East Wing debacle

Kim and I were hoping at some point in the new few years to make another trip to Washington DC and behave like tourists. 

You know, take in the Smithsonian, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument and other sights. Including the White House. It's been decades since we last did that.

But the recent razing of the historic East Wing by convicted felon president Donald Trump has dampened our enthusiasm for such a trip. The White House campus just won't be the same as we remembered, what with his proposed 90,000 square foot (two acres), $300 billion ballroom looming over the South Lawn like some irritating bully.

Artist's proposed conception of Hell No.

 And it happened so suddenly. We woke up on Monday and the next thing we knew, the East Wing was being assaulted by bulldozers and dump trucks. By Thursday, the building that served as offices for First Ladies since World War II was gone. A memory. An American memory, mind you, pulverized into dust to make room for the felon president's vanity project. I don't even remember anybody even talking about the need for a White House ballroom prior to this travesty.

MAGA world promptly went into defense mode, rolling out story after story about how previous presidents added their own imprints to the White House. What you don't hear from MAGA is how Trump destroyed a portion of The Peoples' House without Congressional review or consent. He simply bulldozed his way through the entire process, ignoring the National Capital Planning Commission that is designed to oversee federal building construction. The NCPC even has priority over Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, which exempts the White House, the Capitol and the Supreme Court from review. But the White House is still subject to review from the NCPC as well as the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts.

Codes and permits have been ignored in the razing process.

MAGA insists this entire scheme is different because it is being funded by private donors and not tax dollars, but that just raises another issue: is the ballroom being built with bribe money? Consider this: because of Trump's Big Beautiful Bill, Google gets an $18 billion tax break, Amazon gets a $16 billion tax break, Microsoft gets a $12 billion tax break and Facebook gets an $11 billion tax break. Meanwhile, the country is enduring Trump's government shutdown as federal employees – those still remaining after the DOGE cuts – find themselves nothing more than pawns in a political game of his undertaking.

It's been said that the proposed ballroom – which will make the existing White House 55,000 square foot building look like the add-on – is in reality nothing more than a monument to corruption. It likely will be Mar-a-Lago North on the White House campus. 

Game? The latest horror came Friday when the felon president said that while the government is in shutdown, it would not use any of the $6 billion held in reserve by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) upon which 42 million Americans depend to put food on the table.

This is unparalleled cruelty. I always thought government was designed to help its citizens to a path of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Meanwhile, Trump somehow finds $40 billion to prop up Argentina. So much for America First.

The destruction of the East Wing has become something of a metaphor for Trump's presidency. Because the East Wing is gone, so, too, is the symmetry of the grounds. The White House itself features a neoclassical architectural style that draws from the ideals of democracy and government from the ancient Greeks and Romans. The uniquely American influence offers us the Federal style that suggests the simplicity and balance of our nature as opposed to the European monarchies. from which we separated.

The assault on the East Wing is an assault on all Americans. It's an assault on our history, on our collective memory, on our democracy, on rule of law, on fair play and on the virtues we thought made us Americans.

 

 

 

 

No Kings, again

It's incredible how easy it is to get some MAGA people wound up these days. All you have to do, it seems, is take to the streets to exercise your First Amendment right to assemble, speak freely and protest, and suddenly you've become an ignorant clown who is suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome for a laughable cause.

 

We add our First Amendment voice.*

Some of that blowback came our way after about 200 of us participated in the utterly peaceful No Kings demonstration held at the Old Courthouse on the Square Saturday. While the local crowd appeared to be a bit smaller than the Hands Off/No Kings demonstration held in June – an estimated 300 folks took part in that one – yesterday's event was tied to the larger national protest that drew an estimated seven million participants.

Seven million. It was the second largest political demonstration in American history. The largest gathering was the first Earth Day in 1970, when 20 million citizens gathered to create awareness of the Earth's fragile ecology. Earth Day was soooo woke that it appeared to us in an era before wokeness was a MAGA target of derision. In fact, Earth Day was so woke we didn't even know we were woke back then. It took Trump Republicans to tell us what wokeness is. And diversity, equity and inclusion, too. The old hippie in me thought wokeness and DEI were good things – righteous things, Christian things – to be, but apparently not in Trump world, where the cruelty is clearly the point.

