Isaac Laquedem

The 2020 election: The Laquedem Plan To Grant Victory to Both Candidates

Three years of Donald Trump as our president have demonstrated that he enjoys the pomp of the presidency, doesn't want to work very hard, and has only a few fixed political principles.  (He might express those principles as "Taxes are bad!  Twitter is good!  Immigrants I'm not married to are bad!")  We as Americans are conflicted: we berate our presidents (not just Mr. Trump) when they too readily enjoy the perquisites of the office, and we don't like it when they're too fancy, but we also complain when they aren't fancy enough for our taste.

America needs a different president.  What, then, shall we do with the current one?  In 2016 we tried to show our preference for the other candidate by giving her 3,000,000 more votes, but Mr. Trump won anyway.  I suggest that we take advantage of his tastes and two recent events to provide victory to both President Trump and whomever the Democrats may nominate, while at the same  time bolstering the American economy and giving the gossip magazines a ready source of Kardashian-free material.  The two recent events are that Henry, Duke of Sussex, commonly (and no longer royally) known as Prince Harry, and his wife will live in Canada much of the year, and that the prince celebrated his 35th birthday on September 15, 2019.  Constitutional scholars will see where I'm going.

To accomplish the Laquedem Plan, we will need to enact one statute and make one revision to the constitution.  The statutory change is to create a ceremonial position (call it "Pooh-Bah"), to be filled by appointment from among those persons who are either past presidents of the United States or descended from a king or queen who at one time ruled over a portion of what is now the United States, meaning that the Pooh-Bah could be a member of the royal house of Great Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Spain, France, and Hawaii.  The constitutional change is to allow the Pooh-Bah to grant lifetime titles of nobility to persons who have held federal elective office on the condition that the ennobled recipients give up their right to hold any further elective office.

Prince Harry is available and looking for a job.  Imagine him as Pooh-Bah.  He has had years of training for a post that he's unlikely to ever fill in his own country.  He'll be local.  He's photogenic and popular.  His wife can act.  He's the ideal candidate.

What will Pooh-Bah Harry do?  I suggest that he starts by granting a title to Donald Trump.  "Earl of Jersey" is already taken, and "Earl of New Jersey" sounds parvenu.  I propose "Baron Trump of Florida" as being fitting.  There would be no duties and he could golf as much as he wishes.  The appointment would come with a coat of arms suitable to be mounted over a hotel entrance, and would even include a Chinese trademark registration.  He can have all the pomp and flattery that any nobleman would wish.  In the meantime the rest of the country can get back to business under the direction of a president better suited to do the actual work of governing.

Equal time for the defense: "Hang In There, Mr. President" (1974)

Richard Nixon inspired not just whimsical songs about the Watergate scandal that brought his presidency to an end, but also songs to rally his supporters.  Henry Tobias wrote this one, which Bernie Knee recorded with accordionist and polka king Frank Yankovic (1915-1998) and his orchestra.  The author wasn't afraid to use the i-word in the lyric:

You've got courage so just reach 'em (Fight! Fight! Fight!)

Let them holler 'Let's impeach him!"  They're wrong, you're right!

It's hard to imagine how the current administration would publicize a song in support of President Trump, as it no longer holds press conferences.  His lawyer Rudy Giuliani could sing it on his behalf, but he's shown a facility for getting his lines wrong.

An unexpected surprise at MOD Pizza

CNN accidentally makes a point about child-rearing

I can't be the only one who noticed the coincidence in CNN's story about the mother of Osama bin Laden being followed by, well, the story that it was followed by.

Venerable Mom's credit was not good enough for Macy's, but it satisfies her bank

Six years ago Macy's turned down Venerable Mom's application for a credit card, despite her good credit history and enviable financial status.  I wrote about it here.

This week VM received an invitation to apply for a Platinum Visa card from a more local institution, which acknowledged her good credit and years as a customer.  I wrote a response on her behalf:

I received the solicitation that you directed to my mother, Venerable Mom Laquedem, to apply for a Greatest Bank Visa Platinum Card, and the recognition of her good credit that your offer implies.  Mom was very proud of her sterling credit history – I think her last late payment on anything was in 1953 – and she reacted with chagrin in 2011 when Macy’s turned her down for a credit card, something she and I couldn’t explain, given her substantial private income and complete freedom from debt.  I think at the time her debts totaled $674, the amount of her charges that month on her credit card, and she had then lived for 15 years without a home mortgage and 50 years without a car payment.

She’s not, unfortunately, able to accept your offer, because in the fall of 2013 she died, quite peacefully and still debt-free.  She’d likely be cheered by your offer, almost as much as she’d have reveled in the news that Macy’s has closed the store that invited her to apply for a credit card and then rejected her as unworthy of the honor.

