You Don’t Say! (Sexism Edition)

05 Sunday Sep 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

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Tags

America, BLM, feminism, politics, racism, sexism, USA

What are some things you don’t say?

Here are a few that occur to me.

We say, “He won her.”

We don’t often say, “She won him.”

And, when I do hear them, it seems to me it has a definitely different set of connotations. The first statement, “He won her.” Is un-marked. At least for me, I don’t feel I know any more about the person than I did before that statement. But all of the immediate connotations, vague as they are, are positive. He may have won her by a show of strength or competence. Maybe he slew a dragon. Maybe he outwitted all his rivals (notice their implicitly has to be at least one). Maybe he won her by being open and honest or showing how much he cared. It’s all good.

Now, what stories come to my mind when I see, “She won him.” First, to be honest, there is a bit of a double take. Did I read that right? OK, well, sure, that can happen. Probably far more than men realize. What did she do? Did she use deception? And, what about him? Why didn’t he win her? I’m not saying I can’t overcome these connotations.

Notice, I don’t think she did use deception. I don’t have any evidence about that. And there are many other ways to “win” someone. But why does it come to mind? It did not come to mind when I read the first sentence. Yet, I can think of numerous instances where men have used all kinds of deception, not to mention, cruelty, gaslighting, murder, drugs, kidnapping, rape to “win” someone.

It is really an upstream swim not to fall for the bull$hit your culture inculcates into you about age, gender, race, etc.

Do you think there is any practical significance to this?

Let’s consider one recent example. In the “2016” campaign for US President, you may recall that the democrats chose one of the best-qualified candidate in US History on the basis of her intellect, experience, and character. Yet, her opponent, one of the very least qualified in US history on the basis of what he actually accomplished (mainly losing millions of dollars), his character, or his intellect, called her “Crooked Hillary” and it stuck for many people.

You may notice that in the previous paragraph, I put “2016” in scare quotes. Why? Because both sides began the Hilary (or Anti-Hilary) campaign years before 2016. The Republicans realized early on she was their best candidate and attacked her character mercilessly and with zero evidence. Zero. But it worked.

But what if Hillary would have called Donald Trump “Crooked Donald” first? Would that have helped her? No. About 40 % of America, as we now know, would have simply said, “Yeah, so?” They don’t care that he is a tax-evader. They don’t care that he is a pu$$y grabber. They don’t care that he had a fake university or that he defrauded a kid’s cancer charity. They don’t care. It’s what guys do. There’s winners and losers. And a guy’s gotta do what he’s gotta do to win or he’s not really a man. So if he’s stupid, maybe he has to bend a few rules to win. So what. That just makes him street smart. Since he’s a guy, all that is just fine. It’s fine to be a real crook if you’re a guy, but not okay to be untruthfully branded as a crook if you’re a woman.

Gee. That sounds fair.

The thing is this. It isn’t just unfair to Hillary. It was unfair to America. And every time our presumptions trump reality, we all lose. We are all the poorer because we have not made the best decision in accordance with reality but merely comforted ourselves with the lie that we were right all along.

————————————-

Essays on America: Wednesday

Essays on America: My Cousin Bobby

Essays on America: The Stopping Rule

Essays on America: What about the butter dish?

Essays on America: The Update Problem

Author Page on Amazon

Organizing the Doltzville Library

27 Thursday May 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

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Tags

BLM, coup, insurrection, politics, racism, satire, superficiality, USA

“Hey, you guys remember how good air-conditioning felt?” Ted, wiped the copious sweat above his eyes onto the back of his hand. It was immediately replaced by more sweat on his brow.

“Hell, yes,” drawled Mitch. “Thanks for reminding me. You’re a real a-hole, you know?”

“Thanks, Mitch! I appreciate that. It helps me feel cooler when I think of it; that’s all.”

Josh shook his head. “You two quit your jawboning and help me move this stack into the shade. It’ll be cool there.”

Ted snorted. “Not by much. Matt, give us a hand.”