A sample of No Kings day in Lexington.

 Why else would you separate immigrant children from their parents (an estimated 1,300 children are still missing from the first Trump administration's attempt to discourage asylum seekers from entry into the country)? Why else would you create concentration camps and deportation centers in America? Why else would you create a paramilitary agency like ICE to literally sweep brown people off the streets by denying them due process? When did that become the American way?

Why are we picking a fight with Venezuela? Why is Argentina getting $20 billion from us but we can't fund healthcare? Why are National Guard troops encamped in peaceful American cities when state governors – under whose control they belong – have not asked for them? Why are we blowing up boats (and killing people) in the Caribbean without the Coast Guard boarding them with due process?

When did we become lawless? 

MAGA tried its best to downplay No Kings day, responding mostly with retorts that we don't have a king in this country and so what exactly are you protesting, fool?

That response misses the point of the symbolism behind No Kings day, of course. Trump, the convicted felon who has been given a free pass from sentencing (and perhaps prison) by his buddies on the Supreme Court, has been busy centralizing the power of the presidency in his second term per Project 2025. Among numerous other violations, Trump has:

• Invoked capricious tariffs, which by Constitution only Congress can do.

• Impounded congressionally appropriated funds from federal agencies in violation of the law.

• Fired federal employees in violation of the law.

• Signed unconstitutional executive orders.

In other words, Trump is trying to seize the powers of Congress. As envisioned by the Founding Fathers, a president can make treaties with the approval of the Senate; veto bills and sign bills; represent the nation in talks with foreign countries, enforce the laws that Congress passes; act as Commander in Chief during a war, and call out troops to protect the nation against an attack. Those are the constitutional powers of the presidency.

Any other perceived powers Trump has of the presidency actually make him more like a monarch than an executive with limited powers. Hence, a king – exactly what we rebelled against in 1776.

The Founding Fathers struggled with the idea of a president as leader. They didn't want an all-powerful individual in charge, which is why we are a federal democratic republic with a division of power that is theoretically protected by a brilliant combination of checks and balances which gives the power to the people. If they can keep it. If they want it.

I want it. I want to keep it. It's why I protest against a king governing this country. 

*Photo by Kristi Thornhill. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MTG, my newest hero

The last thing I ever expected to find myself doing was to defend wacky Marjorie Taylor Greene, the extreme right-wing Republican Congresswoman and conspiracy theorist who believed secret Jewish space lasers were responsible for starting the devastating California wildfires a couple years ago, and who once told us in 2022 that the "gazpacho police" were guarding the Capitol building.

Yes, the cold soup police. She meant Gestapo, of course, even though I doubt she knows of the horrors they committed in Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 40s. 

Yet here I am agreeing with MTG as she tries to create some space between her and convicted felon president Donald Trump, who is allowing his current government shutdown to continue. 

Welcome to the Resistance, MTG.

She is primarily concerned with the rising costs of healthcare that are on the cusp of spiraling out of control under the Trump administration, who would rather pay for tax cuts for bazillionaires than help the average American stay healthy, many of whom voted for Republicans. She even cited her own adult children as being unable to afford  the projected rise in healthcare premiums.

She's making more sense now than she ever has. Proof, I guess, that some people can grow.

She's speaking out against the administration, and primarily House Speaker Michael Johnson, who has kept House members out of session since Sept. 19. Say what? By keeping the House out of session means its members cannot work on the budget, which, by extension, means they are not working to find a way to extend healthcare premium tax credits.

It also means there is no swearing in of Representative Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ), who won a special election on Sept. 23. She represents the 218th vote on a discharge petition that would release the Epstein files, which nearly every person in American – well, except those with the last name of Trump and those committed to protesting the Trumps – are clamoring to see.

Johnson keeps postponing the swearing in so we don't get to see the proof that Trump is a pedophile. Why else keep postponing?

