He Called Me Lainie

Dad died a year ago today. Here are the remarks I made at our family memorial. 

Random Thoughts About my Dad

He called me Lainie.

I called him Daddy.

On the outside, he seemed pretty uncomplicated. 

He bowled, he golfed, he followed baseball, he listened to music, he read books, he walked his dogs.

He was a family man.

He went to work.

He came home.

He had his routines.

In the evening, for instance, after dinner dishes were done and the rest of us were doing our own thing, he would make himself a snack. Nothing fancy. Just something to accompany a cup of instant coffee. A few Hydrox. Some Mallomars. A couple of slices of rye bread, toasted, buttered, and topped with a slice of Swiss cheese.

I learned early on never to ask for a bite because be would say no. He wouldn’t invariably say no. He would just say no.

That might sound harsh. Who doesn’t give someone a bite if they ask, particularly if it’s their daughter? But that was Gerry. He had planned things just so. A bite and a sip. A bite and a sip. The last bite timed to be finished off with the last sip. He hadn’t factored sharing into the equation.   

I said my dad was uncomplicated, and that’s true.

But he was given to deep thought. He pondered things, was troubled by things. He questioned things. Occasionally he and I would tangle over some of these questions. We seldom agreed. But in spite of our differences, he seemed to love me anyway. 

He felt losses. All the way into his nineties, when we worked on his book, he was still pained remembering the premature death of his cousin George who was killed in action at the age of 20 during World War II, and the loss of his best friend Stan who died in 1948 fighting for the state of Israel.

One thing I loved and admired about my dad is his honesty. There was very little, maybe nothing, that was pretentious about my dad. And though we didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, in some ways, I think I’m a lot like him. I seem to have inherited his independence, his stubbornness, his yearning, if I may use that word, for meaning. I hope I’ve inherited his lack of pretense.

Both of my parents instilled in us kids a love of music, an appreciation for theater, an enjoyment of what you might call simple pleasures, a respect for honesty. I’m thankful to them both for these values.

But, if I’m remembering correctly, I think I have my dad alone to thank for something else, and that’s my name.

I don’t know I’m remembering this story correctly, so forgive me if I’m embellishing a bit, but before I was born, my parents apparently had decided to name their second child Paul if it were a boy, named after a family friend.

After I was born, I believe there was some discussion about what to name me.

“Paula” was one of the options.

As I understand it, it was my dad who came up with the name Elaine.

Now, Paula is a lovely name. But, with all due respect to anyone in the room whose name is Paula, I’m glad I’m not a Paula!

He named me Elaine.

He called me Lainie.

And I called him Daddy.

November 4, 2017

April 10, 1924 - September 30, 2017

Miss you, dad. Love you. 
-->

And Then...They Apologized

It may be time to start keeping track of all the times people buckle under when the social justice mob publicly shames them for violating group think. I'll start. 

Mark Duplass, Actor/Filmmaker

The Actor's Tweet (Later Deleted)  

His Apology 

Charles Davis, Dean of the Journalism and Communications School at the University of Georgia (UGA)

The Professor's Tweet (Later Deleted)  

 His Apology

  

Anders Carlson-Wee, Author/Poet

The Poet's Tweet

 The Nation's Poetry Editors' Apology

The Poet's Apology  

There's an eerie similarity in the phrasing of each apology. All include some variation of, "I've heard...I'm listening...I've learned." There's a creepy sense of each having been re-educated and indoctrinated, à la Orwell's 1984, where the Thought Police are "not interested in the overt act: the thought is all we care about." I don't think that's too far off. Some among today's Thought Police are advocating for re-education. For example, here is an actor named Matt McGorry making his case for re-education of men. (The comments that follow are interesting).  

As genuine as the apologies seem, it's important to keep in mind that they were the result of merciless public shaming from the social justice warriors on Twitter, AKA, the mob. I have no problems with apologizing--when you're wrong. I do have a problem with obsequious groveling when the mob attempts to silence you. 

By the way, if you can find Mark Duplass' apology on Twitter, read the comments that follow. Not very complimentary. Poor guy can't please everyone. 

Here's a sampling: 

-->

In the Words of Katey Kontent

Just finished a lovely book. Here's the story's protagonist, Katey Kontent (pronounced kon-TENT), summing things up at the end of her reminiscences. I don't give anything away by sharing these paragraphs.  

A compliment to the author, Amor Towles, who happens to be a man. I marvel at writers who somehow are able to write from the point of view of the opposite gender. I never once felt Katey's voice to be inauthentic. This was Towles' first novel.

Remembering a Rabble-Rouser

Before Breitbart News Network became what it is today, there was Andrew Breitbart, rebel, rabble-rouser, visionary. I was organizing my bookmarks and came across this video. I had forgotten how much I liked him. 

The date on this interview is June 2011. He died unexpectedly of heart failure about a year later. I had only recently discovered him and had become a fan (here's a tribute I wrote a couple of years ago).

