for ConnDOT’s legendary competence.

The people of Litchfield were able to tell ConnDOT where to go back then. Let’s do it again. The Connecticut Department of Transportation must not be allowed to prevail in this latest travesty . . .

Monitoring Monitors

26 July—For the record, the original Litchfield Monitor was a short-lived newspaper in town around the turn of the nineteenth century, thus predating the fairly recently euthanized Litchfield Enquirer, which hit the unpaved streets in 1829. There was also a Monitor published for several years at the end of the nineteenth century in Litchfield, Illinois, a town somewhat smaller than Litchfield, Connecticut. And another Monitor was published in Litchfield, Nebraska, a village with a population of a few hundred, from the late nineteenth century all the way to the middle of the twentieth century, evidently a long life for a Litchfield Monitor.

And who can forget The Bantam Bell in the twenties or Rosenberg’s Rag in the eighties? Who can remember them?

DON’T SUBSCRIBE!

26 July—Don’t bother subscribing to The Litchfield Monitor. That’s right, no problem if you do, of course, but don’t bother. It’s absolutely free to everybody who goes to the LitchfieldMonitor.com website, so subscribing isn’t necessary. You don’t even need to log in to read it.

That hadn’t occurred to me when, in a rush of unbridled enthusiasm and vanity, I sent out the mass blind introductory e-solicitation. My bad. I had assumed that since Litchfield.bz and other online publications require subscriptions, so should LitchfieldMonitor.com. Silly me. The Monitor doesn’t charge you to read it and doesn’t want to send you marketing emails, after all, so why bother with needless formalities to complicate your life and mine?

The response to my mass emailing and LitchfieldMonitor.com has been overwhelmingly gratifying. And evidently the good people on my email address list have been spreading the gospel, because I’m hearing from appreciative followers not on that address list who have missed my comments on Litchfield.bz and need their fix of Rosenberg—even if it’s only to confirm what a dogmatic, egotistical ass I am.

So don’t bother subscribing. But do check in on LitchfieldMonitor.com every day or so, because something new from me and/or someone else I’m able to motivate is very likely to be posted. And don’t hesitate to send over your own comments simply by clicking this link: Himself@LitchfieldMonitor.com

Work on lousiest roads in a half-century to start: About bloody time, too!

26 July—Senator Craig Miner tells us that The Connecticut Department of Transportation says it will be doing desperately needed road work up around here starting on 30 July. Finally. It’s about bloody time. Much as we all love Benevolent Despot Ned Lamont, I must say that in the 49 years I’ve lived here—including the eight putting up with his miserable predecessor—never but never have the roads been as lousy and dangerous as they are now. And don’t expect them to get much better for a long time to come . . .

Fun with the Litchfield Democratic Town Committee (website)

I just (23 July 2021, 5 pm) visited the Litchfield Democratic Town Committee website to read all about Denise Raap’s nomination for a second term as mayor. It’s a most attractive, slick website—rather too slick, if I may say, with canned artwork not at all relevant to Litchfield overpowering the Litchfield stuff. But it’s pretty informative. Like the Litchfield Republican Town Committee website, however, it appears not to have been updated for at least several months, so nothing about Denise’s nomination (or anything about activities after April) has been posted. Life’s full of disappointments.

A disturbing feature of the impressive LDTC website is the stock stylized image, used on a few pages, of what looks like hands of concentration-camp prisoners who quite naturally would rather not be there. Particularly disturbing is the light-colored hand sticking out prominently above all the others, making what looks uncomfortably like the black-power fist. Couldn’t the person who designed the website have found an image of happier, friendlier hands? No further comment is necessary . . .

LDTC image on left, black-power fist on right

Post office box fees are highway robbery

22 July—Written in June, after I surrendered 94 dollars to the USPS for six months of DIY premium service. Intended for Litchfield.bz but too long for one-stop reading, so it hid among the mess on my computer desktop till I noticed the serendipitously pregnant error message on the Litchfield post office’s computer monitor-TV screen, pictured here. Our affable postmaster has gone to heroic lengths to get the bloody thing working, but now it’s unplugged, disconnected. Hey, it’s the USPS.

Talk about rip-offs. Post office box fees are up there with the best of ‘em. And they’ve just gone up again. Of course. PO boxes are what the United States Postal Service touts as a “premium service,” doubtless referring to the extortionate premium customers pay for not getting the same full service everybody else gets: 188 dollars a year for a size 2-S (i.e., second smallest) box in the Litchfield post office, as well as one in Houston. And sure to go up again next year. For comparison, size 2-S PO boxes in Omaha go for 76 dollars; 92 dollars in Bantam; Palm Beach and Bridgeport charge 204 dollars; 226 dollars in Rockefeller Center; and 246 dollars in Beverly Hills, Westport, and D.C.

PO box fees are nothing short of highway robbery, to put it mildly. PO box customers pay the hefty premium for the privilege of picking up our own mail at a post office, thus saving the government the trouble and expense of delivering the mail to our homes and businesses. And, adding egregious insult to scandalous injury, we band of box brothers who pay through the nose to deliver our own mail don’t even get the benefit of any of the other services provided to customers on city and rural routes who don’t have to deliver their own mail. And, true to form, the USPS considers this a benefit.

We PO box victims used to have combination locks and glass windows on our boxes; now we have to buy—make that rent, because we get our money back when we return the keys—and carry keys and guess whether there’s anything in our boxes. In the good old days, even PO box customers got friendly special delivery to our doors, among other services the USPS has seen fit to eliminate. Now we don’t even get the sick joke called Express Mail delivered to our doors. No matter how you look at it, we pay much more for much less. And, true to form, the USPS considers this a benefit.