The four walked over to the jumble and grabbed about four or five each and wandered over to the remaining shady corner of the rubble-strewn building that had once been the Doltzville Library. They struggled, but managed to get their bodies onto the painted concrete floor. Mitch struggled the most. Basically, he fell the last foot and a half, lost his balance and spilled his stack into Matt who spilled his stack into Ted who spilled his stack into Josh who spilled his stack onto Mitch’s lap.

“Thanks a lot, you idiot! You dropped your whole frigging stack onto my ball sack!”

“Yeah. Yeah. Like you have one. Let’s get this done so we can get back home for our bourbon ration!” Ted winced and swallowed hard, once again wondering how he had ever ended up with these three dolts sorting books.

He grabbed the closest two tomes and held them up next to each other. It was a tough choice, but the left hand book was definitely a bit more reddish and the one on the right, was a bit more orange. Easy enough choice. He mentally patted himself on the back. But in doing so, he mentally hurt his rotator cuff. He winced but managed to shake off the imagined pain.

Ted picked up two more. Another tough choice. He chewed on his tongue but finally decided the one in his left was more of a pine green while one in his right hand was almost a dark khaki. He glanced around the room. “Hey guys, where the hell is the khaki stack?”

Josh spat on the floor. “Find your own damned stacks, Ted. We have our own work to do.”

Mitch shuffled his stack this way and that way trying to start with the easiest pair. “Screw it,” he muttered under his breath. This is too hard. “Hey guys! Let’s not go too fast. What the hell is that racket?”

The racket grew to an almost deafening roar. Ted covered his ears to try to block out the noise. It didn’t work. Josh squeezed his eyes tight hoping that if he made it dark enough, he wouldn’t notice the noise. That didn’t work. So, he made it even darker by covering his eyes with his hands as well. Still the noise grew in intensity. None of them had heard anything this loud since — since before. It bothered Matt so much he felt nauseated so he quickly used his soiled hands to cover his mouth. Mitch thought it might help to cover up the noise with more noise so he screamed as loud as he could.

Photo by Somchai Kongkamsri on Pexels.com

At long last, the noise abated. Had any of the four actually served in military combat, they might have recognized the noise for what it was — a helicopter landing on the expansive treeless lawn of the Doltzville Library. Once the noise stopped, they didn’t show the least bit of curiosity about what had caused the ruckus and went back to their book sorting task.

Josh’s brows knitted as he struggled with a particularly difficult distinction between a purplish black cover and another one that was more of a blackish purple. Their deliberations were interrupted as the front door of the library swung open. In marched a platoon of heavily armed guards.

The soldiers formed into two parallel lines and stood at attention. The commanding officer strode down the line and over to where the four sprawled on the floor. “What in the name of all that is holy is this mess? This library isn’t in order at all! You were supposed to have been done organizing the books a week ago.” He glanced around the room. “What the holy hell? The books aren’t even in the stacks. Which one of you — gentlemen — is in charge?”

Ted glanced at Mitch who glanced at Josh who glanced at Matt who glanced at Ted. It constituted a Circle of Jerks. But no-one would claim to be in charge. At last the three younger men pointed at Mitch. As though on cue, they said in unison, “He is!”

The colonel walked over and stood in front of Mitch. He put his strong arms beneath Mitch’s forelegs and jerked him upright. The colonel felt a twinge as he did so but nothing registered on his deadpan. “Well?!” Barked the colonel. “What do you have to say for yourself? I’m not a frigging librarian, but these books don’t look organized to me! They certainly aren’t in the stacks, are they?”

Mitch swallowed hard. All these guns made him nervous. He had always wanted lots of guns in the hands of ill-trained malcontents. But not in the hands of trained soldiers.

Well, he consoled himself that he had lied his way out of worse jams than this, so he began to answer with one of his six distraction patterns. “Well, Sir, our orders were to put the books in stacks and this, as you can clearly see, we have done. There are some edge cases we really need more expertise to settle on. Josh here, for instance is trying to decide on whether this book is more of a purplish black or more of a blackish purple.” Then, he added as an afterthought: “Sir!”

“What exactly do you think all those shelves are for?”

