Measles and the Idiots – To Mr. Gripes, it seems the Rationalists have taken it on the chin for years. Rationalism, of which Mr. Gripes is a devoted advocate, respects scientific evidence – anything else is a lie.
Yet, the fabulists seem to always dominate the public debate. The media, of course, plays a part: it’s always looking for conflict, not necessarily truth. The press pushes for ‘balanced’ debate, and consequently incredibly imbecilic theory is often given far more attention than warranted.
Creationism versus Darwinism is a perfect paradigm of this conflict. To a Creationist, a crucial tenet of the dogma is that man existed and walked on earth at the same time the dinosaurs roamed the earth. Human beings, no doubt already clad in Brooks Brothers suits, were fully formed when they arrived on Earth. The Darwinists, of course, adhere to the theory that all forms of life evolved from simple to complex: mankind came upon the earth millions of years after the dinosaurs. Or, put another way, mankind came to exist only after billions of mutated life forms pushed life to its present complexity. That’s, essentially, evolution.
The Creationists are simply incorrect. Nothing, of course, will convince them otherwise – there’s even a Creationism theme park for children in Ohio – but they’re dead wrong. And, yet, Creationism, in essence a fairy tale, is taught right alongside Evolution in some states, mandated so by state educational entities. Why is this country so enraptured by so many irrational ideas, and whose believers can never be swayed? Can you imagine, say, the Netherlands advocating, with state backing, a fraudulent theory like Creationism in biology classes for their children? Never, ever would happen.
But, all is not lost: for once, and probably for only a brief period, science has triumphed – emphatically – over bogus theory. For the first time in 25 years, there’s been a measles outbreak across the country. Concurrently, and not coincidentally, the percentage of children being vaccinated for diseases like measles and mumps is at its lowest point in decades.
It turns out that some individuals – Deidre Imus, Don’s wife, is probably the most well known – have pushed, quite vociferously, the theory that autism, a brain disorder that appears in childhood, has been caused by vaccination. Parents, naturally, decided that keeping their child out of school for two weeks with measles is a far more benign risk than autism, and the vaccinations were ignored.
Ms. Imus’ proof? A study by some clinician which said mercurial residue that shows up in the vaccinating fluid causes autism. It turns out the study was thoroughly discredited, and in fact, the doctor running the study eventually lost his medical license, a very harsh sentence indeed. But, evidence be damned, Ms. Imus, utilizing loudly the far-flung platform of her husband’s radio show and, incidentally, selling a lot of books, managed to scare the daylights out of parents, and the myth has held. Legislatures, in fact, started passing laws that did not mandate the vaccinations of children in school, and even permitted unvaccinated children to attend school, an incredibly short-sighted and irresponsible decision.
It takes about 85% vaccination ‘coverage’ of a school population to prevent a measles outbreak. When the percentage of vaccinated children failed to reach 85% in some places, the current outbreak happened.
The ignoramuses were exposed. It’s simple: when a given population is inoculated, measles is essentially non-existent. When that given population is exposed to the virus without inoculation, outbreaks happen. Imus and her true believers are wrong: so simple and so obvious. For once, the Rationalists won.
Israel-Iran-America – Every red corpuscle in Mr. Gripes’ body cries out: ‘Don’t write about Israel or the Middle East.’ Each time I have done that, I received some very vicious replies, the mildest of which spoke of my being a ‘traitor’ to the state of Israel. [To the ‘gentleman’ who accuses me of being a traitor to Israel, the last time I looked I am an American citizen, solely, and a proud one at that, and my loyalties or disloyalties are toward this country alone; any charges of sedition against a country not my own are a bit misplaced, overheated and ignorant.] I make it a policy, for the most part, of not responding to mindless vituperation, vowing at one point never to write about Israel, and, by extension, the Middle East again.
