"Peace in Our Time": The Neville Chamberlain Statecraft Naivete Award

Neville Chamberlain was the prime minister of England 80 years ago or so, during the time of the ascent of Adolf Hitler to become the Nazi dictator, and for starting World War II by invading Germany's neighbors after committing not to.

Chamberlain had traveled to meet with Hitler three times in late 1938, ultimately resulting in the Munich agreement.  Hitler had been using the "plight" of Germans living in the Sudetenland, then a part of what was Czechoslovakia, as a pretext to invade there on their behalf.  Chamberlain sought to contain Hitler's ambition by allowing a plebiscite in the region whereupon, if it passed, the Sudetenland would be annexed into Germany.

Hitler offered to state that he would not thereafter invade Czechoslovakia and gave his assurance in the Munich agreement and a separate agreement privately sought by Chamberlain.  The prime minister then flew back to England, and famously declared that England would have "peace for our time." 

Yeah, sure.

Of course, Hitler had no intention of staying his hand or slowing his armies, and the rest, I'm sorry to say so cliched, is indeed history.

The legend of Neville Chamberlain, whose embarrassment at being flummoxed by Hitler fortunately was short-lived (but only because Chamberlain did not live even two years after the meetings), is still discussed and still alluded to 80 years later.  The word of evil people, we learned through him, is worth nothing.

This lives again this week as President Trump has pulled the United States out of the Iran "agreement" (it wasn't a treaty, since it was never ratified by Congress and the Democrats there filibustered any attempt to have it brought up for approval that it wouldn't get) that Barack Obama and John Kerry had foisted on us.

It is pretty evident, after the Israeli presentation this past week dramatically showing Iranian cheating on the nuclear research side of the "agreement", that the Iranians simply had no intent to comply, but merely to hide what they were continuing to do under the lax inspection terms allowed by Kerry.  The Iranian regime was given time, billions of dollars, and relief of the crippling sanctions that had been in place previously.  But we already knew that, or surely suspected it.

The word of evil people is worth nothing.

What did we get out of the agreement?  Well, nothing.  The rest of us knew it then, and sane souls did what they could to prevent the agreement from taking force.  But there's nothing much worse than a leftist on a mission, with unchecked power and a few billion or so in crisp taxpayer dollars, and no regard for Constitutional restraints on foreign dealings.

So today, thanks to a brilliant reader recommendation, we end the week by bestowing the inaugural Neville Chamberlain Memorial Statecraft Naivete Award to John Kerry, mercifully former Secretary of State, for continued belief that the Iranians would ever accede to the terms of the deal and stop their nuclear program.

Although Barack Obama did receive a nomination as a co-recipient, it was not shown that there was adequate naivete involved.  He knew what he was doing, he knew the Iranians wouldn't follow the deal, and he knew that -- or thought that -- he would just get "credit" for it, flying Teflon-coated through his legacy years worshiped by his toadies and sycophants.  Kerry, on the other hand, was just stupid.  He clearly thought giving away the store to Iran was a good thing for the USA, and there is just no excuse for thinking Iran would comply.

Congratulations, Mr. Kerry.  Your award consists of a century of people laughing at you.

Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

So Can Everyone DATE Cheerleaders?

[Note -- before I start, I want to thank again all my readers in Russia, who have now, this week, returned en masse, and now represent the largest daily readership of this column.  I'm so glad you enjoy my takes and the subtle humor implicit in all you find here.  Welcome back.  I missed you. -- B.]

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I don't know where Hanover Park High School is, except that it is in northern New Jersey somewhere.  I don't suppose that it even matters, except that New Jersey is near New York, where liberalism and idiocy coincide in much of the population (or at least the voting base), and presumably some of that spills over the Hudson.

If you have heard of that particular school this week yourself, it would be because their "leadership" has come up with a novel notion on, of all things, cheerleaders, in an attempt to become more -- and I'm using their own word -- "inclusive."

[Note -- again, for the Russian readers, "cheerleaders" are the (mostly) girls who do synchronized routines to cheer for (mostly) football teams at our high schools and colleges.  The routines are tough and require a level of athleticism, and cheerleaders are also stereotypically thought of as the popular girls in the school.  Does that help?]

So I will point out that while there are surely some things that I care about less than cheerleading, I care about a whole lot more things more.  Were there no more cheerleading, effective tomorrow, it would not elicit a peep from me, even though my best girl used to be one.  Yawn.

And I will also point out that "inclusivity" as a justification for doing almost anything in 2018 is likely a code for something else.  We all want to be "in", the old word we used for being part of the "good" group and not "out", which was bad.  For me, it is more important not to exclude people than it is to force inclusion on a group, but even that is a nebulous thought.

But this is, of course, "school", which means it is staffed by NEA-belonging teachers (among the most liberal of the unions) and led by people who surely wanted to do something else when they grew up besides being school administrators.  And schools are about as leftist as you want to get in this country.

So when some parents complained because their daughters had failed to make the cheerleading team at this high school, after trying out, we could have wanted the principal to have told them this:

"Dear Mom,

"We're sorry that your daughter did not make the team.  As you know, cheerleading is a strenuous activity that also requires a level of talent to learn and execute a routine.  Not everyone can do it well.  Our squad has a finite number of places on the team and, unfortunately, your daughter was not in the top 20.

"This is exactly the same type of decision that the football team makes when students try out for places on the team; not everyone -- even the writer of this column -- has the God-given size, strength, coordination and ability to learn and execute plays needed to be the best players for our team.  

"It is exactly the same type of decision that the chorus and band make when they have to determine their band players, and the chorus members who will perform solos at their concerts.  Some students are better at playing instruments and singing than others.  I wish I were a better singer myself, Ma'am.

"We encourage your daughter, if she truly wants to make the cheerleading squad, to work hard over the next year at the skills that are necessary.  Practice hard, work out, learn the routines anyway.  Go talk to the cheerleading advisor and create a program over the next year for your child to work on so that next year's audition will be a lot easier.  If she truly wants to become a Hanover Park cheerleader, nothing will help her more than to create a program, work hard and follow it for a year."    

Of course, that's not what the school did.  Using the sledge-hammer-on-a-thumbtack approach, they decided that everyone who wanted to be a cheerleader would become one, regardless of ability.  There would be one squad made up of juniors and seniors, and another made up of freshmen and sophomores.  Voila.  A triumph of "inclusion" over reality.

I can only imagine what will happen to those kids who make the team despite no ability whatsoever, when they start applying to college and get rejected, or they start applying for jobs and get rejected.  What exactly in their high school years prepared them for that reality?  Are they going to have their mothers go to the admissions office or the HR department, and complain that the college should let in everyone, or the company should hire everyone?

Come to think of it, maybe a bunch of unemployed people should go to Hanover Park High School and apply to be teachers.  Do you think they'd be "inclusive" about hiring non-union teachers, or teachers without a degree, or without any skills?  Sure they will.

Maybe the nerds in that school should all try out for the football team.  Is it being "inclusive" to require that you be coordinated and athletic to be the quarterback of the Hanover High football team?  You, nerd over there -- you get the third quarter of game 4.

And I have the real logical outcome.  Every boy who asks a cheerleader out on a date should have the right to insist that she go out with him.  That would be "inclusive"; every girl who makes the cheerleading team should show their regard for inclusivity by going out with any boy who asks her, right, rather than disappointing him by deeming him inadequate?  I mean, I married a cheerleader, but it took ten years to get her to go out with me in the first place.

There is no end to taking inclusivity to its illogical extreme.  So let's keep doing it.

Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

We Won't Miss the Iran Deal

Yesterday, as you know, President Trump announced that the USA was pulling out of the insane agreement with Iran, the one that Barack Obama and John Kerry and other players from the West made.  As you recall, or should, although that was a treaty, it was never brought to Congress for its approval, and it could be argued before the Supreme Court that it wasn't valid in the first place.

For the record, there are still 90 days left for there to be a negotiated change to the agreement, before the sanctions that had been imposed previously but were lifted under it, would go into place again.  This would certainly have an effect on the Iranian economy, so this is all getting their attention in a big way.

One could assume that the other Western nations, by holding on to the agreement and not reimposing sanctions on their end, would force Iran not to do the advancement of their nuclear weapons program that we all assume (and the Israelis showed) they are advancing regardless.  That really would be their issue at that point, and they can work things out.

For us, however, this was an important act on the part of the president, and it doesn't necessarily have to be about it being Iran, or about the billions in crisp cash that was spirited off in the middle of the night and given to the Iranians to fund more Hezbollah terrorists.

