Month: May 2024

We may not be singular in our experienced-based opinion that human character and persona may be demonstrated and evaluated by the way one treats his pet animals.  A dog or cat owner who lovingly cares for his coveted little friend is predictably, a caring and empathic person. Contrariwise, a pet owner who evinces cruelty or negligence to his dependent animal charge, is to be wisely avoided. Based upon decades of observation, we would hazard the presumption that our declaration is universal.

Our view of contemporary American society whose traditional aspiration is democratically fair, empathic, and reliably observant of the moral compass, has nonetheless, morphed into a contrasting, coarser, self-interested and populist influenced entity. We have observed a declining interest in personal development, aspiration for self- fulfillment and mature understanding of the inner self, and a prevalent interest in electronic convenience, demonstrated financial success, and ephemeral personal diversion. In our often expressed view, this disappointing condition is attributable to the exponential increase in digital communication in lieu of personally salubrious human interaction in person or by telephone, the notable decline in personal agency formally derived from an inner sense of capability, voluntarily sacrificed in favor of mundane and facile computer utilization, the decline in the recognition of the assurance of familiar personal nuance and interactively confirmed self-image resulting in the decline in critical self-evaluation and self-affirming maintenance of humanistic mind-set.

Notwithstanding the above declaration, certain foundational principles have survived such insensitive coarsening and objectivizing of society since, the existential institution of society, itself, would be undermined and ultimately, disappear. Perhaps one of the most fundamental, surviving principles is that of the intrinsic value of life itself; a close second, in our view, is a rare, but empirically, surviving modicum of situational humanism.

The advent of former President, Donald J. Trump together with his cult of retrograde MAGA followers has observably exacerbated a formerly gradual societal decline in metaphysical societal values such as basic moral compass, transactional assumptions of objective truth and empathic humanistic policies. His one term in office had demonstrated a singularly rare criminal and malodorous inclination, never before so rewarded with unlimited and universal power. The mainstream American citizen is accordingly terrified by the prospect of another term of autocratic and corrupt Presidency of that nominee, notwithstanding which fear, it appears that a number of his retrograde followers are in avid competition to share his future ticket as Vice-Presidential candidate.

One such presumed aspirant, notably occupying the (thematic) role of protagonist in this writing, is Congresswoman Kristi Noem, of South Dakota. In our view, Noem (i.e., “No empathy?”) has irrefutably demonstrated that she has attained the zenith of malevolent suitability as a running mate for Trump.

It would not seem especially revelatory to relate the specific political views of our protagonist, other than to declare that she has used her Congressional seat to vote fully in accord with the Trump –MAGA program; inclusive of the perverse policies of anti-immigration, protectionism, denialism, and their entire anti-democratic menu of atavistic civil rights and anti-regulation policies. The absence of such contextual necessity resides in the fact of her recently expressed, heartless pride in having revealingly and boasted of having committed certain notably horrendous acts of telling sadism and thereafter choosing to recount such shameful incidents in a published book she authored.

In “Memoirs,” the publically distributed book, authored by our thematic miscreant, she unemotionally (proudly?) writes of killing her young puppy, because she was impatient with his disappointing progress in learning to be a partridge hunting dog and further, on the same day, shooting a family-owned goat because he “smelled.” Such acts of cruelty, alone, are descriptively definitional and, like a metastasizing cancer, were toxically exacerbated by her diagnosable recounting of the same in her book.

If her intention in such public proclamation of her atrociously cruel acts of animal murder was tactically intended for the approval of the fascistic ears of Donald Trump, she might, conceivably, be successful (with the caveat that Donald Trump is not known to be a reader). Was she possibly attempting to advise the Orange Monomaniac, that “she” would have had the perverse audacity and loyalty to have hung Vice-President Pence?

In any event, Ms. Noam demonstrated that she, acceptably, possesses a similar pathological inclination to that of the modern-day, Presidential Adolph Eichmann-like, Stephen Miller, Presidential Advisor to the former President Trump and the author and facilitator of the inhuman practice of separating babies and young children of immigrants from their parents, “in order to discourage immigration.” It may be the case that, as empirically demonstrated, psychopathology is a resume “must” for any potentially possible member of a Trump Cabinet.

It would seem rationally appropriate to eliminate any possible vestigial thought of attribution of “human” status to any person capable of killing puppies (and goats), and to analogically according to them full Neo- Nazi status to their boasts about it.

*[Title derived from the CBS series starring Angela Lansbury]
-p.

