This many years later, Monty Python remains the funniest comedy-team I've ever seen. I watched the Pythons faithfully when Public Broadcasting TV brought them to America in the late 1970s. I was sort of late catching on to them. My college friends harped on about the Pythons, and said the team rescued their sanity from the perils of overwork.

In the Argument-Clinic skit, a poor, bedeviled English Everyman visits a curious office for a particular kind of conversation. In one bureau, Everyman can listen to abuse from one of the clinic's therapists. In the second, he can enjoy an argument with the therapist. The Abuse Bureau is tailor-made for masochists. In the argument clinic, he can reinforce his sense-of-self.

The Pythons must have read E. M. Forster. In Forster's novel Howard's End, Mr Wilcox and Margaret Schlegel take Evie Wilcox and her fiance Mr. Cahill to Sunday dinner at Simpson's Restaurant in the Haymarket. While Mr. Wilcox and Miss Schlegel engage in adult conversation, Evie and Mr. Cahill have a "Yes-I-did;" "No-you-didn't" conversation.

Many educated white people are so timid, they fear losing their sense-of-self to an assertive partner. So they have a polite "yes-I-did," "no-you-didn't conversation," as part of the courting ritual, like watching Mockingbirds dance.

 


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March 31, 2023

How Long Do Republicans Wait?

Americans who vote Republican have to remember that, for people who work for the Republican Party, it's just a job. They may like their jobs. Mostly they prefer to keep their jobs. They may share the Republican sentiment for free-market principles and military readiness; but when someone like me comes along and suggests that Republicans petition for a nation of their own, they worry about things like job-redundancy and relocations more than they do about Democrat big-government and peacenik sell-out.


March 23, 2023

Release Grand Ole Prometheus!

Left-wing trash-talking of the GOP represents a concerted campaign that should concern its leaders. The scathing rhetoric suggests that the trash-talking will not end until the Left can make the GOP the permanent minority-party, and silence or discredit its associated media-organs. Older Americans familiar with the Nazi-smearing of the Jews should note the similarities in the left-wing method. Neither the Republicans nor freedom-loving people of any stripe should ignore the potential threat that these smear-tactics represent.


March 21, 2023

Republicans: a New Start

The Republican Party has a few tasks it needs to undertake. It needs to examine the philosophy it claims to represent and to take stock of its future, and stop thinking in terms of personal rivalries. We have more on the line than just choosing candidates and securing a victory in future elections. The GOP needs to regain a corporate sense-of-self. How can we move forward when we have deep doubts about the game, the rules, and not least the players?


Lloyd Bowers

loybow3@gmail.com


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