This was important because it was an act of decisiveness and an act of courage, because it was a withdrawing from an agreement that was done not in accordance with the Constitution or Federal law.  The Iran deal was the kind of swampy thing that parasites like Obama and Kerry do and lapdogs like those in Congress at the time just let happen without a peep.

We had practically given up, despairing that a president would actually do the right thing, do decisive and courageous things in defense of the country.

Now, the leftist media will all come up with some kind of spin that ultimately will fail the test of "Was it ever right for a president to make an agreement with a foreign nation without the approval of Congress, let alone one that funds the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, and which grants them the unfettered right to build nuclear weapons in a few years?"

Would CNN say it was right to have made the deal?  Would MSNBC or NPR?  Will any of the network news anchors go on record as saying that the deal stank to high Heaven from the start, and that it was an abuse of power for Obama to have brought our country into it without the approval from Congress that the Constitution requires?

Yahoo's news feed at about 2:00pm Eastern time yesterday had a big headline about President Trump's pulling the USA out of the deal, with a subhead about how we were damaging our allies.  Twenty minutes later, oddly and without explanation, the pullout of the Iran deal was completely gone from the feed -- not one story showed.

Somehow, I don't think Yahoo decided that agreements funding terror were not a good thing, but something happened more than "what the heck?".  I don't think opinions have a place in news reporting, and I haven't changed my view there.

We need a deal with the Iranians like a third nostril.

Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

Mueller, Manafort and the Mafia

By know you should know already that the past weekend was a particularly rough one for the special counsel, Robert Mueller, who is ostensibly investigating the possibility of Americans having colluded with Russians to affect the 2016 elections.  That, at least, is what he was supposedly doing, and what he was supposedly mandated to do.

However, a bunch of his team was in a court in Virginia last week working on charges of bank fraud from 2006 against Paul Manafort, who for a time was the campaign manager for the Donald Trump campaign.  The charges were being put before the court of Judge T.S. Ellis III, and apparently he was a bit taken aback.

You see, there is a tactic used by experienced FBI organized-crime types against the Mafia, where they will pick up a lower-end button man and threaten huge charges against him to get him to "sing" against his don or capo or other higher-up type.  "Here you go, Tony, you tell us what's going on or you'll spend 80 years in the slammer on this and this and this, that we have the goods on you for."  You've seen the movies.

Manafort had actually moved for dismissal of the case, based on the fact that Mueller had no standing to pursue it.  So Judge Ellis looked at the charges against Manafort, and then he looked at the Mueller types doing the prosecuting.  "OK, who the heck ARE you guys to be prosecuting a 2006 bank fraud case?  We have a thing here called jurisdiction, and I don't see any evidence that you have any of that stuff."

Jurisdiction, of course, is the whole "Who can prosecute whom" thing.  A sheriff in Kootenai County, Idaho, cannot bring charges for a burglary in Augusta, Georgia, because he doesn't have the right to act legally outside his own county.  And, in the view of Judge Ellis, a special counsel who, we are all told, is supposed to be investigating Russian election tampering does not have the standing to bring 2006 bank fraud charges -- in 2018.

Of course, being a reasonable man, Judge Ellis asked the logical question, that is, would the prosecutor please produce the "scope memo", which is the authorization from the Justice Department that allows them to pursue this case.  "Hem-haw", the Mueller people hemmed and hawed, "We can't do that, except in a heavily redacted version, because you're just a lowly judge and this is real national security stuff that you aren't good enough to see."

Or words to that effect.

Judge Ellis, to his credit, would have none of that.  As far as whether he could or not see the whole memo, he declared "I'll be the judge of that", and ordered them to produce the unredacted version in 12 days or risk having their standing to prosecute summarily canceled.

Of course, he didn't stop there.  He looked the Mueller types in the eye and accused them of prosecuting people and not a crime, that they were just using Manafort as a singer to try to get President Trump without a shred of evidence of any wrongdoing on the president's part.

They're either going to come back with an unredacted scope memo, in which case the judge may see no authorization to pursue old bank fraud cases, or with a redacted version -- or with no memo at all, in which case the Manafort case may just get tossed on lack of prosecutorial authority.

Mafia tactics are for Mafia cases, we can assume the good judge was thinking.  It is a standard of prosecutors' malpractice to pursue a person as opposed to a crime, and Judge Ellis saw the Mueller people as doing just that.  So does this column, and so does the nation.

Judge Ellis is a hero today, and it is our hope that the law, not what is now the Mueller Mafia, prevails.

We'll be watching.

Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

Jeepers Creepers, Fix CPARs and PPIRS!

I think you may read the headline and decide this is not a topic for you.  Too obscure, maybe, or nothing you care about.

But you need to care.  And if you can help fix it (e.g., if you are in government), well, please.

The Federal government in D.C. buys stuff.  Lots of stuff.  Every agency of government does that, and while we joke about NASA blasting five billion dollars worth of incredibly valuable items and a half dozen astronauts into space, all on a rocket "built by the lowest bidder", you get the idea.

We should expect that the businesses which sell those items are treated fairly and evaluated fairly; that business is not awarded to a company just because the owner is friends with a Senator, or a Clinton, or both.

But even absent politics, there needs to be common sense in the process, and that is frequently absent.  Let me try to explain a real failure in the system that is pervasive today.

This is not actually so much about the Feds, in this case the Defense Department, buying "things", so much as buying "hours."  In order to avoid hiring more government employees, whose salaries and benefits are huge taxpayer expenses and who are tough to fire or even lay off, the government contracts-out a lot of work to service contractors.  The contracts are to supply experts or specialists for a fixed period of time, after which the people -- and their costs -- may go away, or be renewed if the need is still there.

My profession is writing the proposals that contractors submit to compete for that kind of work.  So I am reasonably astute in the process of competing for Government contracts, and I see systemic problems that put at risk not only the Government's ability to get the best value, but the intrinsic fairness of the process.

Lesson #1 ... If you are trying to sell experts to the government, you need to show the Federal customer that you have done that kind of work before.  This is the "Past Performance" part of a proposal, and typically you will provide 4-5 descriptions of previous contracts you've done well at doing the same work.

Of course, the Government doesn't simply trust what you said you did.  So along with the 4-5 citations, you would be asked to have your past Federal customers fill out a form stating how wonderful you were on that assignment, and send it directly to your hoped-for customer.  That is called a "Past Performance Questionnaire" or PPQ.  Past customers absolutely hate having to fill out a PPQ, because (A) it involves writing (several pages), and (B) it involves writing the same stuff over and over in a slightly different way.

A contractor company can easily have to ask for the same PPQ as much as 20 times a year from a single customer, if the work is common and the company is doing a lot of bids.  That really can tick off their customer, and sometimes the 20th PPQ is not as flattering for just that reason.  A less-than-perfect PPQ can cost a company millions in business.

So ... someone finally saw the errors in that system, and a few years ago created a system, used in the Defense Department, called "PPIRS" (pronounced "PEE-pers"), the "Past Performance Information Retrieval System."

The principle was simple -- every year, Federal customers would write just one Contractor Performance Assessment Report ("CPAR") and file it in PPIRS.  Any Federal official conducting a procurement could download the CPARs for whatever past contract a company was citing in its proposal.  The past customer wouldn't even have to know about it, let alone be forced to do another PPQ.

It's 2018, and most Defense contracts of any real size have CPARs filed for them every year.  You'd think that would have solved the problem, right?  Sure.

I work about 30 different proposals a year.  Sometimes I am the lead for past performance, sometimes a different part, but in every case I am aware of the procurement's requirements for past performance.  And sadly, it's as if they never heard of PPIRS.  Jeepers, creepers!

In at least 3/4 of the proposals I do, there is still a requirement for contractors to ask for a PPQ from their past customers, whether or not there is a CPAR on file for that work.  Some requests ask that you make sure there is a CPAR on file and, bless them, only if there is not one do they ask for a PPQ.  But most of them just ask for a PPQ, meaning that you have to ask for one, from a ticked-off customer telling you "But I just did a full CPAR for that work!".  And it's not your fault.

I am working a proposal now for a client, a defense contractor.  Before the formal Request for Proposals came out, there was a period where we could ask questions of the Government, relating to draft documents the Government had released.  I asked one question to the effect that "Your draft Request asked for PPQs from five customers.  We ask that you remove that requirement for any past performance citation if there is a recent CPAR on file."

The actual question was longer than that; I actually made the point that the CPAR system was put in place to avoid ticking off customers by asking for PPQs.  But the government replied, tersely, "We will require PPQs for all citations."

Gee, thanks.

So I contacted my client company's program manager, who is running the contract that I want to use as a past performance reference.  I asked him if he would be willing to ask his customer for a PPQ.  "I can't", he answered.  "The program is almost over and they're evaluating proposals for the next phase of that work.  Until they award it, in December, the customer is refusing to do any PPQs."

