After a string of columns in which I vented my spleen at the political forces that are threatening to rip our country apart, I’d like to return to the “we should all be optimists” theme from a couple of months ago. Because even amongst this current chaos, we are living in amazing times, and we are surrounded by many good things that we should savor and appreciate.
Positive thing #1: I recently came across a guy on Youtube who speaks 50 languages or more, and he goes around shocking people in stores and malls by speaking to them in their native languages. He’s a switched-on black guy named Moses McCormick, and you should check out his videos.
I cannot get enough of seeing him talking to some Vietnamese family or Japanese guy or Albanian weightlifter in a gym, and watching their double-take and then delighted expressions as this black American unleashes a torrent of fluent foreigner-talk. Plus, he’s got this sonorous Denzel Washington laugh that might possibly cure cancer.
Positive thing #2: Speaking of the possibility of cross-cultural harmony, America is the least racist multi-cultural country in the history of the world.
That probably sounds ridiculous to you, if you went to an American school or college in the last 30 years, and unless you’ve actually traveled to a lot of other multi-racial countries in the world. The left has been howling about what a terrible and racist country America is for decades, but even a tiny bit of common sense should tell you that that is not true.
If we were so terrible, why would untold millions of people from around the world be doing everything they can to come here? Why does all of the raft traffic between here and Cuba go in one direction only, away from the enlightened, socialist paradise Cuba and toward America? Why would all of the illegal border crossings between us and Mexico be one-way, from Mexico to this land, which the La Raza creeps says is a terrible place to be… as they fight tooth and nail to stay.
The same applies to American citizens. To listen to Biden and Comma-la and Obama and every other national Dem official tell it, America is a hell-hole of racist oppression for black Americans.
But how does that claim square with the strange recent phenomenon of white folks pretending to be black? Rachel Dolezal (the NAACP local leader, for whom the “C” stood for “Caucasian”) is probably the most famous example, exposed when pictures turned up of her in her early teens, showing her fair hair and blue eyes, wearing a gingham dress, and looking more like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farms than Assata Shakur.
But within just the last month, several faux black academics have made mortifying confessions when they were caught after pretending to be black. Jessica Krug has spent more than a decade publishing unreadable, jargon-clotted academic drivel on various lefty, minority-centric topics, but had to resign from her faculty post at GW University this month after it turned out that she is just a white person with “lifelong mental illness struggles.” (Does it suggest anything to anyone that someone with life-long mental problems had NO problem fitting into academia?)
In Wisconsin, grad student — and aspiring-faux black tenured professor, I guess – CV Vitolo-Haddad was also forced to step down from her TA position when it turned out that she was only a lowly… Italian! Oh the shame!
And let’s not forget the MA Senator who, despite being as white as the love-child of Tom Wolfe and Icelandic singer/weirdo Bjork, lying on a polar bear rug in January in Reykjavik, claimed to be a Cherokee maiden. (#wemustneverstopmockingher)
I don’t cite these examples to mock these obviously disturbed people. (Except for Lizzie the Algonquin Albino, who deserves more mockery than she will ever get.) I just want to make a point that should be obvious: in societies which are truly racist toward any minority, NO ONE ever pretends to be a member of that minority.
In Catholic countries 500 years ago, do you think any Catholics were pretending to be Protestants? In Hitler’s Germany, do you think any blue-eyed blondes were pretending to be Jews? In the Democrat-run slave states before the Civil War – or in the Democrat-run Jim Crow states 100 years ago – do you think any white folks were pretending to be black folks? In fact, there are heartbreaking tales from the pre- and post-Civil War of mixed raced people doing everything they could to “pass” as white.
In stark contrast, mixed race people today will almost inevitably identify as black. Obama – who is technically as white as he is black, and who was raised by his white family in almost exclusively white (and Hawaiian) social circles until college – received all kinds of advantages and almost certainly millions of more votes by presenting himself as black, rather than mixed race. (Have you ever heard of anyone or any media account referring to him as “the first mixed-race president?”)
We’re an amazing country, and while racism exists here as it does in every country with people in it, we’re an amazingly accepting nation. We need to remember that, and to teach it to our kids, and to do our best to counter the poisonous, anti-American lies that the left is filling peoples’ heads with about race.
Positive thing #3: If you still have Netflix – and after the “Cuties” controversy, I wouldn’t blame you for getting rid of it – I have three recommendations if you like well-crafted writing.
Most of you have probably already seen No Country for Old Men, but it rewards multiple viewings. The acting and cinematography are great, and there are half a dozen scenes that I’ve watched a hundred times or more, just to savor the pitch-perfect language.