Legal scholars, jurists, attorneys and avid Court watchers, as well as the general public, are in a state of excited anticipation, awaiting the forthcoming decision by the United States Supreme Court (“SCOTUS”) in the appeal from the lower Appellate Court decision in AARP v. The Cosmetic Public Relations Council, concerning the existentially determinative legal issue: “Do frogs have eyebrows?”

The parties are as follows: Appellant, “American Amphibian Rights Society” (“AARP”), represented by the Atlanta law firm of Swampscum, Daly and Knightly, I.P. Daly Esq., of counsel, Respondent, “Council of Marshland Evangelical Bible Belters,” by the Baton Ridge firm of Payne and Suffring, Redding Blemish Esq. of counsel. The legal positions having been thoroughly briefed, legal precedent and the relevant didactic literature consulted, the nationally impactful matter is declared ready for argument. Due to the intense, widespread public interest in the matter, the presence of television cameras has been granted judicial approval.

(Non-Fictional) Background–

[Since its inception, it has been universally mandatory to obtain the approval of SCOTUS to accept a case for review, which approval required a prospective appellant to successfully obtain by “Writ of Certiorari,” an Order directing the lower Court to send up the case for review.  Until the unprecedented decision in “Bush v. Gore, in the year 2000, the granting of the Writ was strictly dependent upon a successful demonstration that the matter at bar lacks any conceivable, direct or subtle, political impact or significance. Such “Black Letter Law” was historically created to preserve the integrity of the constitutionally enshrined, “Separation of Powers”, viz., “Executive,” “Legislative” and “Judicial.”

Following Bush v. Gore, the Nation’s veneration of the many decades of historically admirable performance and indeed, of SCOTUS, itself sadly evinced an observably slow, but clearly discernable, decline in demonstrated fiduciary responsibility to the Nation, and in resultant citizen respect. The latter was brought about by its continued errant acceptance and adjudication of “political” cases and (as observed in previous blogs) it has, shockingly revealed itself at times to be receptive to influence from religious and big business interests.

Of the SCOTUS decisions, most notably, inconsistent with the foundational principles of our National Democracy, we would select two; arguably, the most egregious and damaging to our democratic foundation: Citizen’s United (2010) and Dobbs v. Jackson (2022). In such disquieting cases, the corrupting influence, respectively, of big business and the religious lobby on the four conservative SCOTUS Justices (of the nine) tactically appointed to the Court by right-wing interests, has determinatively impaired the nature of our unique Democratic Republic.

In the Citizen’s United case, SCOTUS opened the floodgates to the billions of dollars that have since poured into our elections enabling those with great wealth to enjoy a vastly greater influence on our political system than the average American citizen. The shameless sophomoric justification for its monstrous exacerbation of an already extant problem is an observable blemish on the foundational principle of citizen equality regarding the voting franchise. The Court, unashamedly cited, as a bizarre rationale, that corporations, legally are “people,” and the right of people to contribute to an election is legally unlimited.  Every law school freshman and most entrepreneurs know, that the legal “personage” afforded to corporations is legally understood (since its creation in the English Statute of Elizabeth) to be fictional, utilized to grant third-party limited liability to a vulnerable (human) entrepreneur (N.B. the old English Law imprisoned debtors) and universally understood not to be a living and breathing person. SCOTUS’ puerile legal analogy makes evident a desperate need for a rationale for its politically influenced and corrupt decision.

An especially impactful illustration of SCOTUS’s transmogrification to the state of irresponsibly catering to religious influence, (as distinguished from the inappropriately,” political,” Taxpayer United case) is Dodd v. Jackson (2022). In irrefutable contradiction to the explicit provisions of the Constitution’s “Establishment Clause” mandating that the government make no law affecting religious belief, SCOTUS irresponsibly surrendered to the influence of the Christian Evangelical lobby, by overruling the fifty-year SCOTUS affirmation of the rights of women to have an abortion. In addition to the extinguishment of citizen’s natural rights (the historically expressed theme, articulated by the Constitution, by contrast, being the protection of citizen rights from incursion by the government) the direct consequence of such removal of the half-century of reliance on its precedential approval of the personal right to abortion has resulted in media reported, daily instances of mortal danger, human tragedy and great personal suffering.]—

[Oral Argument]

Case at bar: May, 2024 term, # 1787: Amphibian Rights v. Evangelical Marshland Council:

[Precis of Appellant, Amphibian Rights, Oral Argument]: (I.P. Daly, Esq.):  Pond frogs have a protruding, temporal ridge, essential to ingestion since they singularly flex their eye muscles to assist swallowing. The skin-covered ridge anatomically located above this existentially functioning apparatus is bony and relatively small but existentially important in eye protection from excess water and foreign matter. With regard to such prominent location and existential importance, its adornment by the female of the frog species signals health and attractiveness, deemed material to mating and population of the species. The universal recognition of the personal right of expression, inclusive of eyeliners and enhanced eyebrows by female frogs lends significant impetus to their existential existence as a species as well as the cosmetic recognition of their essential individuality. The right, in essence, constitutes a legally protected expression of free speech and individual self-assertion.

