Independence Day?

4th of July fireworks Washington Monument (SSGT. Lono Kollars)

A lot of people want to become a lot of things these days, but is it that great? If you’re a woman locked in a man’s body and you finally find freedom through sexual reassignment surgery (SRS), are you going to be happy? Is Caitlin Jenner happier than when she was Bruce? Conversely if you’re a man locked in a woman’s body, is life suddenly going to turn around? SRS is still elective surgery since it is something you choose, unlike say an appendicitis or open heart, which address life threatening conditions.  So you're making a big step and there's no doubt that there'll be some wonderful qualitative changes that will also affect those closest to you. Sure it’s nice that I can finally use that women’s room I always thought I’d feel more comfortable in rather than standing in front of urinals next to a set of creatures whose habits of shaking off their "Jumbo’s" (LBJ word for his prick) is not what you particularly felt comfortable with. Yes it will be nice if you’ve become a mister to finally be freed from the women’s locker room with its catty competitive glances. Men may care, but they're too self-involved to care too much. It’s unavoidable to traffic in stereotypes, though stereotype is the lingua franca of sexual identity in an almost pernicious way. But let’s face it, after all the excitement is over, after all is said and done, you’re still a prisoner of your body and you still have deal with the monotony and misery of every day life. Contrary to popular belief, existential moments when one questions the meaning of the universe don’t occur when one's going through something. Rather they’re like post partum depression. They occur after the big event, when you suddenly realize that you have to go on living.

It Ain’t Over Until It’s Over

photogarph: Pete Souza

Sometimes life is stranger than fiction. Tim Bradley (32-1-1, 12 KO’s) was facing Jessie Vargas (26-1, 9 KO’s) for the interim WBO Welterweight title on Saturday night. The fight was plainly going in Bradley's direction. Vargas’s performance seemed lackluster as Bradley stalked him around the ring. Bradley was obviously ahead on points. Then Vargas hit Bradley with a big punch that wobbled him and just as Vargas was about to throw another punch the referee Pat Russell waved him off stopping the fight. It was a big upset and Vargas was jubilant. The only problem is that the fight wasn’t over. Russell had mistakenly thought the 10 second warning was the bell signalling the end of the final round. There was time left and there had been no valid reason to stop the bout. The stoppage was a mistake. However, because there was no knockout, the fight went to points and Bradley took the belt. There are many practical lessons to be learned from the events that transpired, amongst them, it ain’t over until it’s over. If this were a work of fiction, we might have faulted the author for a trick ending. Because it’s life, it affords us a lesson in the kind of improbabilities that constitute the nature of the universe. If you look at the recent headlines, you might say the same thing about the Obama presidency. Here we had a beleaguered leader with a recalcitrant Republican dominated congress whose sole mandate was to frustrate the Democratic agenda. There was little aisle crossing in the name of principle and it looked like the presidency might even go down as a fiasco. Certainly Obama didn’t show the political muscle of the great populist arm twisters like LBJ, who got things done. But then with the stunning affirmations of Affordable Care and Same Sex Marriage, two decisions of historical importance, the passage of the Trade Pact and the possibility of deal with Iran on nuclear weapons, Obama’s approval ratings soared to 50%, according to CNN. On a more poetic or shall we say global level the fight teaches a less optimistic lesson. You may fight until the end, score a terrific upset and still lose because life is unfair and man a puny animal in an indifferent universe. You might admire Bradley for his tremendous drive and secretly feel relieved he prevailed, yet the truth is the fight was unfairly stolen from Vargas. Unlike in our judicial system, the judges in this case, were not able to declare a mistrial. Will Hillary Clinton who everyone thinks is going to win, get sucker punched, looked like she's going to go down and then prevail on a technicality?

Lives of Our Leaders: Bill Clinton on LBJ

Bill Clinton wrote the front page review for the fourth volume of The Passage of Power, Robert Caro’s biography of LBJ in The New York Times Book Review. In the review, which appeared last week (NYT, "Seat of Power," 5/6/12), Clinton points out that while he split with LBJ over Vietnam, he admired him for his ability “to pass the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the open housing law, the antipoverty legislation, Medicare and Medicaid, Head Start and much more.” Power was the lingua franca of the Johnson years. “He knew how to get to you,” Clinton says, “and he was relentless in doing it.” The decision to assign the Caro book to Clinton might be one of the most brilliant in TNYTBR’s history. Like LBJ, Clinton was a big brash Southerner, who carried the legacy of Roosevelt’s progressive populist politics to another generation. From what you read, Johnson far outdid Clinton in his wanderings, but the difference between the two men was that Johnson never got caught, and if he had, he might very well have wrangled his way out of an impeachment proceedings through his sheer ability to intimidate. But here’s the real difference between Clinton and Johnson. Clinton could write about power, but Johnson knew how to employ it. He knew how to arm twist and be impolitic when he had to. Though they came from wildly different backgrounds, Roosevelt and Johnson were cut from the same mold. They both understood politics, in the sense that Machiavelli, the ur-realpolitician, did and in the sense that Clausewitz understood diplomacy. For all his vision and good will, the difference between Obama, Clinton and Johnson is that power is not even a word in our incumbent president’s vocabulary.