School in Alabama bans Easter Bunny; principal says in the interest of religious diversity of students, no activities centered around any religious holiday will be allowed.
Bad enough, I was the last one of my classmates to realize that Santa Claus and the tooth fairy did not exist. Worse, was my unshakable belief in the existence of the Easter Bunny. If my school had the good sense to ban the Easter Bunny, it would have saved me from the hurtful snickering of my classmates and the cutting invective from Maria, who was still tormenting me for having missed Valentine’s Day.
School in Washington bans tag; principal says ban will ensure the emotional and physical safety of all students.
Just good common sense from this observant principal. In my school, we played tag three times a day: in the morning before classes began, during lunch hour, and again at recess in mid-afternoon. I always participated with mixed feelings, knowing I was in emotional danger when Bubba was chasing me and physical danger when Maria was chasing me. Or was it the other way around?
School in Calgary bans academic honors and sports awards; principal says it hurts the self-esteem and pride of those who do not receive them.
Every year, my pride took a beating as I tried out for, but failed to make the school’s baseball team. To make matters worse, the team regularly won the interscholastic league championship, receiving trophies, accolades, and the adulation of schoolgirls. The players were developing a measure of self-respect and confidence that they could rely on for the rest of their lives. Even Maria Angelucci deserted me in the fourth grade because of my continued inability to hit a curveball. I nearly won her back in sixth grade when I was a spare shy in the tenth frame of bowling 150 and winning a trophy, but I left a 7-10 split and ended with a score of 149.
In matters of academia, the honor roll proved elusive. If I couldn’t remember Valentine’s Day, what chance did I have remembering the key battles of the Revolutionary War? Although tutoring opportunities were offered after school, I never took advantage of them. I was too eager to get home to my bottle cap collection. Nevertheless, I felt the sting at the awards ceremony, when the principal decided that, to save time, she would announce the names of those who did not make the honor roll.
As comprehensive as my legal complaint already is, it will likely expand as new common-sense prohibitions at schools around the country emerge. In the meantime, The Academy of Most Solemn and Holy Angels and Archangels in Heaven and a Few on Earth, you’ve been served!
• • •
GET SHORTY
On July 11, 2015, Mexico’s most notorious drug lord, Joaquín “El Chapo” (nickname means “Shorty”) Guzmán escaped from one of the country’s highest security prisons. Authorities were both shocked and perplexed but shouldn’t have been because Mr. Guzmán has done this sort of thing before. To provide the perspective needed for the casual reader, we bring you the official and unofficial account.
Mexico mounted an all-out manhunt for its most powerful drug lord, who escaped from Altiplano Prison. The elaborate underground escape route, allegedly built without the detection of authorities (under the supervision of authorities), allowed Guzmán to slip out of one of the country’s most secure penitentiaries for the second time. (One can only imagine what the less-secure penitentiaries are like.) “This represents an affront to the Mexican state,” President Enrique Peña Nieto said, while on a previously scheduled trip to France. (His whereabouts are now unknown; he is unlikely to return given reports that El Chapo was looking to settle a score for his imprisonment.)
If Guzmán is not caught immediately, the drug lord will likely be in full command and control in forty-eight hours. (This is backward; he has always been in control and is only now taking a forty-eight-hour vacation). The Federal Attorney General’s Office said that thirty employees from various parts of Altiplano Prison have been taken in for questioning (and distribution of hush money). The United States had filed an extradition request, but then Mexican Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam scoffed at the idea, saying, “the US would get Guzmán after the 300 years he served in Mexican prison” (his estimate being off slightly, by about 299 years).
When the escape was discovered, a manhunt began for Guzmán, whose cartel is believed to control most of the major crossing points (and all the holes in the border fences) for drugs at the US border with Mexico. Guatemala’s Interior Ministry reported that police and soldiers were keeping a close eye on Mexico’s southern border for Guzmán (while Guatemala’s handsomely paid-off Immigration Ministry eagerly awaited El Chapo’s arrival by air).
Guzmán was last seen by the prison security-camera system in the shower area (after he bent down to pick up a bar of soap). Upon checking his cell (two hours later—coincidentally the precise amount of time needed for Guzmán to complete packing his suitcase and to travel, by rail, through the tunnel), authorities found it empty. Guzmán had climbed down a hole thirty-feet deep that connected with a tunnel approximately five feet six inches high (El Chapo is five foot four, so no stooping would be necessary through the journey) that was fully ventilated and had lighting. (Authorities were appreciative that LED bulbs were used to save on energy costs.)
A woman who lives close to the barn-like structure where the tunnel emerged said strangers bought the surrounding land (for cash). She said her son was employed as a construction worker on the site, and that the builders paid well (although they overlooked issuing the Mexican equivalent of a W-2 Form at the end of the year).
A seventy-four-year-old rancher, whose home sits between the prison and the barn, not wanting to be named for safety reasons, said: “I didn’t see anything strange” (other than the steady sinkage of his home as dirt was removed from the tunnel being built directly under his property). “One day my cows wandered over to the barn,” the rancher said, again repeating that he saw nothing strange. (Most of his cows returned; only the ones that looked likely to divulge what they saw were detained by El Chapo’s men.)
Escaping from prison is not new to Guzmán, who escaped from the high-security prison Puente Grande in 2001. There are several versions of how he got away. Many accounts say he escaped in a laundry cart. (More likely, Guzmán, dressed as a prison guard, was the one pushing the laundry cart with the unfortunate guard, whose clothes he had taken, gagged, and stuffed inside.) What is clear is that he had help from other prison guards, who were prosecuted and convicted (and then released, when the laundry cart was returned).
Upon hearing that El Chapo escaped, Donald Trump (then the Republican presidential candidate) who had previously categorized Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug dealers, wasted no time reminding voters of his toughness: “Can you envision Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton negotiating with El Chapo? I, however, would kick his ass.” When El Chapo tweeted that he would make Trump eat his words, tough-as-nails Donald implored the FBI for protection. (Carlos Mendoza, Mexican American and son of Mexican immigrants, who heads the FBI’s personal protection unit, was assigned to consider Trump’s protection request.)
• • •
WHERE’S THE BEEF?
China may have to introduce carbon dating to its beef-aging process after news broke that traders have recently been peddling meat that was “more than forty years old.” I enjoy aged beef, but as a general rule, I try to avoid beef that began its aging before the birth of my thirty-five-year-old son. On occasion, I will extend that limit to forty years, but “more than forty years old”? I think the risks are too great.
The normal aging process, a costly one that takes about a month or two, produces a delicacy served only in high-end restaurants and butcher shops. Presumably, this breakthrough in the lengthening of the aging process to four decades will further limit consumption to those with a billion dollars or two to spare—if they can only eliminate the stench of the meat. Forty years is a fairly long time, and perhaps not everyone involved along the way was as diligent as they should have been. Some, for instance, may have passed away during that period. This could res
ult in the beef thawing and then being refrozen several thousand times. The aged beef was reportedly smuggled from Vietnam into China, where criminal masterminds figured they could improve their profit margins if they avoided the extra costs of using refrigerated trucks during transport, seemingly unbothered that anyone who comes within fifty feet of the beef throws up and then faints.
An expert on meat science at Colorado State University said it is possible for meat to last forty years when frozen. However, once it begins to thaw, the consumer will immediately know something is wrong: “The dead giveaway would be the odor and the taste.” For me, the tip-off more likely would be the distinctive greenish-yellow hue and the community of maggots who, for 115 of their generations, had established a thriving colony in the meat in question.
China, no stranger to animal-food controversy, was also in the news recently when 15,000 dead pigs were found drifting down the Huangpu River in Shanghai. Authorities were befuddled about the cause of the porcine flotsam, but I think it was that ingenious entrepreneur who drove the unrefrigerated truck containing the forty-year-old beef.
He spotted an even more lucrative opportunity to save not only refrigeration costs, but also but also trucking costs by transporting the pork to market by river current. The Huangpu also just happens to be the main source of drinking water for more than 20 percent of Shanghai’s twenty-three million people. Those same authorities, clueless about how the pigs got there, were unequivocal in their views about water quality, saying, “It is unaffected by the mass animal die-off and safe to drink.”
Already nervous about my upcoming business trip to China, I read about several cases of meat-processing companies adding borax to pork to make it resemble beef. Or was it added to beef to make it resemble pork? Borax acts as a preservative and adds “a firm, rubbery texture to meat,” an additive more suitable for automobile tires than for a main course. The real problem is that borax can be lethal, which these companies apparently haven’t realized can limit repeat business.
I should probably stick to eating something safe and traditional while I am there, but I am worried that Chinese peanut butter might really be chicken made to look like peanut butter through the use of an additive. At least, I will be sure to avoid watermelons or at least those that are larger than a truck. Some farmers have been using copious amounts of growth accelerators causing these behemoths to explode, Hulk-like, from their skins (“Exploding Watermelons Put Spotlight on Chinese Farming Practices”). I don’t want to get injured by a flying shard of watermelon shell and find myself in a hospital in Shanghai, where they serve drinking water from the Huangpu.
• • •
THANK YOU, RACHEL
I always had a tough time in school. When I was young, my teachers forced us to sit in a corner of the room and wear a dunce cap when we didn’t have the right answers to their questions. Unable to master the multiplication tables, I frequented that corner. Sporting that cap was only slightly less humiliating than wearing a scarlet letter. My grades were always poor. My IQ and SAT scores were below average. I had trouble with math, English, history, and everything else. Rejected by every college I applied to, I attended a nondescript community college, and, even there, finished in the bottom 25 percent of the class. After graduation, job-market opportunities for me were limited because the high-paying, rewarding ones always went to those with better grades.