[Precis of Appellee’s, Marsh Evangelical, Oral Argument]: (Redding Blemish, Esq.):” Intentionally disfiguring any product of the Deity’s six-day creation by wanton cosmetic alteration is not only blasphemous and recklessly disrespectful but part of the ongoing atheistic plot to caricature creation. Any heretic amphibian, notably including frogs, wantonly practicing such improper, lewd and lascivious practice should be dealt with in accordance with the appropriate criminal law applicable to the jurisdiction in which the heinously criminal offense was committed.”  

                                                             (Split) RULING OF THE COURT [4- 3]

MAJORITY DECISION [4 Conservative Justices]: The flagrant act of cosmetically altering nature, by female frogs, enhancing their “eyebrows,” is morally analogous in irresponsibility to the anti-societal practice of installing graphic obscenity on public walls, by sinful human beings and is deemed empirically disruptive of the orderly course of society, whether on a ghetto wall or country pond; it should, in the vital interest of the maintenance of an orderly moral society, in ponds and metropolis be criminalized.

DISSENT (3 Liberal Justices]:  Judicial Interference, universally, with the private rights of expression and personal attempts at self-fulfillment, of pond frogs or any existing fauna, legally constitutes an unjustified and unwarranted interference with free speech, as well as an abysmal violation of the “Establishment Clause.”

-p.

Often, one’s initial evaluation, upon meeting someone for the first time (“first impression”)  is judgmentally and erroneously, founded upon one’s stereotypical evaluation of external features, such as verbal tone, extent of eye contact, and facial expression with reference to past experience with others. Such customary reflexive and experientially reductive appraisals based upon recalled subjective criteria and vulnerable memory, in our view, would not seem to be creditably useful.

Painted portraits cannot be considered as faithful to any reliable standard of objective description since they vary with the temporal conception and portrayal of traits of the human persona. The mysterious, subtle smile of Michelangelo’s “Mona Lisa” may intend to portray a sentiment, indeed, not common to the modern woman. Oscar Wilde’s (sole) novel, “The Face of Dorian Grey,” evokes a gothic personal portrait of the protagonist which bizarrely alters to reveal his true, disguised, character. Victorian novelists, such as Dickens and Trollope, articulate, in substantial detail, the facial and other external physical features of their created characters to convey their intended persona and designated place in the fictional composition. Such authors’ style of stereotypical character description, while brilliantly recounted is, inarguably, dated.

We would thoughtfully suggest a radically conceived, perhaps revolutionary, alternative protocol which we have empirically determined to be more rational, perceptive and factually adept. Rather than relying on a subjective and factually unsupported impression hazarded on an impulsive personal reaction to observable features (such as eye contact, tone, posture, personal expression, dress and posture, perhaps presence and style of mustache or beard and other temporal features), we would recommend the exercise of one’s concentrated essay at an accurate “first impression” of a newly met individual by the observation his chosen vocabulary.

As bizarre as our novel proposition may, at first, appear to be, we would, nevertheless, emphatically caution the reader to be alert to, and wary of, any newly introduced individual who noticeably omits to employ such words as, empathy, sympathy, beneficial, societal, appropriate, aesthetic, sensitive, considerate, equitable, principled, racial, moral, equitable, considerate, deferential, aesthetic, appropriate, and other positive and principled choices from the Nation’s lexicon.

It is empirically inarguable that utilized words are the spoken, overt replication of inner thought and, accordingly, comprise a more rationally indicative revelation of innate persona than a subjective judgment construed from traditionally perceived physical stereotypic appearance. Dishonest and reprehensible individuals have little empirical or personal use for beneficial and positive choices from the Nation’s lexicon in the course of their innate avoidance of its traditionally acceptable standards of rectitude.

It is, of course, wise and prudently necessary to compare the specific observations attained by way of our recommended mode of “first impression,” with later actual, empirical experience regarding the contextual person; however, in general matters of “first” or “early impression,” it is rationally appropriate and eminently fair to fashion one’s early estimation of character based upon appropriate rational criteria.

In sum, we suggest that the early evaluative process of a newly introduced individual encompasses a sensitive attention to the prescient nature of his chosen vocabulary rather than a biased and subjective judgment based upon experienced or stereotypical external standards.

-p.