Damage

There's a Donald Barthelme story -- I wish I could find it -- that opens with a long, delirious paragraph about brain damage:  "There's brain damage in the east and brain damage in the west...and in my lady's parlor -- brain damage..."  It runs through my head every time I pull on my hazmat clothes and wade into the day's news.  Join me.

At the same time James Shaw was overpowering Travis Reinking in Antioch, Chikesia Clemons was being overpowered by three white cops at a Waffle House in Saraland, Alabama, outside Mobile.  She apparently requested plastic utensils for her food, and was told the place charges an extra fifty cents.  (I guess the regulars bring their own, or eat with their hands.)  Ms. Clemons became angry and used intemperate language, which is what any sentient person would do, so the three officers were forced to throw her on the floor, yank down her shirt and handcuff her.  (They were in fear for their lives.  Count on it.)  Waffle House needs to re-examine its open-all-hours policy.  The Saraland police department has a few problems, too.

On Monday Alek Minassian drove a van down a sidewalk on Yonge Street in Toronto, killing ten people, mostly women, and injuring others.  (When the police surrounded him he shouted, "Kill me," but the closest officer holstered his weapon.  Yeah, I pretty much love Canada.)  It had all the hallmarks of a Daesh atrocity, but before Trump could limber up his thumbs and bash Justin Trudeau, the facts came out.  Minassian is an out-and-proud "incel," which stands for "involuntary celibate."  He and his online brothers worship Elliot Rodger, the freak who murdered six women in 2014 for just not being that into him, condemning him to a life of virginal frustration.  There are, apparently, thousands of these guys, who hate women but feel entitled to sex from them.  (I think I see where the problem is.)  Self-described beta-males, they also hate the "Chads," alpha-males who are getting all they want and won't share.  The chop-logic they use is that sex is a human (male) need, like food, and they are entitled to take it if it isn't offered, like Jean Valjean stealing bread.  To which women quite reasonably respond, "I am not a loaf of bread, even fresh, crusty bread from a Paris boulangerie."  And by the way, plenty of women are lonely, too.  No sense of entitlement, no guns, just...lonely.

And there's brain damage in York County, Pennsylvania, where my ancestors farmed.  A lovely place.  At the Grandview Country Club last weekend a group of five women, new members, were golfing together.  Their tee time was delayed an hour because of frost.  They had just finished the first hole when a man named Steve Chronister, whose son is a co-owner of the place, marched up and ordered them to play faster or leave.  The group behind them had not complained, and was proceeding at a leisurely pace.  Chronister also called the police, angering the five professional women, one of whom, Sandra Thompson, is president of the York County NAACP.  (Did I mention the women are black?  Did I have to?)  To their credit, the police determined that the complaint was bullshit, apologized and left.  Ms. Thompson, an attorney, will doubtless seek her own remedy.  Anyway, nobody died, so that was nice.

And only a few million of us died of embarrassment at the spectacle of Trump slavering all over Emanuel Macron, subjecting him to creepy hugs and handshakes, picking something (dandruff?) off his clothes and probably sniffing his butt.  Macron had to spend two days with The Trumps, listening to Donnie's inanities, making contact with his flesh and ignoring his old-man smell.   (Melania smelled better and spoke French.)  Today he had his revenge, denouncing everything trump to a cheering Congress.  He attacked trade-war nationalism, defended the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate agreement, and politely did not describe his disgust at watching Trump eat.  I can't wait for his memoirs.

Speaking of memoirs, James Comey continues on the Mother of All Book Tours.  Tonight CNN gives him a two-hour infomercial, an interview with Anderson Cooper and a "town hall discussion" with Chris Cuomo.  That leaves "Dancing With the Stars" and maybe a pre-game one-on-one with LeBron James (well, he is six feet eight).  I can't wait for Robert Mueller's memoirs.  I venture to suggest a title:  American Cincinnatus.  Mueller is 73, and has served this country with honor and distinction from the Marine Corps to the Justice Department (where he put away gangsters far smarter than Trump, with better lawyers) to the FBI.  I suspect he'd like to spend every day golfing or seeing his grandchildren or just watching a ball game.  But he was called, and he left his horses in the field and reported for duty.  I'm not easily impressed, especially by a Republican, but this guy.

And now, the comic relief.  Remember Ronny Jackson, physician to the stars?  He told us all about Trump's splendid genes, which is the kind of nonsense Trump tells people because "German blood" has a dubious ring to it.  He was rewarded by being named Secretary of Veterans Affairs, overseer of the second-largest Cabinet department and the one with the most intractable problems.  Trump had carefully vetted him by watching him on television and pronouncing him good-looking.  Well, his nomination has hit a snag, i.e., the hearing was canceled and nobody knows when or if it will happen.  People who actually look into these things heard that he ran a toxic workplace, dispensed drugs willy-nilly, and may be a drunk.  Who could have guessed?  He's an admiral, just as Petraeus and Flynn were generals.  Shocked am I.