Mitch followed the line of the colonel’s hand. “Shelves? For…knickknacks I suppose. My wife collects knickknacks. I’ll bet yours does too.”

The colonel shook his head and muttered inaudibly. “Those are — never mind. You’re extremely behind schedule, but how are you cataloging them? By Dewey Decimal or Library of Congress?”

Josh’s eyebrows shot up incredulously, “Congress has a library?”

The colonel’s eyes darted back to Josh like the mythical Jewish Space Lasers used to light forest fires. Josh looked down and bit his lip, regretting he had said anything.

Ted spoke up. “Sir, is that a trick question? We organized them as they should be organized. By color.”

“What?!” Screamed the colonel. “By color? What the hell is wrong with you people? They’re supposed to be organized by what the book is about — what’s inside. Good Lord, my four year old grand-daughter knows that!”

“But Sir,” objected Matt. “How do we … what do you mean? What a book’s about? What does that even mean?”

“You read the books, decide what each one is about and categorize it. What’s wrong with you people?” The colonel glared at them each in turn, beginning with Matt and ending with Mitch.

Mitch straighten his shirt against his sagging plastron and frowned. “A reed? Like in a clarinet?”

Matt chewed on his lip, savoring the taste as though he were painfully biting the lip of a teenage girl. “Maybe you mean like a reed that grows by a riverbank?”

The colonel strode over to Josh and snatched the blackish purple book out of his hand. (Or, maybe it was the purplish black one). He snapped the book open to a seemingly random page. “Here! Read! Like this.”

The colonel’s strong baritone rang out as he recited the paragraph.

“What made that an interesting situation to discuss for my intro psych class was that it was never the people who actually had the right of way who did the honking and screaming. It was always (so far as we observed) the people who sailed right through the new — and unseen — stop signs! These stop signs were in plain view.”

The colonel stared. Then, he shook his head. “Look here. Here’s a title.” He jabbed his finger on the title to emphasize his point. He did a neat little toss of the book in the air and flipped it a half turn. Then he pointed to the back. Here’s a description of the author. Here’s a summary of the book. You read these to help you decide what the books about. But in all the time you’ve had, you could have read the books cover to cover. Or at least skimmed them. That’s how you categorize it. Not by the color of the cover. I’ve never heard such a stupid thing in my life. Anyway, get your gear.”

The four stared at the colonel and then at each other. But no-one moved. Not until the colonel shouted, “MOVE!”

The four of them grabbed their gear and scrambled onto the bus. The only seats left were at the back, near the toilet. Which stunk.

Once they were under way, Mitch said, “Read. How ridiculous.”

Matt nodded. “I agree. That’s what we did in college. There’s no need to do that now.”

Josh nodded in agreement. “Yeah. Ridiculous. Think how much work it would be to understand what’s inside a book and organize them by what they’re about. It’s absurd. Putin never told us to read.”

Ted added in hushed tones. “Hey, something is going on. Did you guys see the markings on this bus? No confederate flag. No swastika. Not even a bloated orange deer tick. Just an old style American flag. What’s that about?”

That sat in silence for a time.

Ted couldn’t recall the last time he had ridden a bus. Then, it hit him. He had been in high school. Yes, he had read back then, he remembered. In fact, he admitted to himself, he had actually enjoyed it.

But it was hard. Much harder than simply following orders. He looked over at Mitch and whispered, “Do you think our coup could have failed? Is that what’s going on? Otherwise, why the American flag?”

Mitch seemed to retract his head down into the folds of his high-necked sweatshirt and he pulled the hood over his pate.

After getting no response from his co-conspirator, Ted stared out the window. It rained heavily and the windows fogged ever more during their ever-darkening night ride. He liked the fogged windows. It helped him block out his worries as well as the stench of the over-used toilet. The rumble of the wheels gradually lulled him to sleep.

He awoke to the screech of the wet brakes as they pulled up to their final destination. He stared outside. The monochromatic sodium flood lights lent an air of magic and mystery to the black barbed wire atop the high concrete walls of the maximum security prison outside. Still half-asleep, he wondered idly whether someone had made a wrong turn along the way.

