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Friendship on the Brink

February 17, 2023

 "Anybody can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend's success." 

- Oscar Wilde


This past week a civic event caused me to see a friend whom I have known since college. He lives in another city in Florida, smaller and more provincial in the 1950s than even Miami, but has recently grown to an important metropolitan area.  We shared many good times, chatting in the dorm, visiting each other's homes, knew each other's parents and were true friends. We even tried some cases together, and laughed and told many war stories to each other. We even represented each other in two different cases. We had many mutual friends, our children, although not close, cared and liked each other.  During good times and bad we were close. We shared a certain ability to laugh at ourselves.


What do you do with a friend whose underlying prejudices have morphed him into a second-rate Archie Bunker, minus the humor and pathos? So this is rumination on friendship, and most probably, loss of it. 


In college, my friend, whom I will now pseudo-name Joseph, dominated conversations with his force of personality and what I thought at the time was his profound wide-ranging knowledge. He was the professor Irwin Corey of the University of Florida.  He had an unparalleled ability to bloviate. Successful with women, he objectified them, viewing his sexual exploits as an athletic contest and calling them by a sideways description of their genitalia. Not unlike the Donald. My experience, on the other hand, with women in college was virtually nil, an inherent shyness, insecurity and introversion I was later to overcome. One time, visiting my home, he exposed my father's business partner as a fraud. It was a gutsy, cheeky move, but that never stopped him.  My father, incredulous, dismissed the accusation to his own detriment.


Joseph has profoundly changed, now rails about his advanced age and has become aggressively provocative, but without portfolio. Maundering through a litany of biases, insulting those who prefer semi rational discussion he spews hatred and venom at every turn.


His opinions are mostly about people he virulently disrespects, even detests.  "Socialist" Democrats, gays, lesbians, transgender people, African-Americans, Asians, Hollywood elite. He is a racist although he denies it. Never issuing a word of respect for President Obama, spewing hatred from every pore. He is profoundly envious and judgmental of others, but sees not a whit of those repugnant traits in himself. Something is missing. Every attempt at discourse devolves into an epithet of either homo or xenophobia. "Lesbos, Affirmative Action "beneficiaries,” and weak-willed gays who have made the wrong choice in life (because there is no gay gene.") He professes to be an amateur geneticist.  He is "Euro centric," a word to veil his racial and ethnic analysis of inferiors. Sometimes he sounds like a chapter from "Mein Kampf." Imagine a Jew who shares Hitlarian racial opinions?

Respect for people he does not personally know is thin. For some reason there exists a great personal animosity toward those who have achieved fame and fortune or have even had careers of personal distinction because he has set some mysterious indecipherable criteria. Obama only became President of the Harvard Law Review because of affirmative action. Hillary lied about bullets over Bosnia.  He believes one of his sons was deprived of Medical School admission in the US because of that program. So that might be a partial explanation for his opinion, but maybe not. Other's children are either cheap, not wide-ranging, or undeserving of their success compared to his own. A court-reporter friend who committed suicide was dismissed as "dead." with out an ounce of compassion toward her.


Joseph has successful professional (a lawyer and a doctor) children and is himself a professional, has tried many cases successfully and is aging, but depending upon one's point of view, not well. 


Always iconoclastic, he joined two fraternities in college and quit both. Fine. His personality did not allow him to blend in. That is ok. But he has regressed into even more pronounced paranoia and xenophobia, and has recently reconnected with me after a year's time out. One day last year, he had crossed the line by intruding in a personal matter in which I had asked him to desist. He could not and I told him not to call me again. A year went by. No daily calls from him. No baiting to debate long shop worn issues. No listening to half-baked opinions and pejorative nicknames for politicians, such as "Hilldog, Obamster." No more conversations devolving into homophobia, xenophobia, expressions of hostility toward the government helping the less fortunate, no more rants against affirmative action, Jews who were "too observant" and no more stories about his wanting to volunteer for a Mossad assassination squad to kill Nazis in Argentina as justification for his schizophrenic relationship with his Jewish origin and to confer upon himself some aura of authority because of an unfulfilled wish that occurred, if it did, in 1967 or so.  This justified his opinions about Israel, even though he has never been there.


