The Unlettered President

Long-time readers of this blog know that I enjoy writing (and receiving) letters, although my correspondence has been less frequent of late. My letters aren't the perfunctory "I'm fine, how are you" sort, but are long and chatty and (I hope) interesting - a style I inherited from my mother, who was also a prolific correspondent. 

Because I love writing letters and enjoy receiving and reading letters that are interesting and well-crafted, I was horrified by the blizzard of wasted paper spewing from the White House last week as Der Furor, having soured on the boring and time-consuming work of actually negotiating equitable trade deals with other nations, resorted to sending the diplomatically tone-deaf equivalent of extortion letters to foreign leaders. As an example, here is the letter he sent to the Prime Minister of Canada:

Had I submitted this letter for leadership approval when I was working as a staff officer in the Pentagon, I would not just have been called on the carpet ... my general would have ordered extra carpets on which to call me. 

Whatever you may think of Der Furor's fixation on tariffs as the Swiss Army knife of international trade and diplomatic arm-twisting (and I don't think much of it), you have to admire his consistency. His writing skills, not so much. Consider all the things wrong with his letter to the Canadian Prime Minister:

The tone of the letter is high-handed ("It is a Great Honor for me to send you this letter"), condescending ("the United States of America has agreed to continue working with Canada"), and insulting ("These Tariffs may be modified, upward or downward, depending on our relationship with your Country"). It is marked by its improper, random use of capital letters, as in "Great Honor," "Trading Relationship," and "Dairy Farmers." It includes a threat against retaliation ("If for any reason you decide to raise your Tariffs, then, whatever the number you choose to raise them by, will be added onto the 35% that we charge"). He blames Canada for failing to stop the flow of drugs into the United States, ignoring the fact that the vast majority of illegal drugs entering the country come from Mexico and Asia. He closes with his smarmy, condescending, all-purpose phrase, "Thank you for your attention to this matter!" And finally, he throws in exclamation points to make sure the Prime Minister understands the importance of prompt submission to his demands ("The Trade Deficit is a major threat to our Economy and, indeed, our National Security!"*).

The penultimate paragraph of his letter ends with, "You will never be disappointed with the United States of America." Sadly, that train sailed long ago - the rest of the world is already disappointed with the United States, as am I.

Oh, and lest we forget, the letters were posted to Der Furor's "Truth Social" site, which is evidently a new official channel of communication with foreign leaders.

Sending poorly-written and insulting letters like this is typical of Der Furor's megalomaniacal approach to international relations (and all relations, for that matter), and allows him to keep up the fiction that he's a consummate deal-maker while presenting other nations with non-negotiable demands, telling reporters that "I just want you to know a letter means a deal." 

And sometimes, a letter means a calculated and imperious insult to a friend and ally who deserves better. The ugly American lives, we've elected and empowered him, and the damage he's done and continues to do to our economy and our relations around the world will take decades to repair ... if it's even possible.

Have a good day. Write to your Senators and your Representative to let them know you expect better, even if you despair of getting it. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

*Extra points here for use of both improper capitalization and punctuation.

Questionable Responses

If you're connected with me on Facebook, you've already seen this rant, so you can stop reading now if you like. If not, read on.

As faithful readers of this blog know, I greatly enjoy writing (and receiving) letters, and over the years I have become an occasional pen pal with some of you. Letter-writing is a dying art, and I'm doing my part to keep it on life support ... now that I'm retired, I've resolved to write more letters to family and friends. And to my elected officials, which brings me to my point ...

In February of 2017, I wrote letters to both of my senators (Mark Warner and Tim Kaine) and my representative (Don Beyer) to express my frustration on the lack of rational attention to the problem of immigration reform, and enclosed with each a copy of my proposed Immigration Reform Plan (which I have also shared with you on this blog ... see here for the latest iteration). In due time, I received replies from all three individuals, all variations on "thank you for your interest in this important topic" and none of them mentioning anything about my proposal.

It's about what I expected, but was still disheartening.

Last month I wrote to the same three elected representatives again, expressing my concern over the Trump "national emergency" and urging that they and their colleagues demand the White House produce hard evidence to prove the existence of such an "emergency."

On March 7th, I received a reply from Senator Kaine. When I read it, it seemed familiar, and so I went back to my files and dug out the 2017 letter from the Senator. Lo and behold, it was virtually identical to the one I'd just received, differing only in some formatting and updated statistics.

