Scorpion Among Us

Hello Readers! I originally posted this piece last month, then took it down temporarily while it was being considered for newspaper publication.  In the interim, "the Donald" has caught flak for his lawsuit-embroiled Trump University, endorsement by the KKK, failure to provide tax returns because of constant IRS auditing, and favorable quoting of fascist Mussolini. If Trump - perish the thought - were to be elected, the question becomes, with so many financial and legal entanglements, when would the former reality show star have time to run the country?

                                                        

There’s an old folk tale about a scorpion thumbing a ride across a river. I’ve heard several versions of this story with slightly different endings, but the one point all agree on is that, halfway across, the scorpion stings its trusting transporter. The shocked conveyor asks why its passenger would do something so foolish, since now both will drown, and here the varying punch lines come in. The one I like best has the scorpion reply essentially, “Who knows? It’s just my nature, and you knew what I was when you said ‘yes’ to me.”

We have a blonde-haired, combed over scorpion in our midst. Oh, he’s dressed in fine clothes and makes an enticing appeal, but he’s a stinger nonetheless.

Just ask the investors he defrauded when he availed himself of a tax loophole allowing him to declare bankruptcy, not once, not twice, but four times. Ask the campaign investors whose money he is using, despite his constant boasting that he’s self-funded. 

Self-funded, my Aunt Fanny! Trump's fortune cost untold numbers of gamblers  their families’ security, and his claims of self-funding show a distinct lack of gratitude to donors, who have outspent him on his presidential campaign.

Ask the ex-wives he's accumulated, and his sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, whom he claims would be an excellent Supreme Court choice, but from whom he's now distancing himself. That he would even consider her for such a high rank belies his supposed commitment to life, itself a turnabout from his previous ardent pro-choice position. Think how blindsided Republicans would feel after blocking Obama’s end-of-term SCOTUS choice, only to find themselves saddled for God knows how long with Trump's sibling, who rigorously supports partial birth abortion.

Ask Vera Coking, the widowed senior citizen whose home he tried to seize so he could build a limousine parking lot for his casino.Trump tried unsuccessfully to force Coking to vacate under the legal principle of eminent domain, which has historically displaced homeowners for purposes such as national park development and national security needs. Never has this tool been used for such mercenary exploits as Trump had in mind. Talk about the greed of big business.

Ask Carly Fiorina, whose appearance he publicly ridiculed, then back pedaled on. When called on his denigrating statements, he reverted to the adolescent defense that he was just joking. I didn't buy that when it came out of my seventh grader's mouth, and Trump's use of such a lame explanation makes it hard for any parent to hold up adults as role models. Let's not forget, this insult was leveled at someone with whom he supposedly agrees on major principles. Think how far such communication skills will take him when he sits down to hammer out deals with leaders with whom he dramatically differs, and who have access to weapons of mass destruction. Even our cousins across the pond, with whom we often see eye to eye, are a hair's breadth away from refusing to deal with him.

Ask the rest of the Republican party, with whom he has cast his lot, but savages at every turn and is now waffling on a written pledge he made publicly to forego a third party run so as not to undercut the ideals he claims to identify with.

Let's even ask members of the opposing party, whose campaigns he has funded handsomely over the span of his long career, before defecting in recent years. Even ask the Clintons, whom he hosted at his most recent wedding but has now turned on in his grab for the Oval Office. 

In short, Donald Trump has shown himself time and again to be self-interested to the point of unethical legal maneuvering and campaign bullying. Shame on the American public if we allow him to become a nominee for the highest office in the land. 

"The Lord detests dishonest scales, but accurate 

weights find favor with him."

Proverbs 11:1

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to

 keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

James 1:27

"He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.

    And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

    and to walk humbly with your God."

Micah 6:8

Comedy? Really?

There's a reason I don't like Lucy Ricardo. She's schizo. No, actually, in my mind she's a sociopath. What else would you call someone whose sole interest is in getting her own way, no matter what the cost to her husband's career or her personal relationships?

Why this tempest in a teapot? Why take seriously a 50's sitcom whose only goal was to entertain and pour laughter into the homes of post-war America?

Because of Jack Black and Olivia Newton-John, that's why.

Tonight, for the umpteenth time, my kids watched School of Rock, and I viewed it with them. Together we laughed at Dewey Finn's (Black's) stage antics and marveled at his ability to turn a bunch of straight-laced prep school students into a rockin' band. But when it was all over, I demanded equal time.

I insisted the boys critique the film from the standpoints of morality and reality. Morally, everything this shyster did was against the rules. He copped his best friend's identity to make a fast buck. He abused his authority with a bunch of impressionable pre-teens to further his musical aspirations. He lied to everyone with whom he came in contact to satisfy his own goals. In the end he not only escaped punishment, but built a new career based on the fraud he had perpetrated, with the full consent and admiration of the very victims he had been conning. I pointed out to the boys that, beyond the realm of screenwriter Mike White's imagination, this outcome was utterly fictitious. First of all, he would have been carted off to jail for questioning, at the very least, the second his misuse of minors was discovered, rather than escaping to sleep off his shame on his scammed roommate's living room floor. Next, he would be hit with a slew of legal charges, undoubtedly by both parties he had deceived. Above all, his misdeeds certainly would not have been rewarded by the continued entrusting of tender minds to his corrupt tutelage.

I would raise the same objection to the hit 1978 film Grease. This blockbuster starred stunning Olivia Newton-John as insecure Sandy Olsen, who was so intent on keeping bad boy Danny Zuko (John Travolta) that she reinvented herself into a leather-clad sex kitten. The message: do what you have to do to get what you feel you must have.

When we consider Grease's nearly $200 million lifetime earnings, and School of Rock's just under half of that, we begin to realize the vast impact these film vehicles have. Sadly, films like Freedom Writers and Rudy, targeted to the same youthful audience, but both offering uplifting themes of hope and determination in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles, max out at around a quarter of these profits.*

So when I complain about the fundamental elements of I Love Lucy, I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer. It's just that, 50 plus years later, Americans are still reveling in - and paying dearly for - the Machiavellian philosophy underlying the shenanigans of the wacky redhead, and her enabling entourage.

I'm just not sure the laughs are worth it.

Lifetime Gross Figures
$188,755,690 Grease
$81,261,177 School of Rock
$36,605,602 Freedom Writers
$22,750,363 Rudy


*All box office statistics taken from boxofficemojo.com.