Colin Quinn is a rare comic that (to my knowledge) has not felt the need to get partisan/political. He’s got a sharp eye, and a way with words, and his special “New York Story” is a funny love letter to the multicultural mix that created his hometown. (Though now it feels a little like an obituary, after watching the way Cuomo and DiBlasio seem bent on making the city unlivable for sane people.)
Finally, “Mr. Right” is a little-known but deftly written comedy that starts out as a pedestrian romcom, but 10 minutes in turns into an eccentric serial-killer-with-a-heart-of-gold-meets-girl story. Sam Rockwell is great as the male lead, and Anna Kendrick is freaking adorable; she does light comedy very well, and while she’s not classically beautiful, I have a crush on her anyway.
Positive thing #4: While our professional athletes have been doing their best to make me hate all sports, and Joe Biden has been fielding softball questions like a guy who badly needs to stumble into the tent where the concussion protocols are given, and the MSM has focused like Rain Man on the most insignificant turns of phrase in the president’s trivial tweets…
Donald Trump has been helping to bring peace to the Middle East!
No he’s not solely responsible. The Israelis have stepped up and been reasonable, as they nearly always are. And the first few Arab countries to sign on have recognized reality, and the best interests of their citizens.
And we can’t forget the crucial role that Obama played, either. His disastrously wrong, gaffe-filled foreign policy decisions – especially the brainiac plan to trust the jihadi freaks running Iran, and to give them political support and mountains of cash – created such catastrophic chaos that even the most recalcitrant nations in the region had to admit that Israel is not the problem.
It’s also fun to watch the MSM heartburn at this development. For my entire lifetime, “peace in the Middle East” has been an absurdist punchline, right there beside “curing cancer” as a trope used to suggest something that is metaphysically impossible. For decades, the Wizards of Smart (hat tip to Rush) in our foreign policy establishment have been stroking their chins and condescendingly sniffing that no Middle East treaties can ever be negotiated until the terrorist Palestinian government has first been appeased.
And then this big, orange dope bumbles in and does what they say couldn’t be done.
And Obama sits in his mansion in his all-white neighborhood on Martha’s Vineyard staring at the wall, and young jihadis in the West Bank listlessly fiddle with their suicide vests – all dressed up, and no one to blow up. And our media DO NOT COVER the biggest foreign policy story since 9/11.
If this schadenfreude continues for any longer than four hours, I will need to call my physician.
Speaking of schadenfreude, I now come to Positive Thing #5: the amazing, entertaining German language, which I have lately come to enjoy more and more. So let me finish by singing its praises.
First, a German dad-joke: No matter how kind you are, German children will always be kinder.
One thing to love about Germans is the way they coin such amazing combination words.
In addition to schadenfreude (joy taken from another’s misery), there is “verschlimmbessern,” which means “making something worse while trying to fix it.”
As in, “Obamacare was a gigantic, stinking heap of verschlimmbessern.”
There is also a word that means “the weight gained due to emotional eating when depressed”: “kummerspeck.” Which literally means “grief bacon!”
As in, “If Biden wins, I’m going to spend all of November mowing through an entire barnyard’s worth of kummerspeck.”
There’s even a word that means, “you’re not wrong, you’re just an a**hole” – waltersobchakeit – which would come in super handy every election year, as well as many other times. (Now if only there were a word that means something very similar: “you are wrong, AND you’re an a**hole.” I nominate “adamschiffen.”)
(You’re welcome.)
Many German words are comically on point. The word for birth control pill is “antibabypille.” (No word on whether the word for abortionist is “antibabydoktor,” but it should be.)
The word for “skunk” is “stinkteir” – stink animal.
The word for “porcupine” is “stachelschwein” – spike pig.
The word for “turtle” is “schildkrote” – shield toad.
The word for “turkey” is “truthan” – threatening chicken.
Gloves are “hand shoes” (handschuhe). Friends with benefits are “sexfreunde.” Kittens are “cat children.” Lightbulbs are “glow pears.”
I love it!
As in many languages, German words that are almost identical can mean something very different: “erschaffen” means “create,” but change one letter — to “arschaffen” – and you’ve got “ass monkey.”
German also has some idiomatic phrases that are nonsensical to outsiders. “Das ist mir Wurst” is a phrase that means, “I don’t care.” Literally translated, it means “This is sausage to me.” I have no idea why sausage would evoke such apathy – to me a good wurst is the best! (HA!) – but I love the phrase. And I’m going to try to use it whenever I get the chance, no matter how many strange looks I get.
Have a happy Monday, everybody. And as we approach election day, remember that Trump has been erschaffen a strong economy and peace in the Middle East, while Joe Biden is just an arschaffen.
Also, you’ll be hearing a lot of Democrat talking points about why Trump shouldn’t nominate a replacement for Ginsburg, but it’s all sausage to me, and it should be to you, too.
Avenatti/ Arschaffen 2020!
Martin Simpson 