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A lot has happened in the world since my last piece for Cautious Optimism.  The Supreme Court temporarily backed Trump’s travel ban, with all indications pointing to a permanent smack-down of the dopes in the 4th and 9th circuit courts later this year.

Elmo went to Jordan, and is back to report that Syrian refugee kids are just like other kids.  (Even Jewish and Christian kids, whose lives are routinely threatened by at least some of the parents of the Syrian kids.)

Trump posted a juvenile but hilarious wrestling video of him pummeling a CNN figure, after which CNN pulled its collective dress over its head and stomped around in a room full of rakes – “This video constitutes a threat to journalists’ lives!  We must find the meme-maker and give him the Otto Warmbier treatment!” — making themselves look much worse than Trump.

Jamie Galioto captured a much-deserved CO Follower of the Month award, to the acclaim of a grateful nation.

But one story captured my attention, not because it was the most politically significant, but because it might offer one of the most painfully indicative “sign of the times” in terms of our society’s growing insanity when it comes to issues of gender and sexism.

This was the mind-numbingly stupid controversy over John McEnroe’s comments about Serena Williams’ hypothetical competitiveness against the top male tennis players in the world.  There were three parts to the story:

Act 1: The Interview.

In the course of an NPR interview with someone called Lulu Garcia-Navarro, McEnroe praised Williams as probably “the greatest female tennis player of all time.”  Ever vigilant for sexist thought, the interviewer said, “Some wouldn’t qualify it, some would say she’s the best player in the world.  Why qualify it?”

McEnroe was apparently too stunned by the weapons-grade obliviousness of the question. “Oh!” McEnroe replied. “Uh, she’s not, you mean, the best player in the world, period?”

“Yeah, the best tennis player in the world,” Garcia-Navarro said. “You know, why say female player?”

Luckily, McEnroe wasn’t drinking anything at that moment, or he could have done a classic spit take, drenching Lulu, as she so richly deserved.  He said that he thought she would be ranked around 700 if she played against men, which led to howls of outrage from those who are perpetually on the verge of howling with outrage.

By the way, you’re probably asking yourself if interviewer Lulu Garcia-Navarro is the same Garcia-Navarro who won dozens of professional women’s tennis tournaments, and for whom the oversized crystal trophy awarded to each year’s Wimbledon champ – “The Lulu” – is named.

No and no.

First, there is no Wimbledon trophy called “the Lulu” – I made that up.  You should be a little embarrassed if you believed me.

Second, my extensive research – by which I mean, two minutes of Googling Garcia-Navarro – shows that Lulu has never played professional tennis.  Or, as far as I could tell, college tennis or high school tennis.  She may never have picked up a tennis racket in her life.

Which might start to explain – although a room temperature IQ might also be a contributing factor – why she thinks that there is no reason (except sexism, of course) to say that a female tennis player might be better than any of the male tennis players in the world.

I’m going to mention a few biological facts now.  So, I guess… trigger warning for those of you who cannot tolerate reality?  For the rest of you, stand back while I blow your mind:

Males are physically larger, with more muscle and less body fat than females.  They are faster, and hit the ball harder than females do.  Extensive research (i.e. another 90 seconds on Google) shows that the top 20 male serve speeds range from 144-163 miles per hour, compared to the top female speeds from 124-131, and that the average male serve speed is around 30 kilometers per hour faster than the average female serve speed.  (I don’t know how much that is in miles per hour, because I’m not a commie who uses the metric system, except when buying a gun or tools.  But I’m guessing that it’s a significant difference.)

These aren’t insults; they’re facts.  And there’s no reason for a rational person to be offended by them.  But sadly, it’s the mark of a certain kind of feminist to not be able to acknowledge the most basic biological differences without being angered by them.   (Full disclosure: I consider myself a feminist, but not the “all men are horrible, and women are superior” kind.)

My wife is good at many things that I’m not.  Though I sometimes envy her for that, I can’t imagine getting angry about it.  And if I point out that I can do many more pushups than she can, I don’t have to worry that she’ll go off on a spittle-flecked rant insisting that I take that back or she’ll kill me.

That was an old girlfriend.  And things didn’t end well.

Anyway, it’s a very bad sign when our society can’t acknowledge the naturally differing abilities of both genders without being infuriated by them.   I hope that one day we’ll all meet at a big Cautious Optimism convention, and if we do, I expect that many people will say things to me like, “Wow, you smell nice.” Or “I noticed you doing many one-armed push-ups earlier. Impressive.”

