William Gass, a writer...

...whom you may have never heard -- and I admittedly haven't read -- died at age 93. I remember his name from a college English class in connection with his work, In the Heart of the Heart of the Country. From his New York Times obit (my emphasis):

Since his first novel, “Omensetter’s Luck,” was published in 1966, Mr. Gass was one of the most respected authors never to write a best seller. (He wrote only two other novels but many novellas, short stories and essays.)

He received a raft of awards, including two National Book Critics Circle Awards for collections of criticism and philosophy: “Habitations of the Word” in 1985 and “Finding a Form” in 1997. He won four Pushcart Prizes, the Pen-Faulkner Prize and a $100,000 lifetime achievement award from the Lannan Foundation in 1997.

The novelist John Barth, a fellow practitioner of metafiction, predicted that Mr. Gass would someday rank high in the history of American arts and letters. “If he doesn’t,” Mr. Barth said in 1999, “it will be history’s fault.”

As I said, I've never read anything by Mr. Gass. Since I recognized his name, though, I read his obituary with anticipation. And I found it encouraging; here was a guy content to live in obscurity writing works of fiction that he thought had real value, rather than best sellers that would have made him rich. I've started novels by writers like Stephen King and John Grisham and just couldn't get very far. It's not that I'm some kind of literary snob; I actually don't read much fiction. But I just don't like wasting my time on pulp fiction. So I admire someone like Gass who decides he's not going to write for a popular audience but instead aspire to create the highest quality art possible. Looks like he never got rich, but he lived comfortably. I hope he gets the recognition he deserves some day.

I used to think Fox News...

...was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, problems in America. Yep, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, the Drudge Report and now Brietbart. Those, I used to think, were the biggest problems in America. It was right-wing media, I reasoned, that dumbed-down the Republican Party base, giving us first the tea party, and now Donald Trump.

But now I think just a little differently. And a piece in Bloomberg this morning, "What If the Courts Were Filled With 'Little Scalias'?," reminds me why (my emphasis):

The left has lately been in a panic at the realization that President Donald Trump has so many vacancies to fill on the federal bench, a panic hardly abated by conservative proposals to add a lot more seats. The fear, as one of my Yale colleagues puts it, is that Trump will appoint lots of “little Scalias” -- a reference to Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016 and was succeeded on the Supreme Court this year by Neil Gorsuch.

Whom, you might ask, are all these "little Scalias"? And the point is, it doesn't matter: they're out there, apparently, and just waiting to be appointed to the federal bench. And the point, further, is that they weren't created by Trump or Jeff Sessions or even Fox News. And neither were Fox News's viewers. No, they were out there all along and merely there for the taking. Do you think, for example, that Sean Hannity's recent paranoid conspiracy rantings are costing him viewers? Then think again.

So my final point is that Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and, yes, Donald Trump, wouldn't exist without a ready and willing audience to support them. A nation of over 330 million people is bound to have a few jackasses like Sean Hannity and Donald Trump. (It's probably a bell curve.) The problem -- the main problem -- here is that over 60 million adults in this country thought Trump was qualified to be president. As Pogo famously said, "We have met the enemy and he is us."

Or, as Jerry Seinfeld put it:

"I will never understand people."

"They're the worst."

That's the problem with America -- Americans.

The Name of the Day...

...is actually a tie, and can be found on the same page of the print edition of the New York Times.

Robert Youngentob, at top, is president of the Maryland-based real estate developer EYA, and Barry Swatsenbarg, above, is a senior vice president for Colliers International.

Neither name is particularly funny, just a mouthful.

Why didn't someone years ago, for example, shorten "Youngentob" to just plain "Young"? Gary Hart's last name was originally Hartpence. That's not as bad as Youngentob. Imagine:

"Table for four?"

"Sure; the name?"

"Youngentob."

"Youngen . . . [maitre d' looks up] what?"

"Never mind; Young."

"Oh, yes, right this way, sir."

Just sayin'.

John Anderson, who ran...

...as an independent candidate for president in 1980, died at age 95.

I voted for Mr. Anderson that year -- it was my first-ever vote for president -- and, looking back on it, don't regret it. From his New York Times obit (my emphasis):

Mr. Anderson refused to pander, telling voters in Iowa that he favored President Jimmy Carter’s embargo on grain sales to the Soviet Union after it had invaded Afghanistan. He called for a gasoline tax of 50 cents per gallon — when a gallon cost $1.15 — to save energy.
___

Early on, when all six of his rivals for the Republican nomination assured the Gun Owners of New Hampshire that they firmly opposed gun control legislation, Mr. Anderson said, “I don’t understand why.”

“When in this country we license people to drive automobiles,” he added, “what is so wrong about proposing that we license guns to make sure that felons and mental incompetents don’t get ahold of them?”

He was roundly booed.
___

...he had harshly criticized President Richard M. Nixon, a fellow Republican, over his handling of the Watergate scandal. 
___

He was a leader in the passage of open housing legislation in 1968 and in setting campaign contribution limits in 1974, and he worked with his Democratic friend, Morris K. Udall of Arizona, to create 10 national parks in Alaska, protecting 100 million acres.
___

But he grew increasingly impatient not only with the House but also with the growing strength of the right wing of his own party.