Someone had. And that someone was Ted himself.

———————————

My Cousin Bobby

Tales from an American Childhood

Essays on America: Wednesday

The Update Problem

The Invisibility Cloak of Habit

What about the Butter Dish?

You Bet Your Life

A Query on Quislings

The Stopping Rule

Freedom of Speech is Not a License to Kill

Come Back to the Light

The Walkabout Diaries: Racism is Absurd.

25 Thursday Mar 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

BLM, racism

Metaphors for just how absurd Racism is:

I send Stupid Stu to the Store to purchase kidney beans for my chile. He can’t find the kidney beans so instead he comes back with three kidneys from the butcher. “Kidney” and “Kidney beans” according to him, must be closely related because they have the same label.

Handy Handsome Hal and I are hanging a picture. I am holding the picture in place and it’s centered, but when I ask Hal to hand me the hammer, it turns out, the hammer is not in the toolbox. I ask Hal to go into the laundry room and get the hammer hanging there — the one with the wooden handle. Instead, Handy Handsome Hal goes into the kitchen and brings me a wooden spoon. “Here you go!” He says. “It also has a wooden handle.”

Marvelous Marvin has decided that the science and math required are too difficult for him so instead of architecture, he decides to become an artist instead. Here are his first three paintings:

(All three paintings look exactly the same and are entitled: “Proper Shades”)

Marvelous Marvin’s silly sister Silvia has decided to become a composer. Here’s is a short selection from her Second, Sixth, and Seventh symphonies. (Each symphony is exactly the same).

White-noise-sound-20sec-mono-44100Hz.ogg

In our Tennis Tournament, Timmy the Tennis Player and I draw each other as partners. Our opponents, new to both of us, are two lefties. We know nothing else about them — not their records, not their rankings. Timmy comes over to me and says, “It’ll be easy to beat them! I played a lefty once in high school. He hit everything cross court! All we have to do is cover the cross-court angles! When I serve, you’ll never have to worry about him going right up the line. Just poach right away!”

Me: “Well, Timmy, I’ve played against plenty of left-handers and I can assure you that they don’t always hit cross-court! Have you ever watched Nadal?”

Timmy: “Oh, Nadal’s an exception! He’s brilliant! But your typical lefty hits cross-court. They just can’t or won’t hit down the line. I think the fact that the net is higher there throws them off.”

Me: “Why on earth would it be harder for a lefty to hit down the line than a righty?”

Timmy: “I don’t know. I think it probably has something to do with the earth’s rotation. It’s clockwise like being a right hander. It’s the right way. So, the lefty is just unnatural. So they can’t hit down the line. Believe me! I know! I played a left-hander, like I said.”

Me: “Yes, I know Timmy, but I’ve had lots of experience with left-handed players. My brother is left-handed. My son is left-handed and though he doesn’t play tennis, he’s extremely coordinated. He plays musical instruments, draws, juggles — and I’ve watched plenty of left-handed pros on TV. They’re perfectly capable of hitting any shot a righty does.”

Timmy: “You’ll see!”

————————————

Which one of these is different?

Flora the Flubbing Florists says the one in the last one is different. Why? Because it’s a shade darker.

Come on people. Grow up. We’re adult humans, not viruses. We have brains. Let’s use them.

————————————

Essays on America: Labelism

How the Nightingale Learned to Sing

Life is a Dance

Race-Place-Space-Face

Answers to your Many Questions

Blood Red Blood

The Only Them That Counts is All of Us

https://petersironwood.com/2020/02/26/race-place-space-face/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/04/05/imagine-all-the-people/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/05/24/blood-red-blood/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/06/15/answers-to-your-many-questions/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/11/19/the-tree-of-life/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/07/25/the-only-them-that-counts-is-all-of-us/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/10/26/fascism-leads-to-chaos/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/12/17/bounce/

Tag! You’re it!