But if one of you – say, Lulu Garcia-Navarro, if she somehow snuck past CO’s security – were to say something like, “Simpson, you think you’re so great, with your Nobel prize in ornithology and your fashionable tuxedo.”  (I picture all of us at a Cautious Optimism convention in formal wear.) “But you, sir, are horrible at lactating.  In fact, I bet I could lactate circles around you!”

I might respond in several ways, including wondering who this crazy woman was, and how she got in here, and what circular lactating would look like.

But do you know how I would NOT respond in a million years?

I would not get defensive and say, “Oh yeah?!  Them’s fightin’ words!” And then I would NOT ball up my fists and flex like Hans and Franz, grunting loudly while I tried to force myself to lactate on cue.

Because men don’t lactate nearly as well as women.  (Cue the NBC “The more you know” theme music.)  We also don’t tend to listen as well as women.  Or have as much emotional intelligence as women do.  Or exercise basic common sense when it comes to things with motors in them.

And that doesn’t make us less worthy as human beings.  Any more than the fact that the best male tennis players in the world would dominate the best female tennis players in the world.

Act 2: The Coerced Apology

Well, that’s it, you’re thinking.  Garcia-Navarro is a dim bulb, but an idiosyncratic one.  Surely no one else could be stupid enough to–  Wait.  This just in from an Inside Edition interview with McEnroe a few days after the controversy broke.

Co-host Gayle King complains, “I think it belittles what women do on the tennis court, that’s why people are upset,” she said.

Because stating an undeniable truth is seen as “belittling.”  Duh.

McEnroe tries to explain himself – that is, tries to explain the obvious – when Norah O’Donnell chimes in with, “I’m just waiting… would you like to apologize?”

When McEnroe says, “No,” Charlie Rose says, “Why was it necessary to say that?” and the three hosts badger him for several more painfully comedic minutes.

In recent years everybody seems to be getting awfully sensitive on various topics, but it seems like we’ve really lost our mind when it comes to gender (and race, too).  I can’t imagine, for example, similar comments being made about someone on the Senior PGA tour, which is a league in which famous pro golfers over 55 compete against each other.  But if a commentator mentioned that he thought that some old guy was the best golfer on the senior tour, no “journalist” would be goofy enough to say, “Why do you qualify that?  Why best ‘senior’ golfer?  Why not just say that he’s the best golfer in the world?”

If anyone WAS dopey enough to say that, the commentator would say something like, “Because he’s 86!  His drives go as far as Dustin Johnson’s 7 irons!  Are you nuts?  Hold on, let me take a long drink, so you can ask that question again, and I can spit it on you in disgust.”

Act 3: In Which the Poor Victim Proves to be a Hypocrite

So after McEnroe initially refuses to apologize for saying something that is obviously true, the empty heads work on him for a few minutes until he cracks, mumbling about not wanting to upset Serena while she’s pregnant.

But as part of the Inside Edition piece, they quote a tweet from Serena herself: “Dear John, I adore and respect you, but please, please keep me out of your statements that are not factually based.  Respect me and my privacy as I am trying to have a baby.”

By the way, my favorite part of the Inside Edition piece was that the story cut immediately from Serena’s plea for respecting her privacy as she has her baby to – wait for it – “Speaking of her baby, look at this provocative new Vanity Fair cover: a very pregnant Serena!” Sure enough, they plaster a big nude photo of Serena in what has to be the fourth trimester, at least.

Because nothing says, “Why won’t anyone give me my privacy?!” like a nude cover photo on Vanity Fair.

Anyway, look at her tweet one more time: she objects to McEnroe’s “statements that are not factually based.”  Does that mean that she agrees with Lulu that she could beat the best male players?  It sounds like it.

But then, Serena’s appearance on Letterman from four years ago surfaced.  Letterman talked about the Billie Jean King/ Bobby Riggs match, and asked Serena, “What would happen if something like that happened today?”

Williams said essentially what earned McEnroe such scorn.  Her answer, which I’m not making up, was, “Andy Murray [at that time, the 3^rd ranked men’s player in the world] has been joking about myself and him playing a match… For me, men’s and women’s tennis are completely almost two separate sports. If I were to play Andy Murray, I would lose 6-0 6-0 in five to six minutes, maybe ten minutes…. The men are a lot faster, they serve harder, they hit harder.  It’s a different game.  I love to play women’s tennis, and I only want to play girls because I don’t want to be embarrassed.  I would not do the tour or Billie Jean King any justice, so Andy stop it, I’m not going to let you kill me.”

