Screwball Tragedy

Category: Present: Tense

  • Smackdown.edu

    According to a notion popularized by psychology professor K. Anders Ericsson, it takes 10,000 hours of practice at a task to make you an expert. The Trump White House is, of course, more of a fake-it-till-you-make-it operation, yet even by those lax standards Linda McMahon’s CV seemed a bit thin for the Secretary of Education gig. Until her appointment, McMahon’s most notable achievement in the field was mistakenly claiming she had an education degree.

    Oops. French.

    Yet simply in terms of faking it she is, if anything, overqualified, having come from the exalted world of professional wrestling, steadfast in its concern for the welfare of children. In the 1990s, for instance, World Wrestling reportedly allowed a predatory announcer who had been fired over his taste for “ring boys” to return to the fold, but only after a stern warning from McMahon’s husband, Vince, to “stop chasing after kids.”

    So, then: not soft on discipline, always a conservative ideal.

    A decade later her World Wrestling Entertainment banned wrestlers from smashing chairs over opponents’ heads, a rule which could easily be adapted to classrooms or cabinet meetings.

    Why then, given such a rare opportunity to influence the youth of America, would McMahon go along with Trump’s lust to shutter ED?

    Christopher Rufo, a conservative DEI foe who is spearheading the drive to shut down the Department of Education, admitted to New York Times columnist Russ Douthat that the reason they want to close the agency instead of reforming it is because, “Conservatives cannot fully staff the Department of Education… Shutting things down is actually a very effective strategy.”

    True, good help is always hard to find. Yet Rufo is overlooking a ready pool of staffers, and staunch patriots all: the WWE has 800 employees who could surely find ways to multitask for the sake of its future fan base, and double-dip in the bargain (a term, in fact, which sounds like a wrestling move). At McMahon’s level it’s common for executives to bring along their best people, and I’m sure they all have opinions on schooling. Who doesn’t?

    Even better, WWE classifies its wrestlers as independent contractors, leaving them plenty of motivation to pitch in, and possibly qualify for health insurance in the bargain.

    Meanwhile Linda, presumably putting in eight-hour days behind the big desk, is watching the minute hand on her Rolex and putting a significant dent in that 10,000-hour deficit.

    WWE star Natalya wrestling

    Deputy Secretary of Education Natalya, left, during recent negotiations with the president of the NEA.

    Bonus fact: the Department of Education is often referred to as ED, rather than DOE, to distinguish it from the Department of Energy. Could it be that the abbreviation ED, in its other context, explains the undisguised hatred Trump seems to hold for the agency?

  • Present: tense

    Once I get beyond the basic data — a healthy adult can live three days without water; babies have more bones than adults — I find it increasingly difficult to make generalities about humanity.

    Terrence, a Roman playwright, said: “I am human. Nothing human is alien to me.”

    Even so: A German cannibal advertises for a willing victim, then kills and eats him, snubbing at least five more applicants. A German Austrian heiress allows 50 strangers to decide how she should give away her $27 million fortune, then follows through. I could spend my whole life contemplating either story, the alternate poles of the human psyche, and never reach any conclusions, beyond “It takes all kinds,” as my own German American relatives used to say when confronted with the inexplicable.

    portrait of James Bethel Gresham

    In 1917 a soldier from my hometown named James Bethel Gresham shipped out to fight the Germans and became the first American to die in the War Which Failed to End All Wars. A generation later, German American men from the same area lined up to fight the Fuhrer, and many stayed over there, beneath headstones.

    Now, some grandsons of men who died fighting Nazis proudly sport swastika tatts, sig-heil, read Daily Stormer. As if there was anything the slightest bit neo about race hatred.

    There was a time when humanity seemed to agree that Nazis were, you know, evil, and that people who thought otherwise were abhorrent. How, then, to draw sweeping conclusions which accommodate the most powerful man on earth idly musing that Hitler did some good things and had enviable generals? Or the richest man on earth sharing a post absolving Hitler from Holocaust blame. Or Pete Hegseth, the beefcake Aryan, banning Maya Angelou from the United States Naval Academy but not Mein Kampf. Perhaps if the caged bird had been a Proud Boy he’d be more open-minded.

    Or my grandmother, an Indiana schoolgirl, receiving first communion with her praying hands holding a Bible printed in German. It sits on my desk as I type.

    I don’t recall her ever voicing fond memories of the Reich.

    1912 Bible

    Oh, that baby thing? Apparently, some of their bones will later fuse together, forming new, stronger bones, Metaphorically, at least, I wish adults could manage the same trick.