08 Monday Feb 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

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Tags

BLM, Design, empathy, HCI, problem formulation, problem solving, UX

As I mentioned before, one of my part-time jobs during my Senior year in college was as a teaching assistant at the Supplementary Educational Center (SEC) in Cleveland. In addition to actual teaching, I did a variety of other chores as well including erecting and painting walls, setting up lighting, putting up NASA exhibits, etc. One of the worst tasks I was assigned was putting a straight pin into each one of a billion variously colored squares of construction paper.

No, there weren’t really a billion. It just seemed that way. I sat at a desk with a very large pile of these 3” x 4” pieces of paper on my left and a large supply of straight pins straight ahead. I picked up a rectangle of paper, picked up a pin and poked it through in two places so that friction held the pin in place. Then I placed it in a pile on my right. I picked up another piece of paper and did the same thing. Again. And again. After awhile, I looked down and noticed that there was a large pile of these pinned pieces of paper on my right — and none left undone on the right. But I only “noticed” doing the first several. After that, my brain took a vacation.

It’s not the only time my brain has taken a vacation when faced with a boring task. If I had a heavy industry job on an assembly line, I have no doubt that I’d be mangled or dead within a week. I just “tune out” of the task at hand. Perhaps you have experienced something similar while driving a well-known route. You get in your car to drive home from work — and then — you find yourself at home — and you have no conscious recollection of driving home! It’s an interesting phenomenon but not the one I’m going to explore in this post.

Hopefully, you are also curious about why I had been assigned the task of putting these pins in all the various pieces of colored paper.

Here’s the deal. The school system of Cleveland, like many others at the time, was very racially divided. There were many neighborhoods in the Cleveland area that were nearly 100% black and others which were nearly 100% white. One of the goals of the SEC was to bring kids from various neighborhood schools together so that they could have at least some experience interacting with kids of different races and ethnic backgrounds. Sadly, the situation is pretty much the same today as the map below from 2018 shows. (Red are majority black areas; orange are Hispanic; Green is Asian; Blue codes for white).

https://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2018/05/10/new-data-map-reminds-us-cleveland-is-hyper-segregated

So, cast your mind back to your time in the sixth grade (about 10-11 years old, typically). One day, you get in a bus and ride to downtown Cleveland and go into the Supplementary Educational Center and there are kids there from two other neighborhoods — kids you’ve never seen before and will likely never see again. Are you going to hang out with your friends? Or, are you going to walk up to some total stranger — of a different race — and introduce yourself and hang out with them for the day while you learn about American history or space science? I don’t have any conscious recollection of ever being a racist, but I have no doubt whatever that I would spend time with my own classmates; in fact, I would hang out with a subset of my classmates who were my friends.

Guess what?

That’s exactly what the kids did as well. They hung out with their friends. The administrators of the SEC eventually noticed this and constructed a social engineering “solution.” They gave every kid who entered a tag of green, blue, yellow, or red. For the day, at least, the “greens” would be with each other. The “blues” would hang out together with other “blues.” And so on.

Thus my assigned task of putting pins so that the kids would have a tag that they could pin on their clothes. This way, so the thinking went, people from diverse neighborhoods would end up in the “green” group. Sounds reasonable in theory.

If you’ve never actually been a kid.

Or, if you’ve been a kid but have nonetheless convinced yourself that you weren’t.

Or, if you’ve been a kid but you never think back on your actual experience in order to inform your design decisions when you’re designing for kids.

Cast your mind back to when you were ten or eleven years old. You get on a bus and ride to downtown Cleveland and as you walk in the door of the Supplemental Educational Center, you’re handed a red tag and the two friends you typically hang out with are handed a green tag and a yellow tag. You discover that these tags will determine who you get to hang out with for the day.

What would you do?

I can tell you what the kids at the SEC did. They immediately traded tags with other kids so they could still hang out with their own friends! Mostly, they could do this with kids in their own school. On rare occasions, they also went to kids from other schools in order to get the “right” tags so they could hang out with their friends. At least for a few moments, some of them did actually interact transactionally with kids of other races long enough to trade tags.

Please understand. The administrators and teachers at the school weren’t dummies. But … ? Did they really think this ploy would work?