Now, please note that even in an evaluation phase, there are zero Federal regulations preventing that customer from doing a PPQ in that period.  His customer is wrong.  And there are perfectly adequate CPARs in PPIRs for that work for several years; a PPQ shouldn't even be needed.

Suppose that work was an exact match for the work I'm bidding on, and my client had done a spectacular job, so it would be an ideal citation to use.  We could not use it, because (A) the Federal customer we're bidding to forces us to have a PPQ from every citation and won't use CPARs, and (B) the Federal customer for the work we are already doing has misinterpreted the law and thinks he can't do the PPQ.

Then suppose that my client is far and away the best to do the proposed work, but can't provide its best reference to prove our ability, and the Government ends up with a much lesser contractor because my client can't be shown to be as good as it is.  The taxpayer gets the lesser performance for our hard-earned and tax-confiscated dollar, all because of a very screwed-up system.

If you have a shred of influence; if you are a congressman or Senator, I beg you to help mandate that DoD contracting officers be far, far better trained and that acquisitions mandate that only CPARs be used for validation, and that PPQs may only be required if no CPAR is on file.

Because jeepers, creepers, that crap has to get fixed.

Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

The Four-Out Inning That Could Have Been

In baseball, there are three outs in an inning.  When the third out is recorded, the inning is over, notwithstanding the home team scoring a winning run in the ninth or beyond.  That doesn't matter; there is no such thing as a fourth out in an inning, except when it almost happened.

OK, I can't say it "almost" happened, as much as my being reminded of the fact that it actually could, and the situation for it came up on Wednesday night.  The announcers, Jerry Remy and Dave O'Brien, did not point out that it was a possibility, but I saw it immediately.

The Kansas City Royals, a challenged club this year, were at Fenway Park to play Boston.  In the first inning, Whit Merrifield of the Royals walked, and went to third on a double by Jorge Soler.  That left men on second and third, with one out following a strikeout.

Second and third, one out.  Plot material.

Salvador Perez was the next batter, and he hit a fly to the outfield, quite deep but playable, an easy sacrifice fly but deep enough to where Soler could have tagged up on second and gone to third, had he actually remembered that there was only one out.  Fortunately for me and the column, he did not.

Merrifield tagged up and scored, followed closely by Soler, who had not bothered to tag up and was being screamed at in vain by the third-base coach.  Of course, the outfielders relayed the ball back to second, and Soler, nowhere near second and unsure what was going on, was doubled off second for the third out.  Since Merrifield had clearly touched home before the ball got to second, the run counted.

The broadcast went off to commercial, and I was scratching my head.

What, I thought, if Merrifield had left third base too early?  The play had already happened, but it was worth a look, since if the Red Sox had appealed at third, and Merrifield had been called out, the KC run would have been taken off the scoreboard.

Now, Merrifield had obviously not left too early, but what if he had?  The first out of the inning was a strikeout, the second the catch of the long fly, and the third was Soler being doubled off second to end the inning.  There would already have been three outs before an appeal play at third, but given that a run would be taken off the scoreboard, it would not have been moot; Boston would have to have made the appeal to get the run removed, and would have.

Merrifield would have been called out -- in order to get the run off the board, there would have to have been a different outcome for Merrifield and that would have been his being called out -- the fourth out of the inning.

I don't exactly have the Rules of Baseball memorized, but I'm guessing that situation would actually result in an inning of four outs, perfectly in keeping with the rules.

Remy and O'Brien didn't bring that up, but I hope at least this column will trigger some fun discussion of a four-out inning.

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Footnote ... as you might imagine, I just had to know if this had ever happened and if the rule book, which by now covers about everything, actually had something in there for this instance.  In fact, it has never happened in baseball history, although it could have.  Definitely, if it is necessary to take a run off the board, a manager would have to appeal, but the rule book is also clear on the scoring.  Had, in this case, Cora as manager made a successful appeal, Merrifield would have been called out for leaving third too early.  But Soler, the runner who had been doubled off second in the original scoring, would no longer be "out", and the third out would actually have been recorded by Merrifield at third -- with Soler not a part of the scoring at all.  Three outs, not four.
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Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

NBC Forcing the Issue on Tom Brokaw, It Seems

I suppose many of us were taken aback when the news person Linda Vester made headlines last week, with allegations that Tom Brokaw, the certified NBC News legend, had groped her and made unwanted advances in the 1990s, when she had just gotten her full-time status with the network's news division.

I don't have to go over the details too much, except that the incident's truth does pass the initial sniff test, in that she told several friends at the time -- who totally agree with her account of the incident and contemporaneous notification of them about it -- and that she documented the multiple incidents at the time.

The fact that it was not reported in public, or even to NBC's HR Department, at the time also has a rational basis, in that Brokaw was the god at NBC at the time -- and, apparently, is still -- while Vester had just gotten her full-time job there, and assumed at the time that it would end her career, without any compensation, if she were to make her account public.  Women simply did not come forward back then, even when men came uninvited to women's hotel rooms.

I tend to believe her, and it doesn't hurt that she is neither suing Brokaw or NBC News, nor asking for anything with this exposure of her story.  The worst inference one could make would be that this is a revenge act of some kind -- except that Vester was not anywhere in Brokaw's main organization at the time or later; she did not work with him or near him, and there is no reason to think he ever did anything to her (other than the unwanted advances of a married man) for which her story, told now, would be an effective way to go about it.  The climate is different now, so it is certainly circumstantially reasonable that this is happening.

NBC News, however, is not happy.

As written in this piece, it appears that they have taken the position that their god is not to be torn down and, accordingly, have produced a statement to be signed by every woman working at NBC News.  While over 100 have signed the statement saying that Tom Brokaw is a wonderful man who would never ever do such a thing and is nice to kittens and helps elderly women across the street, not all of them seem to agree.

Executives of NBC News, one staffer reported, were keeping tabs on who signed and who didn't, and God (the real One, not those at NBC News) help any staffer who chose not to sign, especially after Andrea Mitchell and Mika Brzezinski affixed their names high up on the list.  "They were watching", we are told.  When you are a young female wanting to advance in the news biz, and there are 2,250 exactly like you waiting in line outside 30 Rockefeller Plaza for your job, well, you sign.

NBC News, of course, claims that the letter is “purely grass-roots effort, led by women outside of the company who are motivated by their own support for Tom Brokaw . . . Management has played absolutely no role whatsoever.”  And we believe that, right?  Oh, by the way, the letter was written, in case you were wondering (and I would have been if I didn't know) by Liz Bowyer, a producer for Brokaw’s NBC documentary unit.  She has, of course, worked on two of his books.

I try to take each accusation of sexual anything on its face value.  The Al Franken thing was easy, because we had pictures.  The stuff with Roy Moore, the Alabama Senate candidate, was a lot harder, because there were different types of accusations, and because a lot of them were interpretable as flirting, made odd to some of us only because of the age difference but perhaps less odd in Alabama -- but the more forward accusations of him were pretty bad if they were to have been proven.  The stuff with Bill Clinton -- not the Lewinski affair, which was consensual but extramarital and abuse of power -- but the rape allegations by Juanita Broaddrick and others, that is the stuff that should have been in court 25 years ago.

This one was an abuse of power (Brokaw could affect Vester's career at the time) and was an unwanted advance long past the "No, please stop!" and "I didn't invite you to my hotel room, Tom!" stage.  And it was documented, reported and corroborated, at least the simultaneous reporting of it to friends was, by multiple people without reward or contradiction.

This one stinks.  And to think that it is now being handled by NBC News bulling female staffers into signing off on a "Tom is great" letter with the unspoken risk of career impact, well, NBC News is now doing to its employees exactly what Brokaw was doing to Miss Vester.

And that doesn't pass the sniff test.

Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

The Meaning of Kanye West

Happy Friday.

Oh, crap, there is really no meaning to Kanye West, at least none that I can tell you.  I know practically nothing about him except that he is some kind of entertainer, he is married to a Kardashian and, based on the previous two attributes, he really needs to keep his name in the news.

So based on that, West made some noise in the past week that certainly kept his name in the news.

Originally this was an actual news item that had nothing to do with him, or with entertainment.  He had posted a simple tweet, "I love the way Candace Owens thinks."  Miss Owens is a conservative black writer and commentator who believes that Democrats have been very unhelpful to black Americans, by trying to keep them dependent on government rather than taking control of their own lives and destinies.

Naturally, this raised a firestorm because we are at a sad point in our evolutionary process where people actually, you know, pay attention to what Kanye West tweets.  Now, even though in this case it was a perfectly innocent, brief show of support for a voice in the black community that is not heard nearly enough, "what Kanye West thinks" is simply not news.