But, assuming the posture of the intrepid truth-seeker that Mr. Gripes pretends to be in his column, I cannot ignore the ongoing Iran-United States [and other powers including Russia, by the way] negotiations regarding Iranian nuclear arms capability, and an attempt by the major powers now to thwart that push.
First, though, I have to comment on Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the American Congress yesterday: what kind of stunt was that? At this critical juncture in the ongoing Iran-American negotiations to suspend, hopefully for a long time, Iranian nuclear-arms attainment, a foreign leader ignores an American President and makes a rip-roaring anti-negotiations speech in front of the clapping seals we call our elected representatives. It’s totally outrageous. The Congress should be ashamed of themselves. President Obama responds to the speech by simply noting that the negotiations haven’t been concluded yet, and everyone should wait to take a look at the completed deal. A perfectly reasonable request absent any hysterics, that only highlights the utter lack of class from Bibi Netanyahu.
As far as the status of the ongoing negotiations, the issue is very complicated, of course, so let’s just go back three or four years: at that time, Iran obtaining nuclear status was the most pressing issue of the day: columns in newspapers spoke of the ‘existential’ threat of Iran possessing nuclear capability. If my readers can recall that time, it was very scary.
Then, quickly, the immediate threat dissipated. Mr. Gripes seems to recall that U.S. intelligence determined that Iran was a few years, at least, away from that capability. Then, Iran and the United States signed on in 2013 to an interim agreement suspending Iranian nuclear progress while talks proceeded on a permanent deal. And, the world exhaled. [Mr. Netanyahu, incidentally, opposed this earlier, successful deal as well.]
Alas, if the present negotiations fail, it’s back to being an existential threat once again, and the future could be very, very scary.
There is a glimmer of hope, though: the deal being worked up right now, with an end-of-March deadline, would push back Iranian nuclear-capability attainment at least 10 years in exchange for Iranian economic sanctions being lifted and Iran joining the world financial markets once again. That lifting of sanctions is the carrot, obviously.
Israel is opposed to any negotiations at this point, or at the minimum, Iran must dismantle its nuclear program in total. Netanyahu says the Iranians are totally untrustworthy, so international safeguards and vigilance are useless. Israel knows damn well that Iran will never agree to a total cessation of its nuclear program. Israel knows that under their non-negotiable demand, there will never be a deal. It’s off the table.
And that’s exactly Netanyahu’s intention: he wants the negotiations to collapse because that would mean there’s only one option for America: the nuclear facilities in Iran will be taken out, bombed. And, guess who will end up doing that dirty work? America. If Israel bombs Iran, the Middle East, and probably the world, will be thrown into utter chaos: there’ll be surely a total Middle East oil embargo, among other actions, and financial markets across the world will plummet. A world depression is not out of the question. America will have to take the lead in taking out Iran. The U.S. is going to be Israel’s stalking horse.
War should always be absolutely the last option, so Mr. Gripes takes a more nuanced position: if in fact negotiations are successful and we extract from Iran a suspension of their nuclear program for at least 10 years, let’s take the deal. This country and Israel will of course have in place very stringent oversight standards regarding Iranian compliance, and if violations are discovered, we can always bomb later. Iran, a country with much stronger people-to-people ties to America than any other Middle East country [Israel, excepted], can hopefully be brought back into the world’s good graces. It’s worth 10 years to see if that’s possible.
Netanyahu, and Israel, don’t want to take that chance. I say, let’s go for it.
Wilt: His Dominance Shines – A decade ago – it’s been 10 years since ‘Mr. Gripes’ was launched as a human-interest column on an employer’s website, desperate for copy one weekend– I wrote of the unsurpassed, extraordinary career of Wilt Chamberlain, professional basketball player.
I bring his Eminence up again, after reading last week of the death of Norm Drucker, a referee who worked NBA games as a contemporary of Mr. Chamberlain. In his obituary, it’s mentioned Mr. Drucker threw Wilt out of a game after three successive technical fouls, the last of which involved Wilt yelling at the ref that he must have money on the game. Keep in mind that technical fouls are not particularly rare events, occurring once or twice a game, and are not particularly noteworthy.
