Donald Trump: The Hair Apparent?

I think I've figured out the appeal of The Donald.

Trump appeals to the inner jerk in all of us. The guy is a successful asshole. Many people get the asshole part right but can't figure out the "successful" part. I think these people are among his biggest supporters.

Trump's genius skill set is playing the Media like it's his personal Stradivarius.  When it comes to sussing out how it's being played, the Media does so with all the skill of Charlie Brown running up to the football Lucy is holding. And, to be honest, they serve each other's needs quite nicely. The result: The perfect trade. Good ratings straight up for Self-Adoration. No draft picks involved. The legion of Media haters love this.

Most of us let our weaknesses harm us. Not the Donald. He's a guy who knows he appeals to bald guys and the combover brigade by flaunting his ridiculous hair. And surprise surprise surprise--lots of people don't like our friends from South of the border.

But alas there is no there, there, when it comes to Donald the public servant. He's all hat and no saddle. Or all horse and no stirrups. All wind and no Tumbleweed? Whatever, I think he's bright enough to know how stupid it would be to elect him President of these United States.

So I think he's in it not to win it, but to pump up the Trump Brand.  I'm no shrink and it's always hard to evaluate Megalomania, of course, so that part's a little less clear.  I may have misunderestimated his Ego, to borrow a word from a former President.

Also, Trump may be starting to believe his own crap. Wouldn't be the first time it happened in politics.

Call me a cockeyed optimist--and I've been called worse--but I'd like to think after a while Trump will semi-intentionally self-destruct and leave the GOP to select among the remainder of its band of venal idiots.

Fox "News" Channel Sez Pope Most Dangerous Man on Earth

Really?  I knew those charlatans, idiots, and self-centered buffoons at Fox were beyond shame, but didn't know they were beyond the pale.

Why would the Catholic Church's spiritual leader be considered "the most dangerous man on Earth?" More so even than Vladimir Putin, or whoever is running ISIS these days, or the little fat man with the square hair in Korea, or heads of cartels, terrorist cells, or the Taliban. 

Pope Francis is compassionate, he's kind, he's inclusive of mankind beyond the one percent Fox "News" caters to. But that hardly seems enough to insure The Wrath of Fox. Must have been something the Pope wrote. Or said.

I Googled the story because it didn't seem possible, but by golly, it pretty much is. 

Someone named Greg Gutfeld, who hosts a show on Fox "News," said it. I've never watched one of Mr. Gutfeld's offerings, but as near as I can tell from publicity photos his major claim to fame is he's one of the few hosts at Fox who is not blond.

It did not say if he was an abused Altar boy, which might explain his enmity toward the Catholic Church or--and I believe this is important--what qualifies him to judge relative danger of world figures.

Then I think I figured it out. It must be that Global Climate Change thing. Yup. The Pope's agin it. I guess this man, who doesn't have vested financial interest in saving the planet, threatens those who insist its destruction is justifiable to make their lives better. Big Oil, Big Transportation and Big Finance see this little man in the big hat as a threat.

By trying to keep our grandchildren alive--including mine--Pope Francis has been turned into a hate object by an irresponsible man representing himself as a journalist, or even more outrageously, as a human being.

Okay, this "PointCounterPoint" poster may suffer from hyperbole itself. Fox "News" didn't exactly announce that they'd selected His Holiness as Baddy of the Year. But the silence that has followed Gutfeld's comment is telling. 

No one at Fox "News" Channel appears upset or disturbed by this. As near as I can tell, no Fox "News" official or Talent has objected. (Talent is a generic term for on-air people, not an evaluation of the on-air person's actual skill set.") 

I know a lot of people will dismiss this as just Fox being Fox, much as many felt it was just Hitler being Hitler back in the day. 

How often will Fox "News" have to expose it's greed-driven, unAmerican, unconscionable incivility before Americans get a clue what they are up to?

I won't say Fox is pure evil if only because there is nothing pure about it.

Why I (Still) Write

I once wrote for money. I wrote for the high. I wrote for ego, for a shot at the great big wheel of fame. I wrote because that meant I got to tell the lawyers and salesmen of my acquaintance that I was a writer. I wrote because people who are smarter than me told me I was pretty good at it. I wrote to get out of real work. (Since rewriting is real work, sometimes I wrote to get out of rewriting.) 

Editor, smiling

I wrote for an editor’s smile. I wrote because people would say “I read what you wrote.” I wrote because sometimes people would say “I wish I was a writer.” I wrote because words matter. Because they’re there, and their spelling and correct usage was important. 

I wrote because it got my unpretty face on television. I wrote for television because I got more money for fewer words, my handsome children got educated, and my beautiful wife and family had shelter and food provided by a husband who wrote. 

I wrote when my hand got farther from the outrider horses of the merry-go-round and I could no longer reach the brass ring dispenser. I wrote when I felt my limitations were permanent, my future finite, my most dream-worthy goals unreachable. I wrote when I felt the slippage. I wrote as a pitcher might continue to pitch when a late-in-life sinker arrived in time to replace his heat. (For me, that was Google, the answer to a lazy-researcher’s prayer.) 

And now I still write when there is no money to be made, there is no need to write, there is that big number next to my name that declares to the world that I need toil no more. I write now that the easy chair is an entitlement, the pressure is off, the race is mostly run, the readers moved on, the fresh streams of talent in place. 

I write now because…because…because…because ... dammit... I still love to write.

(This was originally written for the blog, http://jacklimpert.com.  Jack, 40 years editor of  The Washingtonian Magazine--that's him above, smiling--gave me my first big break as a writer and deserves much of the credit for my success. He was kind enough to add these words.) 

"John Corcoran got published by the Washingtonian because he could write funny—about one in 100 writers, sometimes it seemed like one in 1,000, could consistently write funny. He then got paid well by television stations in Washington, Boston, and Los Angeles because they also thought he had that gift. I think he wrote because he loved to make people smile."