W.C. Fields's account of how he coped with temptation--"it saves time to give in immediately"--describes my approach to the allure of Schadenfreude, a German word for which there is no English equivalent, though it means roughly taking pleasure in the misfortunes of others. So, did you hear that Kenneth Starr has been ousted as President of Baylor University? His response to all the sexual assaults perpetrated by the school's football players did not even attain the level of low-energy. Back in the day, he was known for working himself into a state of high dudgeon over the crossing of sexual boundaries.
Delicious.
On a less partisan, conciliatory note, Wheelock Whitney, a wealthy Republican business leader and man-about-town here in the Twin Cites, died around a week ago. His Star Tribune obituary, here, is notable for including, in its summary of a life filled with success, some shady spots. His first wife, for example, was an alcoholic, which spurred Whitney to take action on behalf of her fellow sufferers. This interest seems to have broadened, for he was an active board member of the Minnesota Council on AIDS as well as the Minnesota Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. And there was this section:
A lifelong Republican, he was consistently moderate, even progressive on social issues and conservative on fiscal ones. Wheelock was mayor of Wayzata (1963-68). He ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 1964 and for governor in 1982. Until his death he stayed involved with issues, candidates and elected officials. One of his greatest joys was helping to lead the efforts in 2012 to defeat the proposed constitutional amendment to ban marriage between same-sex couples. The fact that Minnesota was the first state in the nation to defeat such an amendment was a source of great pride.
It wouldn't be a sour joke to speak of "the party of Lincoln" if Whitney had been at all representative.
I have just one bit of "insider knowledge" about Whitney. My next door neighbor Wayne, an African-American and World War II vet, Pacific theatre, now either 93 or 94 years old--I know he was born in 1922--did quite well in his prime as owner of a small general contracting firm. When he was first starting the business, however, he had a real problem getting funds: it was hard in the 1950s for a black guy with a new business to borrow money. Somehow or another, it might have been from the service, he knew Whitney, who hooked him up with a banker who made him a loan. Wayne like almost all African-Americans is a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat. But in any conversation with him that lasts longer than five minutes--and most of them do--he works it in that he knows Wheelock Whitney, considers him a friend and a Mensch, another foreign word for which there isn't an English equivalent: "good guy" is close but a little pale.
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