Hypocrisy, thy name is Serena.

So what have we learned from this?  Maybe that men and women are different?

If you still needed to learn that, you should sue the Gender Studies program from which you received your degree.

I come to you today bearing only good news.  I’m back from Illinois, I had a great Father’s Day, and I’m in a great mood.  So today we’re going to stay on the sunny side.

In political news, Democrats nationwide scrape together $24 million, and then take a vote on what to do with it.  While many of them voted for

Option A – Put it in a big pile, light it on fire, and dance around it wearing Guy Fawkes masks and Antifa hoodies while screaming obscenities aimed at Trump – the narrow winner was

Option B.  Which was to donate it to the Georgia House campaign of 15-year-old Jon “Pajama Boy” Ossoff, a ne’er-do-well from two counties over.

And he wisely used it to win… (trumpet fanfare)… a moral victory… (sad trombone fanfare).

By which I mean, he lost.  In the most expensive House campaign ever.  In a bellwether contest to demonstrate that Trump is done for.  In a harbinger of the glorious leftist victories to come.

He lost.

I know, the lefties are already counter-spinning.  This was a red district, and the GOP spent a lot too, and Handel under-performed the previous GOP seat holder.  And the sun got in our eyes, and the dog ate our homework, and the Russians did it.

You’re probably right.  You just need to double-down on the Trump hatred, and things are bound to turn around for you.  But there have been 4 congressional elections since November, and you guys are 4-0 in moral victories.  And 0-4 in actual victories.

That gigantic cash bonfire idea is looking pret-ty good about now, isn’t it?

In happy international news, an ISIS chief cleric who called himself “the Grand Mufti” – probably because “Grand Kleagle” and “Exalted Cyclops” were already taken, and his real name was Turki al-Bin’ali – caught an air strike in the face on May 31^st.

I would like to renew my call that instead of a respectful moment of silence, we greet this kind of news with a few moments of raucous and celebratory noise.  I’m recommending a garage band playing the first 45 seconds of the Beastie Boy’s Sabotage, followed by the open to Stranglehold, followed by my dad’s 1972 Gran Torino with the pedal floored, and then a wood chipper working through a cedar tree.

(“Hey Martin,” I can almost hear you asking, “What dad joke did you tell your 15-year-old-daughter about this international incident that made her roll her eyes and slap her forehead and mimic the dry heaves?”  Since you asked so nicely: That’s one Turki who didn’t make it until Thanksgiving.  Boom!)

One news source called al-Bin’Kaboom “one of the most visible ISIS preachers.”  Am I the only one who sees the irony in a group who forces their women to wear tarps in public being done in because their Grand Mufti was too visible?

I am?  Fine.  I get it.  Everyone’s sooooo much more mature than me.  Moving on…

Crime stories don’t usually make me happy, but this week two of them did.  The first took place in Tennessee, where two felons and alleged (HA!) murderers who escaped from prison had exchanged gunfire with cops and were engaged in a high speed chase.  A local guy who lives in the area with his wife and daughter got a warning phone call from a neighbor.  He did several wise things: he “prayed like I had never prayed before,” and he “load[ed] every weapon I could,” and shortly afterwards he saw the criminals climb over a barbed wire fence onto his property.

They saw him, and before he could even show them the shotgun that he had with him, they both laid down on his driveway and surrendered.  One possible reason for their action can be gleaned from the statement of a local resident: “When you mess around out here in the county, most of us here have carry permits and carry (weapons).  And it’s our job to protect our families and our homes.”  If that statement doesn’t warm your heart, there’s something wrong with you.

(For comparison, consider a typical quote from a Chicago or New York resident in similar circumstances: “We huddled in our living room defenseless, because the leftists who run our lives have decided that we shouldn’t be able to defend ourselves.  Thanks, Mayors Emanuel and De Blasio!”)

When I read the story online, everybody in it was straight out of central casting: young Jimmy Stewart-esque gun owning father, pretty wife, adorable 3-year old daughter.  The convicts were what you’d expect: an older, mopey looking one who doesn’t have “Born to Lose” tattooed on his forehead but looks like he should, and a younger one who does in fact have prominent facial tattoos – including a sweet set of devil horns that just screams out, “Gainful employment? No thank you!”

