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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 13, 2019)
Wednesday, February 13, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon 25 BUNKHOUSE: Image in American mirror is not flattering Continued from page 16 revealed that his nickname was, or perhaps still is, <Coonman.= Hours later 4 this is how this stuff works 4 Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax was accused of sexual assault. Hours later, he was accused of rape by somebody else. The lieutenant governor denies these allegations and is now calling for the FBI to investigate. One presumes innocence until there is evi- dence enough to convict, but his dreams of ascending to the throne are presumably in tatters. Hours later, the state9s attorney general, Mark Herring, issued a classic <Let9s get out in front of this= apology for <put(ting) on wigs and brown makeup.= Read: blackface. This appar- ently happened way back in the 1980s, so that he could sing and dance at a party while looking like some rap- per named <Kurtis Blow.= What is this weird obses- sion with blackface? When did it ever seem like a good idea? It was repugnant behav- ior in the 19th century, when it first started, and I9m aware of nothing that has happened in the considerable interim to make it any better. The State of the Union address was no less dis- graceful, an utterly puerile demonstration of the state of American politics. For pure theater, which is what gov- ernment has become, it was at least fascinating in the same way that a freight train derailing onto a dirt road is fascinating. A host of erstwhile law- makers showed up wear- ing dazzling lab-coats, one of them was seen doing a crossword puzzle, and an oft-bullied schoolkid with the unfortunate name of Trump was caught in a full Red Bull crash up in the bal- cony. Nancy Pelosi spent much of the speech appear- ing lost, distracted, angry, or bewildered, it9s hard to know which, and more importantly how behaving so poorly, on purpose, advances any cause at all. The theater of disdain was tightly choreographed, natu- rally, and meant as a kind of dog-whistle to left-leaners in the national audience, but it was mostly an embarrass- ing and childish reflection. Later, Pelosi was praised for <throwing a special kind of shade= on Trump, whatever that means, and for whatever good it does the country. One of the finer SOTU moments came when the U.S. Army9s Chief of Staff, General Mark Milley, after Trump uttered some pan- dering nonsense about the United States having the most bestest, and so beau- tiful bigly military in the world, was caught on cam- era leaning over to ask Air Force Chief of Staff, General David Goldfein, <Should we stand?= It was a legitimate ques- tion. Stand, sit, snooze? At least we were spared the image of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, having slammed a few Harvey Wallbangers before the big performance, passing out and drooling on her robes. Not that that9s ever happened before. But last week9s astonish- ingly accurate mirror-image of our union wasn9t quite finished with us. Newspaper editors may live many life- times before being afforded the opportunity to publish a headline as beautiful and as true as the New York Post9s front-page masterpiece: <Bezos Exposes Pecker.= Am I alone in my con- sternation, my utter bewil- derment, that in today9s America whole segments of the nightly news actually are a National Enquirer story? In this case, the Enquirer somehow acquired pictures of Amazon9s Jeff Bezos in flagrante delicto, and threat- ened him with blackmail if he didn9t play ball. So to speak. The irony, of course, is that Bezos 4 who now may sue the Enquirer and its chief, David Pecker 4 col- lects information on virtually anybody and everybody who uses his products, and then sells it to the highest bid- der without any regulations or accountability whatso- ever. No blackmail required, since everybody just hap- pily signs up to be exploited when they log on to Amazon, or Google, or Android, or whatever. These are strange days we are living in, kids, and anybody who actually thinks about this stuff, reflects on it, and tries to put it all in his- torical context, might be for- given for losing faith in the institutions we look to for solutions. There is a hard les- son in that, because our insti- tutions are only ever a reflec- tion of us. They are who we are, and it would be hard to argue that what we see in the big American mirror is even remotely flattering. The Nugget Newspaper Crossword By Jacqueline E. 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