Well, the knee-jerk left immediately blew up in a furious hail of twittering to the effect that West was this or that, and that the people who supported him were this or that, God forbid.  After he followed up on the heels of all that by noting that he -- gasp! -- supported President Trump, well, it was all you could read in the news anywhere.

Even though, as I noted, Kanye West's opinions are no more valid than yours or mine.

Does no one in the real world (if anyone is possibly left there) realize that absolutely everything that Kanye West does, from marrying a Kardashian to tweeting support for someone that is not mainstream black thought (though it would be better if it were), is for one purpose -- to make money?

Really, you have to wonder about the media outlets that actually give air time to this, and whether Kanye West is paying them to carry this story.  This is not going to hurt him one bit; the people who pay money to attend his shows, or to buy recordings of whatever he does, are simply going to go to, or buy, more of them because he is in the news and they want to be a part of whatever that is.  And Kanye West will laugh all the way to the bank.

There is no meaning to Kanye West any more than there was to P.T. Barnum, or at least it is sort of the same meaning.  There certainly is a sucker born every minute, whether it is CNN or the consumers of whatever it is that Kanye West does.  West may or may not actually support Donald Trump or Candace Owens ... or this column.  What is important is that he was astute enough to know that if he says something, or tweets something, that will get his name on people's lips, it will end up raising his income.  FTM.

But there is actually meaning in the whole story.  We get it.  Do you?

Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

And Today's "Cultural Appropriation" Stupidity

Oh, you're going to love this.

So a week or so ago, a young high school girl in Salt Lake City went to her prom wearing a qipao, a Chinese dress that ... well, below is a picture of the young lady, named Keziah Ginger Daum, with her date.   She is wearing the dress in question.

Now, I think that we can all agree that the young lady looks quite beautiful in the dress, and in a perfect (i.e., "normal") world, everyone would say the same thing.  I can certainly imagine that her peers at the dance envied her choice of attire and her date surely thought her striking in a good way.

Miss Daum was looking, so this article states, for a unique look for her senior prom, and went searching in a "vintage shop" for just the right way to make a great fashion statement and to look her absolute best.  And you'd think she accomplished that, right?  I know that I certainly thought she had done a good job in selecting that look.  So did people at the prom.

She thought so as well, posting prom pictures on Twitter for the world, or at least her "followers", to see.  The one at left is indeed one of them, shared with the Twitterverse or whatever it's called.  There are a number of them if you actually want to go check them out, although that might be a bit stalky.  You should already have gotten the idea.

Well, apparently that was not the right dress to have worn.  Not, it should be pointed out, because it was not "prom-appropriate", or because it was, well, red, or because there are any laws in the State of Utah forbidding it.

Nope.  She has gotten a firestorm of criticism for wearing a Chinese style of dress.  Yep, she is being criticized for what the not-happy-unless-being-offended, snowflake world refers to as "cultural appropriation."  Now, regular readers here will recall that one of the most widely-read pieces of the nearly 900 I've done on this site deals with "cultural appropriation", specifically this one here that I urge you to read, dealing with insufferable students at Oberlin College complaining that their sushi wasn't made right.

Now, let's be quite clear here.  There are no written rules about the interaction between cultures; "cultural appropriation" -- the use by one culture of an attribute of another, sort of like definitional Halloween -- was fine for many years until someone realized it was a way to bash and embarrass ... OK, let's call it what it is ... white people.  Keziah is, of course, white.

Up until a couple three years ago or so, it was perfectly fine for me to eat sushi, or wear a Hawaiian shirt, or use a help desk (apparently that is now culturally Indian) or go to a casino (culturally the other kind of Indian).  You get the idea.

So what would have happened had Miss Daum been, say, black?  Do you think the leftist trolls of the Internet would have slammed her for cultural appropriation for wearing a qipao then?  I think I digress, though.

Imitation, as we know, is the sincerest form of flattery.  That a bunch of Hondurans are trying to climb our as-yet inadequate border walls to become Americans is a perfect example of that.  They want our culture, presumably.  I like sushi, barbecue, and spaghetti, and pad thai.  I don't like kimchi, or borscht, or anything in an Indian restaurant.  I don't really care if Hiroki, Bubba, Luigi and Chulalungkorn are happy but Sun-Woo and Boris and Vijay are not.

There was a Seinfeld episode where Jerry was about to date a young lady named Donna Chang he had not met.  He tells his friends that he loves Chinese women, whereupon one of them says that's "racist."  "It's not racist", Jerry replies, "if you like their race."  (For the record, Donna turned out not to be Chinese at all, but I digress.)

That line is the essence of the stupidity of seeing cultural appropriation as a bad thing.  Cultures arise and they develop their art, their food, their music, their attire, their names, their words.  Other cultures become aware, and choose to accept or reject those attributes as personal preferences -- something not at all specific to Americans, or even white people, if you were to look at the playlist of an Iranian teen's smart-phone music library.

It's all, my friends, about what happens when the cultures meet, as in a pretty teenager in Salt Lake City choosing to wear a qipao to her prom.  Leftist snowflakes see it as cultural appropriation, and somehow a bad thing to be condemned in profane rants.  I prefer to see it as a beautiful picture of the meeting of two cultures, a Western girl wearing a Chinese dress because she likes the way she looks in it.

I like my way of thinking better.  A lot better.

Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

What Was That Dinner For, Anyway?

I'm still a bit fried about the disgusting performance by the comedian at the White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday, at least enough for a second column.

Unfortunately, a few additional facts have come to light, and a little more news has crept out, and it's not particularly flattering.  For example, as it turns out (I didn't know, though most people did, I guess), Michelle Wolf, the comic in question, works for The Daily Show, which is a Comedy Central program commenting on the news in a very-left, very anti-President Trump spin.  Apparently, last year's comedian was also from that show.

I realize that the year's comedian is selected at the discretion of the president of the correspondents' association that year, but there is a message implicit in the selection of people from the same anti-Trump program in consecutive years.  In neither case, of course, did they circle back at the end and conclude with grace and a salute to the people just made fun of, but simply left contemptible smears hanging out there.

Yesterday I mentioned that in the 2013 dinner, in an attempt to be professional, then-association president Ed Henry of Fox News brought in Conan O'Brien, figuring that a real professional would cover both sides, really make fun of the press itself, and keep it fairly clean.  I encourage you to read the transcript (here it is for your perusal, please understand the transcription errors -- (http://lybio.net/conan-obrien-remarks-at-2013-white-house-correspondents-dinner-c-span/comedy).

As you see, all sides got tweaked -- not bashed, not profanely ridiculed, no sexual or fecal allusions.  It can be done, you see.  Of course, I don't know what O'Brien was actually paid to do the gig, but I'm betting it was a fairly substantial fee.

Why do I bring up the fee?  Because, at least nominally, the dinner is supposed to raise money for a bunch of $5,000 scholarships for journalism students.  The past few years, according to the Washingtonian, the percentage of WHCA revenues that go to scholarships has shrunk to only about 20%, so that even though the actual amount for those scholarships has been creeping up each year, it is still only about $100,000 from the 2018 event.

Imagine, if you will, what the fee to bring in Conan O'Brien was, including expenses.  Even a low-end comic like Michelle Wolf had to cost something non-trivial.  And yet, with all the well-heeled aristocrats of the publishing industry, with all the tuxedoed celebrities in the audience, they couldn't raise more than $100,000 for the actual purpose of the dinner?

You've got people in that room who tip more than that in the powder room.

So what, pray tell, do you have when you are a member of the esteemed White House Correspondents Association, having worked hard at your profession to get to what is regarded as a high level in your industry?  You get to that point and your big evening turns out not only to have been a scummy, low-life bullying attack on (in the case of Sarah Sanders) a person who is not given the opportunity to respond, but the stars you hang out with are too cheap even to kick in a respectable amount to the charity the whole event is nominally held for.  Imagine.

Imagine that you are a 20-year-old kid in college.  You apply for a 2018 WHCA scholarship to help your career in journalism (no laughing, please) for which you are studying at a school where the tuition is $25,000 a year.  You are notified that you won, but all those stars of network news, all those millionaire and billionaire celebrities at the event contribute so little that you (and each of the other 19 awardees) get a whole $5,000, enough for two months of your tuition and barely worth the application.

Then you read a transcript of the remarks by the guest comedian, and they are full of profanity, full of gross sexual references, utterly one-sided, bullying to a guest, and without even an apology thereafter.  Do you look at the scholarship you just got, and think, "You know, I think I would be more embarrassed to accept these crumbs from those people, than I would to stand up for integrity, journalistic independence and principle, and tell them to give their trivial contribution as tips to the wait staff for the evening."