His spleen not being vented on me for a year, gave me some repose.  Meeting him this week at the event, he greeted me warmly. I think he was genuinely happy to resume our relationship. However, after he went home, he sent me the following post-Oscar trope about people he does not know and films he probably not seen:


I I "

"loved the "Leftie" PC Hollywood assholes fucking up their attempt at affirmative action in choosing Moonlight (HaHa--clearly not the best film although I have read very good and inspiring) by choosing two idiots that obviously could not think on their feet with their scripted brains. It said an actress' name and then LaLa Land. Duh--let's read it anyway!!


Then they choose a female abuser and alcoholic in Casey Afflack as best actor. I just love those Leftie assholes!! Is he really the "best" if their best? I hope he is such is my antipathy for them as a group!! They should soon give the murderer Matthew Broderick a humanitarian award, eh?


I will never forget the moguls hiding behind their screens in not blasting anti-Semitism and the Nazi movement during WWII!!


I still laugh at their putting forth "Rock" Hudson and John Travolta and Tom Cruise as "macho ladies' men", I love their hypocrisy and weak characters and lies!! I love it that so many are alcoholics and drug abuser."


In responding to the above remarks, one should know that the source was clearly angry.  The reasons for that anger must be explored.


He plainly wanted to bait me into another debate. I was not biting. Clearly his judgments were unhinged, because the winning film deserved the Oscar, as did another film or two. But he could not stand that an African-American film won the award, which everyone knows is a bit political. Last year's complaints abounded about no blacks in the awards. As for his judgment on Casey Affleck, who has resurrected his career, winning an Oscar for a brilliant performance, Joseph condemned Hollywood for awarding him the Academy Award, because he was a drug abuser.  Matthew Broderick caused a terrible accident, but he was not a "murderer."  Travolta, Cruise, and Hudson, other objects of Joseph's derision were gay, but so what? Hudson lived in a time when gays were discriminated against and surely suffered as a result. On top of all that, he attacked Warren Beatty and Faye Dunnaway, two iconic artists who have contributed mightily to their art, for a human mistake.


 I suggested that he open a Facebook page so that he could cultivate a wider audience for his vituperation. He could include how he felt about growing up in the south with a confederate battle flag at his school and blacks riding at the back of the bus.


After I responded to his text, telling him to direct his vitriol elsewhere, he called me "weak." and that I had no gut for "honest debate." That he was truly sorry for me (I am not making this up.)


Joseph used to call me at all hours of the day and night to rant about affirmative action, democrats being socialists, even communists. He would tell me that Arabs are cockroaches and, including women and children, should be carpet-bombed, transferred out of their homes so that the concept of Greater Israel could be realized. He was an admirer of Meyer Kahane, the assassinated firebrand leader of the Jewish Defense League. Joseph thinks still that all the Arabs in the occupied territories should be transferred out to Jordan, that Gaza should be annexed and that the population there also be removed. All this reminds me of the Ribbentrop plan to move the Jews to Madagascar in 1943. 


There is no doubt in my mind that he voted for Trump. But not for economic reasons or well thought out ideals of what America should be. Or that Islamophobia does not help do anything but help recruit more Jihadists and discourage Arab nations, now allied with Israel against the Iranian menace, and the quest for a revanchist Russia for Middle East hegemony.


The question is what do I do about my friend, who may be sinking fast. Do I abide his provocations, spend hours debating him, or just write him off as a lost cause? Kant said that one must act out of duty, and Bentham said for the greatest happiness. What is the right thing to do?