“Extremist fringe elements,” he complained in 1977, “seek to expel the rest of us from the G.O.P.” He warned, “If the purists stage their ideological coup d’état, our party will be consigned to the historical junk heap.”
___

He left Congress so he could seek the presidency in 1980, then considered another presidential run in 1984 but ended up supporting Mr. Reagan’s Democratic challenger, Walter F. Mondale, the former vice president. He backed Ralph Nader’s third-party run in 2000 and disapproved of the Tea Party movement, telling The New Yorker in 2010, “I break out in a cold sweat at the thought that any of those people might prevail.”
___

Though Mr. Anderson’s candidacy had little impact on the outcome of the 1980 election, his campaign was memorable for its candor. Appearing in Des Moines with six rivals for the Republican nomination, Mr. Anderson was alone among them in saying something specific when asked if there was anything in his career he would take back if he could.

“It would have been the vote that I cast in favor of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution,” he said, referring to the 1964 congressional measure that gave President Lyndon B. Johnson license to widen the war against North Vietnam.
___

He was equally forthright in defending his call for an emergency excise tax on gasoline, unpopular though it might have been.

“I did it as a security measure, to be sure,” he told the September 1980 debate audience, “because I would rather see us reduce the consumption of imported oil than have to send American boys to fight in the Persian Gulf.”

Even though Jimmy Carter is probably the best former president of the United States, he really was a uniquely ineffectual chief executive. (A cautionary tale for true outsiders.) I guess I could have voted for Carter anyway, but it didn't really make a difference -- I lived in Minnesota at the time and the state went solidly for the incumbent. And after reading some of those excerpts from Mr. Anderson's obituary, I don't feel so bad about supporting his quixotic candidacy back then. If anything, maybe it foreshadowed my own -- gradual -- conversion to progressive causes.

Mitch McConnell just said...

...something that might actually be true. (I guess even a broken clock is right twice a day. Or, in Mr. McConnell's case, at least once in a lifetime.)

From "For McConnell, Health Care Failure Was a Map to Tax Success" in the Times (my emphasis):

“[The Democrats] are convinced it is good politics to be against [the tax bill], and we believe it is good politics to do it,” he said. “We either get the growth rates or we don’t. In other words, one of these sides is going to be proven wrong.”

And that to me is the silver lining to the story of this tax bill. (And maybe to this entire era of political polarization in which we live.)

In today's world, unlike the past, when you vote Republican or Democratic at least you know what you're getting. And, as demonstrated by this Congress, more and more the party in power is able to enact their policies and we're able to find out once and for all if they work or not. (I'd argue that the "Kansas experiment" of the last few years has already answered it, but now the whole country is going to see for themselves.)*

Despite projections the legislation could cost the government $1.5 trillion, [McConnell] insisted it ultimately would not add to and might even shrink deficits because of the economic expansion he expects it to generate.

“We are pretty confident this is going to get the country up to a higher growth rate, which will improve wages because demand for employees will go up and improve the government revenues as well, which makes the deficit shrink,” he said.

And, again, Mr. McConnell is right: we'll actually get to see if this radical approach improves wages and government revenues and makes the deficit shrink. I happen to think not, but at least we'll all have our answer. (And, if I am indeed wrong, I hope I have the maturity to say so, and be happy that the country is prospering.)

But if I'm right, then hopefully the Democrats will take back the House and Senate, the White House, most state legislatures and statehouses and eventually the courts. (That sounds like a lot to take back, doesn't it?) And if there's any justice in the universe (or at least this country) that will happen and more progressive policies will be put in place. (Although between gerrymandering and voter suppression I have my doubts.)

Am I angry about the process? Absolutely. (Just as I'm angry about the whole Merrick Garland affair.) But, as they say, paybacks are a bitch. And the Democrats, who will surely ride the pendulum back to power at some point, will probably be just as ruthless as the Republicans. My guess? The filibuster will be toast and legislation will be passed in the Senate by simple majority rule. (Say hello to Medicare for all.) And that's ultimately a good thing. Voters will know what they're voting for, they'll get it, and we'll all get to see if it works or not.

P. S. Here's a good thread on "process."

* Still not sure if the "Kansas experiment" was a success or not? Then ask yourself, why is its architect, Gov. Sam Brownback, leaving office early to be the nation’s "international ambassador for religious freedom" (whatever that is)? If it worked, wouldn't he be sticking around to take bows for it?

Mitch Margo, an original member...

...of the Tokens, who sang "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," died at age 70.

Although I especially like the woman's voice in that video, I always preferred this version by the Weavers:

 From the Times:

[The] song was based on a 1939 recording, "Mbube" — Zulu for "The Lion" — by the South African musician Solomon Linda and his group the Original Evening Birds.

Pete Seeger recorded a version in the 1950s as “Wimowe,” which is how he sang the original lyric “mbube” (pronounced EEM-boo-beh). The American songwriter George David Weiss reworked it in 1961, adding the lyrics “In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight.” That’s the version made famous by the Tokens.

While I'm at it, I always liked this song too:

It was Mr. Margo’s idea for the Happenings to do an up-tempo version of the Gershwin brothers’ “I Got Rhythm,” his nephew Noah Margo said. The record reached No. 3 on the Billboard singles chart in 1967.

Another star of a great...

...sitcom from my childhood has passed away. Jim Nabors, who played Gomer Pyle in Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. from 1964 to 1969, died at age 87.