Lyrics: Tom Lehrer's "MLF Lullaby" in the Time of Trump

Sleep, baby, sleep, in peace you may slumber;

No danger lurks your peace to encumber.

Our missiles will un-leash fury and fire

Gone with the whim of a com-pul-sive liar.

Donnie controls our nuclear forces;

He'll lose control, when he next divorces.

Melania walks, and calls him damn glutton —

So he freaks and shows the power of his button.

Once we most sweated some mad General Ripper,

But that couldn't happen today;

And no deadly confusion gripping the Gipper

That's not how we'll be blown away.

So sleep tight my darlings, let your sweet dreams linger;

We know the Donald won't give us the finger.

Heil — Hail! — dear Leader; you'll make us great again;

Hail the Commander-in Chief;

Our orange goon,

Will kill Kim Jong-un:

"Death from above" in full-gold leaf!

Lies and Beliefs: Leslie Gelb on THE POST, The Pentagon Paper, Dominos, and the US in Vietnam

This is from Leslie Gelb on NPR on THE POST film and THE PENTAGON PAPERS (the writing of which he oversaw). Specifically, he believes the real story is not that The Powers That Were in the USA lied but what they believed true.

But the main reason we got involved in the Vietnam War was because of what we believed, namely that we were in a mortal struggle with communism - Soviet Union and China; that the domino theory applied, that we if we allow North Vietnam to conquer South Vietnam, the dominoes would fall throughout Asia and the rest of the world.

Add to this theory subsidiary theories: JFK on the Green-Beret approach to counter-insurgency, Robert McNamara on rational ways to run a war. And I'll add (again) that people could argue that the USA won the Cold War in Vietnam precisely by showing how much money we were willing to spend, how many S.E. Asians we were willing to kill, how many of our own troops we were willing to have killed, captured, wounded, and/or maimed to stop even so minor a "domino" as Vietnam to fall.

That is a non-figurative meaning of "bear any burden" and a possibility for "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" — including putting your body on the line to aid in a Great Game of power politics, and to keep your country from losing its first war.

Kim Jong Un & Donald J. Trump: Buttons, Tweets, Potency, and Apocalypse

"North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the 'Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.' Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!" — Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, 2 January 2018

This is the way the world ends*
(For many humans, and other species);
This is how the world ends
(Worse goes to worst,
"Depending on the breaks"),
This is why the world ends:
From a tweet* and a brag,
And measuring 

Symbolic cocks.

                                    * With thanks to Jeffrey Weinstock (well, and T.S. Eliot and Gen. "Buck" Turgidson)

The Congress of the United States needs to write us a bit of law renouncing the current U.S. doctrine of First Use (nuclear) and restricting the power of the U.S. President to use nukes for anything but proportionate retaliation. I'd also add a provision that in case of nuclear "exchange," the duty station of the Commander-in-Chief is wherever s/he might be, and forbidding spending any money to move the President to safety. If a President gets us into a nuclear war, the very least s/he can do is to get killed in the first exchange.

And on this utterly depressing, apocalyptic subject, I'll pass along the suggestion from a couple or three decades back that the final part of the launch codes should not be in the "football" that accompanies the President but near the heart in the chests of the people carrying the football, and, of course, carrying also a knife. To launch the missiles [etc.], the President would have to cut open the chest of the attaché — the logic being that if the situation warrants a nuclear response, it justifies murdering a single person, and insisting that the murder be up-close, personal, and messy. The logic is that bombing and missile attacks are way too abstract all down the line and that a key part of initiating nuclear warfare should be a death with emotional power and deep-seated inhibitions. Perhaps, though, the code should be in the chest of the President, and s/he should have to order a high-ranking official to do the cutting. I am serious here, following Konrad Lorenz on the dangers of being able to kill at distances that reduce inhibitions.

THE POST (2017), the Press, and The Other Movie with Press-Freedom Issues

I'll start with, as we used to say, "Where I'm coming from."

