It has been a bumpy ride in 2016 for civil political discourse and behavior in America, with one primary motivating force. Man of the Year, one DJT. The man now newly enshrined as our P-E for one rocky month of thrills and chills for the rest of us forced to ride along.
At one time, many entertained some hope Trump was in deliberate candidate wacko mode. At least some observers said so, as they quietly prayed under their collective breath that, Lord Willing, it might possibly be so.
Since election night, the one thing Trump has amply proven by word and deed, over and over, is that there was no different candidate Trump. There is no pivot. Trump is just a roiling mass of uncontrolled id aggression, with no inner self-reflection mode, no principled codes, no fixed moral compass, no faith based standards of behavior and demeanor. He is greed and impulse powered, unconstrained by empathy, humility, or wisdom.
Trump now seems convinced that American national policy should be conducted over the slender reed basis of Twitter drops. In fact, Trump insists on it. It is the only form of communication for Trump that is free of restraint and obstacles, or rules of decent behavior put in his way by others. Not even Fox News, or a compliant CNN comes close
That in itself would be a first after two centuries of political development and culture for America. Bus Trump has coupled it with an unprecedented dumbing down of the level and content of his messages for others
Trump already had lowered his general projected standard of intellectual power to that of a fifth or sixth grader in his formal speeches and appearances. By the grace of Twitter he has reduced it still further to fourth grade level.
As his plethora of Christmas week tweets demonstrate, his supporters have made strides to reducing the communication standard literally to kindergarten level, the realm of 5-year olds.
Take one shining, glistening recent example.
But in an online video posted Thursday, Gingrich said that the statement was “a big boo-boo,” adding that Trump assured him in a conversation Thursday that “he intends to drain the swamp.”
Newt’s Infantile Boo-Boo Tweet & Video 12/22
Newt Gingrich, the ever present in the background, left at the altar 73-year old political bridesmaid in waiting for a Trump-era job, waxed eloquent on NPR this week that the President-Elect was tired of the “Drain the Swamp” (DTS) phony rhetoric he had used, and did not intend it for anything but style points on the campaign trail.
Trump promptly Twit responded the next day that DTS was actually alive and well. Trump has always been fighting fir DTS. So much for Trump’s loyalty to submissive handmaidens, like poor not so nimble Newt, cast aside and thrown under the bus yet again without a lick of pity by the Big Boss.
Trump’s Imperious Bus Throw Under Tweet for a Loyal Submissive 12/22
Newt, bruised and bowed with tire marks, but ever hopeful, quickly brushed himself off and recovered with a masterful tweet and video to assure Trump’s loyal low information types that he had made a boo boo. Newt has the spirit, but as a faded old pol, he remains a step or two behind.
In the new Trump drastically dumbed down Twitter environment, Newt should perhaps have used the far more dramatic and euphonious phrasing
“I made a doo-doo boo-boo, Da-Da “
Now, that is 5 year old clear channel communication in the new favored Trump idiom.
Remember this from a man who served as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (the highest ranking member of that body) from 1995-1999. He was a congressman from Georgia for 20 years (1979-1999), and the House Minority Whip from 1989-1994. He earned a Masters degree and a Ph.D. in History from Tulane University, and was an Assistant Professor of History at West Georgia College from 1970-1978, when he was elected to Congress.
How are the mighty fallen in alongside Trump’s declination of standards in civil discourse. Newt figures to be Prime Example #1.
Another feature, not a defect, of Trump’s governing style is that he is apparently most comfortable in conducting his presidential business in public via sometimes multipart (as many as 5 or 6 in a sequence) Twits. As opposed to say meeting with live reporters, holding Press Conferences, or giving serious news interviews, Thus Trump stretches the information carrying signal width of a single tweet to a hugely massive 840 characters.
A Google search informs us that the standard word length in the English language is 5 letters. That is a very comfortably familiar number of 5 letters per word, a thing that is pleasing in itself to our soon to be National Leader, who favors simple and easy. So a single tweet of 140 characters offering Trump’s considered opinions about weighty matters and serious issues works out to a word count (counting spaces between, as you must for Twitter) of a magical 23 words (exclusive of punctuation, but including Trump’s favorite ALL CAPS emphasis style with no character penalty).
From the Readability Monitor web blog:
Plain English recommends short sentences.
He writes: “Based on several studies, press associations in the USA have laid down a readability table. Their survey shows readers find sentences of 8 words or less very easy to read; 11 words, easy; 14 words fairly easy; 17 words standard; 21 words fairly difficult; 25 words difficult and 29 words or more, very difficult.”