Yet, that expulsion is still remembered 53 years after the fact, as it illuminated one incredible fact about Wilt Chamberlain: his indefatigability. Mr. Chamberlain, back then, never took a rest on the bench – never.
Consider this: An NBA season in those days consisted of 80 games, 48 minutes a game. The particular season I’m talking about, 1961-62, was Wilt’s most productive, and arguably the most brilliant season ever: he averaged 50.7 [!] points a game, and collected 25 rebounds a game as well. Absolutely astonishing, and probably the greatest season ever in professional sports.
But the scoring achievement is not my focus here.
Wilt Chamberlain, in those 80 games that season, played every minute of every game, except for one blemish: when Norm Drucker threw Wilt out of the game, there were 8 minutes and change left in the game. Those little-over-8-minutes were the only time in that entire season that Wilt rested. That was it.
Just consider the expenditure of energy during a professional basketball game: Chamberlain was a center, the guy in the middle, down under the basket; that position, with elbows in the back, knees to the legs, arms being pulled on, and all the banging and punching absorbed from the oppositional center, is the most physical taxing of any position on the court – It takes a tremendous toll on a person.
Yet… only 8+ minutes the entire season did Wilt sit.
There’s one gloriously terse eulogy that was applied to Chamberlain the day he died: New York Knick Walt Frazier, one of his more heralded foes, said simply, “Wilt was NBA’s Superman; there’ll never be another one.’’
Hey, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Kareem and all you greats, yeah, go ahead and take a breather. ‘Wilt Chamberlain, the greatest of them all, is still out on the floor.’
Jim Israel
‘Mr. Gripes’
March 3, 2015
Je Suis NOT Charlie…My father, whose ultimate lot in his life was to keep alive and functioning some very sick people, sometimes would, out of the blue, assert, ‘The most powerful of all instincts is the instinct of self preservation.’ I thought of those words immediately after I learned of the horrific murders of those cartoonists and journalists at Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris.
Why, of all words, were those evoked? Because, I think, self preservation was not, regrettably and tragically, a motivation of those journalists. They made some very elementary, grievous mistakes. In a fashion, they engineered their own deaths.
Mr. Gripes can only wonder, ‘What on earth were they thinking?” They couldn’t have been surprised, in the sense that September 11 2001 stunned all of us. After all, they were rather shockingly forewarned: their offices were firebombed by terrorists in 2011, causing severe damage. The firebombing should have set off all kinds of alarms. Apparently, though, it did not. That’s hard to believe.
Now, I don’t know a thing about Mohammed and Islam, and don’t care to know, but I do know this: if I were to draw a caricature of a naked Mohammed, which is absolute anathema to Islamists, and publish it in a magazine for millions of people to see, I would have to assume I may provoke and inflame some very dangerous, crazy, determined people, who would attempt very assiduously to kill me….and consequently I would take the necessary precautions to prevent that.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m a strong advocate of the press: a critical press and freedom of speech are the linchpins of democracy. Shackled and intimidated journalists in any country are the death knell of a free people [see Putin, Russia]. But, none of us live in a utopia – far from it, in fact – and common sense must rule; there’s a very good reason why yelling ‘Fire’ in a crowded movie theatre is against the law.
So, I can’t sit here and write that these dead cartoonists deserve all the posthumous praise coming their way for their ‘bravery’ and ‘courage.’ ‘Brave,’ yes, but they were also brazen and reckless; they couldn’t have been that naïve as to not comprehend the gravity of what they were doing.
A basic precept of defensive military strategy is that the leadership-command tier must be preserved; the dispersal of top-echelon leadership is essential. The same strategy should have held for the Charlie Hebdo editorial staff, but that was not done: week after week, on the identical day and time, in the same conference room, there was an editorial meeting of the magazine’s writers and staff. There was absolutely no need to congregate like that: just have everyone call in from their own residences, and conduct the meeting via teleconferencing.
