Here is how he is described in a recent book by the writer Timothy Ryback, who has published numerous books on Hitler — the latest is 53 DAYS — HOW HITLER DISMANTLED A DEMOCRACY (in that case, the Weimar Republic’s constitutional structure, which was tottering under the weight of WWI reparations, inflation off the charts, civil unrest and weak leaders).

So, Ryback writes, quoting in part Theodor Huess, a Reichstag delegate who had been appalled by Hitler since his initial political forays:

“Heuss marveled at Hitler’s uncanny ability to shape events and narratives to his advantage. Hitler, Heuss claimed, was possessed of an ‘oversensitive vanity’ that was quick to detect any perceived ‘insult or disrespect,’ along with an insatiable need to be the center of attention, always, anywhere, everywhere. ‘He not only claims, but demands that nothing happens without him,’ Heuss observed. And when it did, Hitler invariably found a way to redirect attention to him[self] and shape perceptions and narratives to suit his needs.”

Now, I could have tried to pass this off as remarks made by somebody about Trump for a ‘gotcha’ effect. But we’re all adults here. We know what a Hitlerian figure Trump is. I only post this because as I read it I thought, ‘well, wouldn’t it be nice if every MAGA supporter had to read it, too,” and then I realized, that would only reconfirm the old saying, “I can explain it TO you, but I can’t understand it FOR you.”

If you had to choose between Donald J. Trump and the man pictured above to deliver an analysis of, well, just about anything, what does your gut tell you? Yeah, you’d probably go with the guy in the plain suit at the old desk who looks like he has spent his life thinking about stuff. And you’d be right. He has — or did — spend his whole life thinking about stuff….

That is Willard Van Orman Quine, one of the great philosophers of epistemology, logic and analytic thought. Taught at Harvard for about 25 years. Recognized as one of the most important philosophers of the 20th Century. Brilliant. Respected. Yada yada yada….

Like Karl Popper, another philosopher of logic and analytic thought, and, years earlier, Pierre Duhem, Quine thought a lot about how we know stuff, and how we KNOW what we think we know; how analysis of what we think we know should (and often does not) work, or, pertinent to this Substack post, “how theories explain shit.” Without going down the rabbit hole of Quine’s TWO DOGMAS OF EMPIRICISM, or the so-called Duhem-Quine Thesis, let me sum it up this way:

FOR A THEORY TO BE TRUE, IT MUST BE VERIFIABLE, i.e., testable, i.e., you have to be able to PROVE and/or DISPROVE it. With observations, tests, logic, science and analysis.

We all know this to be true, from common, everyday experience, and some not so common experiences. A. “I think my neighbor stole my pruning shears”; B. “I believe the moon is made of green cheese”; C. “I think if we bomb Iran YUGELY they will give up like what’s-his-name in Venezeula and we will be heroes!”

These are just theories that you can test, i.e., verify, i.e., prove or disprove. Quine and Popper and Duhem would say, easy-peasy (ok, Popper spoke German, and academic level English, so maybe easy-peasy would not be in his vocabulary). That is, the theories — as diverse in their natures as they may be, each could be tested in a method by which you can prove or disprove them. I.e., verify them as true or false.

A. THE PRUNING SHEERS HYPOTHESIS

If you look over the fence and see the pruning shears, sitting in your neighbor’s tool box, the theory that he stole them has been (at least partially) confirmed or verified. Now, it may be that you loaned them to him and forgot about it, so maybe just asking the neighbor to return them rather than calling the FBI is a good idea, but the basic theory — that the idiot next door has your sheers — has been involved in a verification process, and that process appears to confirm your thesis. If the guy says, “hey, those are my sheers because I stole them from you and possession is nine tenths of the law,” they your full theory is confirmed, i.e., verified.

THE MOON AND GREEN CHEESE

So, how do we test this “theory”? Simple. Send a space ship up to the moon, take core samples. Analyze said samples. No cheese? Oh, well, toss that theory out (remember that for later, kids: TOSS IT THE FUCK OUT).

BOMB, BOMB, BOMB, BOMB, BOMB IRAN

Send in the missiles. Send in the bunker busters. Blow shit up. Get the airplanes up in the air. Bomb the stuffings out of Iran. Kill the ayatollah. Kill the Iranian Guard soldiers. Kill some school children, too, while you’re at it, just to make sure the world knows you are a bunch of psychotic, imbecilic incompetents (I’m talking to YOU, Whiskey Pete!). Repeat for a week or ten days and wait for the Iranians to capitulate, as your theory predicts.

Oops…they took a licking but kept on ticking? What’s that you say, they closed the Straits of Hormuz instead of prostrating themselves before the mighty might of Donald the Great, thereby driving oil and hence gas up 20, 30 or 40%? My bad. Looks like our theory of capitulation did not work. Verification process disproves the theory. Conclusion: Uh, bomb some more and lie about everything, including the number of American servicemen and women killed (hey, it worked so well during Covid: “…it will all just disappear and only eleven people have died. Ignore the refrigerators outside the hospitals across the country with dead bodies in them.”) and then they will capitulate.

A month later? Hm…not so good. Two months later…still shitty. BOMB SOME MORE, or, as Bullwinkle J. Moose said, “this time, for sure!”*

Which bring us to: Trump and Pirro and Blanche, who are fucking liars, and stupid, too.

They create theories like, An Olympian Canoer destroyed the reflecting pool and we can prove it, Judge. And then they actually put that theory to the test of a Grand Jury and get an indictment (I must’ve put 100 cases into the grand jury, and let me tell you, it is easy to lead them to the conclusion you want, but only a scumbag would do so if he believed that outcome was not actually supported by the facts and law: hear that, Pirro? When you lose your law license, don’t cry too loud).

And when the theory falls apart, when the US ATTY for the DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, who brought the case to the GJ has to admit she has no fucking evidence to support the claim (theory), she knows she has to withdraw the charges. The theory presented to the GJ has been disproved. I.e., it was negatively verified. Humiliating for Pirro, fer shure. But she sent her little Asst US Atty minions in to fall on their swords, at least.

And what does Diaper Donnie do?

He, of course, doubles down, berating Pirro as an idiot — which she is, but for other reasons — insisting that it was vandalism all along. He is the fool that Popper and Quine detested: he will not ever admit error, NO MATTER HOW MUCH EVIDENCE TENDS TO DISPROVE HIS THEORY.

Which brings me to a deeper point to be made: How Maga Views the World and Theorizes About It.