Republicans are working hard on one thing, though, and that is trying to blame the Democrats for the shutdown. But considering that the GOP controls the House, the Senate, the Presidency and, in essence, even the Supreme Court, that accusation is as transparent as it is laughable.

Meanwhile, Trump continues with his childish but dangerous retribution campaign against perceived political opponents instead of actually governing the nation. ICE rounds up brown-skinned people without due process using agents that cover their faces with masks and wearing no name tags, acting like Gestapo.

Even MTG can see this. 

 

 

The week to come

I have a website bookmarked on my laptop called "The Drudge Report", which is a website that basically collects the https's of various news sources for easy acquisition. Created by Matt Drudge in 1995, it was once considered by some to be a conservative outlet, but not so much anymore. I mean, if you want quick access to The New York Times, go to Drudge.

Best of all, it's a collection of websites from all over the world. You can access The Daily Mirror in England just as easily as you can Die Zeit in Germany or The China People's Daily. It's a pretty handy tool to have if you want to take a peep at differing points of view.

So I took a quick look this morning, and the first story to hit my eye is "Trump ordering troops to Portland...Authorizes Full Force."

Uh-oh. Here we go again. Our convicted felon president is sending troops to yet another American city to quell rioting that doesn't exist except in his mind. Oregon Governor Tina Kotek hasn't asked for troops (it's unclear if the troops will be National Guard or general military, like the Marines or the U.S. Army). Neither has Portland Mayor Keith Wilson. This looks more like performative theater by Trump to satiate the MAGA faithful.

One of the things the Founding Fathers feared most was a standing army. That's mostly why the military is under civilian (Congressional) control. Plus, the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 limits the role of the military in domestic law enforcement. So what Trump is doing here, without Congressional approval, is probably illegal.

Kind of like raising tariffs without Congressional approval.

And what does "full force" mean anyhow? Is he laying siege to an American city? You good with that?

Anyway, right next to the Portland story is this headline: "USA Preps Military Strikes in Venezuela."

What? I don't think planning military strikes on sovereign nations bodes well for any Nobel Peace Prize considerations, which is something Trump is desperate for. You know, because Obama has one. You'd think blowing up Venezuelan speed boats without issuing due process would be enough, but I guess not.

Drudge is usually timely with its news collection, but with a government shutdown looming for Tuesday, I can't find anything right now. Maybe I will later in the day as the news cycle refreshes.

In the meantime, maybe I'll check out "MAGA Coming for the WNBA." 

Charlie Kirk

When I turned on the news Wednesday afternoon after a couple hours of working in my yard, the first thing that came on the screen was the real-time coverage of the shooting of Charlie Kirk, the controversial right-wing podcaster, political influencer and activist.

"Uh-oh," I thought to myself. "This isn't going to be good."

As I watched the coverage, a kind of odd familiarity took shape: Rooftops. Crowds. Guns. Always guns.

And, minutes into the insanity and chaos, it was announced that Kirk had died of a single gunshot wound to the neck. Now the shooting had morphed into murder. 

I didn't know much about Kirk. I never listened to his podcasts because his political views aren't how I swing and I didn't need his kind of influencing or reinforcement to my life. I remember hearing that Kirk was the guy who said if he saw a Black pilot on his plane, he hoped the pilot was qualified. Sweet Jesus. He also suggested – among other things – that some Black women "did not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously." Seriously? The movie and book "Hidden Figures" quickly comes to mind here.

DEI apparently wasn't in his alphabet. 

I sometimes got him confused with Charlie Sykes, another conservative political commentator who is often the voice of reason. Maybe I got them confused because they're both named Charlie, followed by a single syllable last name. Yep, that's how I roll. Complex.

When I learned that Kirk was only 31 and left behind a wife and two young children, I cried. Assassins never account for who else gets hurt when the bullet leaves the gun. Collateral damage. There used  to be a time, I think, when you could disagree with a neighbor on politics. It was the Norman Rockwellian American way. You could sit around the cracker barrel and hold heated discussions, pretty much knowing you wouldn't get shot. Now even the cracker barrel invites division.