Martin Cutts, in his Oxford Guide To Plain English, offers the following guideline: “Over the whole document, make the average sentence length 15-20 words.” And what’s the reason? He explains: “More people fear snakes than full stops, so they recoil when a long sentence comes hissing across the page.”
Plain English also recommends short words. Even if the average sentence length of a document is 15-20 words, readability is not guaranteed. Polysyllabic words are likely to make the meaning of the document difficult to grasp. So we also need a guideline for average word length.
Now, we have been measuring sentences only in words. But sentences have three units of measure: words, syllables and characters. And so we may take the following as the new guideline: “Over the whole document, make the average sentence length 15-20 words, 25-33 syllables and 75-100 characters.”
Since an average sentence in literate English is 15-20 words, Trump’s wisdom is conveyed mainly in one sentence aliquots, or up to a six sentence gulp, if he is being loquacious. This is the functional equivalent of a single normal paragraph.
A truly skilled writer tries to polish his or her work over and over to use the fewest words to effectively convey the proper meaning intended. As any professional writer will acknowledge, such craft is painstaking and prolonged. It’s just plain hard to do. That is, the faster one composes, the looser (longer) the message will be.
One thing Trump certainly is not is contemplative, careful, or literary aware. That has been proven over and over in his public life and by his own comments. He is impulsive, careless, shoot from the hip, and sloppy. He speaks and Twits in half formed concepts, in vague and circular motes. He speaks first, and cleans it up later, if he feels like it.
Trump has a well documented pattern of later denying the plain evidence of his public pronouncements if they cause trouble, or sending some loyal retainer, a better spoken or more cohesive thinker than he, to clean up Trump’s verbal messes and infelicities. Like the ever faithful Kellyanne Conway, who it turns out, is rather a star, academically accomplished, and (get this) a trained lawyer to boot.* No wonder Trump need such a useful female crutch to hand to smooth out a few of the edges when he gets too much push back for his raw mental flow.
So, Trump is an immediate, slapdash verbal eruptor on Twitter. His Twits are the closest analogue of his verbal word salad speaking style, and a perfect fit for his mental volcanism.
In other words, Trump Twits are a natural.
What they are not, however, is disciplined, cohesive, or planned out. They are also not well suited as a mechanism for government policy discussions, diplomatic exchanges, serious national security issue considerations, assessments of nuclear weapons arsenals, international trade discussions, or statements of official U.S. government positions, in any significant way.
No one has ever been so careless or stupid enough to try and adopt this Twitter slender content reed of unabashed megaphonery for such serious purposes. Until now. Trump seems to think he has discovered a new Holy Grail of political communication for matters of consequence.
He hasn’t and it isn’t, by its very inherent structure nature, and function. Those baked in limitations of Twitter, of course won’t stop Trump from trying and pushing, until he gets a quick kick or two in the rear end.
Trump’s Glorious Pre-Christmas Week on Twitter
So, with this brief Twitter background exploration as prologue, we have Trump’s forays into putative Presidential policy making, in multiple iterations, this week.
Of course, a careful observer might note that Trump is acting extra-constitutionally and without any legal sanction whatever as he proffers his statements, since he doesn’t command the least little official U.S foreign policy position, authority, or sanction until after the swearing in at noon on January 20, 2017.
None of Trump’s potential cabinet members have been formally nominated. None have been confirmed by the Senate as is required, however confident Trump may be in his own wisdom and the rubber stamp approvals he expects. Worse, early reports are that, given the money heavy nature of his intended nominees, the essential financial vetting and conflict clearance of a good number of them is bogged down, and making only molasses-in-winter type progress. This will delay and frustrate Trump’s intention and ability to efficiently move the levers of U.S. power in his first months in office.
Even Trump’s non-confirmation requiring personal staff selections like Mike Flynn or Steve Bannon,, will be subject to some public scrutiny to come, official confirmation hearing schedule or not. With respect to his unofficial personal staff of advisors, given the specific topics covered in the latest rounds of Trump’s T wit Diplomacy, we might mention one Jared Kushner.**
Notwithstanding Trump’s status as a private citizen invested with no official power or duties in December 2016, who is advised by an unconfirmed, unvetted, rump set of unofficial nominees and advisors to be, and as Trump himself is uninformed by practical knowledge of U.S. foreign policy and intelligence assessments from the President’s Daily Briefings which he has distained as low impact data, Trump has boldly jumped in with both feet, across a wide swath of potent issues.
We can include among these Chinese diplomatic and military affairs, U.S> international terrorist policy and the conduct of German domestic affairs, Air Force weapons systems procurement and cost-control, U.S. Israel diplomatic relations along with the Palestinian two-state solution and the American posture toward the U.N, Security Council, the state of America’s nuclear arsenal and readiness, a potential arms race with Russia and the bilateral scope of U.S.-Russian relations, for starter. And those are just in the past week before the Christmas shopping season is finished.