The deepest meaning of what Popper and Quine and Duhem, and the other proponents of logic and epistemological clarity, were suggesting is this: a theory that cannot submit to a logical verification process is empty. It tells you nothing. If all evidence can be, for example, rejected as “fake news,” and if all logic is “lies,” then any theory can explain anything. E.g., GOD EXISTS: ok, if you’re a believer, great — but your faith is FAITH, not science. And I assume you would not want it any other way. But if you try to prove scientifically that god exists, you will fail. Why? Because all evidence you submit proves God exists and NO evidence and NO logic and NO analysis can disprove it. Ever. To a person of faith. Your faith is firm, but your theory — qua theory — is not. That does not mean that God does not exist, it just means that within the confines of logic and science and epistemological thought, I can neither confirm nor deny the hypothesis; i.e., I cannot verify your ‘theory,’ because it will admit of NO verification analysis that will disprove it….

Because it is not a theory at all, it is FAITH. If every flower that blooms, and kitten that purrs and cancer that kills and war that destroys confirms the existence of god, and NOTHING can ever disprove it, that is not a theory at all.

Enter MAGA: everything they believe, they believe to be 100% true and, worse, un-disprovable, if you will. There is nothing you can say or do, no logic, no evidence, no thought, that can dissuade them from their conspiracy theories, e.g. The pizza parlor where Hillary and the DEMS tortured and killed children? They never found it. Why? Well, MAGAts will tell you the evidence was hidden or destroyed or covered up. And when you extend that position to its logical, absurd end: the theory can never be disproved — or proved — because everything is a lie, a coverup, or fake.

And Quine and Popper would just shake their heads, light their pipes, settle into their chairs at their respective universities. Because people who are in a position where everything supports their view and nothing could ever fail to support it, are not theorizing, they are believing.

And one last notion: theories that cannot be disproved are empty. Meaningless. Void of sense. And to a true MAGAt, everything they believe is always true and cannot be disproved, like the Pizza Parlor that disappeared forever: all evidence supports their theory, and the theory becomes nonsense.

Beam me up, Willard, there is not intelligent life here.

I do not read: not books, not newspapers, not magazines. Or mail. Especially not mail.

I do not watch television. I do not own a television on which not to watch it.

I do not go to the movies, and the movies do not come to me in the form of VHS or DVD or downloads or streaming, especially not on Netflix. They do not appear to be so inclined.

I do not listen to the radio; not at home or in my car, not on my boat or via the internet. If there’s another way to listen to the radio, I don’t do that either. I do not own a boat. Or a car.

I don’t answer the phone. Not for the past five years. Maybe six.

I don’t have email but if I did I wouldn’t read it or respond to it. I swear.

I do not know what a podcast is, but if I did, I would not use it, do it, listen to it, watch it, up or download it, whichever is appropriate.

I don’t talk to my neighbors. They don’t talk to me.

I don’t go to family reunions. I’m not invited. Nor would I go if I were.

I don’t go to weddings; they don’t want me there. I don’t want to be there. It all works out. Or funerals.

I don’t attend church, regularly or irregularly. Or synagogue. Or temple.

I don’t go to malls, strip or otherwise. Or departments stores. I have worn the same clothes for the past five years. Maybe six.

I don’t have a bank. As a consequence, I don’t have a bank account, checking or savings. I pay my bills in cash. I ride my bike to pay my bills, by cash, if you were wondering.

I do not own a pet. Never have. I have nothing against animals, but who am I to tell another sentient being what to do?

I don’t date.

I don’t have sex. Not for the past five years. Maybe six.

I don’t climb trees. Or mountains. Or ladders.

I don’t swim in my pool, because I do not have a pool. If I had one, I would not swim in it.

I don’t tread on my mill.

I don’t carpool, commute, telecommute or conference call.

I do not own a turntable or tape player or cassette or reel-to-reel or CD player. Do they still make such things? And who are they?

I don’t have a job, so I am not regularly exposed at a water cooler to the views of others on matters about which I have no knowledge. Do they still have water coolers?

I cannot name the President of the United States; I would not name him if I could.

I cannot tell you who won the Super Bowl, World Series, Stanley Cup, World Cup, Tour de France, US Open, British Open, French Open or The Masters or who medaled -- gold, silver or bronze -- at the last Olympics. I do not know when or where they were held.

I do not know when the Dodgers moved from wherever they were to wherever they went.

I do not recall the name of the actress or actor who won the Academy Award, if such things are still being awarded.

The Nobel Prizes in Medicine, Peace, Physics, Literature and Chemistry were won by people whose names do not escape me because I do not know them.

The cause of the current war between the United States and somebody else is a matter of utter mystery to me; for accuracy’s sake, I note that I merely assume the United States is at war with somebody; I do not know this to be the case.

If the US Senate passed a bill to reform whatever needs reforming, I wouldn’t know.

If the US Congress went along with the US Senate, it’d be news to me.

If the President of the United States either signed or vetoed such a bill, I have not heard.

I am unaware of the current status of relations between Germany and France, diplomatic, intellectual, fiscal, martial or otherwise.

The last great natural disaster -- if it has occurred -- has entirely escaped my notice, and I, its.

When my former wife died, I did not go to the gravesite for her burial. If she has not died, I apologize.

I do not mow the lawn -- it is now over four feet high in my front yard; much lower in the back yard. I cannot account for the discrepancy.

I do not cook; I open.

I do not clean; I dispose.

While I am not categorically opposed to the notion of the automobile, I do not own one.

I do not know my zip code. Because I do not read my mail, this does not matter.

I lack a work office. I am not concerned about this.

I have not seen another person naked in five years. Maybe six.

I do not shave.

I do not dedicate the fruits of my efforts to any deity. There are no efforts. Nor fruits. Nor deities, as far as I can discern.

I cannot open a web browser for the simple reason that I have no computer. Nor would I open one if I had either.

I do not go to live musical performances and they show no inclination to come to me.

I do not care to pursue employment. Employment seems scarcely to take cognizance of my existence.

I have barred from my premises the following: people I know, people I do not know, solicitors, sales people, delivery men, hand bill distributors, political canvassers, religious zealots, fraudulent religious zealots, the mailman, the tax man, the iceman, the milkman, the paper delivery boy, or any man or woman from the Departments of Water, Power, Health, Buildings or Human Services, in fact, from any Department, Division, Bureau or Center whatsoever.

I do not receive unannounced visitors; I accept no announcements of intent to visit.

I do not go to parties, soirees, get-togethers, jamborees, mixers, luaus, jubilees, socials, sock-hops, housewarmings, sleepovers or slumber parties. I am never invited. I never accept invitations.

I do not chit chat, gossip, prattle, chatter, chew the fat, yap, yak, yatter or yammer; neither do I indulge in badinage, persiflage or other idol exchanges. Nor would you want me to.

I do not entertain questions or accept suggestions.

I do not permit others to influence me or induce me to accept the influence of third parties.

I have no contact with my neighbors -- neither north, south or east. To the west is a highway. I have never been on it.

I do not contribute to charity or accept it from others. It is never offered.

I do not vote.

I am not registered to vote.

I do not complete surveys.

