Life is funny.
There’s this.
And then there’s what passes for armed law enforcement in Europe.
Where the goops just stand around while this kind of barbarity happens:
And the supine socialists keep voting for their totalitarian slavemasters. Tax us. Rule us. Rape us. Kill us. Vi in.
When you’ve watched as many brilliant Brit TV detective series as we have, there are certain things you can count on. (We’ll get to the Scandinavians and French and Germans and Russians later.) In the U.K., Detective Chief Inspectors on TV are 60 percent female, and they can barely make it to work because of their family complications and personal problems. But they are 100 percent effective. And fearless and aggressive. Because Female. You know. Prime Suspect. Vera. Happy Valley, Blue Murder, Murder in Suburbia.
The male DCIs are equally effective, just not as acute. They tend to wander, postpone, lollygag, you know, the way of men. Then they watch a teapot boiling and get the epiphany after three or four are already in the morgue. Midsomer Murders, George Gently, Foyle’s War, Grantchester, Broadchurch, and Blaine & Pasco.
What we have learned. The Brits never actually interrogate. They idle by your place of work, ask a few piquant questions, then meander away. The typical Brit police interview room, sans cobwebs:
Interrogation Room
Then, when after a few days and many more cups of tea they get the idea you’ve been lying they COME BACK TO YOUR PLACE OF BUSINESS and threaten to charge you with perverting the course of justice. Which results in the current glut of U.K. prisoners convicted of perverting the course of justice:
After all the idling and meandering and desultory inquiries are done, it usually transpires that a chase is required because too much has been left too long and nobody is carrying a sidearm. Which leads to the final impotent chase and two more innocent victims.
And then a lot of standing around, nihilistic muttering, and closing credits.
It is one of the biggest, most lethal, and most fearsome of all venomous snakes. Being struck by a taipan, it is said, is like being hit by a sledgehammer. Its principal prey is rats.
It is also physically imposing, a thing of gold.
Even the fearless Steve Irwin sweated bullets when he wrangled one for his television show.
Why am I bringing this up? Because while we all acknowledge that politicians are reptiles, most of them are far less dangerous than a taipan. We’re all used to the usual cold-blooded ones — the constrictor rat snakes and black snakes and bottom feeder nests of garter snakes who inhabit the drab holes of D.C. Offices.
Eew.
We know about the lizards small and big in the mass media…
We know about the omniscient anchors and pundits…
And we even know about the vast strangling, suffocating, and devouring departments and agencies of the imperial U.S. government.
And the Bushes…
And the Clintons…
And, you know, Reagan.
All of which means the reptile world of American politics is in no way prepared to understand President Trump. They’ve been hunting him for a couple of years now, and every time they think they have him, he turns and strikes them like a hammer, with a venom that killed their credibility long ago and paralyzed their ability to respond. They thought they had fangs or the constrictor power to kill him. His venom has robbed them of both strength and lucidity.
Other parts of the world recognize nothing but power, speed, strength, and potency of venom. Figuratively speaking, Trump’s taipan is from a different continent than they know, and he overwhelms the cobras and mambas and vipers and coral snakes of the predatory outside world Americans have forgotten about.
He is unpredictable, incredibly swift, big, and scary. This does not mean they want to go up against him. Quite the contrary. He taught them in a single stroke that America is no longer a slithering sneak on the world stage as it has been for the last eight years. The Democrats have been remarkably slow to discover the power of his venom. The world at large isn’t as dumb or slow as tortoises and snapping turtles. They’ve already learned a lesson the Trump haters of all stripes just don’t get. He’s the most powerful snake in the global zoo. That was the point of the airstrike. The Middle East got it. The Chinese got it. The Russians got it. Even the Pakistanis got it. Doesn’t matter what they say, they got it. And Trump had a nice dinner afterwards with Emperor Xi. If you think the world isn’t still afraid of Aegis destroyers, American aircraft carriers, and the most formidable Air Force on the planet, take a sedative and some warm milk and go to bed.
P.S. Alternative and completely counterintuitive music for those who understand the concept of three dimensional chess, which I recently discussed with my friend Patrick vis a vis Trump. Lucidity is a rare gift. If you don’t have it, you’ll never know you don’t.
Michael White is supposed to be the best clarinet in the world. Maybe he is. But I’ll go with this guy.
He was a white guy, and he liked white guy jazz. For example:
But he was also devoted to these guys. Go figure.
He was a good and fair man, my father. He just hid it well.
Women think they’re better. They love better. They think better. They move better. Wrong. They mimic better. They fake better. And they know mostly nothing.
So there’s always a trick, right?
And a twist. I was certain that the Doris Day Camille Paglia hates so much would have this song on YouTube. Not so. She has this instead.
The one you love is always up to you.
Jake and Elwood hanging out.
Before they got convicted.
Then Jake got out. And Elwood came to pick him up.
Elwood was anxious to please.
Elwood wants Gahd.
Jake was, well, just Jake.
Jake kind of IS Gahd, only with shorter legs.
What they think they’re riding around in. We can live with that.
So. Our guys can handle anything. Elwood is big. Jake swings the whip.
The rest of the time they sleep. Until it’s time to go bye-byes.
Comey. “You’ve got me for 6 and a half more years.”
My favorite Pauline Kael movie review was of Godfather 2. She thought Al Pacino’s performance was genius. Without ever moving his face, he descended from war hero to soulless gangster by rotting inside on camera. She was right.
Rot shows. Doesn’t it?
Toothpick Wisdumb.
Actor Richard Dreyfuss says he made a mistake in voting for Hillary Clinton in 2016, but that didn’t mean he had nice things to say about President Donald Trump.
In an interview Tuesday on Fox News’ Your World with Neil Cavuto, the Oscar-winning actor and star of the new FOX show Shots Fired said he did vote for Clinton “and I regret it.”
“Because Hillary is too much of a bought-and-paid-for Wall Street…” Dreyfuss explained, trailing off.
When asked about tax reform and the president’s proposed defense budget spending increases, Dreyfuss replied by calling Trump an “idiot” who should not have been elected president.
“I think he’s an idiot. I think that Donald Trump is not the one to be trusted about any of the details,” Dreyfuss said, adding that Trump is “something, like with a big funny nose.”
“Donald Trump, regardless of his party, lacks simple common decency and he should not be in the presidency,” the actor said referring to Trump’s rhetoric toward his Republican rivals during the presidential campaign.
“Right on, dude,” his twin said. “Think I’ll get me one of them cool toothpicks. Cheaper sign of no class than a tattoo, right?”
It should be noted that Richard Dreyfuss has every right to call Donald Trump an idiot. Trump is only a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. Dreyfuss on the other hand attended the far more prestigious San Fernando Valley State College for almost a year before he dropped out to become a conscientious objector. Not as a battlefield medic but as an orderly. In California. Ghandian-like credentials, n’est-ce pas?
Recidivism pays.
Redemption waits.