Somewhere back in his high school years, my younger son impressed his high school English teacher as they were discussing the Iliad. Asked about Zeus and the reason he had relented in his support for the Greeks in a certain battle, my son said, "I think it was his wife, who favored the Trojans. Zeus was a little scared of her."
The teacher remarked she had not seen that before, and the more she thought about it, the more she saw evidence for it. Zeus, the king of the gods, was intimidated by the queen.
Watching the pathetic spectacle of liberal commentators on Twitter, Mad Dog has been repelled by all those effete Democrats who kept writing about how Trump will be impeached or he will resign, all of them looking for some rescue by a deux ex machina, anything but having to beat Trump in the 2020 election. What cowards. They do not think they can defeat Trump on the field of battle, so they hope the gods of impeachment will intervene.
Mad Dog was equally dismissive of the Million Women March, that massive group hug in various northeast cities, with women in pink knit hats.
As if that was going to do any good. Hold up your Teddy bear to the big bad ogre.
But lately, Mad Dog cannot help but notice, it is the women who seem to be donning the armor and going out to do battle.
In our local Rockingham County, we are seeing women carrying the load.
The men, at our meetings are aged, droning on about past triumphs, reading position papers, talking about how they heroically won elections in bygone years.
It is the women who are actually engaging the enemy.
Last night, at the Rockingham County Democratic meeting, the chairman, told us how Dems had knocked on a thousand doors four times each and "almost" won the special election for the New Hampshire House of Reps. Oh, what a victory! In a "Republican" district we were able to come so close. Lost by only 80 votes!
He mentioned Mary McCarthy, a woman who is busy running a family which extends across oceans and manages with aplomb this familial organization, which would send the typical CEO of a multinational corporation screaming from the room, this woman drove out to the district and dialed numbers from a phone bank in an attempt to turn the vote.
She did not succeed, but the fact is, it was she who was in the trenches. Yes, there were men participating, but the women are essential.
The candidate she was working for was a woman. Mad Dog looked around the room and saw Liz McConnell who had won a seat in deep red Brentwood, and behind him sat Kristi St. Laurent, who is trying to do the same thing in Salem, NH.
And these women represent very different sorts of classes within the very white New Hampshire Dems. In some ways they could not be more different: McConnell is the very image of a proper upper class doyen while St. Laurent raises chickens and tools around and rides to the meeting on her motorcycle. But they share a common set of values which favors the dispossessed over the privileged and which seeks to allow the disadvantaged a better chance to close the income gap.
The Democratic Party may be once have been the party of the unionized worker, or the ethnic group, or the suppressed groups of color, but in this state, it is the party of the offended and motivated woman.
Three years of a corrupt, priapic President and these women are digging the trenches and preparing the assault.
Mad Dog just saw the Trinity Rep production of "Prince of Providence" about the thoroughly corrupt, albeit beloved, mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, Buddy Cianci.
Cianci started out as a prosecutor of the Patriarca family but upon assuming the throne of the Mayor's office, he slid into one corrupt backroom deal after another to placate the unions, the entrenched interests to "get things done" in Providence, which was in 1975 a decaying slum of a city, where people were content with the way things were, even if they were pretty crummy. At least the powers that be were in control, and they didn't care what the town looked like, as long as they got their share of what wealth was available.
Before the performance, Mad Dog had dined at a family restaurant around the corner from City Hall, where he talked with the owner who told him he knew Cianci well, had in fact been with him when he died and he knew Cianci was corrupt but, like our current President, he told me, "He got things done."
His line was that democracies don't work. Elected leaders are always being bought and sold but the important thing was giving back enough to change some things. Like Trump who came to fame because he said he could complete the Central Park ice skating rink, which had languished for years, unfinished, Trump got it done in 3 months, by firing the union workers.
So it was with Cianci, who was charming, who loved to be seen at every public event, who would show up, the wags said, for the opening of an envelop.
Now this Cianci booster gave Cianci credit for all the new parks and buildings, most of which were completed long after Cianci was convicted for a felony and removed from office , re elected and then jailed again. This guy gave Cianci all the credit for all the good things that happened to that city as he now gave Trump credit for the low unemployment rate and the booming economy.
And I asked him, you really think that was all Cianci? And he answered, "Yes, and more."
"And you give Trump credit for the economy, for the low unemployment rate?"
"Absolutely!"
This guy will not be deterred or persuaded. If anyone can see through his hero, Trump, it will likely be a woman, just as it was women who could see through Cianci. They did not give him a free pass for his transgressions. They did not see a hero where an egomaniac resided.
But the new breed of Democrats do not accept this premise, that in order to change things you have to cheat and commit crimes.
There is Mindi Messmer who fights for clean water. She isn't trying to get dirt on her political opponents; she is trying to succeed by the force of her arguments.
And, of course, there is Nancy Pelosi. She may be a septuagenarian, but she has learned some things along the way, and she knows how to throw a punch.
Maybe Mad Dog is just getting old, but to his weary eyes, the hope is in the women. The men are old, jaded, dulled, limpid, just not able to move forward.