I’m not saying that empathy is an infallible guide in design. Things change. It’s possible that your experience as a child would be quite different from what children today would do. Technology changes; culture changes; nutrition changes.

Nonetheless, thinking back to your own experience as a child should at least be consulted when you’re designing for kids. Your experiences are vast. You can not only think back about your experience as a kid. You can think back about your own experiences of being thirsty or hungry or afraid or angry. If you’re designing for users who might be experiencing these states, that can be useful information.

I’ll say it again. Your own experience is not an infallible guide. User testing is still necessary. Just because you might have liked something doesn’t mean others will. On the other hand, when it comes to any real world problem, the design space is huge. You can use your own experience as an inspiration to design and you can also use it as a first level check on design ideas.

————————————————

Myths of the Veritas: The First Ring of Empathy

Author Page on Amazon

https://petersironwood.com/2020/02/26/race-place-space-face/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/03/02/dont-they-realize-how-much-better-off-they-are-now/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/03/27/the-most-serious-work/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/05/24/blood-red-blood/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/06/15/answers-to-your-many-questions/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/07/13/who-are-the-speakers-for-the-dead/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/12/14/how-the-nightingale-learned-to-sing/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/02/24/the-pie-of-life/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/07/25/the-only-them-that-counts-is-all-of-us/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/02/21/the-touch-of-one-hand-clasping/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/03/20/cars-that-lock-too-much/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/02/29/the-lost-sapphire/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/03/22/jennifers-invitation/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/07/13/how-did-i-get-here/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/11/01/that-cold-walk-home/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/12/01/that-first-time-is-so-special/

https://petersironwood.com/2020/12/08/the-itsy-bitsy-spider-the-waterspout/

He is the Very Model of a Modern Consigliere General

29 Wednesday Jul 2020

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse, COVID-19, politics, story, Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

America, Barr, BLM, Corruption, COVID-19, Democracy, Election, pandemic, parody, politics, racism, satire, treason, USA

{Satirical Impressions from the Consigliere General House hearing on July 28th, 2020.}

Gym “I see no child abuse” Jordan: “Let the man answer the question! You brought him here to hear his answers. Let him answer!”

Photo by Element5 Digital on Pexels.com

House Member Who Still Believes In a Democratic Process: “OK, I will ask you again. Did you or did you not discuss with the President where you would deploy storm troopers to suppress the vote in blue states?”

Bilious Barr: “Hmm. Discuss. Discuss. Well, I’m not sure what you mean by ‘discuss’ — there are many kinds of discussions. I don’t think discussing things is a crime. Not in my book. It’s a free country. A country is larger than a state but smaller than a continent. But still a lot bigger than a city. Well. Typically. You see, the Vatican is actually, in many ways, a country. But it is inside the city of Rome. Which is inside the country of Italy. Which is inside the continent of Europe. What was the question again? I know I’ve forgotten and hopefully so has most of the TV audience.”

Member Who Still Believes In a Democratic Process: “Did you discuss with the President where you would deploy storm troopers to suppress the vote in blue states.”

Bilious Barr: “Hmm. Is your time up yet? No? Ok, well, in that case, let’s discuss the word discuss. Or did you say ‘debate’? Because ‘discuss’ and ‘debate’ are similar but different.”

Member Who Still Believes In a Democratic Process: “I reclaim my time. I ask you a simple question. Yes. Or no. Did you — or did you not discuss with President Trump the deployment of troops to suppress the vote.”

Bilious Barr: “I will not reveal the details of my discussions with the President. I might accidentally reveal important — you know — it could compromise the security of the country. Excuse me. Can I have a five minute break? I really am having trouble keeping a straight face here. Just let me go laugh for five minutes in the rest room and I can come back out here and lie and obfuscate a bit more. And — you know — keep up the “sincerely trying to help” face.

Jerry Nadler: “We’re almost done. You need a break right now?”