I love every bit of this story, but my two favorite details are:

1. The dad loaded “every weapon he could.” Does that imply that of course he has more than one weapon available to him?  You’re damn right it does.
2. His name, which I’m not making up, is Patrick Hale. Obviously the bloodlines of Patrick Henry and Nathan Hale have merged to produce… this badass guy.

In the second good news criminal story, two model citizens had broken into a woman’s home in Georgia, and were in the process of stealing her tv, when she surprised them by being home, and by yelling at them.  They fled the scene, but while doing so, Genius #1, who was in the lead, fired back in the direction of the house.  Genius #2 was following him, and graciously stopped the bullet. With his head.

You’ll be shocked to learn that he was a 41-year old career criminal who was out on parole.  Maybe he’d been inside for so long that he didn’t realize that you can buy a tv now for $27 at Wal-Mart.  Any tv worth stealing would be so big you’d need a forklift to move it.

Also, if you were driving the tv away with a forklift, the bullet that your Mensa-member buddy fired your way might have struck the forklift.  Instead of your defective forehead.

Quote of the story goes to the local lawman, Sheriff Buford T. Obvious: “I’d much rather see one burglar shoot another burglar than an innocent homeowner.”

In a media story that threatened to intrude on my good mood, I heard that Reza Aslan was fired by CNN.  The headline that I saw said, “Aslan fired by CNN over vulgar anti-Trump tweet.”

Of course, my first thought was, “Why would a magnificent lion/Christ figure be writing vulgar anti-Trump tweets?”

My second thought was, “Why would a magnificent lion/Christ figure work for CNN?”

Then I read the story, and found out that it was Reza Aslan, and that he is an angry, angry little man.  The story is still amazing though: would you have believed that CNN would fire someone over vulgarity directed at Trump?  How is there still anyone on the air over there?

On a final, personal note, my wife got me a present for Father’s Day.

Before you can ask if it was a man romper, or a little scrunchy thing I could use to give myself a man bun, or a “Now You’ve Pi**ed Ossoff” bumper sticker, I rhetorically slap you.  (Though the bumper sticker would have been cool.  I thought of it weeks ago as a slogan for the Dems who were supporting Pajama Boy.  And I kept it to myself.  HA!)

No, my wife gave me… drumroll…a mug with a picture of Mad Dog Mattis on it, with the question, “What keeps you awake at night?” at the top, and his answer below: “Nothing.  I keep other people awake at night.”  I love looking at that mug first thing every morning.

It’s true that being a good spouse is not a competition.  But somehow, my wife is winning anyway.

I was on a trip this past week back to Illinois to see family and friends, and so only caught a few minutes per day of news on either the internet or tv. And oddly enough, by the time I got home my blood pressure was lower, I slept better, the acid indigestion was gone, and my hair had a silky, lustrous sheen. Men wanted to be me, and women wanted to be with me.

But being the wonky doofus that I am, I couldn’t help spending the last couple of days going through my DVR and the internet, trying to catch up on all things political. Which was a terrible idea. Now I’ve got insomnia, acid reflux, blurred vision, my Tourette’s Syndrome is acting up, and my hair is coming out in big clumps like I just finished a third round of chemo.

So read quickly, because after this I might have to take a month off.

The Comey hearings have been talked to death, so I’ll just mention a couple of issues that struck me:

1. Rubio had the quote of the week, when he pointed out (and Comey had to admit) the only fact that hadn’t been leaked during the whole pseudo-collusion farce: Trump was never under investigation for any Russian collusion. What else do you need to know about MSM corruption? They’ve floated 854 sleazy rumors, and somehow managed to NOT report the central fact of the story.

2. Comey admitted that he was one of the leakers, which violates the prime directive for intelligence officials. For the rest of his life, he should be forced to wear a scarlet “L,” and be shunned by decent people everywhere.

3. The only public official discussed in the testimony who likely obstructed justice and deserved a proctological-level investigation was Obama’s AG Loretta Lynch. In fact, Comey said that she directly told him to lie – to call the “investigation” of Clinton a “matter.” Comey said that he felt queasy after that request, because he knew how wrong it was. But look at what he did next: he started referring to it as a “matter,” and he did NOT leak Lynch’s order to anyone. That alone proves that Comey is a partisan hack.
(Also, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: How bad is Obama’s judgment, when Eric “Steadman” Holder may arguably NOT have been his worst AG appointee?!)