Trump jumps the gun, assumes powers and facts not in evidence and terminally dumbs down the deliberative processes in place, and attempt to impact the world and the major powers in it via a handful of low-level impulsive Twit posturing blurbs.
The sad thing is that Trump has succeeded in some measure in permanently degrading the level of discourse and analysis of the world’s weighty matters. The New York Times is even suggesting there is some diplomatic substance to his electron emission storms, like a potent sun storm. Disgraceful.
It is one thing for the Times to be fooled and taken in. But we now see some early evidence that other countries like Israel are plumbing the Twitter deep hot canyons. The Prime Minister takes to Twitter to energize Trump to overstep his proper bounds, legal and moral, for a cheap thrill, 30 days too soon.
The NYT (Grey Lady) Falls Down on the Job
The Times has been America’s most literate and comprehensive newspaper of record for a century, and often serves as the conscience of our political culture. Too often lately it has strayed from that noble purpose. Its December 22 coverage of the latest trump-Israeli-UN-Obama drama provides an unfortunate case in point.
President-elect Donald J. Trump thrust himself into one of the world’s most polarizing debates on Thursday by pressuring President Obama to veto a United Nations resolution critical of Israel, the newly elected leader’s most direct intervention in foreign policy during his transition to power.
Mr. Trump’s forceful intervention was a rare effort by a new president to shape international events even before taking office. While new presidents typically refrain from weighing in on current issues during the interregnum between their election and inauguration, Mr. Trump’s statement underscored that he does not plan to wait for the swearing in.
Au contraire, mes infants. Trump attempted to insert himself where he has no legal authority, mandate, or responsibility at present. In a area where he has virtually no experience, training, or expertise. Obama, in a display of presidential honor, held his tongue about Trump’s ignorantly, officious meddling, and ignored him.
The resolution in question was brought up for a vote the next day, and Obama did what a President is supposed to do; he took a measured stance. The United States did not encourage or support the resolution, and did not veto it. We abstained to make the diplomatic point to Israel that our support is, as always, genuine and substantial, but not to be taken casually for granted whatever their actions. This is the same policy we have followed for decades, under both Republican and Democratic administrations alike.
The Times didn’t bother to get the background straight, and treated Trump’s attempted interference as some sort of significant event. Trump’s intervention was not forceful, it was a 100% flop, if the idea was to help Israel. Trump thrust from deep factual ignorance in a complex situation, and came up short, as he often does.
Trump demonstrated again the essentially derivative nature of his so-called policies.
Or, how about this from the Times again.
Mr. Trump said flatly that he (Obama) should. “As the United States has long maintained, peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians will only come through direct negotiations between the parties and not through the imposition of terms by the United Nations,” the president-elect said. “This puts Israel in a very poor negotiating position and is extremely unfair to all Israelis.”
Mr. Netanyahu cited that history on Thursday. “I hope the U.S. won’t abandon this policy,” he said. “I hope it will abide by the principles set by President Obama himself in his speech in the U.N. in 2011 — that peace will come not through U.N. resolutions, but only through direct negotiations between the parties.”
Mr. Trump amplified his position by posting the statement on Facebook and Twitter as well, but a transition official insisted on anonymity to confirm the president-elect’s conversation with Mr. Sisi because of the sensitivity of the matter. Mr. Trump’s words echoed the positions expressed by Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has welcomed Mr. Trump’s election as a breath of fresh air after years of clashes with Mr. Obama.
Israel’s government spoke with Trump on Wednesday after they got a response they didn’t like for America’s only legal President in charge. Netanyahu tweeted his remarks on Wednesday as well (just to be sure Trump would see and grasp them?). Then Trump went all in and took to Twitter, Facebook, and email with his “statement”.
Trump’s Israel Foray Twit Number #1 Thursday 12/22
What Trump actually did is to post a one sentence opener as a Twit, followed by an additional two sentence expansion of his Twit on his Facebook page. As for the email statement, here it is, in its entirety, straight from the ridiculous greatagain.gov official Trump transition website.
Trump’s Israel Foray Twit Number #2 Thursday 12/22
A imperial trumpet fanfare and everyone come to attention, please.
GreatAgain.gov Statement:
Statement from President-Elect Donald J. Trump
(Palm Beach, FL) — “The resolution being considered at the United Nations Security Council regarding Israel should be vetoed.
“As the United States has long maintained, peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians will only come through direct negotiations between the parties, and not through the imposition of terms by the United Nations.
