The Smell Test

I’m sure it is pure coincidence that I picked this topic right after cleaning the four litter boxes. But, I am constantly struck by how gullible individuals – and worse, large GROUPS of my fellow humans – are to the most unlikely of stories.

And seemingly without a shred of skepticism or even mild curiosity. It’s almost as if the only life lesson these people picked up was that “curiosity killed the cat” and they best avoid curiosity at all costs.

More tragic is how easily evil and horrific acts are lied about, dismissed, or “debunked” based on whether the perpetrator is a member of one’s tribe, affinity group or roughly the same skin color as the person doing the investigating.

The oldest anti-Semitic canard in history is getting new life: that Jews kill non-Jewish babies and children and use their blood in matzos. It can’t be “answered” because it is too dehumanizing and irretrievably stupid even to engage. To try to argue against it is already to have lost. But, like the Jason guy in the hockey mask: it’s BAAAAACK!

Once a person is infected with either anti-Semitism or Trump Derangement Syndrome, that person will believe absolutely anything and everything. And – tragically – I am not talking about a barefoot teenager in Dolly Parton’s former “holler” or even the ghetto resident who dropped out of school at 14. These are often very smart and intuitive people.

No! I am talking about the bubble-wrap enclosed highly-educated, credentialed wealthy idiots who are our putative Ruling Class! Who are so cock-sure of themselves that not a single fact which has not been test-marketed and agreed to by consensus of The Cool Kids In the Lunchroom, can penetrate their thick skulls. Cowardly, brain-dead automatons, for short.

A perfect example was the Jussie Smollett disgrace which may be old news but which can scarcely be mentioned enough. Particularly since he will never admit that he made it all up and apologize to the Chicago cops and white people. He’s taking that grotesque accusation to his grave. He checks every box – gay, Black, Hollywood, privileged, AND the family is personal friends with the Obamas. So…checkmate!

Regular black people knew the story stunk to high heavens. The story was so idiotic that the usual morons didn’t even bother to riot. It took the elite Grievance Mongers to believe it. Cory “Spartacus” Booker, who somehow is still in the Senate after making a serial fool of himself, said we needed NEW rules on lynching, as though the old rules on lynching had somehow expired. Kamala put down her wine jug long enough to weigh in on what a hate-filled horror this was and even the normally-sane Robin Roberts had him on her show where he said, “I will never not be the man this happened to” while she sat at rapt and sympathetic attention with her frowny face on.

GOOD GRIEF! The thing smelled like Cottage Cheese accidentally left in a car’s trunk in Arizona. To review: a gay black actor went out late at night for a Subway sandwich, because, reasons. It was many degrees below zero in Chicago. It was dark. He was met by two “white” men who threw a rope over his neck while yelling, “This is MAGA Country” (which Chicago doesn’t even pretend to be) and made some secondary reference to his being gay.

What WERE the chances that two random racist, homophobic assailants, wandering about with a container of bleach and a length of rope just kind of “on spec” could have the luck to run into the very object of their hatred? And, even if they could tell Jussie was black, how in the world would they know he was also gay?

He was on a television show that I guarantee no MAGA-leaning person had ever watched. Even if they could have seen him in the dark, they would not have guessed either his sexual predilection or that he was a minor movie star.

(I had an over-the-top gay black hairdresser in Minneapolis who moved from the Alabama to Minnesota in January and he said everybody was so covered up with scarves, mittens, and parkas with hoods that until Spring, he thought he was the only black man in the city!)

Did Jussie scream and run? He did not. Did he call for help? No, again. He’s a reasonably-large male. Did he even try to fight for his life? Heck, he didn’t even drop his sandwich!

No, but his tiny would-be lynch mob was considerate enough to allow him to use his cellphone to call his agent. Say what? Sure, THAT could happen. Why not just dial 911 and say “Help! I am being attacked?”

The funniest part of the whole story, IMHO, was when the cops arrived at his apartment and he STILL had the noose over his head and a tiny mark on one of his cheeks. “Hey, bros, when you hit me, be gentle; this pretty face is my meal ticket. Speaking of which, here’s your check.”