Once upon a time I was a 20-year-old kid in college.  Two months' tuition at MIT back in 1972 was $540 in that area's dollars.  I was borrowing like crazy to get through four years.  I would have had a hard time saying "no" to a $540 scholarship.  But I would like to think that I would also have had a hard time taking money from people who think that Michelle Wolf is their idea of how to raise charity funds.

I wonder what today's journalism students think.

Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

Apologies Are in Order

I would imagine that at least some of you saw (at least) clips of the White House Correspondents Association dinner over the weekend.  I didn't watch it live or taped, preferring to see a baseball game or a seven-year-old binge-watch of Big Brother, or a blank screen, to watching the dinner.

I did, however, read through the full transcript of the words spoken by the guest "comedian", in this case Michelle Wolf.  I can't really say anything about her personally, as I had never heard of her before, and personal comments probably aren't worthwhile in this piece.

The first I heard of what she had said was on the news, which was in clips that were noteworthy for the audible gasps of shock by attendees, and the notable lack of laughter in the large and crowded venue.  The gasps were a bit surprising in and of themselves, since the overwhelming majority of the audience were between left-leaning and left-fallen-completely-over.  But they were clearly reacting to what we would call "way over the top", personal, sexual and excretory references when trying to make fun of the president and his press secretary.

I heard, the next morning, a good description of how the "comedian" gets the gig.  The president of the Association selects the comic for the dinner and, we'd like to think, gives the guest comedian at least a rundown on the boundaries for the evening.  Ed Henry, then the Fox correspondent and president of the WHCA a couple three years back, invited Conan O'Brien, wanting someone professional enough to understand those limits.

"Professional" would not have applied to Miss Wolf, certainly not given the reaction to her words -- clearly she managed to offend liberals, which is normally easy to do, fragile people that they are, but who are not usually offended when it is one of their own doing the offending.

In this case, the embarrassing words were directed at Sarah Sanders, the press secretary, who it should be pointed out was an invited guest, actually up on the dais.  Mrs. Sanders was not invited to a roast of Sarah Sanders, if you get my point.  But the words from Miss Wolf were personal, incredibly bullying, and unpleasant, particularly when directed at the one person the White House press corps needs to work with to gain access.

Mrs. Sanders, it should also be noted, has actually facilitated access to President Trump that the correspondents never got with Barack Obama, as this president is actually willing to communicate with the press, as exemplified by the informal Q&A sessions he has on the White House lawn shortly before leaving on trips.

To her eternal credit, Mrs. Sanders showed far more grace in gritting her teeth at her dais seat and saying nothing -- and, of course, not being given an opportunity to -- than Miss Wolf may in her entire life.

I only heard excerpts, censored for television, on the news yesterday morning.  When I read the full transcript, I was truly shocked at the profanity and use of words that we don't use in public if we have a shred of dignity.  Here it is, if you need to read it.  I certainly do not need to, a second time.

Is this humor today?  Is this what comedians are paid to do anymore?

I think that the WHCA president needs, particularly in light of the reaction by the disgusted audience, to issue a public apology to Mrs. Sanders, and perhaps anyone else equally attacked.  I also hope that Mrs. Sanders, in her press briefing today, finds the most classy way to respond in her introduction before taking questions.

I'm not holding my breath, but it sure would be a positive gesture by the Association, both for themselves, for professional women everywhere, and for lovers of cleaner comedy.

Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

What Do YOU Say, Barry?

So the president's nominee to be the Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Rear Admiral Ronny Jackson, has pulled his name from consideration.  That took place yesterday morning in the wake of an odd distribution of a list of alleged sins, given out by Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), who coincidentally is running for reelection in a state that President Trump carried strongly in 2016.

Dr. Jackson denies the allegations, including crashing a car while drunk after a Secret Service party and over-prescribing sleeping pills, calling them "false" and other things that would characterize them as having not actually happened.  I can imagine a Senate committee hearing and having to keep answering "No, that never happened and is a false and fabricated narrative" over and over to people who aren't going to vote for you anyway.

Now, the good doctor is not just "a" physician; he was the physician to three presidents, and one of those was the saint of the left, Barack Hussein Obama.  Obama was kind enough to have written glowing performance evaluations of Dr. Jackson in his position as the president's physician -- highest-grade type of thing.  Glowing reports.  No mention of sleeping pills or parties.

Barack Obama has not been a shrinking violet in his post-presidential life.  He's no Hillary Clinton, of course, grabbing the spotlight every day to defend his meager honor, but he is certainly not the Bush #43, retire-quietly-and-make-no-comments type.  Most recently, he spoke at a sports conference recently, a bit scandalous because no one was allowed to bring any recording device in, under penalty of forcible removal (someone did anyway, much to Obama's acute embarrassment when it came out what he had said).

[Aside -- as I wrote here, I was a contestant on America's Got Talent as part of a singing group about ten years back.  The day we went before the judges -- Piers Morgan, Sharon Osborne and David Hasselhoff -- we were told that we were NOT to record anything or take a recording device on stage, and particularly could not record the judges' comments.  Let the record show that I did, anyway, and yes, we got the votes to go through to the next round, and I made a recording of their comments and votes.  They heard it here first.  Sorry, Piers.]

While it is only a day since Dr. Jackson withdrew his name, I'm going to go on record and say that no one has -- and more importantly, no one will -- stick a mic under the former-presidential nose of Mr. Obama and ask for his comment.  The logical question would be this:

"Mr. Obama, Admiral Jackson was your personal physician for years, and you were so impressed by him and his performance that you gave him the highest ratings in his personnel evaluation -- the highest ratings -- and those ratings are a matter of public record.  Now he is being accused of some terrible things by your party, and he has been forced to withdraw from consideration as VA secretary.  

1. What, sir, did you miss?  
2. If you were aware of all those allegations, why did you give him such a high rating?
3. If you were unaware of them, who failed you in reporting such information?
4. If you defend your rating, then why are you not standing up for Dr. Jackson right now?

The press corps these days is not exactly the most courageous group of individuals, but I would think at least one of them would troop on down to Obama's current Shadow Government office and ask him those questions with a camera trained on the former president.

Anyone have the guts?

Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

Greatest Experiences: #47

It is no secret to those who read this column that for 25 years of my life my principal hobby was singing barbershop harmony, and that I had been with an exceedingly good group over that time -- one that had, more despite my presence than because of it, won several world championships.

Certainly being announced as a gold medalist in about anything is a really great moment.  I particularly recall the first one (1986), as it had been my very first international competition, and the third one (1995), when our group had been thought to have slipped a bit the previous few years and were not the expected winners.  The comeback -- ah, we really love that.

However, I want to say that the particularly most memorable experience I had in the hobby was not even as a competitor but as an audience member.  It was one that I wish I could share, but at this writing, I only have an undigitized VHS tape and no way to link it for you to appreciate.  So I'll have to go with words.

The year was 1993 (yes, I hate writing trite phrases, so forgive me).  The world championships that year were in Calgary, Alberta, as the Barbershop Harmony Society (formerly "SPEBSQSA") was also very active in Canada as it was in the USA.  The Alexandria Harmonizers, my group, would go on to finish third that year later in the week, a pretty disappointing result for us -- but I digress.

One of the annual convention highlights is the "AIC Show", held on the second or third day of the convention week.  The AIC is the Association of International Champions, but is made up only of those who have won by singing in a quartet.  We're talking maybe 100 living members at any one time, given that some guys have won in multiple groups.  And when a quartet wins, they are "retired" from competition, and no more than two members can even compete together in a new group.

These are some seriously good singers, even those whose wins had been a couple decades earlier.  In the AIC's show, most of the time is taken by 3-4 song sets by those five or six quartets still active at any time.  But there is a set done by a chorus made up of all the living champion quartet singers who attend the convention and choose to participate.  And as you might guess, even without choreography, that's a pretty good-singing chorus.

In 1993 in Calgary, the AIC actually produced two shows, an afternoon and an evening, as they knew it would be one of the most highly-attended conventions on record.  I had tickets to both for some reason.  For the afternoon, I was in a very good side balcony seat with my best friend Dave, who was a Naval Reserve officer as well as the bass in my quartet at that time.

There had been an overarching theme to the show (and the week) of Canadian-American friendship and good will and all, but that had mainly been just a few jokes by each quartet during their set.  The AIC chorus (remember, they were really good singers) came out for their set to end the evening, a few more jokes, some more nice words for Canadian-American friendship.

Then came the final number.