All together in that one room meant they were sitting ducks when the attack occurred; the terrorists had discovered the precise details of the weekly editorial gathering. It was no coincidence that the two terrorists showed up on precisely the day and time of the meeting. Also, why was there only one bodyguard protecting the office, and, additionally, in possession of inferior firepower? He probably was blown away by an AK-47 in about 3 seconds.
No, I can’t just declare the dead cartoonists deserve all the honoraria for their bravery and courage. Yes, they were certainly ‘courageous’ in the face of all the threats that must have come their way. That doesn’t really suffice, though. They did not take the proper precautions. Perhaps they were all in denial.
One victim left a wife and four young children, the youngest of which is five years old. On television two days afterwards, she insisted she was very ‘proud’ of her husband. ‘Proud’? With some rudimentary precautions, her husband would still be alive. Six months from now, after the shock has worn off, as she sits at the dining room table late one Sunday night, alone, with the children finally asleep, and their father gone, I suspect her sentiments may be entirely different.
Oh, My Kingdom for Some Visuals --Huge blizzards, destructive floods, terrible train crashes, frightening plane crashes – the professional politicians love what these ‘visuals’ will provide. Of course, they’ll manage to look concerned, or aggrieved, or empathetic, but don’t let that fool you for a moment: they’re cold-bloodedly calculating the risk/reward of the optics. After all, disasters, the bigger the better, give our selfless public servants a golden opportunity to pose and strut: ‘I’m a take-charge guy, I’ll pull all the levers of power to take care of and protect all of you, my fellow citizens’. It’s a professional secret, of course, but politicians of all stripes welcome disaster events. Success, to these low-lifers, is getting that photo-op broadcast on television. In reality, though, it’s all a rehearsed show, and has nothing to do with actual competence.
Mr. Gripes chooses to comment on this American phenomenon [though Vladimir Putin, I admit, was the creator of the ultimate visual, puffing out his bare chest for all to see] after observing the two major political figures in New York – Andrew Cuomo and Bill DeBlasio – acting like children, all in an effort to look good on TV.
Despite DeBlasio’s prediction – and maybe his hope, I might add – that New York City would be hit by an ‘historic’ blizzard, perhaps two or three feet, we ended up getting a measly six inches. Prior to the snow, DeBlasio appeared on TV and began ordering New Yorkers to get off the streets, insisting they don’t go to work, even shutting down the subway system, a drastic move for a city that never sleeps.
The next day, when the storm wimped out, Governor Cuomo couldn’t let DeBlasio steal the stage – oh no, if that happened, Cuomo, the alpha male, would look like he wasn’t in control; so he pulled an old chestnut out of his pocket: he leapfrogged the scheduled DeBlasio press conference, starting a half hour prior, and, quickly, after donning a de rigeur working-men’s union windbreaker with the logo on the chest – that’s a visual, baby – he emerged triumphant, throwing out orders left and right to all his sappy lieutenants to get the city and state moving again.
Mr. Gripes, watching this, could just sense the tension between the governor and mayor. You see, it’s always a question of who gets that photo-op, and in this case, Cuomo ‘won.’ He probably doesn’t realize just how disturbingly ambitious he appeared, yakking away, in that windbreaker, managing to suck all the oxygen out of the room. Every one of these politicians is obsessively ambitious, but God forbid you look like it on TV – that’s bad optics.
A more egregious instance of staged optics is when New Jersey Governor Chris Christie ‘lucked out’ the day superstorm Sandy hit the Jersey shore. That event, to a superb practitioner of political stagecraft, like Christie, was equivalent to hitting the jackpot. When he embraced President Obama, who visited to observe for himself the devastation along the Jersey coast, he wasn’t concerned so much with the welfare and safety of his constituents.
