…or sometimes Stoopit. That’s the way my homies in Brooklyn would say “stupid.” The pronunciation didn’t change the meaning. “Dumb as a stone” and dozens of variations on the same idea was what it meant. This is what our President has called us, the American people–stupid for electing whomever we elected (pre-Trump, of course), stupid for letting them do whatever they did about what the President disagreed with. By the way, in Brooklyn one often got punched in the snout for calling someone “stoopid.” You might say then, it was “stoopid” to call someone “stoopit.”
Staying with the “esses” for the next thought, let’s think about Slovenia. That’s where our first lady Melania, comes from. It is interesting to note that while the official language of Slovenia is Slovenian, many people speak, Italian, Hungarian, or German. Some speak all four. So point number one is that our First Lady could potentially speak five languages.
Why do the people of such a small country speak so many languages? To paraphrase James Carvill, “It’s the map, stupid!” He’s from Louisiana so we’ll assume he says it this way, not the Brooklyn way. Slovenia has borders with Italy, Hungary, Croatia, and Austria (where they speak German). Slovenian itself is a complicated language all by itself being of Slavic origin. German? Murder to learn and pronounce. Hungarian? OMG! Italian isn’t as hard, though, of the Romance Languages, you won’t be surprised to learn, it is the most like Latin, making it more complicated than French or Spanish. Thus Mrs. Trump speaks some pretty tough languages. That makes her pretty smart.
If we look at that map again we see a history of both right-wing nationalism, Fascism, and war-mongering in that neighborhood. Remember the Austro-Hungarian Empire? Probably not, but there was one once upon a time. Remember Mussolini. It’s people have heavy right-wing pressures built into their national DNA. They’ve seen the worst of Fascism, Communism, and Nationalism swirling around and through them. You want stunning? Google “Wars Involving Slovenia.” I’ll bet you can’t count that high.
We know that the First Lady’s father was no charm boy and successfully learned to survive in pools of different kinds of predatory, dangerous fish. Mrs. Trump knows something about despots and despotism. I don’t often quote the Hollywood Tatler (actually I never have), but its reporter wrote that when the President met Putin Mrs. Trump was “scared to death.” Wonder why? She knows, genetically, that anyone who meets Vladimir Putin should be scared to death.
To sum up, if we can’t junk all supposed experts surrounding the President maybe someone can get the President to add his wife to the council of state. She seems to be the smart one, absenting her choice in husbands. ‘did it for money? ‘hope not because she, like so many others, has found that there’s one thing money can’t buy–happiness.
And finally, let’s not forget the gun issue. A few days ago the grandfather of one of the Parkland survivors was shot dead by someone robbing his store. Actually, it’s worse than that. He survived the robbery. The robber fled. Then he turned around, ran back into the store, and shot dead the poor man!
Nor can we forget Florida’s insane “Stand your Ground” Law. It resulted in a lethal shooting of a black man (of course) by a white man after an argument over a handicapped parking space. The argument was heated. The black man pushed the white guy to the ground, but he was not standing over the man. In fact, he was about 4 or 5 feet away and looked to be turning away when the man on the ground drew a pistol and shot this husband and father to death. Oh by the way…the shooter wasn’t arrested, even taken into custody for an interview.
Some think that chaos in the White House, with issues flying out the windows like Fourth of July fireworks, is designed to distract us stupid Americans from the Mueller investigation, the Manafort trials, and the pinball banging around who used to be the President’s lawyer and the other pinball who is now the President’s legal spokesman. I don’t know. I do know that it has successfully pushed gun violence off the front pages.
Don’t let that happen.
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Ed: next week’s column will be a day or two late due to vacation, which is why this one is a day or two early.
Trying not to be “stoopid,” Bill Gralnick writes his heart out each week for his readers.
For to deeper peek into his thoughts check out his website http//:www.atleastfrommyperspective.net where you’ll find all his blogs and access to his two books Mirth, Wind and Ire, and More Mirth Wind and Ire.
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