The director of the AIC chorus then was named Jay Giallombardo, a Chicagoan who was in the 1979 champion quartet.  He would also win chorus gold as a director in 2001 to become one of a very few men to have done both.  Jay was also, and still is, a very highly sought-out coach and a prolific arranger -- the arrangements, and the skill of the arranger, are often underappreciated factors in a song's impact, and we knew the last song would be his work.

It was time for the finale, and as the lights dimmed, two quartets -- the 1990 and 1991 champions -- stepped off the chorus risers, and each took its place before stand-mics, one each on stage left and right.

I will say that there had already been a little buzz that the finale would be a real treat, but we didn't know what actually to expect.  The pitch was blown, and the sound of the words "America" and O Canada" -- just those words -- sung by the chorus in beautiful harmony, echoed around us, through to a held chord.

While that chord was held, one of the quartets began, to the Beethoven melody "Ode to Joy":

"In the Western Hemisphere two peoples living side by side"

... to which the other quartet responded:

"Each a nation strong filled with determination and with pride"

As the remaining chorus filled out the sound, they continued ... and I hope you're hearing the Beethoven melody of this:

"Each a brother helping brother, each a land of liberty
'Tis strength that binds us, none divide us, bastions of democracy
 Ever watchful, ever-peaceful, ever faithful is our plea
Never failing, all-prevailing is our global destiny

"Our destiny ... two lands so free
Ever faithful is our plea to live in peace and harmony

"Oh, say, can you see -- two peoples living side by side
O Canada -- each nation strong and filled with pride
With glowing hearts we see thee rise -- each loving peace and harmony
And the rockets' red glare -- the price we bear for precious liberty

"O Canada ... America ...O Canada ... America!" (long held chord, and a pause)

You might guess that the audience was pretty geared up by what we had heard just to that point.  Now as you could easily tell, the tune of the last verse alternated between the two nations' anthems and the Ode to Joy, because, of course the two anthems don't actually, you know, fit together.

Yeah, sure they don't.

Jay again raised his arms to direct, and the lower parts of the chorus carefully began the "Star-Spangled Banner."  Before they reached the second word, the upper voices began an equally carefully-phrased "O Canada."  The arranged mixture of the two melodies, and the realization of what we were obviously hearing and about to hear, blended with the ambience of Can-Am passion and friendship, and the audience rose as one.  We wanted to cheer, but we were musicians in the presence of a miracle, and we more wanted to hear.  And the chorus continued.

Artfully they sang, as artfully the arrangement wound the two anthems around each other throughout.  As the two songs approached their dramatic climax, two figures appeared from the wings -- a tall Canadian Mountie in full dress red carrying his nation's flag, and an equally tall American soldier, an Army sergeant carrying the Stars and Stripes -- each man marching toward center stage, where they and their flags met as the final bars echoed around us to the last chord.

I can tell you from the videotape that the cheer that rose from the four or five thousand in the Saddledome, the split second after the final cutoff, was so loud, so overwhelming, that even when listening to the recording that cheer is almost as memorable as the piece itself.  We were all yelling to each other in awe of what we had just heard -- not only the performance but the brilliance of the arranger in what he had given us ... "But those songs don't fit together!"  "Well, I guess they do!"  If I had been standing next to a Canadian, I'd have hugged him.  It was just Dave, and he's from Albuquerque, so a high-five worked.



Truly I wish that I could find a link to a recording of that day, and I will provide it in a comment below if, and as soon as, I can find a digitized version.  If you are anxious to hear the piece right now, you can listen to this version, a studio version done by Acoustix (the 1990 champions who happened to have been one of the two quartets in the Calgary performance) -- it is musically fabulous, though obviously a quartet redubbed to sound like a chorus, and it's just audio, of course, and without audience.  There is a also video of a 2006 performance on YouTube at another AIC show if you want to search it, but it the video is blurry and the audio not balanced well.

We have moments like that in our lives, if we are lucky.  I'm sure I have not adequately described the electricity inside the Saddledome that day, but when the medium of the experience is music, it is hard to have only words at your disposal.  As I write this, I feel I have still under-described the electricity there.

I've got to get you that recording.

Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

The Right-Wing Media Ecosystem -- Am I Part of That?

I know it is probably trite to keep saying this, but it's not really my fault.  After all, I am perfectly capable of going on to write about all manner of different things, even topics unrelated to politics.  Like sports, or entertainment, or having to set a production of "The Mikado" in Italy to avoid "cultural appropriation."  But I have to say it, because the news is what the news is.

Hillary Clinton refuses to go away.

Now she is back -- OK, she never goes away, so "back" may not be the right word -- but appearing once again, in front of something called the PEN World Voices conference, with yet a new message for the unwashed masses who dared to pull a "Not Hillary" lever in 2016, and presumably for those who pulled one for "Her" as well.

It has become a joke to rename all the excuses she has given since November 2016 for losing the election -- Barack Obama, James Comey, Fox News, CNN, stupid people, smart people, her campaign manager, her husband, Superman, Otis Redding and Chiquita Banana.

And now we get to add a phrase I had not heard before, but which I did find, in a search, as dating back right after the election.  That would be the "Right-Wing Media Ecosystem", which I will abbreviate to "RWME" because I'm old and don't feel like spelling it out three more times.  According to Hillary, "mainstream political coverage was influenced by the right-wing media ecosystem and other factors to depart from normal journalistic standards."

I'm not 100% sure that I know what that term, RWME, is supposed to refer to, but I did do a tad of research, and have determined that it has to do with outlets like Breitbart, which last I checked were equally protected by the First Amendment as are all the "mainstream" media, where there was pretty much universal support of Hillary.

Apparently, according to her, there are efforts underway to crack down on conservative outlets to "avoid errors that helped Trump into the White House."  I actually don't know what those efforts are or, more pointedly, who is making them.  After all, the media do not police themselves too much, being protected by the Constitution and all.  They have ombudsmen and the like, but they can pretty much say whatever they want.  But the FBI can't do anything, nor can state or local police.

She also felt that it was vital for people to battle "fake news" by buying newspapers like the Washington Post, which she actually named, presumably meaning newspapers where the editorial policy influences reporting.  That's because the notion of "fake news" applies to the Post as surely as it does anywhere else (see my 5-6 pieces about the fake rape story at UVa, and their unwillingness to publish the name of the perpetrator).

"It can’t only be journalists who stand up and speak out", she said. "We can all do more. We can all subscribe to newspapers. We can support libraries and schools that teach media literacy to young people, and empower them to be thoughtful readers and consumers of news.”  Note: I don't have a handy list of those "libraries and schools" that teach media literacy, but I'm guessing that they're concentrated in New York, California and Massachusetts.

So I'm going to try to get some of that "support" by teaching media literacy  and thoughtful news consumption right here in this column, and hope that many of you who read this will "support" me by sending a fat check or two to make sure this column survives.  And I'm going to tweet this column to Mrs. Clinton herself to see if she will back up her puffy words with hard-earned cash.

Media Literacy Lesson #1

1.  The media LIE.  Constantly.  If their typesetting machines are moving, you can assume that the likelihood of their story being true is next to zero.  Or less.

2.  Most important -- "media" is a plural.  The media are this or that.  Media is the plural of "medium" and should thus always be treated as a plural.  Sorry; had to get that in, but consider it a lesson.

3.  The mainstream media are biased, overwhelmingly to the left -- meaning the news sections at at ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, with Fox on the other side.  They are biased that way because people who go into journalism are mostly there because they have nowhere else to go, not being smart enough to major in math or engineering or business or physics.  Lacking the intelligence, they really need that government help that the left promises.  Ironically, they think you are stupid, which is precisely what Jim Acosta of CNN just said in public.  If he thinks Trump voters' elevators "might not hit all floors", as I literally heard him say thirty minutes ago, how can you trust him to report on that president accurately?

4.  Newspapers are very good to line bird cages or litter boxes with, because the media have gotten to the point that you cannot trust the independent thinking of the reporter or the editor to avoid having personal bias creep in.  Extra credit note -- that also affects Hollywood, where 99% of the shows feel the need to preach to you when they should be trying to make you laugh.  Reporters do the same thing.

5.  The people who listen to the news from the "RWME", like Breitbart, are going to vote for conservatives no matter what they listen to.  All those blue-collar types in the states Hillary mostly ignored, like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio, didn't vote for Donald Trump because Breitbart told them to, but because Hillary had nothing for them but four more years of what Obama had done to them the previous eight.

There -- I have now taught media literacy and should be entitled to "support."  After all, I was writing this column daily during the election season, and UberThoughtsUSA should definitely be included in the RWME given some of the things I wrote.  But I can also help with that education thing that Hillary was talking about, and surely she expects that support should apply to all voices, right?  Diversity of opinions?

