I'm Right Again Dot Com

                             A new commentary every Wednesday — Nov 2, 2016


A FINE MESS

"Now look at the fine mess you've got us in, Stanley" - Oliver Hardy: Laurel and Hardy join the Foreign Legion in "Beau Hunks" (Metro Goldwyn Mayer-1931)

    I either have to give credit or condemn the El Paso Times for publishing an editorial solution for the current presidential imbroglio.*  "The day after the election is over, the Senate ought to consider impeachment proceedings for whomever is be sworn in on inauguration day," the editorial states. 

    How about that? Could most Americans live with whichever Vice President would succeed the choice of voters in this season of unreason?

    If you are not too nauseous, please sample the following: After being underwhelmed by response to last week's dissertation on the history of communism, I came across a marvelous article in the October 10, 2016 edition of New Yorker Magazine by Larissa MacFarquhar, titled "Trumptown."  Here's my Readers Digest Version:

    Rick Abraham, of Logan, West Virginia, an American of Arab descent, tells the story of both of his Muslim grandfathers' immigrations to America.  His paternal grandfather's name was Abraham Dewud, but when he immigrated from Lebanon, a U.S. Immigration Officer changed it to Joe Abraham. He sold pots and pans throughout West Virginia. Not long afterward, Joe signed up to fight in The First World War. He married a Christian woman but neither changed their religions. Joe never smoked, drank liquor or ate pork.

    Rick's maternal grandfather was also an immigrant—a Syrian Muslim. Rick has the pledge his maternal grandfather signed when he was naturalized in the Logan County Courthouse. It reads in part: "It is my bona fide intention to renounce forever all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, and particularly to Mehmed V, Emperor of the Ottomans of whom I am a subject. I am not an anarchist; I am not a polygamist, nor a believer in the practice of polygamy; and it is my intention in good faith to become a citizen of the United States of America and to permanently reside therein."

    Rick's maternal grandfather opened a grocery store and he also married a Christian woman. This grandfather occasionally got together with other Arabs in the area—he was of Bedouin descent—and talked about the old country. He never converted to Christianity, nor did his wife become a Muslim. When he died, he was buried by an imam.

    "My grandmother Abraham smoked, drank liquor and bowled three nights a week," Rick Abraham said. "Mamaw ran the house."

    Only in America could this confluence of genes and religions have taken place. Somehow they worked out their differences.

     Rick heard that some recent Muslim immigrants want to practice Sharia law. He says they should go back from whence they came. "They don't want to assimilate," he said. "They should have to do that, if they want to be Americans. You should speak English, you should practice our laws, and if you don't want to do that, then don't come here. It's okay if they want to practice their customs—I don't want that to disappear, but we have a Constitution and people should go by it."

    Rick runs a mine-safety company. Coal mining is by far—I do not know how to stress the importance—of the leading industry in West Virginia. Rick is very open about his politics. He has a big sign on his front porch. It portrays a headshot of Hillary Clinton behind the bars of a jail cell.

    Takeaway: How are we ever going to get ourselves out of this fine mess?

    *Imbroglio: A disagreement of a bitter, complicated nature.   

(As I understand it, the House of Representatives initiates an impeachment, but the trial is held in the Senate) 

-Phil Richardson, Observer of the human condition and storyteller. "He goes doddering on into his old age, making a public nuisance of himself." - Joseph L. Mencken

  k7os@comcast.net


THE PROSPERITY COAL COMPANY: My book about hard times and union wars in the coal fields, in times past.  

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