Something I learned as I was putting this post together: Earlier that same year (April 2011), Andrew apparently predicted the rise of Donald Trump. "Celebrity is everything in this country," he said on The O'Reilly Factor. "And if these guys [conservatives] don't learn how to play the media the way that Barack Obama played the media last election cycle and the way that Donald Trump is playing the election cycle, we're going to probably get a celebrity candidate."

Andrew Breitbart wasn't highly educated (he says he drank his way through college). But he was gutsy and cocky and funny and charming. All this, combined with his instinctive media savvy, made him a consequential adversary and an invaluable ally. Conservatives lost a good one six years ago.

My left-leaning friends (and their kids) should give this a listen.



Andrew Breitbart: Media War (interview with Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institution). I'm including the original source as well as the YouTube link.

The Ugly Side of Illegal Immigration (The Classicist Podcast)

Victor Davis Hanson has that rare blend of academic gravitas and down-to-earth pragmatism, being the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, a classics and military historian, and a farmer who resides in Fresno, California, a town in Central California midway between Bakersfield and Sacramento, which...well, enough said. 

I particularly appreciate Professor Hanson's perspective on immigration since he speaks as one who is impacted personally by the policies and politics of the open borders segment of the political left. He is literally looking out his window and describing what he sees as he talks about illegal immigration, and it's not a pretty picture.

The Classicist: The Ideology of Illegal Immigration (Victor Davis Hanson) 

The Real Losers

A word to the readers of The Atlantic, whose editor Jeffrey Goldberg kowtowed to the mob and fired Mr. Williamson before the ink was even dry on his contract: you're the real losers. Hope you're enjoying life in your little bubble.

When the Twitter Mob Came for Me, by Kevin Williamson

The Train Leaves the Station

 

Methinks these schools may rue the day they encouraged this event. 

What kind of letters will these administrators be sending to their teachers next January, for example, if millions of students across the nation stage a National School Walkout for the murdered unborn, or a National School Walkout for gun rights?

“It’s a teachable moment,” say the wise and judicious administrators. “We want to support what they want to do. It’s not ours to plan, it’s not ours to encourage, it‘s not ours to discourage.”

A teachable moment? Well, then. Let the teaching begin…with them. Because now that the floodgates have been opened (and they have), the real lesson will come when these administrators are confronted with a flurry of causes that students insist on demonstrating for during school hours, causes that may (or may not) represent these administrators’ views.

I taught today (community college) but not until late afternoon. Part of me was glad I didn’t have to even deal with this (we got our letters). The other part of me, the part that has me pacing the floors in anger at how this country is so manipulated by the far left, wishes I had taught at 10 a.m. Because I would have lectured to an empty room for 13 minutes and tested for 4. Fine, miss my class for your cause (good cause, bad cause, whatever), but I won’t be held hostage by your cause. The train leaves the station at 10, class carries on, be here or don’t be here.

But I’m tired of being manipulated.

Epic Fail

I have to say something.

I listen to the mostly nonsense that I hear on social media and cable news and tell myself, Don’t, Elaine, just don’t. It’s not worth it. People think what they think, and nothing you say will make a difference. 

But sometimes, it’s just, well, I admit, it’s just too hard to say nothing.

The kids, I don’t blame them. They’ve been traumatized. They need to lash out, at someone, at the system that let them down, at the adults who failed them. So they need to speak, and I say, let them speak. I don’t blame them for their ignorance, their naiveté, their idealism.

But I do blame those who are exploiting the kids. Those silly people who who say, “Run for president!” (that’s what someone on Facebook said about one of the spokeskids), who thrust microphones in their faces, who cheer when they curse their senators, who celebrate their protests, who encourage them to cast blame for their pain on a single solution. Get rid of the guns. Problem solved.

But “too many guns” is not what failed these kids.

Adults failed them. 

The school system failed them.

Local law enforcement failed them.

Sheriff Scott Israel failed them.

The FBI failed them.

Social services failed them.

Mental health professionals failed them.

At any point along the path leading to this massacre, this shooter–a kid himself–could and should have been pulled off the trajectory.

But he wasn’t. From start to finish, the system failed. I don’t use this word often, but in this case, it works: it was epic. 

Yet now, as if on cue, we’re talking about gun control. Hunting’s OK, sure. But guns for self protection? No. The average citizen doesn’t need a gun for protection, we’re lectured, because law enforcement will protect us.

Right. 

How’d that work out for these kids in Florida? 

Ironically, the failure of law enforcement in this tragedy actually underscores why the average citizen thinks he needs his gun for self-protection. Because now that the dust has settled, it’s quite clear, law enforcement isn’t always up to the task. It’s either inept, inefficient, incompetent, intimidated, or all of the above.

To repeat: From start to finish, I see this incident as epic fail on the part of law enforcement. And I’m disgusted at the cynicism of gun-control advocates who are shamelessly exploiting the grief and anger and vulnerability, and yes, ignorance, of teenagers who should be left to themselves to grieve and to heal, who should not be thrust into the limelight of a manipulative media frenzy.