I am so weary of this shit. 

As the days passed, I soon learned that Kirk was a brilliant debater, often taking on college students in places like Cambridge, even though he himself never graduated from college. Sharp. Quick. Slice and dice. I would've been mincemeat in a debate with him even though I know I disagree with his core values. My best responses in disagreements always seem to come about two days later, when I realize, "That's what I should have said."

I also heard in the wake of Kirk's assassination that this kind of violence "isn't who we are."

What? It's exactly who we are. We live in a gun culture where finality is often discharged in feet per second. Why are there so many guns? Why are they so easy to obtain? What exactly are we afraid of? Why does this happen in America and hardly anywhere else in the world? We are the only nation on the planet with anything resembling a second amendment, and we are killing ourselves with it. I'm still upset with the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and Martin Luther King Jr. Why kill John Lennon? He was a Beatle, for God's sake. A musician. Hell, I'm still mad that Abraham Lincoln was murdered and I missed that one by 86 years.

I don't know what the answer is. Reasonable gun control has to factor in the mix somehow, especially now that school children have become targets. We also have to figure out how to disagree without malice, when to walk away, to understand somebody else's perspective without literally being triggered. But I don't know.

It means we have to change who we are.

I think we need good luck with that one. 

 

 

 

 

Art for art's sake

It's not every day you see an artist setting up his easel on the Old Courthouse Square in Lexington, taking a favorite bristle brush and applying some welcomed color and perspective to our lives.

The Square certainly makes for an unusual workplace.

But that's exactly what Lexington's Kenrick Jobe is doing these days as passing motorists take a gander at his work during red lights, or honk their horns in appreciation (we assume) in what is something like a drive-by studio.

Kenrick Jobe creates art on the Old Courthouse Square.

 Why the Square?

"The Square is probably one of the top three busiest places in the area," said Jobe, 30. "So I thought, 'Why not take advantage of that?' So I tried it.

"And I realized, it's a great way to meet new people there," said Jobe. "So I'm like, why not do that? You know? You live here in Lexington. I don't really want to move anywhere. I feel like this area would be nice to build something solid.

"And I've met some of the best people here." 

There is the occasional peeper who comes up to Jobe, stands behind his shoulder and watches as he works a canvas into something that can stir the soul. That's what artists do, after all.

A car horn shouts at us. We both look.

"You got fans?" I ask.

Kenrick Jobe

 "Well, I've definitely got support," said Jobe, a 2017 graduate of East Carolina University, where he majored in art. "I don't mind if somebody comes up and looks over my shoulder while I'm working, even if they don't say anything. 

"I kind of like it," said Jobe. "Maybe I get some people thinking, you know?"

Jobe doesn't consider himself to be a "struggling artist", but he hasn't exactly hit the financial jackpot, either.

"Right now, I'm just working from home," said Jobe, who is originally from Summit, NJ, but came to Lexington when he was 12. "But I do a lot of commissions and stuff like that. I did a mural here in the Old Courthouse. And I'm also an artist in residence at Grace Episcopal.

"At the end of this month, I'll be doing an art workshop at Duke. I think that's going to be pretty much fun."

On the day that I talked with Jobe, he was working on a piece featuring white blossoms. It was stunning. He often videos himself painting in rapid time lapse, so you get to see the painting's progress, and then he posts his projects on Facebook with a description.

In the painting that you see in this blog, Jobe wrote, "I think I'm most proud of this painting. When I look at it, I see growth. These days I'm so optimistic for the future, it's overwhelming. I know something big is on the way."

In just the few minutes I spent with him, I discovered that you can feel his enthusiasm – and optimism – reach out to you. It's almost contagious. Now that would be a pandemic worth having, wouldn't it?

In another post, for a different work, Jobe wrote, "It's hard to ignore someone that paints outside every day. I'm full of love and gratitude. I'm ready to meet every individual that wants to meet me. Let's talk Art. Thank you for giving me a chance to achieve my dream."