We white people were blamed en masse and, to my knowledge, none of the hysterical black bigots mentioned above has ever offered an apology to white people once the cockamamie story broke down. Not even after thousands of dollars of police work was spent on “looking for” the two frozen white MAGA suspects.

Jussie was not born when the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City occurred. Gay men had had enough of being harassed by the cops. They fought. And won. Because gay men are still MEN, filled with testosterone and many are serious gym rats with big muscles.

Heck, when we lived in San Francisco in the 70s, our flat was beneath the apartment of a gay couple. Periodically, they would have real knock-down, drag-out fights with furniture breaking and cussin’ and screaming. We never knew if we should call the cops or if it was just part of their lifestyle. They always seemed to have calmed down by morning.

Sadly, I have lived with a pathological liar foster kid. Little lies; big lies; pointless lies; it was just what he did. He had told his girlfriend du jour, among many things, that he was a backup dancer for Janet Jackson; that he had to fly to London to get a medal and cash prize for raising money for English orphans; that he had fought the Ku Klux Klan in his native Honduras. Sigh.

I knew instantly that Jussie was lying; Not to pick on Bald-Faced Liars of Color, I also knew Christine Blasey Ford was lying; I knew E. Jean Carroll’s ancient Statue of Limitation-expired fairy tale about the “assault” in a high-end department store dressing room did not pass the smell test on about 100 levels.

Starting with not screaming during the assault, not fighting at all and not calling the police immediately; not “remembering the date or even the year” of the assault; the fact that the dress she was allegedly wearing had not yet been made in the year she finally settled on. I could go on. The coup de grace being when she was on Anderson Cooper’s show and started yammering on about “I think all women have rape fantasies” and Anderson quickly went to commercial. After the commercial, she was gone.

Oh, and let’s not forget that salesladies hoping to get a commission are ALWAYS bugging you in a dressing room and try not to leave you alone there even for a minute! Right, ladies?

(“Shall I get that in a bigger size, Ma’am? Maybe 4 is a bit too snug for you…I have one right here in a 14. Perhaps you mis-read the tag? Hon, did you know that vertical – not horizontal -- stripes are slimming?)

Naturally, an alternative explanation to our betters being gullible is that they are lying through their capped teeth. That they DO know they are repeating nonsense, but they are so locked into their Left-Wing Gospel from whence flows all their money and status and cocktail party invitations, that the tiniest deviation from the Approved Narrative means social and economic death.

The lesbian coaches of the WNBA (remind me again what that “W” stands for? Whiny? White-Hating? Witches?) have decried the thought that MEN might take over THEIR jobs! Perish the thought. But, men pretending to be women as players – by all means! Anyone who disagrees is a bigot.

For many years, we had been going to one of the few decent sit-down restaurants in the Dusty Little Village, at least three times a month, always asking for the same waitress and tipping generously. She was an attentive, cheerful and competent server. We considered her a friend. We had known her through her engagement, subsequent marriage and the birth of her adorable little boy.

And then one evening, though she was completely aware that we are Jewish, she told us about a video she had watched which totally convinced her that “Jews” control the banks, the weather and the world. She said if we watched the video, we would believe it. It was clear that logic would play no part in further discussion of the topic. I was almost in tears.

If Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly, Marjorie T. Green, and Candace “I Had A Dream Charlie’s Wife Killed Him” Owens can buy into the oldest and stupidest of anti-Semitic tropes, I guess even a sweet little waitress of limited life experience is not immune. Heart-breaking.

Remember our discussion a couple of weeks ago about feeling “unsafe”? Well, that incident happened about three years ago, and we’ve never been back to the restaurant. We didn’t write a bad Yelp Review; we didn’t try to get the waitress fired; we just have never returned. Would you trust someone around your food who had just decided that you and your Tribe were EVIL? Or worse yet, that you somehow controlled the weather in -- Arizona? Man, if I find out who really does, there could be trouble!