• On at least two and possibly up to four or more occasions I've sworn "to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States," which for me starts with defense of the Bill of Rights. The people administering the oath weren't very serious about it, but I take my word seriously. 
• I'm a life-member of the ACLU and have depending upon the First Amendment to undergird (my) academic freedom. 
• Some of my best friends and students have been journalists and/or teachers of journalism, and I worked with reporters off and on between my first semester in high school and my retirement. 

So:
I haven't yet seen THE POST (nor seen it advertised as playing in my area), but I have seen The Other Movie with Press-Freedom Issues that's out there now: ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD, on the kidnapping of John Paul Getty's grandson.

THE POST (2017) is something of a prequel to ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN (1976) and another celebration of the importance of journalism media for popular government ("of/by/and for the people") that was President Lincoln's ideal. ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD gives us glimpses of popular media in another sense, most strikingly as paparazzi, in their purest form in 1970s Italy.
And I — the guy in that opening 'graph — caught myself at points in ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD hoping that someone in those neat Italian sports cars, or a heavier vehicle, would run over a paparazzo or two.
I supported the ACLU when they defended the speech-rights of George Lincoln Rockwell and his American Nazi Party to speak, and the rights of other neo-Nazis to parade through Skokie, Illinois — not far from where I grew up — in full regalia. And I declined to precipitate a riot when other neo-Nazis paraded in downtown Chicago near a very large, largely Jewish, teen dance at which I briefly spoke. For a Jew who's studied the Hitlerian Holocaust, these were much tougher calls than respecting the rights of paparazzi not to be run over.

But there's something about paparazzi and more important media in their "nightcrawler" mode when they are in the figurative and literal faces of people in pain. There's something about that kind of pornography of suffering that, clearly, really pisses me off.

Obviously, there are audiences for wall-to-wall disaster coverage and asking some Mr. Macduff what it felt like to learn his entire extended family had been massacred, and other wallowing in the pain of others that would get an upload thrown off a respectable S&M website for violating community standards of decency. Still: not every audience desire should be fulfilled, not even if there's enough money in that variety of prostitution to save one's media outlet as a viable business. 
So let us defend freedom of the press — but ask, quietly, for some internal pressures in the media from members of the media to keep themselves defensible.

Reprint: Yo, Secular Leftists — Arguing with Religious People (an Introduction)

From Richard D. Erlich, Views from a Jagged Orbit (before 2014)

De Gustibus & Intelligent Argument

A fair number of people are familiar with the idea that you really can't have a useful argument over tastes ("De gustibus non est disputandum"), and a quick check of what people think neat to put up on YouTube — or a quicker check of YouTube's pornographic spawn — will point to the truth of that assertion.

Less well known in the injunction from the Hebrew Fathers to, not surprisingly, "Be diligent in the study of Torah, and," relevant here, "know how to answer an Epicurean." That is, at least for my purposes, the old rabbis enjoined knowing one's own tradition and premises and being able to argue with someone with very different ideas. A religious follower of Scriptures, the rabbis taught, should know how to argue with — the rabbis would want you to defeat — a materialist philosopher.

In arguing with an "Epicurean," a religious person could not use the final formulation of more recent rabbis and their more authoritarian followers: "Er steht!" — "It's written"; "It's a commandment!" The obvious Epicurean response to that would be, "So what?" To answer effectively a materialist, a secularist — then and now — one would have to argue from premises you can both agree on.

And, more important in our time, vice versa — for a secularist arguing with a religious person.

For a secularist to argue effectively with a religious person, the secular person must know "Torah": i.e., what the religious person at least claims to hold authoritative. It's nice that Protestants and Catholics are no longer burning one another at the stake nor taking turns burning Baptists and flogging Quakers. And it's nice that atheists are coming out of the closet and arguing for their position.

The danger to my beliefs, though, is an alliance of Believers against not just strident atheists but secularists in general, and against those of us who want to follow a religious tradition in a society that welcomes us and (aiding that welcome) runs a thoroughly secular state. The danger to my political positions, and that of many, is a Left that becomes increasingly militant in its secularism and (therefore) increasingly politically marginalized among an American public composed largely of various kinds of cooperating Believers.