I do not pay income tax -- I have no income.

I do not condone marriage between the races, between the sexes or between or among different religions -- I do not condone marriage. Neither do I condemn it.

I do not accept the notion of free love, free thinking, free lunch, free rides, free passes or free time. Of freedom of speech. Nothing is free.

I do not recognize the validity of Einstein’s Theories of Relativity, Special or General. Neither do I accept Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. Of that, I am almost sure.

I do not care whether dog catchers catch dogs or dog walkers walk dogs.

I have no driver’s license, birth certificate, credit card, ID card, debit card, gift card, parking pass or passport.

I cannot produce my grammar school, middle school, high school, college or law school diploma, or choose not to. I did not attend law school.

I do not know your name, your child’s name, your spouse’s name, your brother’s name, your sister’s name, your father’s name, your mother’s name or your aunts’ or uncles’ names. Did I mention that I do not know your name? Please do not tell me your name.

I do not have a medical record, military service record, employment history record, finger print record, dental record or criminal record. If I did, I would deny said circumstance, and you could not prove otherwise.

I do not fly in planes. Nor should you.

I do not sail in boats. Not any more.

I can not deliver to the proper authorities a deed of any of the following types: in trust, in lieu of trust, in perpetuity, by the entirety, joint or separate. No one has ever asked.

My driveway has no car parked in it. If you or anybody else park there, your or their car will be removed.

I do not speak, neither of my own accord or when spoken to.

I do not listen, so please do not speak to me.

I cannot indicate a political preference. If I could, I would not.

I do not attend the theater, neither movie or legitimate.

I do not subscribe to: The NY Times, The Chicago Tribune, The LA Times, The Time of London, The Daily News, The NY Post, The Miami Herald, The Washington Post, The SF Chronicle, The Wall Street Journal, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Houston Chronicle, The Boston Glove, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the St. Petersburg Times, The Baltimore Sun, USA Today, the Denver Post/Rocky Mountain News, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, The Atlanta Journal, The San Jose Mercury News, The Fresno Bee, The Toledo Blade or the Charlotte Observer. Neither do I read them.

I cannot give an account of my whereabouts during the last twenty-four hours. If I could, I would refuse.

If nominated, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve.

If push comes to shove, I will push back. Hard.

I am utterly and entirely without conviction, and can conclusively prove it.

I cannot perform the Marseillaise, not on piano, saxaphone, tuba, glockenspiel, cello, oboe, viola di gamba or kazoo. If I could, I would not. I do not know the words to the Marseillaise, either in English or French.

I have issued no memorable statements in my lifetime.

I do not participate in team activities.

I am indifferent to the state of affairs of those around me, if there is indeed anyone around me.

I do not care about the opinions of others.

Any opinions of my own will remain so.

I do not choose to continue.

Thank you.

Our Chief Washington Correspondent, Mahatma Kane Jeeves, has secured an exclusive interview with the senior senator from the State of Kentucky, Mitch McConnell, who was last seen by members of the independent press twenty-five days ago. McConnell, who was first elected to the senate forty years ago, was rushed to the hospital on June 14, following what may have been a heart attack. His office has refused since to disclose specific details about his condition, and nobody outside of his staff and, allegedly, other republican members of the senate, have spoken to the senator. His wife, former Secretary of Transportation, Elaine Chao, has been in China since her husband was hospitalized, and has not spoken to the press about McConnell’s health.

Herein is our exclusive interview.

JEEVES: Senator, it has been almost four weeks since you appeared in public, giving rise to rumors that you have been completely incapacitated, or indeed, were dead. Your comment, sir?

McCONNELL:

JEEVES: Would you care to discuss the nature of your illness?

McCONNELL:

JEEVES: Senator, without your vote, it has become very difficult for the Republican senate majority to initiate or pass legislation. Do you anticipate returning to the chamber soon?

McCONNELL:

JEEVES: Along those lines, several of your colleagues in what has been called the world’s greatest deliberative body, have told reporters that they had sustained conversations with you in the last few days. What did you discuss with them, and did you advise them of when you thought you might return to work?

McCONNELL:

JEEVES: Your wife, former transportation secretary, Elaine Chao, has been away from your side since you were hospitalized. As she holds the power to make end-of-life medical decisions on your behalf, some have suggested it was your idea she travel to China?

McCONNELL:

JEEVES: Senator, some people have suggested that Donald Trump should be removed from office, after exhibiting obvious signs of dementia. Just recently, he referred to Japan as The Islamic Republic of Japan and addressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “Vladimir Putin,” with whom the former is engaged in a bitter war. Do you think Trump should resign or be removed?

McCONNELL:

JEEVES: Trump has also been observed falling asleep in critical meetings, wandering off in the wrong direction during state events, during which he literally had to be guided to the right position. Does Trump’s obvious incapacities worry you, as he is the man with the so-called nuclear codes?

McCONNELL:

JEEVES: One final question, before we let you get back to your important work, Senator: do you anticipate running for re-election, now, despite your previous remarks that it may be time to move aside so that younger men, like Chuck Grassley of Iowa, 93, might take the helm?

McCONNELL:

JEEVES: Thank you so much for your time, Senator.

— by Archibald MacLeish

The young dead soldiers do not speak.

Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses:

who has not heard them?

They have a silence that speaks for them at night

and when the clock counts.

They say: We were young. We have died.

Remember us.

They say: We have done what we could

but until it is finished it is not done.

They say: We have given our lives but until it is finished

no one can know what our lives gave.

They say: Our deaths are not ours: they are yours,

they will mean what you make them.

They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for

peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say,

it is you who must say this.

We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning.

We were young, they say. We have died; remember us.

On the Sunday before Memorial Day, as we wince and seethe under the yoke of this rapacious, cowardly, excremental administration, let’s remember those who gave their lives in The Revolutionary War and The Civil War and WWI and WWII and Korea and Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan and everywhere else that they gave their last full measure of devotion, and let us dedicate ourselves, to saving that which they sacrificed for......

And so, give their deaths meaning………………

And, indeed, Malaparte’s chameleon political shifts were significant because whether in his fascist or communist moment, the writer sought to embrace and install singular, supreme authority as a means to eradicate chaos, as a path to order, to, in the end, the modern nation-state. His choice to embrace the strongman, the dictator, as a goal to that end, was perhaps not illogical, but clearly in its results inefficacious and arguably immoral (whether Mussolini or Hitler or Stalin or Mao, the strongman ruling as a sole authority has almost always ended in catastrophe. And, whereas the WWII era dictators died in desperate, dark bunkers or at the end of a rope, while the communist strong men passed away in their beds in their later years, both sets of strongmen brought about the deaths of tens of millions of their subjects and the imposition of systems detrimental to the entire world order).