Look -- she lost the election and simply won't go away.  Worse, instead of going off to build houses for the poor like Jimmy Carter, she is on a non-stop whine and cheese tour, ostensibly to sell her book about -- guess what, troops -- why she lost the election.

Can you imagine if she had won?  Gag.

Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
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Barbara and Robin, and Contact Lenses

I was able to see an hour of the broadcast of the funeral of former first lady Barbara Bush, who was, of course, one of two women in our nation's history to have been both first lady and the mother of a president.  That seems about an every-200-years event, but I would bet one tenth of the baby-shoe money that it will happen again, sooner than we think.  Apparently we have made the cult of personality into a dynastic thing, to where children of presidents are thought to be logical successors.  Thank you, Twitter, I guess.

At any rate, the funeral was quite beautiful, with perhaps less of the sadness and more of the uplifting and celebratory parts, as would befit a situation where the person had lived a very long life, and for whom it can be said that they had won the battle of life.  Barbara Bush, who passed away at 92, certainly could have that said about her.  It did strike me how very not-sad the event seemed to be, and in her case, at her age, with her accomplishments, that was a good thing.

Among all the tweeting about her passing and the funeral -- and a lot of people should be ashamed for wasting bits and bytes on negatives, and for publishing them -- there was one wonderful reaction that got my attention.  It was from the Mississippi-based cartoonist Marshall Ramsey, and it alluded to a sad and defining moment in Mrs. Bush's life.

Back in 1953, the Bushes' second child and first daughter, Pauline Robinson "Robin" Bush, had died of leukemia shortly before turning four years old.  We had read over the years, and particularly recently, how the death of her daughter had affected Mrs. Bush so dramatically, as we might have readily assumed, but perhaps more than we'll ever know.  The Bushes began a fund for research into the disease, having gone to extraordinary lengths to explore treatment options in those early days of research.

As Mrs. Bush was in her final days and receiving palliative care, and the news spread about her being in her final days on earth, it was frequently noted that she had indeed lost a daughter 65 years back, and that she might soon be reunited in Heaven.

Mr. Ramsey apparently took notice, with this tweet:

#BarbaraBush was tough, witty, blunt, protective and beloved by many. But she also suffered one of the most painful losses a parent can face. I pray she and her daughter Robin are together today. No parent should lose a child.

... and with this cartoon, via the Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger:

I wear contact lenses, as I have for 49 years.  They are the "hard" kind, as opposed to the disposables and, as such, while they provide better vision than soft lenses can, they are also susceptible to a bit of dust getting underneath them, particularly when it's a bit windy or the golf cart is going a bit too fast.  When that happens, and I'm outside and can't remove them, it is really helpful to be able to generate tears on demand to flush out the microscopic debris.

I now have a pretty good image of the above cartoon engraved in my memory, subject to being recalled as needed.  I'm pretty sure I won't have a lot of difficulty with my contacts outdoors anymore.

RIP, Mrs. Bush, and Robin too.  And thank you, Mr. Ramsey.  Thank you so much.

Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

What to Do with Comey Now?

The name of former FBI Director James Comey is on, oh, so many news programs these days as he runs around the country peddling his book, called ... oh, I forgot.  It was some pompous title like "Above the Fray", or "Nannie Nannie Boo Boo" or something that was supposed to portray that he is wonderful and non-partisan and the rest of us are, well, not.

The left doesn't quite know what to do with Comey.

He is one of the 4,266 (and growing number of) reasons, according to Hillary Clinton, that she lost the 2016 election.  By the way, #4,266 was a "right-wing media ecosystem", according to a speech she gave at Cooper Union over the weekend (presumably for a fee about a tenth of what the Russians paid her).  I'll have to get to that pretty soon, along with the smirky grin she gave while saying those words.

So the former FBI Director is now in the headlines, although not all of them are what he might want to see on a book tour.  You see, someone is lying now, and/or has been, among the interesting trio of former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, and the formerly respected James Comey.  The lies are implicit in contradictions among their public statements and sworn testimony before a congressional committee.

We know that at least one of those lying is Comey, since he has testified both to never asking anyone to leak classified or sensitive material (all material created at the FBI is at least sensitive, in that employees are sworn not to release any of it without permission), and then to having given such information to a professor to leak it to the media.

We know that Lynch is strongly suspect, since if you are to believe Comey, she asked him to refer to the Hillary Clinton investigation as a "matter", meaning that she wanted it not to rise to a more scrutinized level (so that, we assume, Lynch would still have a job in a Hillary administration).  We also know that McCabe was part of some as-yet-unclear conspiracy at the FBI with Peter Strzok and Lisa Page to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president and, more particularly, to do something to him if he were to be elected.

So among the three of them, along with Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General to whom Comey actually reported and who ultimately fired him, there is a lot of lying going on, specifically as regards that leaking of classified material, not to mention potentially conspiring to bring down a presidency.

What, indeed, should become of Comey?

We, of course, are a nation of laws.  And the answer is simply that Mr. Comey needs to be (as he is) the subject of a criminal referral for the confessed leaking of classified or sensitive material in violation of his agreement with the United States of America not to do that, and the laws governing the handling of such material.  If he wants to go out and sell books about his life, well, he is free to do that.  He may need a lot of cash for the legal fees to keep him out of jail, so he'd better hope a lot of Democrats buy his book.

Oh wait, they hate him too, and wanted him fired right before the election.  Of course they probably think he is a hero now, because President Trump had him fired, and as we see with the promising news on North Korea that the leftist outlets are pooh-poohing, "good" is defined as "anything against President Trump."  So they might buy the book.  I won't be, and please don't give me a copy.  I am allergic to sanctimony.

At any rate, since I mentioned that we are a nation of laws, Comey should be properly investigated for the leaks and for possible perjury, and be properly punished if indeed he is charged and convicted.  But we do wonder if today's Justice Department could even summon the collective will to punish one of "its own" swamp denizens.  Peter Strzok, incredibly, still works there, as does Lisa Page.  Not only are they not being investigated, they're still working there.

I do think that the Comey book will serve the good legal purpose of keeping his name out in front for long enough to where the discussion of his possible perjury and passing of classified material will practically force a criminal case to be pressed.

Last week on the news, some Democrat commenter noted that he had just been to the FBI for a few minutes (or words to the effect that he had not been over there for very long) and that "Comey was a legend over there."  Now, I've been to the FBI many times in my time, and the next time that someone mentions the name of the current director in the course of normal conversation will, I assure you, be the first.

So I picked up the phone and called a friend of mine who worked there and is regularly in the know.  Let's just say the word "legend" was accurate, but not in the positive way that the Democrat was suggesting he picked up in "a few minutes" of being there.  FBI agents respect the law and are very contemptuous of those who violate their sacred trust.

Let it go to court, and Comey can make his case there, again under oath, that he did no wrong.  We're all waiting.

Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

Still Waiting for "Jackie's" Prosecution

We all remember the tumult at the University of Virginia a couple years back.  Oh, the earth spun a little slower, or faster -- metaphors fail me when it comes to stuff like this.

At any rate, you surely remember.  A woman named Jackie Coakley, who was a student at UVa at the time, had an issue with a boy who was not paying her enough attention, or didn't see her as a romantic interest, or something like that.  She decided to get the attention she wanted, by making up a completely baseless story about having been gang-raped at a fraternity house, Phi Kappa Psi.

She was then connected to the good folks at Rolling Stone magazine, which ignored all journalistic standards by publishing the account -- calling her just "Jackie" to protect her identity, mind you -- without doing a shred of research to validate any of the facts of the story.  Had they done so, of course, they might have realized that some of the names in the account didn't exist, and that there was no party at all at the Phi Psi house on the night Miss Coakley claimed to have been assaulted -- at, she claimed, a party.

Rolling Stone ran the story anyway, to their journalistic and financial detriment.  Teresa Sullivan, the president of UVa, promptly shut down all the fraternities and, bizarrely, the sororities as well (don't ask), in a "ready, fire, aim" response, without allowing even the Phi Psis the due process to point out all the inaccuracies that made the article suspect.

Ultimately, Rolling Stone got sued, paid out a big settlement to get out from under their own stupidity, and took a big black eye as far as journalistic competence.  The collateral damage included a UVa dean, as well as the entire Greek system there and, well, no one thinks a lot of Teresa Sullivan anymore either.  Rolling Stone was hardly innocent, but this whole episode cost them whatever reputation remained.