Nope. He figured by hugging the President, the No. #1 Democrat devil, he would look like the great unifier – prospective national voters would think, ‘Wow, here’s someone who will work with his Democratic opponents and get things done.’ Mr. Christie, even as he toured the damage, knew the image of him and Obama embracing would catapult him onto the national stage.
As for Christie the unifier? Obsolete baloney, of course. Not a year later, when the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee refused to endorse Mr. Christie for re-election, the George Washington Bridge, which both originates from and empties into Fort Lee, was mysteriously pinched to only one working lane, causing absolute chaos and gridlock. The ‘Great Unifier’ turns out to be the ‘Great Divider.’
Talk about bad optics -- Mr. Gripes concludes this piece with a couple of observations regarding President Obama and his golf game. Let’s face it: golf is terrible optics for any president. Vacationing for two weeks in Hawaii, while 80% of his constituency is freezing their buns off on the mainland, is bad enough [maybe he gets a pass for this, because it is his home state], but watching him saunter down a beautifully groomed fairway, gentle breezes wafting through the palm trees, exotic birds chattering joyously against an impossibly blue and cloudless sky in the background, just another perfect day in paradise is, I’m afraid, a horrible visual for this President. As the rest of us watch this, we suffer at that moment from a terminal case of envy. Green-with-envy doesn’t properly describe the depth of our distress – it’s more like raging with debilitating jealousy.
One more thing, Mr. President: get rid of those white golf shoes, will you? For the candidate who promised us hope and change a million years ago, those white shoes say one thing: ‘I now identify with the very rich: the hedge fund guys, the Wall Street manipulators and bongo-artists, the Silicon Valley billionaires, George Clooney and other Hollywood glitterati. As for the increasingly marginalized working class? That’s so over for me and Michelle.’
A word of advice: You can’t espouse caring about the struggles of the middle class when you’re wearing shoes that even Jay Gatsby would love to have in his closet. The visuals clash.
Jim Israel
Mr. Gripes
February 8, 2015
Ernest Hemingway, not a person inclined to internalize, often asserted the solution to writers block was uncomplicated: ‘Sit in the damn chair and start typing.’ Mr. Gripes, though, approaches his own formidable resistances from a more fanciful place – a personal certitude that the Writing Gods will eventually provide gorgeous material.
And, yes, over the past two decades, the Gods have delivered, as if on a silver platter, the miracle of the duopoly of Bill and Hillary Clinton, with a recent third-wheel addition, Chelsea, as well. For Mr. Gripes, the Grand Farce of the Clintons over the years has been akin to a diamond-encrusted gift at Christmas – voila, Mr. Gripes’ writers block vanishes.
In this scribbling, leaving Bill and Chelsea aside, we’ll concentrate on Hillary:
Consider her exalted circumstances just eight months ago: a woman whose approval ratings hovered around 75%, there was no other public figure close to her in terms of popularity, or garnered as much respect or prestige for her stints as a New York senator and Secretary of State in the Obama Administration. Perhaps more importantly, there was a sense of inevitability and rolling-stone momentum that would lead directly to the Presidency. Her husband Bill, First Lady in waiting, most likely had already selected the color of the drapes and matching pillow cases for the White House bedroom.
On top of all that, her newly written autobiography, ‘Hard Choices’ , had recently been published, for which she would travel around the country appearing at book stores and radio stations, basking in an outpouring of gratitude and reverence from fans. In a style reminiscent of a Roman general garlanded with flowered necklaces on his return home after another successful campaign, Ms. Clinton would emerge triumphant and even more popular from her cross-country book tour. She was going to be unstoppable.
Didn’t quite happen like that.