“This puts Israel in a very poor negotiating position and is extremely unfair to all Israelis.”
Note the statement origin from the presumptive soon-to-be Southern White House in Palm Beach (as opposed to the New York City White House Tower, or the New Jersey White House Golf Retreat). How can you “amplify” a critical position that is only three sentences and 64 words long. I know Trump suffers from a famously short attention span, but this is pitiful. It is already so abbreviated, you might miss it if you blinked or sneezed.
Now consider the core of what Trump twitted, Facebook posted, and email forwarded on the vast expanse of his ‘official’ government website (taxpayer funded of course for these empty calories).
Direct from the Leader’s brain and heart:
“peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians will only come through direct negotiations between the parties and not through the imposition of terms by the United Nations”
Trump cribbed, copied, and borrowed the Israeli (Netanyahu) position, with an internal phrase rearrangement which does not alter the meaning. From a less august personage than Trump, this appropriation of someone else’s words could be called plagiarism, but let’s not get overly technical. Let’s just say Trump’s reported thought is derivative, and not original.
But that is not the worst of it. It turns out the actual sentiment about direct talks and not U.N. resolutions is not from Israel either. It is borrowed wholesale (as the Israeli comment freely states) from President Obama himself at his U.N. speech in 2011.
So, Trump is acting like he has a powerful new idea on the Middle East, which comes explicitly from an Obama speech that is 5-years old. As if our President doesn’t know what his own policy towards Middle East peace was then and is now. A preposterous idea, and deeply unoriginal on Trump’s part. Also insulting, as well as cribbed.
A careful reader might figure all this out if one pored over the Times article exceptionally carefully, but the authors certainly didn’t make the point clearly. A casual newspaper reader shouldn’t have to dig so hard to get the pertinent facts and analysis.
Sloppy and careless journalism from the Grey Lady.
Trump finally capped his 24-hour whirlwind of high level Middle Easr diplomacy with a cranky end of discussion warning on Friday, after his bluster got blown away. I’ll huff and I’ll puff. Just you wait and see.
Trump’s Israel Foray Twit Number #3 Friday 12/23
And for the final whipped cream and cherry on this mess, as described just below in this post in all practical likelihood,Trump’s Thursday words are not his own, since they are written at a grade level far exceeding anything Trump himself has reliably offered (via audiotape or videotape transcript evidence) in public since at least 2011. Maybe ever.
The Times left that analytic pathway unexplored as well.
The Question Is Are Trump’s Own Words (Tweets) His or Not?
It has been suggested before that there are two Trump personas mingling his tweets. Attention has been drawn to the fact that, in the past, there were two apparent phone device sending, an iPhone variant and an Android phone source. I forget which device was reputed to be the real Trump.
As with all speculation in Trump World, this is fascinating, but is not suitable for assessment of forensic attribution. After all, it could be that Trump has two different phones, and mixes them up, or not. Maybe he keeps them in separate locations, or he just likes to travel with a backup, in case the battery dies. Maybe, at age 70, he is starting to be forgetful and temporarily misplaces things.
Device origin is not a reliable mental fingerprint, as we all know from careful viewing of NCIS, (D.C., Los Angeles, and New Orleans) and the three CSI series in Las Vegas, Miami, and New York. Yes, I am a loyal fan of the shows too, especially the forensic Goddess Abby Sciuto from NCIS. She can take my fingerprints or a DNA swab anytime.
Back to the main Trump point. There is better and more substantial forensic data from Trump’s verbal and written product tested by means of standard Readability scores. Fairly comprehensive tools are available on line, such as the Readability Score.com website. There is both a free and a more detailed unlimited Premium version of the service available.
Experimental evidence (practical proof?) is accumulating there are two Trumps with access to his inner twit streams. Maybe he has a DSM Multiple Personality Disorder. Or the real Trump didn’t write the Israeli UN series of Tweets on Thursday and Friday within hours on the same subject.
Perhaps they was composed and ghosted by a more literate and informed person. How about his son-in-law Jared (Jewish advisor), or Wonder Woman Kellyanne, or maybe even the Israeli ambassador?
Why would anyone say such a horrible, insulting thing?
Because that’s where the objective evidence point in neon red. Not personal, just business. See for yourself. Compare the initial one sentence Trump Tweet on Thursday, with the full 3-sentence Trump expanded Facebook post, with the follow-up Trump personal Tweet on Friday afternoon. It seems fairly clear the first two were written by not Trump and the last one is nearly pure vintage Trump.