All of this, we might point out, happened only because a petulant, amoral female student wanted attention, and because the climate against sexual assault has risen to where the assumption is of guilt rather than innocence.  We must, apparently, not give out the names of accusers even after they have been shown to be liars.  And no one, from a university president on down, or on up, gets the notion that due process for the accused is actually a core principle of our justice system, to be applied before punishment is meted out.

So where is good old Jackie Coakley these days?

Well, she is married and is now "Jackie McGovern", living her life, la-la-la, scot-free despite being the central figure in a mammoth fraud that has cost people their jobs, institutions their reputations, and a magazine a spitload of money.

And nobody -- nobody -- appears willing to take her to task, either in a civil suit (Rolling Stone might want to think about that) or in a criminal case, given that she perpetrated a massive fraud with some pretty serious consequences and material damages.

Why not?

I have no assumption to make as to whether she has not been sued because she is a shallow pocket, incapable of affording a large settlement in a civil suit.  But I have a pretty good notion that she violated some serious criminal statutes; after all, participating in a fraud involving the mails (a magazine) or wire (somewhere along the line) is a Federal issue.  Where are the Feds?

There is certainly a good argument to make that it is often necessary to prosecute as a deterrent to the next person willing to try the same felonious act.  I have argued in these pages that the FBI needs to go hard against the Clinton Foundation for just that reason, lest the next powerful person or couple use a phony-baloney charitable entity to disguise an influence-peddling scam.

Given the anti-violence, anti-rape climate we are in, it is imperative that equally phony-baloney accusers like Jackie Coakley McGovern are hauled into court and toted off to prison, lest rape accusations equate to a cry of "Wolf!", to become a weapon of revenge.

Where, we ask, are the Federal cops?  You all know where she is.

Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

Where Yahoo Fails at Whatever It Is It Thinks It Does

I don't exactly know anymore what Yahoo, one of the older Silicon Valley "technology" companies, does anymore.  Back in the day, we remember it being a search engine and that was pretty much it.  If you wanted to know something from the Internet, you had a choice of search engines to use, like Lycos or Yahoo or a couple others I can't recall, or Ask Jeeves, before it became mostly Google.

And we got to the Internet using Netscape or Mosaic or something.   Ah, the good old days.

But Yahoo is still around, as are the others, I suppose.  And like Facebook, Twitter and other indefinable technology services from the same part of leftist America, it has what we would call a "news feed."

Now, news feeds, which are simply links to headlines that are from news services, mainly online mainstream or lesser media, are plentiful.  So, of course, are those links, which is why there is some type of thought that needs to go into deciding what link will sit at the top of the list.

That thought is necessary, because the top of the list is the most likely to be linked to, which means someone has to use some kind of choosing method (an algorithm, since everything moves too fast for a human) to decide what goes on top and immediately thereafter, and what you particularly would want to see.

Now, in a better world, all of those links would be to impartially-reported stories of broad interest, not tilted much to one side or another.  That would be a better world, all right, and actually possible to do if, indeed, there ever were such articles, or ever were such reporters capable of, you know, reporting.

Nope, none of those and apparently no unbiased presentation algorithms either.

Certainly that is not the case at Yahoo, which as I mentioned is located in Silicon Valley, where there are 10,000 safe-space snowflake types for every actual conservative.  Apparently.  Certainly that ratio must be fairly close as regards Yahoo employees.

I say that because at 1pm Eastern Time yesterday, I happened to click on the Yahoo news feed, only to find it led by a headline -- so help me God -- that positioned as the most important story on the planet, one with the following headline:

"Twitter Users Shred Donald Trump over Barbara Bush Tribute Typo"

You may think I am making this up, but no, that story was at the tippy-top of the links, meaning that we were supposed to regard it is the most significant thing that had happened for which there was a linkable article.

Well, I had to read it, of course.  As it turns out, the White House Communications Office (not the president himself) had put out a message expressing respect for the former First Lady on her passing at 92 this week.  It had a date on it of April 2017, as opposed to 2018.  When President Trump tweeted a link to it, or copied the content into his tweet, the typo on the date was till there.

The article was in the "Huffington Post", a far-left, online-only medium which Yahoo points to a lot, so we can readily infer that it pays Yahoo a lot for that privilege, even though there isn't any real "reporting" to be found there.

But even if you can reasonably scratch your head as to why this "story" should be linked to at all by Yahoo's news feed, let alone positioned as the most important story, let me really make you scratch your head.

The article was not actually about the typo, which it sort of explained was not the president's doing but was that of the White House.  It was -- follow this -- about what people with no more qualification to comment than their possession of a Twitter account, had said about President Trump.  Got it?  The article was not about the typo, but about what Internet trolls of the living-in-mother's-basement variety were writing.

This was apparently important to Yahoo, based on where the link was positioned.  But who exactly was supposed to care what the Mom's basement types barfed up on Twitter?  How did reporting on that represent actual news, or even a diversion from news?  Remember (and I looked) -- these Twitter users were pretty much all writing from the presumption that the president himself had made the typo, which meant that all that "shredding" they were doing was fundamentally in error to start with.

I wrote sometime, not that long ago, how we seemed to have lost the news media as a remotely reliable source of what was actually happening.  I think the "seemed" is no longer apt; that the news media are no longer serving any possible role that can be called the service of the nation.  As they waltz through life with Constitutional protection -- and I would never change that -- I have to scratch my own head and ask if the First Amendment has allowed a monstrous perversion of what the Founders envisioned.

Because if the most important story on the planet is about a bunch of misinformed people tweeting, perhaps it's a happy place after all.

Except, I suppose, for their mothers.

Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

God Rest Ye, Mrs. 41

We are saddened to hear of the passing of Barbara Bush, the First Lady from 1989 to 1993, wife of George Herbert Walker Bush, the 41st President and mother of George W. Bush, the 43rd President, a curious confluence that she shared only with Abigail Adams.

She brought a dignity and maternal (and grand-maternal) hominess to the role, along with a respect for the institution and a deference after leaving the White House that we could only wish her immediate and second-subsequent successors in the role could have learned.

Ninety-two years is a long life, and in her case one that only the sad trolls of Al Gore's Amazing Internet will take issue with.  May the Lord rest her and keep her, and cause His face to shine upon her forever.

Bless you, ma'am.

Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

A Legitimate Legal Role -- and Defense -- for Facebook

Once again, I want to write about Facebook, which is still ironic in that I still don't have a Facebook account and so don't actually use the product.

But I do not have to be a user of Facebook, or even a fan, to feel that some of the legal precedents that are about to drop down on us, from legislators and judges who barely understand the technology, may cause serious issues down the road if extrapolated in the wrong direction.

Last week I noted that we have to be careful about the criminal and civil liability that we ascribe to the medium, whether Facebook or Twitter or whatever.  We don't hold the U.S. Postal Service liable when bomb threats are mailed -- in fact, USPS is protected by statutes that make it specifically illegal to use the mail for that purpose.

Keep that thought.

I contend that for whatever little I think of Facebook and the leftists that run it, they are entitled to legal protection, and the expectation that legal precedents will be consistent when applied to them.  If they are not facilitating terrorists or radicals, but merely fairly providing the same platform they provide to everyone else, then they are (or should be) absolved of legal liability for what goes across their wires, same as the USPS.

So -- what should Facebook actually do?

They're going to identify the bad actors, because they can.  We know that.  They're not going to identify all the bad actors, because that would take far too much effort to be reasonable.  Moreover, the decision as to what should and should not be allowed on their wires should not be so regulated as to impose liability itself, given how subjective that is.

What is "reasonable" is for there to be a process that the law and the courts recognize as being appropriate.

What I believe that process to be is that Facebook and its ilk should facilitate the reporting of such bad actors by its users themselves, and set up a team big enough to provide a cursory, "triage" review of such items, posts, pictures and posters reported to them as suspect.  If indeed there is an issue that may represent an illegality, then they report it to law enforcement, with the expectation that the FBI or other entity (I think we're talking FBI) will take appropriate action.

But Facebook will, under my concept, neither shut down nor suspend that account until directed to by request from law enforcement.  That removes non-badged, political types in Silicon Valley from making their own decision as to whether, say, Diamond and Silk, the two black conservative sisters who are social media icons, are "unsafe" for the tender snowflake ears of their user community, and absent specific FBI direction, will not and may not do their own enforcement.

Facebook gains the presumption of protection from excessive liability.  Their users, as long as they are not violating the law or making overt threats, can use Facebook to their hearts' content and make money the way that people make money on Facebook, however one does that.

Mark Zuckerberg would have to decide whether his leftism or his wallet is more important, but that's his decision.  I know what I would say.  And I think that the above needs to be negotiated with the Federal government with input from the courts before -- what a novel thought -- case law puts it in the hands of the wrong court.

Let's talk about it, shall we?

Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton