Trump the Master Clown

Let's face it. When the circus comes to town, what are you most excited about? The trapeze artists? The lion tamers? Tiny dogs chasing each other around a ring and jumping through hoops for a kibble treat? Please... Everyone knows the world loves a clown.

Some people might be scared of clowns, and I sure wouldn't want to spot one coming at me in the middle of the night in a dark alley, but most of the applause and attention at any good circus goes to the clowns.

Clowns make us laugh, they perpetrate elaborate diversions from the seriously dangerous acts around them, and they help us spot the ridiculousness in the behavior of their fellow clowns. Which is why, in certain ways, I appreciate Donald Trump, because without him the state of pre-primary presidential posturing would be a yawnfest of liberal proportions.

Without Trump in the mix, wannabes such as Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, Ben Carson or Rand Paul might have the opportunity to convince the people of their parties they are not only qualified to serve as President, but that their motives for running are pure. Fortunately, Trump the master clown lept quick and early from the multi-color mini-car to embroil them in a war of one-upsmanship funnier than any slapstick routine or pie in the face. They trip over themselves to respond to Trump's latest heinous stance on immigration or women's health and, in many cases, firmly plant one of their oversized shoes in their grease-painted mouths.

The potential benefit of Trump's protracted three-ring act should be to show the voting public just how insincere and easily played all of the other clowns are. Like the Keystone Cops chasing after Buster Keaton, they repeatedly take the bait and fall about themselves playing a constant game of catch up. Instead of pandering to their base audiences and attempting to build their credibility, they end up competing for news coverage and social media mentions. They lack the courage to change the dialogue in order to state their own convictions because they have rare few to flaunt, save the burning conviction they deserve to be the next to sit in the Oval Office.

Even the media has taken the bait, none more so than FOX so-called-News. FOX has lost months sneering at Trump, downplaying his importance to the 2016 Presidential election, and engaging in his cherry-picked battles with the network during a time they otherwise would have spent tearing down the Democratic challengers and trumpeting the second coming of Christ in any or all of the Republican hopefuls. FOX News has unsuccessfully avoided joining the cavalcade of supporting clowns in Trump's performance.

I, for one, am not worried about Trump becoming our next president. Before all is done, he will have decided he has sufficiently increased the value of the name that has carried him through all the remarkably poor decisions in his life, and he will bow out of the race as ungracefully as he entered. Along the way, though, he will have flushed out a few phonies from the Republican field and made it easier for the rest of us to spot our neighboring racist, intolerant, homophobic, sexist boors who are loudly cheering his inflamed rhetoric.

For that, I am appreciative and award his present circus act a five-star rating.




Mark Feggeler

A Civics Lesson for a Local Official

One of our local Board of Education (BOE) members – who embroiled herself last week in the hotly contested and, ultimately reversed, firing of our school district’s superintendent – is seemingly in need of a civics lesson.

Let’s begin with the fancy footwork that started the whole hullabaloo. Five members of the BOE voted to enforce the Unilateral Termination clause of the superintendent’s contract. The clause itself, also known as a Termination for Convenience clause, allows for the termination of a contract without reason, even if the contractor is performing his or her duties splendidly. There is no need for a causal infraction, default, or violation to justify the termination. The employer, in this case the majority of the BOE, needed only to vote in favor of termination. In that sense, the “Gang of Five” likely held to the letter of the law, making moot the argument over whether they had the right to fire the superintendent.

Just because you have the right to do something, however, does not mean it is the right thing to do. For example, I am fully within my rights to work in my yard without wearing a shirt. I choose not to because it might be an affront to my neighbors and emotionally scar their young children.

In this case, business leaders, teachers, parents and local elected officials admired and applauded the superintendent for the changes he was attempting to make. He was more visible than any superintendent preceding him and was working within the community to develop educational partnerships and bolster teacher morale. It seems to me when you have a leader whose only apparent popularity issue is with the bloated middle management between him and his line-level employees, it might be an indication he’s doing something right.

I do not know the reason why the Gang of Five wanted to get rid of the superintendent, and I don’t care, either. I’m also not particularly sold on the idea of a recall election. I have to put more thought to that one. Laura Lang, the lone holdout on the BOE who voted to fire the superintendent has been, for now, rendered harmless in her minority standing. A coup to oust her from the board might make her a sympathetic figure. Allowing her to limp ineffectually along to her regularly scheduled re-election could prove the wiser tactic.

That Laura Lang believes her actions justified, I do not doubt. It might even be that she truly believes what she did was in the best interests of Moore County students. Only she can know for certain. In the aftermath of the resignation of the other four BOE members and the rehiring of the superintendent, Ms. Lang made only one comment that struck me as requiring a response:

“Cruel and absolutely harsh things that have been said about all of us has just been so unlike the citizens of Moore County. It’s shameful.”

I’m sure some people went too far when calling or emailing the BOE members to vent their outrage. Anyone guilty of a criminal act should be held accountable for their words and actions.

Many people, however, merely suggested the five BOE members might have colluded to oust the superintendent in order to free the position for a political ally. Others might have used such words as misguided, arrogant, rude, disconnected, and stubborn when talking about Ms. Lang specifically. I might even have suggested the possibility the Gang of Five was helping to foster a bullying, abusive work environment for our teachers. But, none of that is cruel or harsh. In her attempt to portray herself and her fellow BOE members as victims, she is labeling the entirety of the uprising against her shameful and, therefore, attempting to negate our right to vocally and vehemently condemn her actions. Not only do we have the right to stand up for what we believe, we have an obligation to do it. For the most part, the commentary and conjecture has been timid in comparison to the kinds of tactics available to our forefathers.

It was only a generation or two ago that hanging someone in effigy was acceptable in the United States. Instead of posting our comments on Facebook or filing calmly into a crowded high school auditorium, we might have formed an angry mob to parade around the school with a flaming representation of you dangling from a long stick, all the while chanting wildly inappropriate lynching songs. If we tried that these days, we’d be charged with attempted arson, reckless endangerment, communicating threats, and possession of a weapon with intent to do harm before we lit the first match.

And how about our Founding Fathers? If you think people have been uncivil this past week, consider Thomas Jefferson and John Adams when they set the stage for character assassination during the Presidential election of 1800. Jefferson’s campaign labeled Adams a war-mongering, tyrannical hypocrite. Adams’ campaign labeled Jefferson an atheistic, cowardly weakling. Adam’s people said Jefferson was the son of a Native American squaw mother and a multi-racial father. Jefferson’s people called Adams a hermaphrodite. A hermaphrodite! I’d much rather be called arrogant or misguided than a hermaphrodite.

The schools of Moore County have flirted with greatness over the years, often falling short for one reason or another (can you say inadequate local tax funding? Under-funded capital projects? Inconsistent policies and programs? Poor community relations? Putting sports before academics? Bueller?). This time around the thing standing in the way was our own elected leaders.

Take heart, Ms. Lang. You aren’t the first public official to be vilified, and you won’t be the last. If you truly believe you’ve done the right thing, rather than hiding behind words such as “if you knew what I knew” when people condemn your decisions, grow a thicker skin and borrow from that master of public insults, Benjamin Franklin: “Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain… and most fools do.”

Just bear in mind that statement might also apply to you.

Send Money Instead

Why do politicians visit the aftermaths of natural disasters?

I consider it one step short of those idiotic weather people who stand in the midst of a gale so we can watch them get battered to and fro before they duck back into the relative safety of their hotel rooms. They might be idiots, but at least they can claim the advantage of firsthand experience.

Okay, I understand the PR value a politician gains from arriving on the scene after the fact and getting caught on camera consoling strangers with whom he or she never otherwise would have any contact. It looks good to the general public and the voters. They gain sympathy by association just for having the hurricane-ravaged downtown district of Pigsknuckle, NC, behind them when they tell the press about understanding the people's pain. Yeah, right.

While Farmer Brown over there lost his crops, livestock and barn to the twister that rolled through yesterday afternoon, the politicians will drop in for a 20-minute briefing with the local mayor and a sight-seeing tour to gawk at the damaged Piggly Wiggly before rolling back to the state capital in their chauffered limousines.

It's a blip on their calendars and a few extra dollars from the till to repair some roads. Maybe a form or two that a staffer fills out to request some Federal aid.

And how practical is this VIP visit to the people who remain behind?