But in contemplating the strongmen of that time, and thinking of our own era, one must reflect on the conditions in early-twentieth century Italy and Germany — which conditions helped give rise to fascism — and one must keep in front of mind that the former had been a singular nation only since 1861, and Germany since 1871, and the subsequent experiment in democracy, the weakling Weimar Republic, had only been created in 1918. These relatively new creations — fascist Italy and Germany — were in delicate health from the beginning, stunted by complications arising out of birth: to wit, Italian and German heterogeneity, that is, the diversity of their parts, which gave rise to weak bonds of democracy that could not resist the call to dictatorship, to the virus of fascism. Italy fell prey early on — Mussolini, a preposterously stupid and vainglorious man — seized on the sick patient, reviving it momentarily. And the burdens of the Versailles treaty doomed the Weimar democracy like a virulent tuberculous, and it fell prey to Hitler’s call to Nazism finally in 1933.

Similarly, the Soviet Union, which of course came to be in 1917, was a forced conglomeration of smaller, diverse, disparate political entities into a purportedly but finally chaotic and, ultimately, unsustainable whole; the various Soviet republics shared as much in common as a Inuit seal hunter and a South American vegetable farmer. China as a national, communist entity was born as late as 1949, and the various clans and tribes of that ancient entity were brought to rein with brutality and desperation. Their communist strongmen — Stalin, literally ‘man of steel’ and Chairman Mao — ruled for decades with little or no serious challenge to their position, but certainly the former was not a success whereas the latter can be seen as a remarkable exception to the rule that dictatorships end in disaster.

But it is the very relative insufficiency of means of nourishment, of sustainability, that was to be found on the national grounds on to which these dictatorships were delivered — and flourished, for a while, and, in the case of Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and the Communist Soviet Union, died — that caused the collapse of the rule of the strongman, the failure of the dictator. These political entities, these young countries, forcibly or conveniently cobbled together from smaller estates or coerced into a monstrous Union, were, then, weak from the start.

What then, of America, in the age of the would-be strongman, Donald John Trump? Could it not be argued that our democracy was founded in a similar diverse and weak condition, and, like 1920’s Italy, like Germany in its modern construction, like The Soviet Union at its inception, and even China under Mao, is today in an unsustainable position, ripe for the strongman, who may or may not fall as did Mussolini and Hitler?

No, because America is not just a nation-state, not just a democracy and, unlike Italy and Germany and the Soviet Union/Russia, or China, not just an amalgamation of smaller states forced together to become an unnatural whole. We are a country bound by a single document, the Constitution, which survived the attempted rendering in the 1860s, and flourished for 160-odd years since, for a simple reason:

Unlike Italy and Germany and the Soviet Union — and China — we are not a static group thrust together, pushed into a boundary and, like a pot of potatoes, left to boil and mush together until the remains are neither nourishing nor palatable.

Rather, we are a living and developing nation, still. We are always growing as a population and an ideology, never stagnant. We are more than a nation, we are an experiment — often horrendously misguided, yes — that is still being conducted even as we suffer at the ineptitude and inexperience and foul greed of Trump. And it is the very fact that our experiment is ongoing that will enable us to shrug off the yoke of this billionaire yokel, huckster and fraud.

Melville said it thusly: “you cannot spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood of the who world,” meaning that the America he knew, and that I suggest is very much alive today, was and is a vibrant, growing thing. He continued, “we are not a narrow tribe of men,” and ended by writing, “our blood is the flood of the Amazon, made up of a thousand noble currents…we are not a nation, so much as a world.”

Of course, there are mighty impediments to our Amazon, as Melville called it. The Supreme Court of the United States has today, April 30, issued a ruling that basically strips away the protections of the Voting Rights Act, in a way that has prompted the New York Times to publish today with a banner headline:

JUSTICES REJECT DISTRICT MAP IN LOUISIANA

DECISION DEALS BLOW TO VOTING RIGHTS ACT

In this 6-3 decision, Justice Sammy “the Shill” Alito — who must be impeached as soon as the Dems retake the House in November — basically said that unless you have proof positive that the reason a gerrymandered district was created was to dilute or eradicate the voting powers of Black Americans, you’re out of luck. Sammy basically wants an email somewhere that says, “hey, Grand Wizard, if we do X, Y or Z, the colored folk’s votes won’t count a hair,” you cannot challenge a district’s creation.

And, of course, there are many other hurdles to the race to justice in America: a cowardly House controlled by the GOP/MAGAts, which will do nothing to impede the loathsome cad in the White House. One wag quipped, “I am glad the American Congress did not live to see this day.”

And the Senate is controlled by doddering old white man so near death “their lives are hardly worth the name” (to paraphrase a line from THE BIG SLEEP starring Bogart and Bacall).

But in the end, we are not Weimar Germany, or pre-Fascist Italy, or pre-Mao China. And the protests on NO KINGS DAY, and the recent polling showing MAGA and Trump cratering reminds me that you can indeed fool most of the people most of the time, but Trump ain’t fooling anybody anymore.

So, in support of Jim Comey, let me add:

86 - 47 - 25 by which I mean, remove Trump via the 25th Amendment.

And as a foot not to the Comey indictment, there is NOTHING ANYWHERE in literature, or film, or tv that shows “86” as a reference to killing or physically harming anyone. Google it. Claude it. Chat GPT it. Grok it. NOTHING THERE. Anywhere. That indictment will not survive a motion to dismiss.

I’ve never visited New Orleans, and now I suppose I never shall. I only knew the Big Easy through the eyes and ears of my friend and colleague, Eric Overmyer, who loved it, and the music that issued forth from it like the cracking bark of a shattering B-sharp through a well-oiled slide trombone or from a jumpy jazz accordion accompanied by a clattering washboard — loved it so much that he co-created with David Simon the tv series TREME, which focused on the lives of New Orleans musicians in a post-hurricane-Katrina world. Knowing Eric, I have a sneaking hunch he may have created the show just as an excuse to hang there with the musicians and their music and enjoy the “red beans and rice” of which Tom Waits sang.

I should have asked him, at one of our many sushi lunches, if my hunch was correct. After all, this is the man who, when we left the AMAZON series MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, lamented that the only thing he’d miss were the free trips to Vancouver (an observation with which I concurred).

Sadly, I will never get the chance.

Eric Ellis Overmyer passed on March 16th, leaving a beautiful family — his wife Ellen and children Lily and Katie — for whom the loss is as deep and subtle as was his writing and his wit.

For me, I have lost a music buddy, a friend with whom I loved to talk about music and, when in the same city, catch a show. Chris Smither is appearing at McCabes in Santa Monica? I always knew to get him a ticket. If Jorma Kaukonen was in town — LA or NYC — I didn’t have to ask, just buy Eric a seat.