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GOP Hypocrisy at its Highest

By Engage Team • February 17, 2023
So the Supremes, appointed by Republicans, Bush I, Bush II, and three justices appointed by the Donald, who lost the popular vote by 3 million voters and who probably will soon be indicted in Georgia for election fraud, and maybe Federally for a failed coup d’état, have decided that 50 years of precedent be damned, that there is no constitutional right for a woman to make her own reproductive choices. Never mind an entire generation of women who have grown up under Roe. So let’s socially engineer by judicial fiat, what has been law for generations.N Let’s face the facts. The “justices” make up their own minds, and then build a constitutional rationalization to support their position from an infinite variety of decisions throughout the centuries of common law. And by the way, Bush II, like Trump, was also a minority president, except in the anti- democratic electoral college, designed originally to allow slave states to remain so. Our Constitution also ensured that woman and black people could not vote. So all you originalists and textualists can go back to where we were before Roe v. Wade, to that wonderful mid 20th century where segregation ruled, or the early 19th century where slavery ruled. Why not overrule Brown v. Board of Education to keep America white and segregated Justice Alito, that righteous avatar of Catholic abortion dogma rests at one of the pinnacles of governmental power, believes that American women should be the victim of state gerrymandered legislatures, representing a minority of the American polity. When Thomas Jefferson said famously, “keep the preachers away from government,” he surely should have included Alito. Let’s not forget the notion that the court is or should be not politicized. That train left the station in the early 20th century. When FDR’s National Recovery Act was shut down by the conservative Court, a court packing threat from the Democrats in congress caused the conservative majority to back off from shooting down the progressive programs that were to help the nation out of the great depression. The problem is now that there are not enough votes in the Senate to do any such thing because of successful Republican moves to suppress the vote; instead packing the court with ideologues, the most notable of whom is the handmaiden herself—Amy Coney Barrett, whom the Donald picked to fill the seat of a progressive giant, RBG. Never mind the hypocrisy of dissing Obama’s selection of Merrick Garland, not even given a hearing thanks to Mitch McConnell and his lieutenants, including Chuck Grassley, who should be in a nursing home feeding on double doses of Prevagen. Mitch at the helm has seen to our current “Justices”, helped by disinformation emanating from Rupert Murdoch’s FOX news, a money-grubbing Australian oligarch, no better than the Russian ones. Mitch’s net worth has increased ten-fold since he was elected and not on his Senate salary for sure, his wife benefiting from Chinese largesse to and from her uber wealthy family. Oh, and don’t forget Clarence Thomas, a black man who hates his own people, abetted by his wife, Ginny, encouraging the rioters to storm the capitol, sending emails to insurrectionists and GOP party leaders to stop the certification of the vote by the Senate. Thomas is all bent out of shape because of the dastardly leak, impugning the “integrity” of the court. But he will probably not recuse himself on Trump’s appeal if he is convicted of felonious conspiracy to precipitate an insurrection. Other dramatis personae include the repulsive Ted Cruz and the vituperative Josh Hawley, who voted against the purely ceremonial certification of a lawful election, necessary to enshrine the vote. Also, lets not omit a Bronx cheer for Bret Cavanaugh, the beer swilling frat boy, credibly accused of waving his penis in Christine Blasey Ford’s face at his fraternity house, assaulting her. While admittedly a college escapade, it does not speak well to his character. But no matter, he has absolved himself by joining in this sadistic exercise of Republican misogyny. “I like beer, Senator Klobuchar, don’t you?” Cavanaugh hubristically asked the Senator whose father died of alcoholism. No matter, there is no right to privacy in the Constitution, says the red spider veined nosed icon of the religious right. Now, poor women who live in Texas, Mississippi, or other places of enlightened Republican legislators will have to book an airplane flight or drive to a place where it is legal. But wait! They do not have the money to do so, instead they can carry them to term and drop their newly born at the nearest police station or underfunded Mississippi or Texas childcare facility. Thanks a lot, Amy. Perhaps you want to adopt some more children. This whole sordid episode of “Making America Great Again,” curdles the blood even of the most casual observer.