Precious readability analysis of Trump’s words going back to 2011 and earlier, some published and some informally conducted, of Tweets, speeches, TV and radio interview transcripts, rally remarks, addresses to formal groups (CPAC), his convention acceptance speech (2016), address at Gettysburg, etc. show that Trump consistently operates on a 4th to 6th grade level. Very occasionally Trump graduates to 8th grade content.
Readability Score Trump Twit #1 Thursday 12/22
I have yet to discover a single example of even his most formal words as high as an 11th grade level. This from an Ivy League graduate, who is a self-confessed very, very smart man.
Readability Score Trump Twit #2 Thursday 12/22
Trump’s Thursday Twit #1 (one sentence) is pitched at Grade 15.3 (College Junior). Trump’s Thursday Twit #2 (the whole enchilada on Facebook) is pitched at Grade 14.1 (College Sophomore). Trump’s Friday follow-up Twit #33 is pitched at Grade 2.1 (even lower than usual for the Man).
Readability Score Trump Twit #3 Friday 12/23
The final piece de resistance is a comparison of the Thursday Twits (11.1, 32,6) versus the Friday effort (98). See the attached Flesch-Kinkaid Reading Ease Scale from Wikipedia. Here the numbers do not refer to a grade level, but rather the ease of comprehension . The Thursday words are written by a highly educated and sophisticated author. The Friday tweet is written by someone communicating at a 5th grade level.
Flesch-Kinkaid Reading Ease Scale (per Wikipedia)
The chances these three items were written by the same hand and brain are near non-existent. The first two look and smell like non Trump. The third is rock solid normal Trump fodder.
All we know now is that Trump’s important Israeli Twit Suite series was, to a reasonable degree of practical certainty, composed largely (2 out of 3) by someone other than Trump.
Another example of a recycled sentiment with someone else’s words? Can you say Ronald Reagan’s political slogan? Trump is, after all, too busy thinking majestic elevated thoughts to keep America safe, for him to actually write down in his own words his brilliant insights
Who really wrote the tweets? We will likely never know for absolute sure. Certainly never in a Swear in a Court of Law, beyond any possible doubt sense. Sometimes you just have to use your gut and simple common sense to arrive at the right answer that is in front of your own eyes. Just like Trump does it.
Actually that go with the gut sense pretty much confirms the more scientific verbal forensic tools.
Remember the unbreakable non-disclosure clauses and pre-nups Trump is famous for. Even his campaign volunteers had to sign up for a draconian non-disclosure agreement
Want to read legal hocus-pocus in overdrive? Take a look at the current legal disclaimer for the Trump Winery website. It’s a nearly book length list of no-no’s longer than your arm. You can’t do this, You can’t do that, Don’t even think about that. For the privilege looking at a mid-quality wine peddling site, where the object is to sell you stuff and make money.
I wouldn’t think of messing with their self-defined valuable intellectual property rights, such as they are. You can read it all on your own if you have a couple hours, and decide for yourself. You can Google to find the link to Trump Winery, if you are brave enough. Boogie, Boogie
Well, So What?
The Trump inspired race to the diplomatic and intellectual bottom now resembles nothing so much as the dark descent into Dante’s nine circles of hell, so powerfully presented in the 14th century epic Italian masterpiece, the Divine Comedy: Inferno.
Ornamented Page from Canto I (Inferno) of Dante’s Divine Comedy (1308-1320)
The temperature around us is rising, and visibility is decreasing. Elemental responses are forthcoming. Where does Trump’s behavior (be careful here, his behavior, not Trump the man himself) belong in Dante’s literary scheme?
Illustration of Dante’s Nine Circles of Hell (from 1495)
See the chart below.
Outline Structure of Dante’s Circles of Hell and Their Occupants’ Transgressions
A first analysis suggests the collection of Trump Twit and other behaviors would rate a place somewhere in Circles VII (5) through IX (9) depending on the strictness of the judging authority. Altogether too warm an environment for comfort.
What are the consequences in the 21st century?
Long term effects are merely rumbling and thrashing in the background for now They will not appear in a visible way for some weeks or months.
The immediate practical consequence of the Trump Israel flurry is that the Obama Administration (one President at a time) responded with an eye to American constitutional processes and national sovereignty considerations, and lobbed an effective response back at Trump’s persistent dumbity, in language even he can understand (geared to a 5-year old comprehension level).
It is the marvelously simple and direct answer: Nee Nee Na Na Na Na Nu Nu.
With two exclamation points a New York style verbal raspberry, and a double-handed 10-finger ear waggle. So there, Big Boy. Let’s play.
President Ronald Reagan Does a Double-Handed 10-Finger Ear Waggle (May 1986)
I know you think I’m just making this up. Think again It’s a bipartisan political thing for all those who haven’t paid attention. First, sitting President St. Ronnie (R) in May 1986 speaking before White House photographers. Next, former Vice-President Walter Mondale (D), with gloves on and no raspberry (circa 2015).