But it was that talking about the music we enjoyed as much, if not more than the concerts. If I mentioned Keith Jarret, he’d argue that while The Koln Concert was superb, it was not his greatest work (an analysis with which I could not concur), and seek to prove it by deep reference to Jarret’s body of work. A single reference to Paul Simon’s Graceland might take us on an hours-long detour into the simple rhythms of The Boyoyo Boys, as compared to the astounding complexities of The Pan African Orchestra or the soulful groans of Mahlathini. And, having come to third-world and African-roots music a little earlier than Eric, I like to think I often held my own in these discussions.

But when we shifted our focus to his particular love, the unique music of New Orleans, I was out of my depth. From Armstrong to Domino to Batiste, but especially the zydeco giants like Clifton Chenier or any of the many lesser-known Creole-centric musicians like Chris Ardoin or Lil’ Nathan, he knew and loved them all. And I think he must have felt my education in this area was sorely lacking: on my 50th birthday Eric gave me literally dozens of CD’s of Zydeco musicians.

I like to believe I returned the favor. I mentioned once the Tom Waits song, I wish I was in New Orleans, a soulful, sad lament of a man missing his home town, in which he sang, “I can see it in my dreams,” and of wanting nothing more than to stroll “arm-in-arm down Burgundy, a bottle and my friends and me.” Astonishingly, Eric had never heard it. Don’t ask me how that is possible, but there we are. I pulled it up on some device and he thanked me for introducing it to him and I thanked him for allowing me to see it through a fresh pair of eyes that happened to belong to a man to whom the city meant so much.

And it was this genre, and this place I’ve never been to, that gave us, first, a private, running gag, that served as an amusement to us, and, second, allowed us create an exclusive, subtle, common condemnation of the powers that be at the various studios and networks for whom we worked together, he as Show Runner, I often as his second-in command, or consigliere/enforcer.

First, to amuse ourselves, we used the jargon of New Orleans to refer to one another, he the Big Chief and I the Little Chief. The title of Big Chief is derived in part from a song written by Earl King — although there is some dispute about this — and first recorded by Professor Longhair, but the term itself comes from the Mardi Gras tradition of the various Indian groups of and around New Orleans who participate in the days-long celebrations in various parades. “Big Chief,” like “Spy Boy” or “Flag Boy,” is a character of importance or significance in the rich milieu of the Mardi Gras celebration. Little Chief was Eric’s creation of a title for me.

When the phone rang and it was Eric asking, “hey, Little Chief, what’re you working on,” I knew there was something he had on a back burner somewhere, and hopefully we would get to work on it together. Sometimes, I was already on a show and had to pass on the Big Chief’s project. But often, the timing was good, and I’d reply, “nothing much, Big Chief, what’s cookin’?”

And there were the cop shows and the lawyer shows, and crime shows, and there were sci-fi shows. Some were great, some stunk up the joint, but it was always a pleasure to work for and with Eric, because we both enjoyed the creation process, but also liked to do battle against what we considered the limitations and lack of imagination of the network and studio execs with whom we had to contend.

And it was out of this circumstance that the second New Orleans-influenced circumlocution we shared came.

In the 1953 song, Iko Iko, songwriter James “Sugar Boy” Crawford sang the lyrics most often associated with the 1965 cover by the Dixie Cups:

My grand-ma and your grand-ma were
Sit-tin’ by the fire
My grand-ma told
Your grand-ma I’m gon-na set your flag on fire….

Talk-in’ ‘bout, Hey now ! Hey now ! I-KO, I-KO, un-day
Jock-a-mo fee-no ai na-ne
Jock-a-mo fee na-ne

The song tells a story of a mock battle between two tribes of the Mardi Gras Indians, following that long tradition of the celebration of the holiday. “Iko Iko” itself is a claimed-victory chant and the final refrain of “Jock-a-mo fee na ne” is basically a rejection of the assertion of victory. In common parlance, it basically says, if you don’t like what the big chief says, jock-a-mo fee na ne, go fuck yourself.

Eric and I would get off a notes call with a network Big Chief, shake our heads and laugh, then mutter under our collective breath “jock-a-mo fee na ne,” as if we were going to kowtow to these dunderheads and ruin a scene or a script or a show just because some Big Chief thought he could tell us what to do.

Jock-a-mo fee na ne…….

Rest in Peace, Big Chief.

Bibi Netanyahu and Donald Trump are dancing a militarily waltz in Iran that has the world on the brink of ruinous chaos. And, unfortunately, neither of the two leaders seems to give a hoot. But the tune to which they now trip the light fantastic may be coming to an end, or evolving in such a way that the dance-partners-in-death may seek to, well, change partners. And that is because while the two men are the same, they are also different, in temperament and intellect and circumstance.

Bibi Netanyahu is a sociopath, but in a different way than Donald Trump is a sociopath (and while I colloquially call them sociopaths, truthfully, both are probably properly clinically diagnosable as having “antisocial personality disorder”). Bibi has exhibited the willingness to annihilate Palestinians — including children and the elderly — in order to maintain power in order to avoid going to jail. Trump has exhibited an utter lack of hesitation to unleash a brutal, untrained, untethered-to-any-policing-norms ICE on Americans — with the help of the love grand-child of Joseph Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler, Stephen Miller — both illegally and legally present, in order to appease his base in order to avoid going to jail. They — Bibi and Donald — do have that jail thing in common, and both have almost gleefully indulged in an immoral and illegal war against Iran, and, yes, both are almost certainly indictable under various notions of illegal war-making and possibly crimes against humanity, so they have that shared value.

But there are differences:

Bibi is cold and calculating and brilliant and vicious; a murderous thug who recognizes no bounds in the pursuit of his goals because that’s what a sociopath is and does. But, while Bibi probably intellectually recognizes the inhumanity of his conduct, Bibi also has, at least in part — in addition to avoiding the slammer — a superficially legitimate goal in mind: the security of a country, Israel, that he purports to love, and which certainly is in great jeopardy from many who hate it, whether out of anti-semitism of some other disgusting form of unhinged anger. The ruination of the Palestinians is to Bibi merely a means to both ends, as is the military strike on Iran, of ensuring the security of Israel — and that means is not only monstrous but imbecilic; it will only bring about the ultimate destruction of Israel — and keeping Bibi courtroom and jail cell free.

Trump is just plain, old stupid, and magnificently instinctive and ignorant and not really, truly vicious, because he is devoid of any understanding that his actions might actually result in vicious outcomes for others; and if he did understand that, he wouldn’t care. Trump has a different vision than Bibi; it is lower and fouler: it is the enrichment of Trump and his stupid spawn — Diaper Donnie, Jr., Eric and Dim, Ivanka the Whore of Babylon and her spouse The Weasel of the White House Jared (who, although an utter novice in the managment of hedge funds, got an infusion of $2 Billion from the Saudi sovereign fund; by that standard, I should be given a British Cricket team to manage, having never seen the game played). The destruction of undocumented immigrants is just a means to that enrichment end, as is the charade of “the war on Christmas.” Similarly, the disgusting disparagement of Barak Obama as foreign born is just another means to that dollar goal, as is the invasion of Venezuela and even the “incursion/excursion” into Iran via B-1 Bombers and Tomahawk missiles.