So, my atheist friends: a bit of advice. Recall the great principle of Occam's Razor and the story of the mathematician-astronomer Pierre-Simon Laplace and Napoleon. When Napoleon asked Laplace how he, Laplace, could write a substantial book "on the system of the universe, and have never even mentioned its Creator," Laplace replied that he "had no need of that hypothesis." Even so, American atheists, when an argument comes up about God, just say, "I have no need of that hypothesis" — and let it go at that. More generally on the Left: gals and guys, "Know how to work with religious people" — including at times with religious people with whom you have profound disagreements.

If some apocalyptically-minded Christians are right, it's important to get Jews in control of all of what was ancient Israel and Judea and (even) Samaria to bring on the End of Days, at which time those Jews will either submit to Jesus or burn forever in the Lake of Fire. No Jews like that idea, but if they're Likudnik Jews or even further to the Right, they can ally with Right-wing Christians on Zionist issues. And they have allied, and not just regarding Israel.

So it shouldn't be so goddamn difficult for today's secular Leftists to learn the history of effective political movements in the USA, bone up on the more radical teachings of Jesus and the Hebrew prophets, and renew the old alliances for peace, social justice, and the equitable distribution of the world's resources and wealth.

"The Earth is the Lord's / and the fullness thereof, / The sea and all that in them is" saith the 24th Psalm, and the psalmist goes on to justify God's ownership by a labor theory of property: "for he founded [the world] upon the seas / And established it upon the waters." If you're trying to get people to make the U.S. economy more fair, that's a good place to start — and you can omit arguing that the true story of creation is Big-Bang Cosmology.

Et bloody cetera for the divinity of Jesus if you want allies against militarism and against coddling the rich. You, my Liberal-Leftist-Peacenik friend, want a more humble U.S. foreign policy; Jesus enjoined downright pacifism. Use that!

And if anyone accuses you, correctly, of "cherry-picking" teachings, point out that there are not ten commandments in Torah but, by traditional count, 613. Moses was just the beginning. Selecting, emphasizing, de-emphasizing, rationalizing, modifying, allegorizing, and sensibly gentling (and sometimes just ignoring) religious doctrines has been the name of the game since the old rabbis decided that "an eye for an eye" meant equitable compensation, Jesus healed chronic medical problems on the Sabbath, and St. Paul said a guy could be a saved follower of Messiah without circumcision and that nobody needed to follow all those finicky Jewish food regulations.

So, devout religious folk, "Know how to answer" us materialists — or at least talk with us politely. My fellow Leftist-pinko-peacenik sorts (including small "b" believers): If you want to effect change, learn how to talk to and with religious people. Effective politics are coalition politics, and as of now the Right is kicking our asses at it.

Trump's Tweets Revisited: Concerning Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, 12 Dec. 2017, 5:03 AM US Eastern Time

"Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, [...] 

someone who would come to my office 'begging' 

for campaign contributions not so long ago 

(and would do anything for them), 

is now in the ring fighting against Trump. 

Very disloyal to Bill & Crooked-USED!"

— @realDonald Trump

On 8 August 2017, President Trump threatened North Korea "with fire and fury [...] the likes of which this world has never seen before." The 8th of August falls between the 6th of August, the anniversary of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and 9 August, the bombing of Nagasaki. So whatever Mr. Trump intended to say, in that context of basic calendar what he did say was a threat against North Korea of "fire and fury" exceeding two smallish atomic bombs, a degree of "fire and fury" that would require a hydrogen bomb or several substantial fission bombs. That's what the words mean. 

"Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand [...] would come to my office 'begging' for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them) [...]" is ambiguous only insofar as some people use quotation marks for emphasis, which is a bad idea, since _fresh_ fruit is claimed to be definitely fresh while "fresh" fruit may not be (etc.). Aside from that, the text *says* that L. Gillibrand "would do anything" for campaign contributions; so it means she'd do anything up to the point readers think the tweet has moved into hyperbole and, well, bullshit. When people say "By any means necessary" or "nothing is off the table" or "we will do anything" — I challenge them with the question from NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR, if they'd be willing "to throw sulphuric acid in a child's face [...]." If not (and let us hope not) — spare us such unmodified, "use-your-imagination" threats. 

Given the image of "begging" (in quotation marks especially), one may stop far short of having Gillibrand start a war or throw acid in a child's face and take Trump's comment as a suggestion of fellatio or other sex act.

WORDS MEAN, if sometimes in complex ways; but Trump has invited such readings and must take responsibility for them. The words of the President of the United States, in a medium we've been told to see as official, had damn well better _mean_ and be chosen carefully. Trump in this recent tweet either has a serious accusation to make or he's defamed a US Senator in a crude and misogynist way — and/or he's shown himself too damaged in his use of language to be trusted in any position of trust or authority.

Don't Call Roy Moore a Pedophile (Better: Colloquial "Child Molester")

Except for the useful abbreviations i. e., e. g. and etc., 

there is no real need for any of the hundreds of foreign phrases

now current in the English language. Bad writers,

and especially scientific, political, and sociological writers,

are nearly always haunted by the notion that

Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones […].

— George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language" (1946)

Don't call Roy Moore, the Republican candidate for US Senate from Alabama — by the time you read this, probably elected senator from Alabama — a pedophile; consider instead calling him a "plausibly-accused sexual predator and child molester."

            One reason for this choice of words would be the, ahem, dictum of George Orwell to avoid the pretentiousness of using Greek or Latin when English will serve. Pedophile is "From pedo- +‎ -phile, after Ancient Greek παιδοφῐ́λης (paidophílēs) (from παῖς [paîs, “boy, child”] and φιλέω [philéō, 'I love'])," and my giving the etymology by itself nicely demonstrates such pretentiousness.

            More important, pedophilia is a technical term in psychology, with a specific technical definition.

Pedophilia or paedophilia is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children.^[1][2] Although girls typically begin the process of puberty at age 10 or 11, and boys at age 11 or 12,^[3] criteria for pedophilia extend the cut-off point for prepubescence to age 13.^[1] A person who is diagnosed with pedophilia must be at least 16 years old, and at least five years older than the prepubescent child, for the attraction to be diagnosed as pedophilia.^[1][2] 

Pedophilia is termed pedophilic disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), and the manual defines it as a paraphilia involving intense and recurrent sexual urges towards and fantasies about prepubescent children that have either been acted upon or which cause the person with the attraction distress or interpersonal difficulty.^[1] The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) defines it as a sexual preference for children of prepubertal or early pubertal age.^[4] 

In popular usage, the word pedophilia is often applied to any sexual interest in children or the act of child sexual abuse.^[5][6] This use conflates the sexual attraction to prepubescent children with the act of child sexual abuse, and fails to distinguish between attraction to prepubescent and pubescent or post-pubescent minors.^[7][8] Researchers recommend that these imprecise uses be avoided because although people who commit child sexual abuse are sometimes pedophiles,^[6][9] child sexual abuse offenders are not pedophiles unless they have a primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children,^[7][10][11] and some pedophiles do not molest children.^[12]

Like, a pedophile has a mental disease, and if he — usually he — seeks treatment and successfully resists his urges, he is to be pitied and perhaps even admired. Pedophilia is something one suffers, and pedophile is, in a sense, something one is, and what we are is far more problematic and far less anyone else's business than what we do.

            Roy Moore has been plausibly accused of actions that are unethical and illegal and have the more colloquial English label of "child (sexual) molesting" (although "molesting" has its French and Latin background — so does "chair"!). Aspects of his character relevant to service in the United States Senate are most immediately the concern of the voters of Alabama. The rest of us can talk about what he has done, or is accused of having done — and we can do it in plain, or plainer, English.