Bilious Barr: “Well. Yes. It will seem unseemly to laugh about national security but Jesus H. Christ, you’ve got a traitor in the White House, plain as day. I mean why the … why do you think Putin put him in the White House? So he could learn golf? I can’t talk about national security issues. I really need a break or I am going to fall down on the floor laughing. Trump’s about to be dictator and you are acting like we’re going to be all polite and ask and answer questions. Is your time up yet? Can I have a break? Just five minutes.”

———————- (five minute break. To simulate that break, you could read this short story and return). ——-

Plans for us some GRUsome

—————————————————-

Member Who Still Believes In a Democratic Process: “Did you discuss with the President sending troops to suppress the vote in November?”

Bilious Barr: “November of this year? Did we discuss troop deployments in November? No. It’s only July. We haven’t discussed anything in November yet. Did you know that the days of the week are named primarily after pagan gods. I think we should change that. Wednesday, for instance, is much like “Wodin’s Day” or “Odin’s Day.” And yet we have a Christian nation, under the one true God so…”

“Reclaiming my time.”

Photo by Lum3n on Pexels.com

Gym “It wasn’t my kids who were abused” Jordan: “Let the man finish the answer! You ask him a question but you don’t want to hear the answer!”

Person Who Believed in a Democratic Process: “Did you or did you not discuss with President Trump, with regard to the upcoming election in November, deploying troops to suppress the vote?”

Bilious Barr: “Well, that assumes we will have an election. That’s a hypothetical. I don’t really answer about hypotheticals. And I definitely don’t rat out on other traitors in the White House, so I think that pretty much falls outside the scope of the inquiry.”

D202CABB-A6CF-4932-87E1-6F6A161730CE

Person Who Believed in a Democratic Process: “Did you talk with the President about deploying troops to suppress voter turnout?”

Bilious Barr: “When? Today? I haven’t even seen the President today.”

Person Who Believed in a Democratic Process: “Any time! It doesn’t matter when! Have you had discussions with the President about using troops to suppress voter turnout?”

Bilious Barr: “It’s an election year. So, I’ve been in Cabinet meetings. And in the Cabinet meetings, we naturally discuss what are important problems for the country and how to solve them.”

Democrat: “So what were the topics of important problems to solve? The pandemic? The economy? The Black Lives Matter movement? What?”

Bilious Barr: “Did you know that police shot more white people last year than black people? That’s the score. Only 8 black people needlessly killed and 11 white people! Seems to me, there’s no evidence of racism in this country. Why would you think there is any racism?”

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Democrat: “But… but black people are only 14% of the population!”

Bilious Barr: “That’s exactly my point. Why don’t we pay attention to the other 86%? What about them? The forgotten Americans. The poor, beleaguered white people who never get a break. If black people would just respect the police and not do stupid things like jog, or hang out, or walk out their front doors, or reach for their ID when the police demand to see their ID, or have roommates who own a gun, no-one would get hurt! By the way, have you ever tried to read a book that’s all black? No. I didn’t think so. You can’t even read the words, without the white space around the letters. I’m not prejudiced. I’m just stating facts.”

Democrat: “Let’s return to this question. Did you — or did you not — discuss with the President the deployment of troops or police or whatever to suppress the vote?”

Bilious Barr: “I’m not sure what you mean by ‘whatever’. We certainly did not discuss the deployment of B-36 bombers or any of the carrier groups. But who can say about whether we discussed ‘whatever’? You know – that’s a pretty big category! As I say, we talked about important things. Of course, the most important is the upcoming re-election and how to make sure that the results are secure.”

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Democrat: “We’re in the middle of a pandemic. There are 150,000 Americans dead. Science says it’s important to wear masks and to socially distance. The best way to let people vote safely would be to let everyone vote by mail. Yet, you’ve said, you’re against it. You claim there’s a chance of voter fraud if we have vote by mail.”

Bilious Barr: “Oh, yes. Substantial risk. Outsized risk. A virtual certainty. You know, other countries could easily print up ballots and forge signatures and the next thing you know, Putin would lose his re-election.”

Democrat: “Putin?”

Bilious Barr: “What about Putin?”

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Democrat: “You just said ‘Putin would lose his re-election.’”

Bilious Barr: “I never said that.”