4. Trump needs to give his enemies less ammunition in their scorched-earth battle against him. He’s his own worst enemy. (And considering the mangy menagerie of sociopathic leftist loons who are out to get him, that’s saying something!)

Et tu, Lefties? In other news, how about those arts lovers staging performances of Julius Caesar in Central Park with a Trump look-alike as Caesar? The obvious move is the “shoe on the other foot” question: Can you imagine how the MSM and the Dems (but I repeat myself) would react if someone put on a production like this with a leftist pol being killed? Would an Obama look-alike not make a serviceable Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar, or Hillary a great wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz? (Or one of the witches in MacBeth? Or Cruella De Vil in 101 Dalmations? Or Nurse Ratchet in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest? I could go on and on.). Would Joe Biden not make a great Lenny in Of Mice and Men?

I’m kidding, of course. (Not about Biden though. Was that guy born to play Lenny, or what?) We wouldn’t stoop that low, and we’d expect to be raked over the coals if some conservative staged such a performance. Not so with the other side, though.

Three quick thoughts:

1. The only way you can get a lefty crowd to celebrate a classic Western work authored by a dead white male is if you can turn it into political propaganda appealing to base instincts.

2. Predictably, the sweet-tempered, pacifistic, morally superior lefties in the crowd cheer the murder like… well, like a barbaric Roman crowd cheering on a murder.

3. And they made the citizens of NYC pay for at least part of the costs of their little bread-and-circuses performance. Some big corporate sponsors, in a fit of sanity, have backed out of their sponsorship, but last I heard, the city and the “arts community” is hanging in.

Some of my friends on the right want us to boycott, protest or otherwise try to stop such distasteful shenanigans, and while I understand, I disagree.

This is who they are: they shout “’F’ Trump” in front of their children, they use homophobic slurs about the prez and Putin, they fantasize about beheading the president, or stabbing him to death.

Let the country see them for who they are. And let the decent Democrats in the country rise up and disassociate themselves from this repulsive behavior, and the extremist goons who have taken over their party.

Or not. That will be instructive, too.

On a potentially related note, an angry leftist John Goodman-figure from The Big Lebowski shows up at a GOP softball practice. (Google that hateful shooter in his tinted shades, then pull up a picture of Goodman in the movie, and tell me they’re not angry, long-lost twins.) But instead of hollering at Donny and ranting about Nam, this guy’s all hopped up on political outrage, and he starts shooting. Thankfully, that story ends the way many such stories do: the bad guy with the gun gets stopped by good guys with guns. I hope that the victim recovers, and I’m not too torn up that the shooter won’t.
But I won’t do what the other side does, and claim that the hateful rhetoric of Bernie and the other Dems is responsible for this jerk’s actions. Bernie rightfully condemned him, and even though the MSM consistently tries to blame the actions of killers on conservatives, even when those killers are in no way connected to conservatives, I think they’re wrong to do so.

It doesn’t help when the leaders of a political party paint their opponents in hateful terms – and the GOP isn’t totally innocent of this, though I think they do it MUCH less than do the national Democrats. But this guy’s actions are his responsibility, and he has paid the just consequences.

Wow. I was going to end this piece there, but that was too much of a downer. So I’ll close with a happy ending instead.

Google the name Charles Zachary Howard, and you’ll learn that he is a sad little man who called a Republican congressman and left a vile message. He cited many of the popular lefty talking points – Nazis, the Klan – in addition to a few unusual ones. (The Freemasons? Hey Charlie, Nic Cage has his next National Treasure movie in pre-production, and his people will be issuing you a cease-and-desist order shortly.)
Did he close his little love note with a pledge to disagree without being disagreeable, you ask? He did not. He promised to, and I quote, “hunt your a– down, wrap a rope around your neck and hang you from a lamppost.”

Why do I mention this? Because that man is going to be on the 2020 ballot as the Democratic candidate for president.

HA! I kid. (I hope.) I actually mentioned Mr. Howard so that you will go onto YouTube, and watch a short video of him in action. A local reporter confronts him with a transcript of his phone call, and he starts bullying and taunting the reporter, saying, “Is there a warrant for my arrest? Show me the warrant for my arrest! Where is the warrant?!”

Then, because God exists, and He loves us, the police show up. And one of them says, “We have a warrant for your arrest.”

And, as a sad trombone plays (in my head if not on the video), they put the creep in cuffs.

Watch that video – it’s the feel-good hit of the summer!