Very truly yours,

Isaac Laquedem

 

Sprint says the new iPhone can reach people no other phone can call

My cell phone carrier texts me today: "This Mother's Day, call your mom (on THIS NEW iPhone - and save)," with a link to the advertisement.

The carrier has hit on a compelling sales pitch.  I would pay well for a new iPhone on which I could call Venerable Mom Laquedem, if she would answer.  I can speak to her -- she occupies a handsome brass container above my fireplace -- but it's been several years since she last talked back.

A job has opened up for which I am painfully qualified

Comedian Irwin Corey billed himself as "The World's Foremost Authority."  Authority on what?  Anything you might wish him to talk about, if you were willing to overlook how he could spiral from coherent and professorial English into a whirlpool of substance and syntax so mangled that George W. Bush would have cringed.  Professor Corey died yesterday at the advanced age of 102, and his death leaves vacant the post of being the world's foremost authority.  Until a less suitable substitute is located, I'm happy to claim the title. 

The definition of "contributory negligence" is

. . . giving money to state and local candidates who finish second.  I committed a lot of it this year.

The Oregon Symphony has a new conductor -- maybe

Today the staff and orchestra of the Oregon Symphony picked up a possible explanation for why they never see Carlos Kalmar (the Symphony's music director) and Charles Calmer (the Symphony's artistic administrator) in the same room.

Isaac celebrates Tax Day 2016

As is our custom, we celebrate Tax Day 2016¹ with a apposite reading from A.P. Herbert.  Today's reading is an extract from his story "Rex v. Haddock: Can a Worm Turn?", written in the form of the decision of a trial court.  The author's protagonist, Albert Haddock, has been accused of knowingly filing an untrue income tax return, in which he stated that he expected his gross and net income for the coming year to be "nil," and in one instance "Absolutely nil."  The Chairman of the Bench of the West London Police Court sums up Haddock's first defense, which is that Haddock could not make sense of an instruction on the form, as follows:

The evidence of the accused is that in this pronouncement (which is headed NOTE AS TO THE RELIEF WHICH MAY BE CLAIMED BY TAXPAYERS) there are nearly two hundred words; that, after reading the first fifty words, he laughed heartily; that he then began again and read the whole passage through from start to finish six or seven times, first silently, then aloud, and finally singing to a chant in B minor; that after these exhaustive experiments the words still conveyed no meaning to his mind whatever; that he concluded that not even a Government Department could with serious intent have issued to the whole body of income-tax payers two hundred words entirely devoid of sense or meaning;² that therefore his first impression was probably correct and the whole Form a base practical joke, to which he replied in the same spirit and kind.

Having myself studied the Form in question, I find this defence a good one.

The Chairman describes Haddock's fourth defense with these sprightly words:

Fourthly, [Haddock] says that, as a professional man (if writing can be called a profession), he sees no reason why any professional man should in any way assist the officers of the Crown in the collection of Revenue; that the professional man is the dog's-body of the State; that he is constantly writing to The Times newspaper or to Ministers to protest against injustices, or to point out the errors of His Majesty's Government; that no notice is taken of these protests; that he is referred to in Parliament contemptuously as a direct taxpayer, as if he were somehow immune from the payment of indirect taxes; that in fact he pays the greater part of both; that the wine-tax is monstrous,³ the whisky-tax monstrous,⁴ and the tobacco-tax monstrous; that he sees no reason for the present ferocious treatment of these simple indulgences, while those poisonous pleasures with which women ruin their systems, such as tea, coffee, and sweets, are classed as 'necessaries' and go almost free; that beer is as much a necessity as tea; that there should be no representation without taxation; * * * that he (Haddock) has studied carefully the items of National Expenditure, and that from that eight hundred million pounds he (Haddock) received no benefit except the agreeable spectacle of the Changing of the Guard and an occasional view of a distant battleship; that if every Government Department were to collapse in ruins at this moment he (Haddock) would not be a penny the worse; that in these circumstances he does not propose to exhaust himself by any elaborate efforts to assist the Inland Revenue Department to collect his money; * * *; that the income-tax is intolerable; and that the Income-Tax Delayers' Association are paying his expenses in this case.

Our usual jovial support of the commercial-welfare state will return tomorrow.

¹  I know the returns are actually due on April 18 this year, but I refuse to move Tax Day to a Monday as if it were the birthday of a President.

²  Later developments in tax law would disprove Haddock's argument.

³  Sound thinking.

⁴  Again, sound thinking.