Ben Stein's Diary
Castrated by Our President
Au Revoir, Sandpoint. What a sick joke he is.
By Ben Stein – 7.26.14
Friday
Travel with a three year old is exhausting. Wifey, our daughter-in-law, “The Kitten,” and our three-year-old granddaughter left Sandpoint about noon yesterday. We hated to go. The sky was a dramatic silver gray and the wind blew the cottonwoods against the windows and Mr. Buffett’s trains roared by. It was what I always wanted.
But we have to return the Kitten to our son and we have to return his daughter, too. So, an uneventful flight to Seattle from Spokane, a brief snack in Seattle, and then, WHAAM!!
Just as we boarded the 7:25 PM flight to LAX, the beloved Coco-Puff was slammed by a bad stomach ache. That would be bad enough for any of us big boys. Or girls. Intestinal disorders while traveling should be illegal. I have suffered from them all of my life.
But for little Coco-Puff, just proudly trained in the potty department, to be struck with uncontrollable bowel movements in front of hundreds of strangers in a long aluminum tube was horrible. As the Kitten frantically tried to get her to the WC, Coco SCREAMED the most blood curdling scream you have ever heard. Like the demon child in The Exorcist. Like Dracula as the stake goes through his heart. A scream that must have awakened the dead. And no open WC to be found right away.
Finally Kitty found one and was gone a long time. When she came back, she was holding the Coco Puff on her stomach as tightly as you have ever seen a child be held. Coco screamed for a few more minutes and then swooned.
For the entire two and a half hour flight down to LAX, Kitty held Coco with two hands, then with one hand while she read a book. Face pressed against face. Belly against belly. Heart to heart. It was overwhelming. God bless that Kitten.
As you, my loyal readers, well know, I have been saying that problems with the bowels lead straight to problems with the mind. It isn’t only the pain. There is a whole other brain down there making big decisions and when you feed panic and loss of control into that brain, especially that three-year-old brain, you are going to have screaming. Panic, pain, humiliation. And then, a mother’s love. That is the solution for so much and yet it is so rare. I have never seen a mother like the Kitten.
On the way home from LAX, we had a driver from France who was a film buff, especially of one of my favorite actors, Sterling Hayden, and a top notch director, the immortal Kubrick. We talked for a long time about a movie I just saw the night before. The Asphalt Jungle, a film noir masterpiece starring Sterling Hayden and Louis Calhern and a very young and breathtakingly beautiful Marilyn Monroe, as the goddess mistress of Calhern. Everyone thinks Calhern is rich and when it turns out he’s broke, all hell breaks loose.
The power of money is unspeakable. The chaos and terror around losing one’s money is too horrible to even imagine. I strongly recommend you read, Hitler by A.N. Wilson, on how Hitler played upon this deadly fear to gain power. People will do almost anything to avoid a drastic fall in status — even elect a mass murderer as Chancellor.
We also talked about Eyes Wide Shut, which no one quite understands.
I enjoyed talking movies with our Frenchman driver. Nice guy. Well informed on movies. I was a movie critic for a while, for TAS and in a small way for the WSJ. I grew to hate having to sit through movies I disliked. No surprise there.
At home, we all sort of just passed out. I was in bed with my Julie listening to the air conditioner. I miss the Burlington Northern, though: the power, the reassurance in the Selkirk nights. Yes, soon, Idaho full time. I can feel it in my bones. The lake and the railroads beckon.
Friday
So, let me get this straight: we now know Russia indirectly shot down MH 17, killing 298 totally innocent civilians, directly or indirectly. Would not have happened without Putin. We now know Putin is firing rockets and artillery from Russia into Ukraine, a sovereign state. Pure international crime.
And Mr. Obama and Mr. Kerry do nothing? Absolutely NOTHING? They paint a big yellow stripe down Uncle Sam’s back?
I keep thinking, “What if Obama had been President when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor?” Not a speech to Congress. A press conference. “Yesterday some explosives were detonated near Hickam Field and the Schofield Barracks and Pearl Harbor Naval Base. Many lives were lost. We call on the League of Nations for a full investigation. Meanwhile, we are sending the Newport, Kentucky Police Department to investigate the scene. We do not want to act hastily. We want to act with our League of Nations partners.”
What a sick joke Obama is. We as a nation have now officially been castrated by our own President. We knew that Obama hated America for the terrible wrongs that were done to his people when they were slaves here...Oh, wait. His people were the ones selling the slaves to the slave traders. His people were never slaves here. His people had three wives simultaneously. That’s his people.
Never mind. Obama came to office determined to neuter America and now he has. God help us. Putin and ISIS will have no mercy and we basically have no President at this point. I was all in favor of staying out of Ukraine and I still am. But can’t we send the government arms? We did that for Iran under Khomeini. And we cannot do it for Ukraine, which is begging?
We are a pitiful laughingstock now, pushed all around and dumped on by Russia. It is a disgrace.
And now, Israel. Obama is “losing patience” with Israel and he tried to close down Ben Gurion Airport this week on some pretext. “Losing patience” with a people trying to protect their children from terrorism? “Losing patience” with a people who have seen that passivity leads to genocide. “Losing patience” with Israel, which agreed to a cease-fire some time ago, only to be spit on by Hamas.
Nixon sent planes to save Israel, so says brilliant Rabbi Aryeh Spero. Obama tries to strangle Israel. And he got something like 85 percent of the Jewish vote.
I wish I were back in Idaho where I could pretend I was on another planet altogether. And it’s too damned hot here and there are too many rich people. I miss the trains. They made me feel safe. Obama terrifies me. He should not ever have run for President of a nation he hates.
.
The American Spectator Foundation is the 501(c)(3) organization responsible for publishing The American Spectator magazine and training aspiring journalists who espouse traditional American values. Your contributions are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law. Each donor receives a year-end summary of their giving for tax purposes.
Copyright 2013, The American Spectator. All rights reserved.
Source URL:
http://spectator.org/articles/60081/castrated-our-president