In a streetside studio that is filled with sensual stimuli – the scents, the sounds, the motion, the colors – Jobe often paints simply what he sees in his mind's eye.

"Sometimes I might get an idea by looking at a picture," said Jobe. "But then I'll go on it by myself because I don't want to keep looking back and forth at something. So you visualize. I want it to have character. I don't want it to look exactly like a photo, right?"

Jobe doesn't have a gallery – a gallery remains a goal – but his work is for sale. Some pieces can go for several hundred dollars, while others go for several thousand. "It all depends," said Jobe, echoing nearly every artist's pricing strategy.

In the meantime, Jobe continues on with brush and paints in hand and a smile on his face.

"Art is the only constant for me," writes Jobe. "That, and God." 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

Go See Van Gogh

When I was a student at Kutztown State College (Pa.) back in the early 1970s, one of the courses that was required was art history.

Van Gogh's 'Bedroom in Aries' in 3-D

 I have no idea why. I was studying to be a U.S. history teacher, and later, when I decided I couldn't speak in front of groups of people who knew more than me, I switched to Liberal Arts English and became a sports writer. 

I think the idea behind requiring art history was to help make us informed and well-rounded citizens of the world. It probably didn't hurt that Kutztown was a teachers' college that massed produced art teachers for public education. Anyway, as I recall, the textbook for the class was outstanding, and I wish I still had it. To this day I can close my eyes and see selected works of such artists as Delacroix, Monet, Manet, Czanne, Seurat, Gauguin and Van Gogh virtually jump from the pages and into my mind's appreciation vault.

I was fascinated.

So, decades after my introduction to art history, the Van Gogh Immersive Experience showed up in Winston-Salem last month at the former Jo-Ann's Fabrics Store off of Stratford Road, I had to go.

Kim and I went last week, and we thought it was spectacular. As you enter the exhibit, you get to see at least 100 copies of Van Gogh's work, accompanied in most cases with explanatory text. Then you enter the immersive room, the crown jewel of the place. Projections of Van Gogh's artistic style swim across the room and floor, literally engulfing you with stimuli as you relax in folding chairs or bean bags. You can let yourself float upstream and into the Starry Night.

•   •   •

I wasn't a very good student at Kutztown. I was a commuter who drove 45 minutes each way in my Volkswagen Beetle, five days a week, to keep my tuition down to around $50 a semester. No student loans for me. Much of my day was spent just trying to stay alive making the commute.

Anyway, as noted, Kutztown specialized in graduating art teachers, and every once in a while, those art students would hold exhibitions in the school's modern and spacious library.

I had two good friends that I'd meet with at the library most days, and instead of studying, we'd mess around, talking this and that, checking out the women instead of books. Stuff like that.

One day, we noticed one of those student art exhibitions going up. I decided to participate.

I took a sheet of composition paper and, with my multi-colored pen, drew four parenthesis (the singular of parentheses) in a single row, each parenthesis a different color. Like this: (  ) (  ). Then I ripped the page out of my composition book and placed it on the floor, near the other exhibits, which I feel certain to this day were being graded. We chuckled and didn't think much else of it.

Until the next day. My work was still on the floor. As it was the next day, and the next, and the day after that. We couldn't believe it. On one of those days, we saw a library worker vacuum around it. On another day, we saw a patron walk up to my work, stop for a few moments and rub his chin in contemplation as he took it all in.

I was beginning to think I had accidentally created a study in philosophical rhetoric: What is art? I never did find the answer to that.

Apparently I had switched my major yet again, this time from Liberal Arts English to Liberal Arts Smart Ass. 

As it turned out, my work stayed on the floor for the entire two weeks of the exhibit. It was the first and only time I've ever been displayed in a gallery. True story. Thank you very much. 

 (The Van Gogh Immersive Experience will remain in Winston-Salem through September. It's $35 per adult on weekends and $25 on weekdays and begins at 10 a.m. each day. There are small discounts for seniors, etc, so ask if you qualify.)