Fmr. Vice President Mondale Does a Double-Handed 10-Finger Ear Waggle (2015?)
Listen to Dicky Doo & The Don’ts sing it here. If I’m lying, I’m dying.
You need to talk real simple to a real simple mind. Kindergarten logic reigns in kind.
For the non-hipster youngsters out there, this elegant answer is the entire verbal content of the 1958 instrumental hit record single, with the same name. Trump should be perfectly familiar with it, since it would have been playing in his 12-year old musical wheel house of pop radio hits, in Trump’s proto-bully days just before military school.
But what does it mean, you ask? Oh, that’s just as straightforwardly simple. On Friday, the day after Trump’s intended barge-in and disruption, America’s actual government representative, on instructions from the legitimate U.S. President and Commander-in-Chief, abstained during the Security Council vote, and the resolution about Israeli settlements passed 14-0, without objection.
Trump’s interference was a limp flopoid, an irrelevant waste of time and scads of Twitting electrons. He suffered a minor blow to his megalomaniac World Leader-in-Chief Premature prestige fantasy profile.
Middle Eastern peace is now more, not less complicated, after Trump’s latest diplo- stumble. Will Trump learn anything useful from this small instructional episode?
Hope springs, but not likely. He will probably just figure it’s another example of haters and plotters against his all embracing wisdom and foresight. Anther pesky fact to be memory extirpated in toto, because it doesn’t feel good, Trump-wise.
Undoubtedly there will be more to come.
Merry Christmas anyway, America! May your holiday celebrations be otherwise merry.
And may all your tweets mature up to at least a 6th grade level, before more nuclear weapons locker-boy talk ensues.
Selected Trump Israel Twit Story Sources:
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/un-israeli-settlements-trump-232913
http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/22/politics/un-vote-israel-settlements/
*More from the Readability Monitor web blog:
A paragraph can be as short as a word or as long as 250 words or more. It may consist of just one sentence or many sentences. The literary essay may be composed of long paragraphs. J.C. Tressler and Claude E. Lewis say that the average length of a paragraph is 100 to 150 words for ordinary writing; about 60 for business letters; and about 75 for newspaper reports.
According to some plain English experts, a plain paragraph is no more than four to six sentences long. They also feel that a paragraph of more than four or five lines can make a text less readable.
Martin Cutts dismisses the so-called rule ‘never write a one-sentence paragraph’ as a myth. He writes: “If you can say what you want to say in a single sentence that lacks a direct connection with any other sentence, just stop there and go on to a new paragraph. There’s no rule against it. A paragraph can be a single sentence, whether long, short, or middling.” For online texts, he recommends short paragraphs of 40 to 50 words.
In terms of sentences, a plain paragraph has four to six sentences. Since the average sentence length is about 17 words, a plain paragraph has 68 to 102 words. But online texts need short paragraphs of 40 to 50 words, translating to three sentences or less.
**49-year old Kellyanne Fitzpatrick Conway may be Trump’s most valuable not so secret intellectual weapon and brain crutch.
From the Wikipedia entry:
Kellyanne Elizabeth Conway (née Fitzpatrick; born January 20, 1967) is an American Republican campaign manager, strategist, and pollster. She is president and CEO of The Polling Company Inc./Woman Trend, and has been a political commentator on CNN, Fox News, Fox Business, and more. She has been a guest on shows such as Good Morning America, Real Time with Bill Maher, Meet the Press, and Hannity.
Kellyanne Elizabeth Fitzpatrick was born on January 20, 1967 in Camden, New Jersey, to Diane Fitzpatrick. Conway’s Irish father owned a small trucking company, and her Italian mother worked at a bank. They divorced when she was three. She was raised by her mother, grandmother and two unmarried aunts in the Atco section of Waterford Township, New Jersey and graduated from St. Joseph High School in 1985. Her family’s religion was Catholic.
Conway credits her experience working for eight summers on a blueberry farm in Hammonton, New Jersey for teaching her a strong work ethic. “The faster you went, the more money you’d make.” At age 16 she won the New Jersey Blueberry Princess pageant. At 20, she won the World Champion Blueberry Packing competition. She states, “Everything I learned about life and business started on that farm.”
Before entering politics, Conway pursued a career in law. After receiving her B.A. magna cum laude in Political Science in 1989 from Trinity College, Washington, D.C. (now Trinity Washington University), where she was also Phi Beta Kappa, she earned a J.D. with honors in 1992 from the George Washington University Law School and then clerked for a judge in Washington, D.C.