A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand

By Engage Team • February 17, 2023
"A house divided against itself, cannot stand..." - Abraham Lincoln From California to New York, from Oregon to Florida, a frightening division has descended upon our country. From rural to urban America, people wonder whether the nation and its institutions can survive this polarity. There have been times in American history that the nation was divided, never more so than in 1860. Throughout that history, there had been bitter partisanship and division. From the heat of the constitutional convention in steamy 1787 Philadelphia, the founders fought bitterly to a compromise that actually welded two nations into one in a constitution which just ninety years later devolved into a insanely bloody civil war, brother against brother, father against son, family against family. A partisan press with countless newspapers and pamphleteers spewed hatred and vituperative allegations against their countrymen both at the founding and throughout the years leading to the Civil War. Twitter has nothing on them. A rural south, an industrializing north, both parts of which employed slavery, regarded Negroes as inferior, abetted involuntary servitude and a racist ethos, challenging even the most enlightened of our citizenry. During the time between the founding and the Civil War forged compromises kept the Union together. The Missouri compromise (1820) and the Kansas-Nebraska act (1854) failed as attempts to reconcile admission to the Union of new states as either slave or free. The Constitution itself had slavery baked in to its original ratification (Article 4 sec. 2.3) imposing that, " No person held to Service or Labor in one State under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any Law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or Labor, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labor may be due," Later, the Fugitive Slave act of 1850 imposed the duty on citizens and officials of the individual states themselves to return slaves to their owners or face civil fines, and that persons harboring slaves to criminal penalties. Slave catchers roamed the North, collecting bonuses for bringing slaves in; captured slaves were not permitted a jury trial. Sound like a rickety Constitution? Of course, the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments cured some of that, but still, it took the bloodiest war in the history of the Republic, 700,000 dead and wounded to get the amendments passed and only in the last few years was the Confederate battle flag removed from South Carolina government buildings. The Civil Rights act of 1964, race riots in Los Angeles, freedom riders, political assassinations of civil rights leaders, and a frothing George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door shouting "segregation forever!" interceded in the 1960s, almost 100 years after the end of the war and ten years after the landmark Brown v. the Board of Education outlawed segregation in the public schools. Well, that same Constitution has given us the Electoral College, a Federalist exercise in balancing the interests of the various states, and which now presents us with a highly undemocratic underrepresentation of large populations, California for instance, with its 40,000,000 people and North Dakota with its 500,000 each carrying two senators. Do the math on fair representation. Yes, I know the House is supposed to do that, but with present gerrymandering, the Democrats are obliged to win by much bigger majorities than Republicans. With Republicans dedicated to disenfranchising voters in Florida, for example, contrary to the will of the voters, Democrats must win votes in far greater numbers than Republicans to achieve a working majority. We now have entrenched minority government. With an unleashed president, sociopathically bound to his vindictive agenda, extreme anxiety pervades the Democratic Party, fearing that this president will be re-elected, boasting that "he alone" is claiming responsibility for the booming economy, acquitted from his misdeeds by a kangaroo court, comprised of quaking GOP senators afraid of tribal banishment to an ignominious gulag of GOP opprobrium, losing their congressional health plans, positions, prestige and power andthe ultimate loss of the dignity which they inartfully tried to preserve. Instead, they have lost it anyway by their surrender to political expediency. We need either a constitutional convention or a huge movement among voters to recognize that the divisions among us are not the result of a political agenda, but instead, tribal cultism. Many of the policy agendas result from identity politics, rural against urban, wealthy against poor, a displaced working class losing out in the battle against inevitable technological displacement, climate change and nuclear proliferation, the greatest threats to the world. A leader who can heal these divisions and create forbearance and a spirit of compromise is what we need more than ever. A president of either party who can understand reality, not phantasmagorical narcissism. It is said that great crises manufacture an FDR, a Winston Churchill, an Abraham Lincoln. Where may he or she be?