It's the women who are pushing us now.
The teacher remarked she had not seen that before, and the more she thought about it, the more she saw evidence for it. Zeus, the king of the gods, was intimidated by the queen.
Watching the pathetic spectacle of liberal commentators on Twitter, Mad Dog has been repelled by all those effete Democrats who kept writing about how Trump will be impeached or he will resign, all of them looking for some rescue by a deux ex machina, anything but having to beat Trump in the 2020 election. What cowards. They do not think they can defeat Trump on the field of battle, so they hope the gods of impeachment will intervene.
Mad Dog was equally dismissive of the Million Women March, that massive group hug in various northeast cities, with women in pink knit hats.
As if that was going to do any good. Hold up your Teddy bear to the big bad ogre.
But lately, Mad Dog cannot help but notice, it is the women who seem to be donning the armor and going out to do battle.
In our local Rockingham County, we are seeing women carrying the load.
The men, at our meetings are aged, droning on about past triumphs, reading position papers, talking about how they heroically won elections in bygone years.
It is the women who are actually engaging the enemy.
Last night, at the Rockingham County Democratic meeting, the chairman, told us how Dems had knocked on a thousand doors four times each and "almost" won the special election for the New Hampshire House of Reps. Oh, what a victory! In a "Republican" district we were able to come so close. Lost by only 80 votes!
He mentioned Mary McCarthy, a woman who is busy running a family which extends across oceans and manages with aplomb this familial organization, which would send the typical CEO of a multinational corporation screaming from the room, this woman drove out to the district and dialed numbers from a phone bank in an attempt to turn the vote.
She did not succeed, but the fact is, it was she who was in the trenches. Yes, there were men participating, but the women are essential.
 |
| Liz McConnell |
The candidate she was working for was a woman. Mad Dog looked around the room and saw Liz McConnell who had won a seat in deep red Brentwood, and behind him sat Kristi St. Laurent, who is trying to do the same thing in Salem, NH.
 |
| Kristi St. Laurent |
And these women represent very different sorts of classes within the very white New Hampshire Dems. In some ways they could not be more different: McConnell is the very image of a proper upper class doyen while St. Laurent raises chickens and tools around and rides to the meeting on her motorcycle. But they share a common set of values which favors the dispossessed over the privileged and which seeks to allow the disadvantaged a better chance to close the income gap.
The Democratic Party may be once have been the party of the unionized worker, or the ethnic group, or the suppressed groups of color, but in this state, it is the party of the offended and motivated woman.
Three years of a corrupt, priapic President and these women are digging the trenches and preparing the assault.
Mad Dog just saw the Trinity Rep production of "Prince of Providence" about the thoroughly corrupt, albeit beloved, mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, Buddy Cianci.
Cianci started out as a prosecutor of the Patriarca family but upon assuming the throne of the Mayor's office, he slid into one corrupt backroom deal after another to placate the unions, the entrenched interests to "get things done" in Providence, which was in 1975 a decaying slum of a city, where people were content with the way things were, even if they were pretty crummy. At least the powers that be were in control, and they didn't care what the town looked like, as long as they got their share of what wealth was available.
Before the performance, Mad Dog had dined at a family restaurant around the corner from City Hall, where he talked with the owner who told him he knew Cianci well, had in fact been with him when he died and he knew Cianci was corrupt but, like our current President, he told me, "He got things done."
His line was that democracies don't work. Elected leaders are always being bought and sold but the important thing was giving back enough to change some things. Like Trump who came to fame because he said he could complete the Central Park ice skating rink, which had languished for years, unfinished, Trump got it done in 3 months, by firing the union workers.
 |
| Cianci |
So it was with Cianci, who was charming, who loved to be seen at every public event, who would show up, the wags said, for the opening of an envelop.
Now this Cianci booster gave Cianci credit for all the new parks and buildings, most of which were completed long after Cianci was convicted for a felony and removed from office , re elected and then jailed again. This guy gave Cianci all the credit for all the good things that happened to that city as he now gave Trump credit for the low unemployment rate and the booming economy.
And I asked him, you really think that was all Cianci? And he answered, "Yes, and more."
"And you give Trump credit for the economy, for the low unemployment rate?"
"Absolutely!"
This guy will not be deterred or persuaded. If anyone can see through his hero, Trump, it will likely be a woman, just as it was women who could see through Cianci. They did not give him a free pass for his transgressions. They did not see a hero where an egomaniac resided.
But the new breed of Democrats do not accept this premise, that in order to change things you have to cheat and commit crimes.
 |
| Mindi |
There is Mindi Messmer who fights for clean water. She isn't trying to get dirt on her political opponents; she is trying to succeed by the force of her arguments.
And, of course, there is Nancy Pelosi. She may be a septuagenarian, but she has learned some things along the way, and she knows how to throw a punch.
Maybe Mad Dog is just getting old, but to his weary eyes, the hope is in the women. The men are old, jaded, dulled, limpid, just not able to move forward.
It's the women who are pushing us now.
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