So why do we put up with this unfair, counter-intuitive, costly insult—er, benefit? Service, for one thing: we PO box customers have the very best delivery service there is. Because we do it ourselves. And the USPS doesn’t let us forget that delivering our mail to ourselves is indeed a benefit. And it’s a valid point. Forty years ago, while the Litchfield post office was being renovated and the temporary post office required a longer walk than I relished, I tried rural delivery (the low housing density even of inner-city Litchfield doesn’t qualify for city delivery). Suffice to say, rural delivery was dependably undependable in the best USPS tradition. So forget about that; I had better things to do than wait all day for my mail to be delivered. Or not.

I could go on about the joys of my daily walk to the Litchfield post office, where the staff have always been as friendly and helpful as can be, and friends and neighbors—who also pay for the privilege of doing it themselves—gather to solve all the world’s problems. And maybe cause a few. But the fact remains, we shouldn’t have to pay for a service we provide ourselves. Even if it’s called a benefit.

It would be easy, satisfying, and politically correct to blame the PO box extortion on Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Trump crony and appointee, who has wreaked all manner of havoc on the USPS and its customers. But, truth be told, it’s not his fault. Rather, it’s been going on since the United States Postal Service was the Post Office Department, since there have been PO boxes, probably since Benjamin Franklin was the first Postmaster General.

And it’s all because the USPS is a government agency, ultimately controlled by politicians who don’t know or care what they’re doing and give the most important, most lucrative management jobs to their pals, who also don’t know what they’re doing but know the right people and/or throw around their money the right way in the right places. (And, yes, contrary to popular belief, the USPS is an agency of the Executive Branch of the United States Government, not a quasi-governmental or private corporation.) Through the years, it’s been obvious that if the top management of the USPS were actually appointed on merit and experience—and if the self-serving congress didn’t interfere—the post office would actually be as good as it could and should be and would function as Benjamin Franklin had intended. Probably . . .

22 July—On the subject of CANCEL CULTURE as it affects local team names, why not cancel TROJANS? Why would athletes want to be named after condoms anyway? Silly question . . .

Voter suppression, my ass

21 July—This little gem appeared in the Republican-American on 20 July 2021 with minor emendations, as is the custom of that newspaper.

Getting past the inconvenient truth—still denied for egotistical reasons by former president Donald Trump and political reasons by his hangers-on despite effective confirmation by Trump’s running mate and SCOTUS appointees, among others—that voter fraud really didn’t cost him the 2020 election, what can be so bad about making and enforcing stiff but reasonable voting laws?

For instance, is it unreasonable to require voters to provide identification? Why shouldn’t private funding of election administration (including officials) be banned? Is it voter suppression or prudent election management to limit the number of drop boxes, restrict weekend and curbside drive-through voting, or prohibit mailing of unsolicited absentee-voter applications?

Is it too much to expect a presumably informed and awake (and, of course, woke) voter to cast a ballot in the proper district or to penalize a person for aiding and abetting an unlawful—i.e., fraudulent—voter?

Republican governors and legislators of states like Texas, Arizona, and Georgia are being roundly excoriated—not just criticized—by virtually every non-Republican medium, politician, and commentator for proposing and enacting allegedly stiff election laws.

Certainly some of the new hoops are unreasonable and clearly suppressive. That’s what politicians in power do to preserve and enhance their power. But most of the horrendous modifications to those conservative states’ election laws will simply bring them closer to the election laws of ultra-liberal Connecticut, where, for starters, voter ID is a sine qua non and there never has been—nor, hopefully, ever will be—weekend or curbside voting . . .

Lock up kids AND cars

20 July—This was written to the Connecticut Mirror on 15 June 2021 as a riposte to a letter by an obviously deluded bleeding heart criminal sympathizer. It’s no surprise, however, that CTMirror.org didn’t post it or any view contrary to Colleen Shaddox’s, since non-liberal views seldom make it past that website editor’s spike.

In her desperation, as a presumably well-meaning albeit misguided apologist for juvenile delinquents—euphemized these days as youthful offenders—Colleen Shaddox, in her letter “Lock up cars, not kids,” resorts to a tried if not true criminal defense lawyer’s tactic of blaming the victim.

While Ms. Shaddox’s assertions that kids will be kids even if they’re criminals and throwing the book at them is likely to make things worse may very well be true, is that any reason to let the felons-in-training get away with their crimes?

It’s without question irresponsible for motor vehicle owners to not lock or otherwise secure their vehicles, but that doesn’t mitigate or marginalize the criminal intent when an innocent kid just being a kid tries all the car doors on a street till he or she finds one that’s unlocked and then goes on to find a key in the ignition. And what about the presumably innocent kids who break into cars in other ways and drive them while committing other crimes?

So it boils down to whether sparing the rod and spoiling the child is preferable to punishing the budding criminal and hoping for the best . . .

FREAK ACCIDENTS. Aren’t all accidents freak events, meaning they’re unexpected? If they weren’t freak, they wouldn’t be accidents.

ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY, FIVE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY, TWO-HUNDRED-YEAR ANNIVERSARY, etc. Why don’t style books allow news readers, among others, to say “first anniversary, fifth anniversary, two-hundredth anniversary” or even “bicentennial”?

MORE and MOST WELL-KNOWN. Don’t the ignoramuses who say and write those awful adjectival phrases realize that “better” means “more well” and “best” means “most well” and that “better-known” and “best-known” are more good English?

HOMOGENEOUS. Very few people get it right, including many who should know better. It’s not “homogenous,” like homogenized milk. It’s the opposite of “heterogeneous,” which even the many seldom mispronounce. It should be pronounced as if it were a brilliant gay person—a homo genius.

DISSECT. Take it apart, literally: “dis” and “sect.” “Di-sect,” as even too many pathologists mispronounce the word, would mean double it—if the word existed in modern English.