Running from Ennui

By Engage Team • February 17, 2023
Passion seems to be bestowed as a blessing on few people but seeking it is a not inconsiderable chore conferred on the many. I am not officially retired, but it seems that way. The clients call less and the work I did as a trial lawyer has become less and less appetizing. Business has diminished, not only because I am seventy-nine years of age, but because I have zero desire to market myself like a snake oil salesman. I leave that particularly odious practice to well-funded and battle stationed Morgan and Morgan and others, whose legions of paralegals, investigators, paid experts and well-staffed soldiers battle with insurance companies, and “fight for you,” its overworked lawyers all the while complaining to their colleagues and family that they hate what they do. Fifty years at the bar, and I do not mean Flanagan’s, is enough, so I leave the task of transferring wealth from one party to another and taking a piece of the action the alleged passion of the many. I do still consult with clients, if I can be of help them. I wonder if I can achieve a modicum of mastery the piano, considering that when I took violin lessons as a youth, the bandleader working at my dad’s upstate New York hotel, a Catskill fiddler by the name of Billy Rogers (nee Rosenberg) who, admittedly, was not a music teacher, told my father, that I was the “dumbest, most tone-deaf child he had ever met.” But then again, he was no Isaac Stern nor even a music teacher. Music teachers do not scream at their beginning ten-year-old students. The sole reason Dad asked him to teach me was because a guest had left a violin in one of his hotel rooms. Before my dad’s discovered violin aspirations for me, I had expressed neither the interest nor the inclination to play the most difficult, annoying instrument, or torturing everyone within hearing distance. “Press the strings until your fingers bleed and you develop callouses,” said Billy. I do not recall what happened to the violin or Billy, although he was aged in 1952. Dad either sold the violin or most likely, gave it away. Another serial disappointment from his son, I guess. After becoming a lawyer, I decided I would learn to play tennis. And I loved it. I was addicted. I became reasonably competent, starting at the age of 35, and playing regularly until I hit 70 and had spine surgery laying me up a few years. I was never the best, but I was pretty good, had a good serve and tried to play again a few years ago, losing to a younger fellow who had been playing just a few years. I had beaten him soundly before. Never fast on my feet, my molasses-like movements said, time to hang up the sneakers. Life is a series of things being taken from you. At 55 I had taken up golf. I think I have a pretty good swing, but athletically, I needed time to learn, ( a nice way to say I am a slow learner) and time is running out. Although that would not stop me, if I had some agreeable companions with whom to play. Many of the friends whose company I enjoyed have died or fallen away. There is nothing worse than spending 18 holes with someone monumentally annoying. “Nice putt,” they said, as my ball sped past the hole. Plus, most golfers do not share my politics and, inevitably, an afternoon of enjoyment turns into a dumpster fire. Most players who are Republicans, cheat. The shoe wedge or miscounting the score is a frequently insufferable habitude of the right-wing selfish, individualist, “let them eat cake” crowd. Now, when my days are not consumed by interminably long doctor’s visits or some new ailment appears, I am seeking something to do with my spare time. Going to the hospital or delivering goodies to the ill and infirm is too depressing, since I already am depressed about most people walking past me as though I did not exist. I have become irrelevant and invisible, both not particularly enviable results of my wrinkles and weathered skin and increasingly whitening hair. A grey ghost. I suppose I should take comfort that a geezer like Joe Biden could be president, gaining inspiration from him. But he seems so delicate, so frail now, that a stiff breeze would blow him over or he might stumble coming down the stairs of Air Force One. It is frightening to behold. Still, Joe beats the alternative--the orange-colored crook who is still peddling the big lie. The country is in the worst crisis since the great depression, and Joe is not FDR.  Which brings me back to the piano. I asked a neighbor who is a music teacher at an exclusive private school, “Is learning the piano at 79 doable?” He replied, “definitely, it will be good for your mind. Always keep two hands on the keyboard and learn musical notation.” I replied that I had purchased a book that said I will be able to play a Bach prelude within six weeks if I practiced 45 minutes per day. Encouraging. I guess I will find out if it can be my new passion.
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