But here is where the waltz of the sociopaths is putting Bibi and Trump on a different tempo.

Bibi can logically continue his military cotillion until he runs out of ammo, because the Israeli population — rightfully or wrongly — supports him. Trump, on the other hand, needs to sit this number out, eventually — probably sooner than later — because the American people are turning against him. Indeed, Bibi must continue until he feels it is safe for him to retire from public life without fear of going to jail. Trump needs to keep the House and the Senate in the midterms if he is to continue to rape and pillage and stuff his coffers with money that is coming his way only because of the fact that he is in the White House and controls the Congress, as well (not to mention the Supreme Court). Bibi can keep on his excrementally-soiled dancing shoes for as long as he likes; Trump instinctively realizes that the last dance is nigh, because if the midterms are going to be as bad as the pollsters are indicating, he is fucked.

Now, of course, for Trump, there is also the concept of a Cha Cha of voter suppression via legislation and litigation, and the possibility of a far more intrusive and illegal Mambo a la DHS, with armed thugs interfering with the actual vote on Election Day. But that Trumpian hoedown is becoming less likely as spring and summer approach, which means fall and Election Day cannot be far behind, all while his approval ratings plummet, and the issue of the security of our democracy — an issue that not too long ago was not even in the top TWENTY-FIVE in the polls — is creeping into the top THREE. Trump is stupid, and he is disgusting, but his political instincts are world-class and he can feel the ball is coming to an end and he must get back to the coach before it turns into a pumpkin with bars.

So, it would appear likely that Bibi and Trump will likely soon part company, as the latter knows he must bow out quickly, now, as gas prices surge, which means many other prices will rise, all while jobs creation is grinding to a halt and the economy is beginning to appear stagnant, whereas the former is happy to put another dime in the jukebox and shuffle off to Tehran. Trump knows he cannot survive these dancing instructors of the apocalypse, which means he will likely soon thank Bibi for a wonderful evening and get us the fuck out of the absurd military waltz in Iran.

At the Woodstock communal drug/social/spiritual/teleologic event disguised as a music festival, perhaps the most enigmatic performance was delivered by Country Joe McDonald and the Fish, their piece officially known as “Fixin’ to Die Rag.” After asking in a call-and-response that the members of the assembled tribes “gimme an F” and a U and a C and K, and asking “what’s that spell,” he finally broke out the song that made him famous by asking, “what’re we fighting for,” referring to the ongoing war-crime known as Vietnam, which song became the anthem for the anti-war community.

Simple, sturdy, imminently singable, the lyrics were easily learned and repeated; in part, they are：

Well, come on all of you big strong men
Uncle Sam needs your help again
Got himself in a terrible jam
Way down yonder in Vietnam
Put down your books and pick up a gun
We're going to have a whole lot of fun

And it's 1, 2, 3
What are we fighting for?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn
Next stop is Vietnam
And it's 5, 6, 7
Open up the pearly gates
Well, there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee!
We're all going to die

Come on generals let's move fast
Your big chance has come at last
Now you can go out and get those reds
The only good Commie is the one that's dead
And you know that peace can only be won
When we've blown them all to kingdom come

Catchy, no? And even poignant in a sense. But also, ultimately, a subtle work of genius. It poses a seemingly simple question, “what are we fighting for,” and answers it with an absurdist, “don’t ask me I don’t give a damn,” and eventually concludes with an even more absurd, nihilistic reply: “there ain’t no time to wonder why, whoopee, we’re all going to die.” But what McDonald was really doing, what he intended to suggest, was that while, superficially, we appeared to be powerless to stop the then raging war, the solution — what he really wanted us to strive to achieve, of course — was to become a motivated whole, this audience of his, to take in, digest and even enjoy the desperate absurdity of the question he had posed, and said superficial answer, and then think about what to do.

Then act.

The remainder of the song continues in its absurdist methodology;

Come on Wall Street don't be slow
Why man, this war-a-go-go
There's plenty good money to be made
Supplying the Army with the tools of the trade
Just hope and pray that if they drop the bomb
They drop it on the Viet Cong….

Now come on mothers throughout the land
Pack your boys off to Vietnam
Come on fathers don't hesitate
Send your sons off before it's too late
And you can be the first one on your block
To have your boy come home in a box

So, Country Joe purports to propose that the mothers — and presumably, fathers — of the USA should consent to or even support that their sons should be sent off to do the fighting and dying in Vietnam, to return in the pine pox of patriotism.

Absurd, yes.

Which brings us to our own moment of absurdism, as personified by Trump and his war/non-war* in Iran. We can ask ourselves “what are we fighting for,” while we note that we already have had six sons — and daughters — “come home in a box.” And we can, as Country Joe intended, ask ourselves “what do we do now?” What actions can we take.

First, of course, vote. Early. Often. Frequently. Vote for anybody who opposes any Trump candidate, who rejects any Trump position, who loathes every Trump action.

But I would suggest that this obvious course of action obscures a more nuanced, underlying, basic notion of a realization that one should have NOW: to wit, that we all need immediately to stop wasting our time pointing out the absurdities of the Trump administration’s positions and actions, its disregard for the Constitution, its violation of laws, its rejection of science and reason and logic, its totalitarianism, its fascism, its immorality, its illegality. Rather we must focus not on the foul failures and foibles of Trump and his band of sociopaths, but on HOW TO RID OURSELVES NOW of this TROUBLESOME AUTOCRAT. I.e., how do we soon-if-not-immediately get rid of Trump. I sum it up this way: 86.47.25 — ditch ole 47 by means of the 25th Amendment.

Unrealistic? Maybe. But if we start talking about it, demanding it, insisting that our elected and appointed members of the government recognize that 60−70% of the electorate want it, it might become less unrealistic. Goose the fuckers in the Administration NOW by calling and posting and writing to demand that they invoke the 25th Amendment, and remind them, in the words of a sign I saw at one of the Minnesota protests: “SEE YOU IN NUREMBERG, FUCKERS!”

Because the members of the Administration who enable the continuation of an illegal war could face consequences such as those put upon the Nazi — and Japanese — war criminals. And we can remind them of this, we can put the fear, however remote, of such consequences into the minds of these mindless fools. They know they are wrong, they know they are criminals. Even Whiskey Pete doing sit-ups and failing to do pull-ups in the Pentagon, his mind ravaged by booze and stupidity and ignorance, must have a few neurons that can perceive the possibility of this jeopardy. So, let’s help those few neurons fire off a distress signal.

