Non-Treppenwitze and Good Medicine

I've been posting reasons to get out of bed in the morning. Looking for ways in this time of plague to start the day right. Ways not to be swept under by depression, resentment, anger and discouragement. In my case, I manage this largely by seeking out good music and by focusing on the happy fact that Bounce, one of my canine daughters, has made it very hard for me to sleep comfortably because she has once again found a way to take her half of the bed in the middle. I know, I know. I've complained about this before, and well-meaning friends have suggested I get her to sleep in her doggy-bed on the floor next to me. I've tried that, but she keeps climbing in with me after I've gone to sleep, and the part of me seeking comfort struggles with the part of me overjoyed with the sign of affection - and affection wins out.

Here, in addition to Alexander Malofeev and all the other child prodigies on the piano, and Tony DeSare and Grandpa Elliott, all the Facebook videos of dogs leaving shelters and finding welcoming homes and all the other great reasons for facing the day with some sort of optimism, are two more reasons that have come to my attention in the past couple of days. One is evidence that, in addition to Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and other decent politicians getting on in years, there are smart up-and-coming democrats in the fight, as well. And the other is evidence that the country has some great people fighting the Corona virus medically and not just manipulating the crisis for political purposes.

I had a wonderful conversation the other day on my patio (masked and properly distanced, of course) with one of my favorite nieces (note: all of my nieces are my favorite nieces) in which Pete Buttigieg's name came up. She's a lefty-lefty and is down on politicians generally, and has serious reservations about Pete for being a tad too ambitious and for pulling the democratic party toward the moderates. I hope I'm not misrepresenting her views. That's at least how I understood her take on him. I'm not as lefty-lefty as she is. I'm just lefty, by comparison, and I'm not down on all politicians and am more willing than she is to grant that in order to get things done (or in order to get ahead politically) sometimes you have to make compromises.

But, to make my point about why I'm such a fan of this guy (besides the obvious fact that I love how, from all appearances, he is a great example of a gay man living happily with a same-sex spouse, I mean), let me give two examples of how he came up with virtually perfect responses to attempts by Fox News to trip him up:

1. His response to an attempt to paint Kamala Harris in a bad light for apparently flipping on the question of Medicare-for-all.  

2. His defense of a woman's right to decide what to do with her body without government interference.

I especially want to repeat that second response here, because I fail so often to think quickly on my feet and I stand in awe when I come across "non-Treppenwitz" responses, i.e., perfect rejoinders, given on the spot, at the right time, and not rejoinders that pop into your head only after you've left the encounter and are "going down the stairs." (The French actually originated the notion - in French, it's "l'esprit de l'escalier".)

Chris Wallace tries to hang around Pete's neck the very delicate question of whether a woman should have an abortion in the third trimester:

CW: So just to be clear... you're saying that you would be OK with a woman well into the third trimester deciding to abort her pregnancy...

PB: Look, these hypotheticals are usually set up in order to provoke a strong emotional response...

CW: It's not hypothetical; there are 6000 women a year who get abortions in the third trimester.

PB: That's right, representing less than 1% of cases...  So let's put ourselves in the shoes of a women in that situation. If it's that late in your pregnancy, that means almost by definition, you've been expecting to carry it to term. We're talking about women who have perhaps chosen a name. Women who have purchased a crib. Families that then get the most devastating medical news of their lifetime, something about the health or the life of the mother that forces them to make an impossible unthinkable choice. And the bottom line is, as horrible as that choice is, that woman, that family may seek spiritual guidance, they may seek medical guidance, but that decision is not going to be made any better, medically or morally, because the government is dictating how that decision should be made.

The second positive example of Americans to be proud of in this age of Covid-19 involves two of my favorite medical people. One is Dr. Mike, the doctor who became a social media sensation 1) because he's such a hunk, and 2) because he's the doctor most of us would love to have for our own general physician, and the perfect counterweight to those other bozos in the media like Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz. The other is the man who should be running the American response to the corona virus instead of the orange shitstain. That man became a hero to me during the 1980s AIDS crisis: Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Here is a video of Dr. Mike interviewing Dr. Fauci. Great questions, great answers.

Makes you feel a whole lot more hopeful about things, knowing that we're not all as dumb as our shoes.