To sum up, this well spoken blonde mother of four is whip smart, a self-made middle class Jersey girl, with no silver spoon advantages. She is a World champion blueberry picker, a beauty pageant winner, a Magna cum Laude , Phi Betas Kappa college graduate, and an honors law school graduate to top it off.
To apply a Trump world qualification filter, she is often the smartest woman in a room. To be fair, she is probably often the smartest person of any gender in Trump’s rooms and inner council chambers, pointedly including her boss, the children, other advisors, and assorted hangers on.
A person ought to be pretty careful around this blonde Blueberry Girl or she’ll outthink you, and hand you your head, between phone calls. Trump is one lucky fella to have her advice. Let’s see how long she lasts in Trump’s innermost orbit, as outsiders catch on.
One could make a fairly persuasive case that Trump plus Lewandowski, and Trump plus Manafort as campaign managers were shipping water and going down. Trump gave Kellyanne the manager’s gig in August, and the campaign pulled out the win at the wire, despite all of Trump’s personal baggage and missteps. The Trump Whisperer.
***More on Jared Kushner:
This 35-year old is a inherited wealthy member of a prominent New York family active in real estate developer. Kushner, in contrast to Trump has some educational bona fides. He holds a 2003 Harvard B.A. (sociology), and both an M.B.A. and a J.D. degree from NYU (2007).
He entered Trump’s orbit when he married Trump’s oldest daughter Ivanka in October 2009 (Kushner was age 28) and has since sired three happy, healthy grandchildren with her, including two sons, to cement the family deal.
Kushner joined his own family real estate company in 2007, and helped engineer the single most expensive office building purchase up to that time, for $1.8 billion just before the 2008 financial meltdown. As the new CEO of the company, Kushner suffered significant cash flow deficits from the deal, and he was soon forced to sell off the building’s retail space and then bring in a 50% equity partner of the building in order to stay afloat (avoid bankruptcy).
Since then Kushner has engaged in several smaller and more manageable successful real estate transactions, in the $50-$300 million dollar range.
From the Wikipedia entry:
Kushner Companies purchased the office building at 666 Fifth Avenue in 2007, for a then-record price of $1.8 billion, most of it borrowed. However, following the property crash in 2008, the cash flow generated by the property was insufficient to cover its debt service, and the Kushners were forced to sell the retail portion in the building to Stanley Chera for more than $1 billion and bring in Vornado Realty Trust as a 50% equity partner in the ownership of the building.
He assumed the role of CEO of Kushner Companies in 2008. On August 18, 2014, Kushner acquired a three-building apartment portfolio in Middle River, Maryland for $37.9 million with Aion Partners. In 2013–14, Kushner and his company acquired more than 11,000 units throughout New York, New Jersey and the Baltimore area. In May 2015, he purchased 50.1% of the Times Square Building from Africa Israel Investments Ltd. for $295 million.
In 2006 Kushner bought the weekly New York Observer paper, and fought with the long time editor. There was recurrent editorial turmoil until 2013, but the paper became profitable in 2011.
Kushner also made a failed bid to buy the LA Dodgers Major League baseball club in 2012.
Kushner has been influential in the Transition and is frequently reported to be a senior advisor and confidant to Trump on policy matters, including peace in the Middle East, despite his lack of any credentials or experience in diplomatic or foreign affairs. Kushner is however a practicing Orthodox Jew.
A wag might point out that this young businessman with 10-years of mixed real estate experience (all in New York as an adult), who owner of a weekly New York paper (with a healthy on-line presence), and a failed bid for a major sports team has a rather model-thin resume to offer for a senior presidential advisor. He does however embody a number of important elements in his personal story that are quite Trump like.
Kushner’s chief credential other than a solid (if not spectacular) record of academic achievement, is his fortuitous choice of a life partner and his excellent reproductive performance in the last seven years. Ivanka is Trump’s favorite daughter and a valued family advisor in her own right, and Trump’s two oldest sons are both rather short of charisma or business performance credits on their own personal dimes. Kushner may be a good familial match for the Trump family on the Elder’s personal scorecard of virtue, success, and value.
Dante, detail from Signorelli’s fresco, Chapel of San Brizio, Orvieto Cathedral
****The immortal 14th century Italian poet, Dante Alighieri, cultural pillar of Florence, from which he was banished in 1301, before he composed his masterpiece, the Divine Comedy (1308-1320).