For many years, I suffered in silence in a society that discriminated against, and was hostile to dim-witted people. Until Rachel Dolezal, head of the NAACP’s Spokane, Washington, branch, courageously stepped forward and declared, “I identify as black.” With Rachel blazing the path forward for me, I decided to step forward and banish years of discrimination and humiliation and declare: “I identify as intelligent.” Rachel says she started identifying herself as black around age five when she drew self-portraits with a brown crayon. I had a remarkably similar experience. At around age six, I drew self-portraits as a tenured professor with an endowed chair at Harvard, although I don’t recall the color of the crayon I used. I always felt like an intelligent person trapped inside a feeble-minded brain and body, and I am hoping my actions, as perhaps the first trans-intellectual, will provide positive help to teenagers who are struggling with their intellectual identity. I used to cross-intellectualize in the privacy of my home, imitating the cerebral members of society, where I did word-search puzzles, three-letter word jumbles, kid’s Sudoku, and surfed Mensa’s website. But no longer. Now that I declared, I feel liberated. I regularly use unfamiliar words in social gatherings without feeling uncomfortable. I even thought about having an operation to have more brains added, but the doctors told me it was too risky because my head isn’t large enough.
Am I a hero? Yes. Anyone who comes out like this is heroic when one considers that trans-intellectual people routinely face job discrimination, condescension, and bullying. I am a role model to young people. I am demonstrating how to do something society may tell them is impossible. I probably won’t win an ESPY award for courage, but I am told that the Nobel Prize committee is favorably disposed toward my prospects of receiving its award.
• • •
HOLY GUACAMOLE, BATMAN!
(written during the 2016 Presidential primary)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump launched his campaign with his usual brashness, declaiming that illegal Mexican immigrants—most of whom are criminals, rapists and drug dealers—are ruining America. Wasting no time, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, wearing a sombrero, held a townhall meeting where tacos, enchiladas, and extra spicy tapas were served. She followed this with a series of press conferences held at El Pollo Loco.
In response to Mr. Trump’s insensitive comments, Univision dropped its sponsorship of the Miss Universe Pageant, partially owned by Trump. Mexico withdrew its candidate to the pageant, and Macy’s dumped the Trump name on some of its ties and button-down shirts.
Who buys Donald Trump ties and shirts anyway? Shampoo or hair dryers, maybe, but menswear? Macy’s reintroduced all clothing and accessories having the Trump name as the Pancho Villa Collection. Mrs. Clinton immediately instructed the Clinton Foundation to take a sizable equity stake in Macy’s and offered Carlos Slim a position on the Clinton Foundation Board.
Meanwhile, Chipotle Mexican Grill and Taco Bell banned the Donald from their restaurants for life. The PGA Tour, which runs a World Golf Championship at the Trump Doral near Miami, declined to comment on whether Trump’s remarks would affect their relationship with him. Their reticence was probably due to their earlier allowing sex-crazed Tiger Woods to remain on tour. In a rare display of unity, several warring Colombian drug lords issued a scathing press release criticizing Trump for discriminating against Colombia’s US drug business by giving all of the credit to the Mexicans. It is rumored that Colombia, too, will be withdrawing its Miss Universe candidate, who is allegedly being held in an undisclosed jungle location by one of the cartels.
As expected, Trump filed a $500 million lawsuit against Univision, citing breach of the Miss Universe contract and an infringement of his First Amendment right to eat at Taco Bell. In a bid to bolster his flagging Latino support, Trump pledged that half of the proceeds from the lawsuit would be used to buy toilet paper for Venezuela. Trump claimed the true motive for the breach by Univision was its support for Hillary Clinton. Univision countered that the lawsuit was legally ridiculous and “factually incorrect” since they support Native American Senator Elizabeth Warren for president.
In related news, Trump had a campaign staffer carefully review recently released emails from Hillary Clinton’s private server. The staffer uncovered one where Mrs. Clinton advised her campaign manager, John Podesta, to wear socks to bed. Not wishing to lose any edge to his opponent, Mr. Trump was spotted at Macy’s JC Penney buying hosiery for his campaign manager and an extra hair dryer for himself. In a second email, Clinton asked aides for restaurant recommendations, Mexican only, for dinner with California Dem
ocratic Senator Dianne Feinstein. Trump responded by making reservations at his favorite steakhouse for dinner with some of the border guards who have been advising him on Mexican immigration movements.
The candidates can be mystifying. One day, Mr. Trump characterizes Mexican immigrants as drug dealers, criminals, and rapists, and then says, “I love the Mexican people. I’ve had a great relationship with Mexico and the Mexican people.”
For her part, Mrs. Clinton can also be difficult to understand. “I think we have to speak out against it,” Clinton explained. “Everybody should stand up and say that’s not acceptable.” At first, this was thought to be her reaction to State Department approval (while she was Secretary of State) of selling American uranium mines and exploration fields to the Russians soon after the sellers and the Russians made sizable “donations” to the Clinton Foundation. Only later it was discovered that those comments were in response to reports that someone had stolen Mr. Podesta’s socks.
The cost of running a campaign, at record levels, four years ago was even higher for this election. With several dozen Republican presidential candidate opponents and the formidable Clinton in the finale, Trump needed to count on his net worth being the $9.4 billion he reminds everyone every hour or so, and not the $1.84 estimated by Forbes magazine. As for Clinton, she must hope that husband Bill continues to land $100,000 speaking engagements from Russians intent on buying American uranium assets.
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