Plant the seeds of doubt, of concern, of fear, now, and let them sprout to become dread, when, hopefully, the midterms give us a Democratic House and, please, god, Senate, and the subpoenas fly and the impeachment proceedings commence — not just against Trump, but Sammy “the Shill” Alito and Clarence “Free RV” Thomas, and Pam Bondi and JD Vance. Let them begin to think about this. And let them worry about it. Because this chipping away at their certainty is what we can start now.

Now.

In an early album, the brilliant singer/songwriter Richard Shindell, a Long Island boy who now lives in Buenos Aires, penned the following lyrics, a paean to one of the seasons, to wit, Spring:

The day will begin like any other
Another sunrise in the east
It will reach across and touch you like a lover
It will tease you from a dream

And opening your eyes you will surrender
To the light that fills the room
And the hope that you have carried since September
You will offer up to June

Maybe will be certain
You can take it as a vow
Winters just the curtain
Spring will take the bow

I have listened to this beautiful song many, many times, when dreary winter has chilled my bones — as much as one can be chilled in Southern California. I always heard it as a lovely melody and an encouraging thought/emotion: hang in there, Spring is On the Way.

But today, following another murder by ICE/Boarder Agents, I hear it with new ears. It now displays itself as a prayer for hope, and patience, and forbearance, and, yes, resistance.

It is a song that tells me, and “you can take it as a vow,” that this awful Trump winter of our fascist discontent cannot last forever. A Democratic Spring is on the Way. The murders of the ICE/Boarder Agents will be adjudicated. The pilfering of billions by Trump and his foul offspring will be addressed. The assaults on the judiciary, the terrorization of immigrants, the Nazi-esque brutality of his disgusting Storm Trooper and their manufactured inhumanity will all be undone in the Spring.

And that Spring has, ironically, already begun in frozen Minnesota, where protestors are out in sub-zero weather to address the onslaught of the Brown Shirts, those cowardly Proud Boys disguised as Law Enforcement. There, the frost has already seen an attitudinal thaw as elderly couples patrol with whistles and cameras alongside outraged young people, and middle class parents escort their children and the children of others to school, and CEO (kudos to 3M, e.g.) speak out to defend their community from the Hitlerian thugs propounded by Trump and Noem and Bondi and Patel and Bovino.

And when, in the words of Mr. Shindell, “Spring will take the bow,” be assured these rejects from humanity will face the thaw in courtrooms, both criminal and civil, and in political actions at every level.

“Spring Will Take the Bow….”

When Richard Nixon's "enemies list became known, even the pre-eminent conservative of his day, William Buckley, joined with dems and libs and denounced Nixon‘s admin as “fascist in its reliance on the state as the instrument of harassment and ruthless in its dismissal of human rights.”

Not much has changed, except for the greater brutality, reduced humanity and superior violence of the Trump admin.

I recommend Daniel Siemens’ “STORMTROOPERS,” a history of the Nazi para-military group that, at its peak, had 350,000 armed men in its forces, and helped give rise to the Hitler regime. The main difference to today is that the storm troopers were not directly paid for by the Nazis, who had yet to become the governing bode of Germany. Trump, by comparison, has ice and boarder patrol at his beck and lunatic call. That is, it is for worse today.

Heather Cox Richardson says we cannot survive 3 more years of Trump. For the record, I note that some of us already have not, survived, that is.

As Nuremberg dealt with the Nazis, so must and shall American justice deal with Trump and Noem and Miller and the rest.

The hangman's noose looms.

Now, there are some technical hurdles concerning limited immunity provided by federal law for federal agents in the course of their actual duties, but those hurdles aside, what they really want to know is do I think the officer could be indicted and convicted.

And my hopefully dispassionate response is this: I think there is sufficient evidence to present the case in good faith to a grand jury. I believe the grand jury would vote a true bill of indictment (proviso: I have no intimate knowledge of the Minn statutes concerning homicides, but presume they run along the lines of most State jurisdictions; but let’s leave aside the nuance of the difference from state to state). I believe from what we know now that a conviction could be obtained at trial.

The video evidence is strong that the officer was not reasonably in fear for his life.

The shooting therefore was either criminally negligent homicide or murder two (using NYS terminology).

But were I trying the case, my opening and closing (summation) statements to the jury would begin and end, with the words, “Fucking Bitch,” which are the last words Ms. Good might have heard as she died, uttered by the officer who shot her.

And my final appeal to the jury would be this:

“Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, as you commence your deliberations, I ask that if you remember nothing else, you take with you the final words said to Ms. Good as she departed the world, leaving behind her partner and children, ‘fucking bitch.’”

Do I think I could obtain a conviction. Damned straight.

— Roland the Headless Gunner, Warren Zevon

Warren Zevon’s novel-disquised-as-a-pop-song tells the story of Roland, a machine gunner mercenary, who fights “to earn his living and help out the Congolese.” He is so good that he earns the wrath of the powers that be, and ends up betrayed and killed by the CIA. But in a classical Zevonian twist, Roland’s headless corpse tracks down his murderer, a guy named Van Owen, “in Mombassa, in a barroom drinking gin,” where he takes his vengeance, blasting Van Owen with his Tommy gun “from there to Johannesburg.”

Which brings us to developments in South America. Of course it does….

So, Donnie le Conquerant has taken Venezuela in a single, bold (insane?) action, and is now running the country and we’re all going to get a lot of thick, gunky Venezuelan oil. Ok, well, so he did not exactly take the country over, he just sort of eliminated a despicable old coot and his wife, to wit, Mr and Mrs Nicolas Maduro, late of Caracas, currently enjoying the no-bail suite at the Brooklyn House of Detention, probably a down grade from the Presidential Palace. And, while it would appear the apprehension of the elderly couple was performed flawlessly — which, given the abilities and the training and the rigor of the US Special Forces soldiers, is not to be unexpected — it seems the military has left the building with its presumably-recalcitrant guests.

So now Donald the Great sends in, um, who, exactly, to assure that all that beautiful oil flows to the world’s markets, after passing through the greedy little hands of the various American oil companies who will “take a whopping cut,” to quote another Zevon masterpiece? Roland the Headless Thompson Petroleum Geologist? That is to say, who is going to run the country we just took over by eliminating the Maduros so we could get all their oil? A bunch of Exxon/Mobil geologists armed with AR-15s?

Because if you’ve ever even worked at a gas station, you know it takes a bunch of guys to keep a corner station going — truck drivers, pump technicians, clerks — and nobody’s shooting at you (well, except in parts of Chicago). But imagine the gas station is in the jungles and it isn’t half a city block, but tens of thousands of square miles and you have to rebuild or renovate the infrastructure that rotted under the Maduro regime. And imagine that you don’t know for sure if the Venezuelan military is on your side. And imagine you need petroleum geologists and engineers and technicians by the thousands. And you need tankers and tractors and trucks and backhoes and pipes, and you don’t know if you are going to be attacked.