I find myself a bit cranked over this.

Now, I understand that my elected reprehensives are busy people who don't have time to read every letter they receive ... they need to spend a lot of time raising money, after all, and so they have staffs who read correspondence from lowly constituents and draft replies to those deemed worthy of response. That's fine. I suspect that what happens is that only a representative few (if any) letters actually make it to the Big Desks; if anything, the staffs probably condense them down into PowerPoint charts or Excel spreadsheets showing broad areas of public interest to be accommodated or ignored as needed.

What irritated me was not that I had received such an obvious a form letter, but that:

a) it was virtually identical to the first, which dated from two years before; and - most importantly,

b) it had no relation at all to the topic I'd written to the Senator about. I hadn't written about immigration and immigration reform, but about the need to push back against questionable presidential actions. I have to wonder if anybody read my letter any further than to see whether it contained certain words that would permit it to be shoehorned into a particular subject bucket that would trigger Form Letter A7 or D4*.

And to date, I haven't heard anyone in Congress really demand evidence.

So ...

I still love to write letters, and I'll keep writing them to my family, my friends**, and my elected reprehensives, but I'll only expect to get meaningful replies from the first two ... unless I enclose money.

Have a good day. Write more letters ... they may be the only way you'll be remembered many years down the road.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* Thanks to my old boss, mentor, and friend Hank for this expression.

** I'll write to you, too ... you just have to agree to write back.

Bad Sex in Fiction

If you do much reading beyond the, say, fifth-grade level, you have almost certainly made the acquaintance of that dreaded element of fiction, the sex scene. Ever since human beings first learned to write down their language, whether it was on cave walls, clay tablets, papyrus, parchment, paper, or digital tablets, one standard thing they've tried to record is vivid descriptions of the act of lovemaking. Whether in poetry or prose, in whatever language, sex is a major element of our literature, both high and low.

How many ways can you describe the sexual act? A lot, actually. And not all of them are equally ... uh ... literary. In fact, some of them are so bad that there is actually an annual award presented by Britain's Literary Review for "Bad Sex in Fiction." According to the Literary Review's website,

The purpose of the prize is to draw attention to poorly written, perfunctory or redundant passages of sexual description in modern fiction, and to discourage them. The prize is not intended to cover pornographic or expressly erotic literature.

It's similar to the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, except that the Bulwer-Lytton contest is not limited simply to depictions of sex, but of generally overblown and awful writing, and its entries are limited to a single original sentence of any length. Depictions of sex in fiction, as you may know, can go on interminably and be of sufficient ghastliness to make one swear off sex.

The 2014 Bad Sex in Fiction Award went to novelist Ben Okri for a scene in his novel The Age of Magic, for a love scene involving a filmmaker named Lao and his girlfriend, named Mistletoe. I will not share with you the winning scene (because there are children who read this blog), but you can read it for yourself here. His editor was quoted as saying: “Winning the award is fun but a bit undignified, just like sex, assuming you do it properly.”

The shortlist for last year's award featured many other authors, including one of my favorites, Wilbur Smith. Smith writes action-packed adventure stories that brim with historical detail and crackle with vivid writing, and I can't think of a single one of his stories that hasn't included at least one cringe-worthy depiction of sex*. You can check it out for yourself by reading what I think are two of his most exciting novels: The Seventh Scroll and River God. Needless to say, you won't want to read them aloud to your children, unless you are home-schooling them in advanced sex and violence.

So, Dear Readers, share some of your experiences with the rest of us ... what book have you read that contains sex scenes worthy of a Bad Sex in Fiction Award? The 50 Shades Trilogy doesn't count, nor does the new book in the series, Grey, because the overall writing in those is so bad that it's in a class by itself. And the instructions for the IRS form 1040 don't count, either, even though they offer vivid depictions of the screwing of the average taxpayer.

Have a good day. Read something ... stimulating.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* I can't help it ... here's an excerpt from the scene in Desert God that earned Wilbur Smith a place on the shortlist: "(the woman's hair) did not cover her breasts which thrust their way through it like living creatures. They were perfect rounds, white as mare's milk and tipped with ruby nipples that puckered as my gaze passed over them." Oy.