"Hey, Jimmy! A brush fire took out the old folks home, a tornado sucked the roof off the high school, and the creek flood washed away the Children's Hospital. But guess what? The governor's coming to town!"

If I'd just lost my home and family dog to a 120-mile-per-hour wind gust, would I really feel like entertaining visitors? I tend to doubt it. Chances are I'd be too busy trying to pick up the pieces, literally. If the governor really wants to help, maybe she could bring a bunch of Hefty bags and a shovel.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

Confirm or Ignore?

The great thing about Facebook is finding and reconnecting with people from your past. If you're lucky, you find the people with whom you once shared a bond -- life experiences, sense of humor, taste in movies -- whatever it was that made you friends, or at least friendly.

Likewise, the worst thing about Facebook is knowing people from your past whom you disliked, perhaps even loathed, can find you.

You might have caught glimpses of them lurking in the shadowy FB alleyways, eyeing you from some dirty little grotto, practicing their greasy, fake smiles. Their names pop up unexpectedly on your friends' friend lists, maybe your spouse or cousin or neighbor links up with them. They worm into your circle. Sometimes you can feel the bullseye landing squarely on your back. You wait, dreading the message that might arrive. Then it comes...

About two weeks ago, my lovely wife received a friendship request from a local politician. Sure enough, just a few days later, I also received his request for Facebook friendship. Unlike other politicians whom I know only by name, this one is well known to me. Both directly and indirectly, this trolling creature has touched my life on several occasions and never left me any the better for it.

When I first met him, almost twenty years ago, I was a newspaper reporter and he was a first-time candidate for state-level public office. He sidled up to me like a snake after a meet-the-candidates forum, asked me who I was and then asked me for a favor. I forget the specific request but it doesn't matter. His manner and appearance were enough for me to know I should dislike and distrust him.

Some people require time to determine the quality of their character -- and my first impressions often have proved incorrect -- but every now and then those first impressions prove deadly accurate. In the pit of my stomach I believed this was a man not interested in serving the common good but instead simply wanting power and title. As time would prove, at least to me, he willingly and single-mindedly served as a mouthpiece for the wealthy, privileged and politically connected of his district.

One day, following a press conference at which he made a vague accusation about another public official taking a bribe to push through a public works project, I wrote an article that labeled his conduct as "mud-slinging." In all honesty, ninety-eight percent of all newspaper articles are pretty tedious to write, so when you get a chance to use a word like mud-slinging in a straight news piece, you take it. Even my editor seemed to enjoy the word enough that it made it into the headline!

Of course, as expected, the politician objected to the word appearing so prominently on the front page of our little paper, so much so that he called me at home on a Sunday to take me to task over it. Youthfully indignant, I told him: "I thought the word was appropriate. My editor thought the word was appropriate. And I am a reporter, not a public servant, and do not appreciate being called at home on a Sunday." Then I hung up.

Two years later I ended up working with his wife. The entire first year we worked together, only seven or eight doors apart from each other, she neither greeted me nor acknowledged my presence. In those two years, he had risen meteorically within the political ranks. Had he not sabotaged his own political career with unwise alliances and risked his good standing by picking the wrong side in a factional fight within his own party, he might still be in a position of power today.

I could fill a book with recollections of this man's perceived unethical behavior but I don't want to beat a dead horse -- or get sued for libel.

It's all ancient history now as I wend my way through my forties. I am more realistic, maybe jaded, less self-righteous, and I know that self-serving politicians are a dime a dozen. I'm not in any way special for having experienced this man and it never was, nor should have been, my life's calling to cut him down to size. After all, he managed that quite nicely on his own.

In fact, several people I have known who richly deserved being humbled have been getting their due, and in some cases publicly.

As the karmic wheel turns to crush their unwieldily aspirations, I should be able to calmly and serenely accept the knowledge that a life well-lived is rewarded and a life misspent is punished. However, being a poor-grade Christian, my brain rejects such nobility in favor of a fervently bitter "F--- them!" I can't help feeling that people who spend so much of their lives going out of their way to cause misery and hardship deserve it back on themselves tenfold.

Which is why, today -- tonight, in fact -- as I log in to Facebook, I know the very first thing I will do. I will pull up his friendship request and click "Ignore," wishing only that the options available for responding also included a "Go Screw" button...