Category Archives: Kids

An Ode To Paul Ryan By MSNBC’s Left-Liberal Lawrence O’Donnell

Bush, Constitution, Donald Trump, Government, Kids, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Natural Law, Republicans

Oh what natural bedfellows these fleas make and how they love The People. I’m talking about the Left and the left-leaning “Right” of our political and media establishment.

Last week, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell practically glorified House Speaker Paul Ryan for, as he put it, “giving little Donald Trump his first a major kindergarten lesson in government during a meeting on Capitol Hill, putting into perspective how hard it will be for Trump to pass his outrageous legislative agenda.”

Ryan was the best and smartest Republican negotiator [code for shyster] in D.C.; Trump the worst, exalted statist O’Donnell.

Note how O’Donnell frames the right thing—naturally right thing to do—as ignorant, “magic thinking. “Ryan has been dealing with children like Trump for years,” intones this pompous member of the ruling class, in reference to Tea Party fiscal impulses and Trump Nation inclinations.

Lawrence thinks the good kind of power comes from the Law and from The Constitution, rather than from The People heeding the natural law. Naturally, to O’Donnell, Ryan, a mere boy, is the adult in the room. Trump, a man of the world, who’s built stuff, is the child, sitting at the feet of legislator-cum-apostle Paul, lapping up his wisdom.

It’s simple. If Trump doesn’t fulfill his promises, just as Barack Obama did through Executive decrees (which most certainly are in the overreaching U.S. Constitution), through brute force; he’ll be a one-term president. The Constitution is a dead letter. Has been for a long time.

Besides, “The Constitution has saddled Americans with a very strong presidency, should he choose to act on the veto it grants him. Buried in the constitutional thickets, concedes historian Paul Johnson, are “huge powers.” The American president “was much stronger than most kings of the day, rivaled or exceeded only by the ‘Great Autocrat,’ the Tsar of Russia (and in practice stronger than most tsars). These powers were not explored until Andrew Jackson’s time, half a century on, when they astonished and frightened many people.”

See “The Sovereign Agrees To … A Bourbon Summit.”

Are You My Mother?

Family, Gender, Kids, Psychology & Pop-Psychology, Relatives

Emily Wilson of the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania begins her review of books that span “three millennia of motherhood” with a charming distillation of Philip Dey Eastman’s classic story for “beginning readers,” Are You My Mother?:

Are You My Mother? starts with a mother bird who realizes that her egg is about to hatch. Being a good, responsible mother, she flies off to get the hatchling something to eat when he emerges. In the meantime, the baby bird pops out of the egg, falls “down, down, down!” from the nest, and finds himself alone in the world, unable to fly or fend for himself. But he can walk, and he decides to look for his mother. Unfortunately, and comically, he does not know what she looks like. So he walks right past her, though the reader sees her, busily engaged on tugging up a nice fat worm. He encounters a series of animals and other objects, and asks each of them in turn, “Are you my mother?”. Finally, a huge power shovel – which, being the largest, seems like the most likely maternal candidate of all – lets out a scary-sounding “SNOOOORT!”, and lifts the baby “up, up, up!”. The illusion is shattered: the baby realizes, “You are not my mother! You are a big scary SNORT!”. But, in yet another thrilling reversal of fortune, the Snort drops the bird back into its own nest. Just then, the mother bird comes home. She asks, “Do you know who I am?”, and the baby bird says, “Yes!”. He knows she is his mother because she is not any of the other creatures he has encountered. He therefore knows that she is a bird, and she is his mother.

One of Wilson’s poignant insights:

“There is a deeply rooted idea in our culture that mothers, far more than fathers, are responsible not just for picking up the toys and changing the nappies, but also for how the child turns out in the end, for good or ill.”

Ms. Wilson’s conclusion:

“Mothers are all different, because they are all human. The good enough mother is one who gives her child what it needs to grow up. The good enough child is one who manages to grow up, and in doing so, is able to recognize her mother’s humanity.”

Happy Mother’s Day.

Areyoumymother