Her 755-page tome was basically a complete flop – one of those eyes-won’t-stay-open-without-a-toothpick doorstop bores. Touted as a flint-steeled analysis of her travails and successes as Secretary of State, critics immediately revealed the book to be the opposite: fearful of antagonizing potential backers and voters, pulling all her punches, she served readers a huge bowlful of bland, tasteless porridge -- and the book died on the vine. In the first month, it was reported a measly 162,000 copies were sold; this was after bookstores were shipped millions. The publisher, who paid Hillary a $14 million [!!] advance, took one hell of a financial beating – imagine how many heads rolled afterwards.
And, then, out on the tour, things only got worse…much worse. In response to a question about her net worth, Ms. Clinton asserted she and her husband were ‘flat broke’ the day they left the White House.
Kaboom! From that very moment, all the momentum evaporated; the Hillary balloon collapsed in a shuttering fall, reminiscent of the Von Hindenburg dirigible plummeting to earth, in flames. Or, if I may mix my metaphors, as one professional basketball player summed up his team’s atrocious play: ‘the ship be sinking.’
She had made a classic mistake: sure, America is not a particularly punitive nation; after all, Americans – all of us – know that politicians lie and lie all the time; it’s in their DNA, almost, and we begrudgingly accept it. But, we also know ex-Presidents, if not rich when they leave office, become human ATMs immediately, and can become very, very wealthy, without much heaving lifting. People are screwy about money, especially their own, and will not tolerate hearing about impoverishment from anyone who is manifestly and supremely well-off. That particular lie makes citizens very angry– and, in her off-the-cuff remarks, Hillary had unleashed some real fury.
Here’s why she shouldn’t have never complained about her family’s financial fortunes: immediately after exiting DC, she and Bill moved into the very affluent community of Chappaqua, New York, residing in a $1.7 million house that she and her husband bought, with a $350,000 down payment; she at the same time purchased a seven-room townhouse in Georgetown for $2.8 million, having to come up with $855,000 cash to secure that additional mortgage. Let’s also remind ourselves that Bill Clinton was making millions within months of leaving office, presently presumed to have a net worth of $100 million dollars – and he’s not exactly breaking rocks in some quarry, but talking for an hour at $250,000 a pop all over the world – a cushy gig we’d all love to have.
And how did Hillary deal with the barrage of invective tossed her way after her blunder? ‘We were in debt. We struggled to piece together resources to mortgage two houses. Just like regular folks. It was not easy.’ It’s that ‘just like regular folks’ comment that absolutely enraged Mr. Gripes, himself usually an admirer of hers. Just imagine how others, not firm supporters to begin with, feel now about her. The White House no longer looms large just across the street; it’s far away on a hazy horizon, and it’s going to be a long, nasty, vicious fight for the next year and a half.
This ‘dead-broke’ debacle highlights a rather discordant fact about Ms. Clinton: she is not a facile nor adroit politician – I’d say, in fact, she’s a very mediocre, klutzy one. Look at her history: despite being an overwhelming favorite to secure the Democratic nomination in 2011, she was clobbered by a veritable greenhorn and a far superior tactician, Barack Obama.
Ms. Clinton’s husband, despite a long ‘rap sheet’ of incidents demonstrating appalling behavior toward women, just marched on, impervious to all the accusations. Hillary, Mr. Gripes asserts, is much more sensitive to criticism, and not quick or adept on her feet responding to questions thrown at her, a prerequisite of every skilled politician. Worse, again unlike her husband, she has a bit of a ‘tin ear’ when it comes to really understanding her American constituency. Americans, collectively, can be idealistic, grandiose, infantile, apathetic, ignorant, generous, incensed at the abuse thrown at us by the rest of the world, and proud as hell to be Americans [most of the time]. The attuned politician picks up, as if by osmosis, this eclectic American psyche, and operates accordingly. I’m afraid that Hillary Clinton may be tone deaf.
Mr. Gripes is sure of one thing: Fox News and the Republican attack dogs are going to have a field day next year. Even if she prevails, Hillary is going to endure one hell of a beating.
Jim Israel
Mr. Gripes
September 12, 2014