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) was a Florentine poet and politician. He was involved in the fights between Guelphs and Ghibellines and lived when Florence was the largest town in Europe. The age of Dante is very important for Florence. The city was expanding very fast and was starting the construction of the buildings that, even today, are the symbol of the city: Florence Duomo, Palazzo Vecchio, the churches of Santa Croce and Santa Maria Novella. Political involvement caused Dante to be banished from Florence in 1301, making him nostalgic, but also resentful towards his own city. From his exile, Dante wrote the greatest poem of Italian literature: the Comedìa, later named Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy). The protagonist of the epic poem is Dante himself, making an imaginative trip in the afterlife, as seen by a medieval Catholic believer. The poem is split in three parts: Inferno (hell), Purgatorio (purgatory), Paradiso (paradise). Dante’s Inferno is the very first part of the poem and also, by far, the most interesting.
Dante’s Inferno is a funnel cave underground (exactly beneath Jerusalem), which goes down to the center of Earth. The shrinking floors Dante finds while going down the cave are called circles. Each circle is a place of damnation, dedicated to a particular sin. Sinners are punished with a contrappasso (sort of karma effect), being forced, when possible, to do the opposite of their sin (often metaphorically). What’s really cool in Dante’s Inferno is that the poet doesn’t just describe how the place is, and which is the punishment for each sin: Inferno is populated with real people, mostly Florentine, but also Popes, Cardinals and more important historical characters that deserved to be there (in Dante’s opinion, of course).
From the Wikipedia entries on the allegorical poem, its first part (Inferno), and the poet:
Inferno is the first part of Dante Alighieri’s 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy. It is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. The Inferno tells the journey of Dante through Hell, guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine concentric circles of suffering located within the Earth; it is the “realm…of those who have rejected spiritual values by yielding to bestial appetites or violence, or by perverting their human intellect to fraud or malice against their fellowmen.” As an allegory, the Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul toward God, with the Inferno describing the recognition and rejection of sin.
Mural of Dante in the Uffizi Gallery, by Andrea del Castagno, c. 1450
The Divine Comedy is a poem by Dante Alighieri, begun c. 1308 and completed 1320, a year before his death in 1321. It is widely considered the preeminent work of Italian literature and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature. The poem’s imaginative vision of the afterlife is representative of the medieval world-view as it had developed in the Western Church by the 14th century. It helped establish the Tuscan language, in which it is written, as the standardized Italian language. It is divided into three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.
On the surface, the poem describes Dante’s travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise or Heaven; but at a deeper level, it represents, allegorically, the soul’s journey towards God. At this deeper level, Dante draws on medieval Christian theology and philosophy, especially Thomistic philosophy and the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. Consequently, the Divine Comedy has been called “the Summa in verse”.
The work was originally simply titled Comedìa and the word Divina was added by Giovanni Boccaccio. The first printed edition to add the word divina to the title was that of the Venetian humanist Lodovico Dolce, published in 1555 by Gabriele Giolito de’ Ferrari.
Statue of Dante at the Uffizi, Florence
Durante degli Alighieri simply called Dante (c. 1265 – 1321), was a major Italian poet of the Late Middle Ages. His Divine Comedy, originally called Comedìa (modern Italian: Commedia) and later christened Divina by Boccaccio, is widely considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature.
In the late Middle Ages, the overwhelming majority of poetry was written in Latin, and therefore accessible only to affluent and educated audiences. In De vulgari eloquentia (On Eloquence in the Vernacular), however, Dante defended use of the vernacular in literature. He himself would even write in the Tuscan dialect for works such as The New Life (1295) and the aforementioned Divine Comedy; this choice, although highly unorthodox, set a hugely important precedent that later Italian writers such as Petrarch and Boccaccio would follow. As a result, Dante played an instrumental role in establishing the national language of Italy. Dante’s significance also extends past his home country; his depictions of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven have provided inspiration for a large body of Western art, and are cited as an influence on the works of John Milton, Geoffrey Chaucer and Alfred Tennyson, among many others. In addition, the first use of the interlocking three-line rhyme scheme, or the terza rima, is attributed to him.
Dante has been called “the Father of the Italian language” and one of the greatest poets of world literature. In Italy, Dante is often referred to as il Sommo Poeta (“the Supreme Poet”) and il Poeta; he, Petrarch, and Boccaccio are also called “the three fountains” or “the three crowns”.
2nd in a series of obscure and strange 45 singles. This one peaked at #40 on the Billboard Hot 100 in May of 1958. Even though it was an instrumental, it was the follow up to the more successful “Click Clack” that peaked at #28 earlier that same year. Gerry Granahan was the lead singer. Nee Nee Na Na Na Na Nu Nu by Dicky Doo & The Don’ts
Proper nonsense reply to respond to nonsense buttinski. Good upbeat teen dance tune from the 50’s; great wailing sax part.