Boobus Americanus

“The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth. A Galileo could no more be elected President of the United States than he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both high posts are reserved for men favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter facts of life in bandages of soft illusion.”

  Damn! A Book of Calumny.

  H. L. Mencken, 1918

On Politicians and pancakes (Baltimore Sun)

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-trump-food-20160512-story.html

Hope springs eternal. . .

. . . that after the Wisconsin primary the New York tabloid headline will be

Wisconsin to Trump: You're Fired

The downside of that is that the state that gave us Joe McCarthy will advance the presidential candidacy of Ted Cruz, McCarthy's think-alike, look-alike.

IS = Ignoble Savages

                                                  Let IS stand for Ignoble Savages

             

 The vast majority of Muslims who abhor the behavior of the so-called Islamic State must be horrified -- as everyone should be --that the jihadists are allowed to call themselves the Islamic State or that leaders of the so-called civilized world legitimize the rude misnomer by calling the group the Islamic State. In the U.S. the difference is only that the government insists on calling it the Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL) and others call it the Islamic State in Syria (ISIS).

 So here’s an idea: Keep the acronyms ISIS and ISIL but let IS stand for something more accurately reflective of the barbarity of these men who are murderers and rapists, pillagers, plunderers and desecraters. Let’s say that IS stands instead for Ignoble Savages – Ignoble Savages in the Levant and Ignoble Savages in Syria, Ignoble Savages, pure and simple. That’s what they are wherever they are.

A Mencken Song

     After my Mencken column appeared in The Baltimore Sun February 19, I received a message from Christine Lavin, a New York based folk singer who shared with me her song based on some Mencken quotes all relevant to this year’s political campaigns. Great song, great video.

As follows:

http://www.vimeo.com/28293383

Christine’s website is:

www.christinelavin.com