So, who is going to provide, insure and protect those tankers and tractors and trucks and backhoes and the guys who are going to operate them? Who is going to provide security for these workers? A bunch of guys and gals with degrees in geology and engineering from Texas Tech or University of Delaware? Who is going to volunteer to become one of those headless Thompson gunner geologists? Ultimately, who is going to run the oil infrastructure, which is what Trump means by “run the country”?

Which raises the question: does Trump have a deal with the Venezuelan military? Has he got a new President in mind agreeable to that band of charming fellows with the guns and planes and hand grenades in Venezuela?

Because if not, Roland the Headless Petroleum Geologist ain’t going to Biafra, or Caracas, and we’re not getting all that big, beautiful Venezuelan oil.

—-————————————————————————

*Inspired by a conversation with a real petroleum geologist.

Today, following the rousing success at the polls for the GOP/MAGA, who almost won one contest, and after the amazing GREAT GATSBY party, at which half-naked young women pranced about in human-sized cocktail glasses, apparently, while most Americans are vehemently demanding the release of the TrumpStein files, and hundreds of millions of Americans are feeling the pinch of Trumpflation, the Orange Buffoon ordered the following (after the SCOTUS 6 dropped to their knees to suck Trump’s shriveled you-know-what):

In essence, Trump is telling children, the elderly, the infirm and the simply poor of America: GO FUCK YOURSELVES, with the assistance of 6 scumbags on the Supreme Court.

When the next Dem sits in the Oval Office, and the Dems control the House and the Senate, the DOJ must indict Uncle Thomas, Samuel “Free Ride” Alito, for bribe receiving, Stephen “Lil Joe Goebbels” Miller for crimes against humanity, and play by the same rules that puts Comey and James and Bolton in the criminal dock.

八六四七

In 1933, the neighboring countries of Freedonia and Sylvania declared war on one another, following a series of belligerent meetings between then-President of Freedonia, Rufus T. Firefly, and the Sylvanian Ambassador to Freedonia, Professor August Trentino. Brought together by Gloria Teasdale, the widow of the late millionaire philanthropist, Dr. George Teasdale, in a final effort to avoid conflict, the parties to the caustic peace negotiations were unable to achieve a treaty after an unfortunate choice of words at a heated moment, when Ambassador Trentino referred to President Firefly as an “upstart.”

President Firefly convened the Upper Lower House of the House of Laws of Freedonia and declared war.

In this uncredited photo, President Firefly is seen in full armor as he heroically chose to serve in the battle at the front lines.

Battle commenced soon thereafter, with mechanized divisions of Sylvania crossing the border of Freedonia, as artillery began simultaneous shelling.

For the next 92 years, the conflict remained unresolved, although fighting subsided in the after math of several inclusive battles that drained the purses and military manpower of both tiny countries.

Today, almost a century after the conflict began, President Donald J. Trump has announced that he has been able to achieve an unconditional peace between the two warring nations.

Trump said, “after the amazing achievement in bringing about peace between Urzobayjan and Armenia, I turned my amazing gaze — it really is a beautiful gaze; I’ve been told it is the best gaze ever. Better than Biden’s gaze. Much better. Old Sleepy Joe. Man, was he out of it. I dunno if he ever had a gaze. He was a son of a bitch, you know. And Hillary’s emails. And Benghazi. They never had a gaze like that. And now this. I mean, have you ever seen a gaze like mine. Nobody has. So now we have Peace between Freedonia and Sylvania. Amazing. Nobody ever made peace like me. Best peace ever. I guess I get the Nobel Prize now? If there’s any fairness. Should be right? I mean, nobody ever made a peace like this.”

In response, the Swedish Nobel Committee indeed announced that they were bestowing a Peace Prize on Trump, “just to shut him the fuck up.”

JIMMY KIMMEL Gee, Trump sure is funny.

FCC CHAIR CARR Kill him!

FOX HOST BRIAN KILMEADE Kill them!

FCC CHAIR CARR Gee, Brian sure is funny.

But Nash occasionally turned a serious eye to a serious subject, foregoing his usual ironic wit; one of those occasional efforts was a poem entitled:

OLD MEN

“People expect old men to die,
They do not really mourn old men.
Old men are different. People look
At them with eyes that wonder when…
People watch with unshocked eyes;
But the old men know when an old man dies.”

And so I turn to the death today of an old man, an old prosecutor, and an old friend. Michael H. Warren, was born and lived in Brooklyn all his life; he served as a New York County Assistant District Attorney in the early to mid-1980s, where I knew him as a brilliant colleague and a good friend, first where we worked together in the Appeals Bureau (now given the status it always deserved as a separate Division of the DA’s Office), then as trial Assistants. He was a graduate of Columbia Law School, a superb Appellate Attorney and a kind and generous man. After leaving the DA’s Office, he moved on to the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, in Brooklyn, where he served with honor as an Assistant United States Attorney until he retired several years ago.

He was not loud, he was not ostentatious; nor was he was overly dramatic, in court or out. He was smart, unflappable, imperturbable, deliberate. And subtly funny.

He was not unkind, but neither did he suffer fools easily, nor did he hesitate to “calls ‘em as [he] sees ‘em.” During the Los Angeles riots that erupted after the preposterous acquittals of four LAPD officers charged with the brutal beating of Rodney King, I happened to be in New York working on an episode of LAW & ORDER, and I visited Michael in his office at the prosecutor’s building in lower Manhattan. We watched together the non-stop tv coverage of the horrific scenes of rage in Los Angeles after those acquittals, and we followed the helicopter camera footage as anger and rage spiraled into destruction and looting. As a black man, Michael understood better than I the genesis of that rage, but he despaired of and utterly rejected the violence arising out of it. At one point, he turned from the tv, swiveled in his chair to face me as he munched a Greenberg’s cookie, and observed of the mob breaking into various shops and stores, carrying away electronic goods and luxury items, “…I note for the record that the book store remains untouched….”

This was truly unflinching honesty that summed up a part of that awful moment in time; and it was particularly humorous, coming from the man I knew to be a voracious reader and lover of books, with a personal library of thousands of volumes (I know he has left to me his collection of the works of Philip K. Dick, a writer we both revered).

When I heard of Michael’s passing just today, I knew there would be little fanfare for this man who devoted his life to the law and literature. He was not famous, neither was he lauded in the press for his many successful trials. He was not honored with awards or accolades outside the insular world where he spent his professional life. He was just another wonderful lawyer, and wonderful friend, whose wit and wisdom is now “lost in time…like tears in the rain.” There will be for Michael’s passing almost surely only “unshocked eyes.”

But this old prosecutor knows when an old prosecutor dies.