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Democrat: “Well, you did just say exactly that.”

Bilious Barr: “Exactly what? What are we talking about? I thought you asked me a question about how wonderful our great President is. He’s saved billions of American lives with his speedy and brilliant actions about the pandemic. OKKK?”

Democrat: “My question is a simple one. Did you and the President discuss using troops or police to suppress the vote?”

Bilious Barr: “I can’t answer the question because I’m not sure what the scope of the question is. Are you asking me about something we might have discussed in a cabinet meeting? Or, just an off-hand conversation? Are you talking about a phone call? If it’s a phone call, are you asking about a secure line or a mobile phone or — you know I have four different phones? And, also I have four different e-mails? My favorite is consigliere@us.gov but are you including e-mail in the scope of the question?”

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Democrat: “I reclaim my time. It’s a very simple question….”

Gym ‘once you’ve covered up for a buddy’s sexual abuse, it’s easy to lie for Trump’ Jordan: “Let him answer the damned question!”

Democrat: “Yes, by all means! Answer the damned question. Have you at any time in any place in any manner discussed using police or troops to suppress voter turnout?”

Bilious Barr: “Turnout as in ballet? My wife’s a big fan. I don’t go very often. But it is amazing how much they can turn….did you know they put their feet parallel to each other but not … but they are pointed 180 degrees from each other. Amazing! I couldn’t do that. Could you?”

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Democrat: “I reclaim my time. Did you discuss with the President using troops to suppress the vote?”

Bilious Barr: “Hmmm. ‘With’ is a problematic word, isn’t it?”

Democrat: “No, not really. Just answer the question.”

Bilious Barr: “So, let’s say, hypothetically, we are discussing important business for America such as launching investigations into the President’s political opponents. And then, a phone call comes in. And it’s a alarmed phone call meaning it’s top priority. So, naturally the President puts it on speaker phone so we can all listen in. And a general on the phone is talking about troops moving in Russia. We hear the word ‘troops’ and then he says, ‘Won’t it be great when black people aren’t allowed to vote any more?’”

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Democrat: “Did he say that?”

“Bilious Barr: “Did he say what?”

Democrat: “Just answer whether you talked with the President about voter suppression and using troops or police to accomplish that!”

Jim “All bullies are cowards” Jordan: “Let him answer the question! I have never in my 355 years as Congressman ever seen anything so rude in all my life. Let the man answer! Let him answer. Let him answer! These proceedings are a farce. A hoax. A fake news. There’s no proof I saw him in the shower doing those things to those boys who probably liked it anyway. They were pals for God’s sake. It’s not like being queer you know. Just because guys get sweaty wrestling and then…”

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Jerry Nadler: “You are out of order. You are not recognized. The witness will answer the question.”

Bilious Barr: “Thank you. I have been trying to answer for a long time. I was pointing out the substantial irregularities and ambiguities with the word ‘with’ — honestly, we may outlaw that word after Putin’s re-election.”

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Democrat: “You said ‘Putin’ again.”

Bilious Barr: “Don’t be ridiculous. I said no such thing. Anyway, we all call him Vlad the Bad. We never refer to him as Putin in our strategy meetings so I definitely wouldn’t have called Trump ‘Putin.’ You know, secretly, we all have our pet names for Trump. It’s so funny. I wish I could share them but — not now. Of course, we have to be careful he doesn’t overhear us. And, the best part is, Vlad the Bad’s in on it too. He has — well, frankly, his names are the nastiest, but never mind all that.”

Jerry Nadler: “I see our time is up. I’d like to thank the witness for his thorough display of the entire spectrum of lies, deceit, and misdirection. Any last comments from the Consigliere General?”

Bilious Barr: “Nyet. Spasibo.”

—————————————————-

The Truth Train

The Pandemic Anti-Academic

The Watershed Virus

Trumpism is a New Religion

The Myths of the Veritas: The Orange Man

At Least he’s Our Monster

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Purely Fictional Stories about a Child Sociopath:

Donnie Plays Bull-Dazzle Man

Donnie Visits Granny