I see from the news that Billie Joe Armstrong, the front man for punk band Green Day dropped what they now call an F-bomb at least six times during the band’s performance at the National Hockey League’s All-Star Game Saturday night in St. Louis. What a man. What an artist.

There are a couple things going on worth noting. First, the “art” community is always looking to break new ground – to push the barriers for art’s sake. But what are they doing, really?

If we look backward, the pop culture started pushing barriers at least by the 1950s. Vulgarity, profanity and obscenity started finding their way into the media through circuitous routes, and art commenters figured out they could cleverly say “the F-bomb” without having to actually spell it out and be answerable to their supervisors.

The interesting thing about “the F-bomb,” or “the N word” is that both constructions require that you actually know the words alluded to and that you associate each word with its construction. This means that the person writing “F-bomb” is using the word in its meaning, or “the N word” in its meaning just as certainly as if they spelled it out. Otherwise, their code words would just be gibberish and nobody would read them, understand them or hire them.

But Billlie Joe did not say “the F-bomb.” He said the word we all know, and he said it multiple times in a forum that has heretofore been sort of resistant to obscenity.

The art commenters will insist they support Billie Joe for the sake of art and the sake of free speech, but they don’t. They are more analogous to a class of fifth-graders blowing snot out their noses when the teacher sits in blackboard chalk, carefully patted from erasers onto her chair when she’s not in the room. Or in more modern terms, when they conspire to sign her up on dating websites or searches for medical devices. Kids will be kids.

The fact is, the founding fathers NEVER contemplated that their revered amendment protecting free expression would be stolen and forced into service for obscenity, vulgarity and profanity. They actually believed in disciplined thought, disciplined learning and disciplined action, and in every man’s and woman’s right to engage society on the basis of ideas.

The question that needs asked is where does this all lead? Now that we have introduced the “right” to say “motherF-bomber” at an NHL game, is that enough? I think it’s clear it is not. Not any more than it was enough when Carroll O’Connor (aka Archie Bunker) in 1971 said G**damn it on TV’s All in the Family. In fact, once he did it, he did it some more.

The second part of the issue is in the media. They chatter and cluck while blushing with admiration at the bravery of their champions – those that can still blush.

This issue of the media is interesting. The media got all up in arms when Trump called them out as “fake news,” but it was all high dudgeon, and no refutation of the claim. Is it true, or is it not?

We don’t have all day to chat, but give some thought to where you think the entire Political Correctness movement comes from. It’s the media. It is some sub-editor at some politicool paper or magazine that gets some kind of stoner giggle from some nameless Twitter twit and, it always being a slow news day for the lazy, it goes into print. Once there, if audacious enough, it get re-published as it gets re-tweeted until it achieves the revered status of “meme,” at which time it is picked up by bored academics with a need to be haughty, and it’s a course of study.

Anyway, we have legitimized profanity, vulgarity and obscenity in our entertainment, our academics and our media, and I think it’s fair to ask them outright where it ends. What is enough?

All this seems such a shame, as all indicators are pointing to a positive life for most Americans. The China situation seems to be improving for secondary wood products, and it appears it will continue to improve for some time. The old way of business-as-usual with China was not good, it has changed and I don’t see future administrations going back.

I like to watch building permits. Every building has a floor, a table, a stair, furniture, cabinets, et cetera. We issued 1,370,300 building permits in 2019 – 41,500 more than the year before. That’s a nice gain, and one we can be thankful for. In 2009 we issued only 583,000 – slightly more than one third what we issued last year. And still we see dour media economists forecasting doom and destruction, housing bubbles and market crashes. I guess that’s OK, since with the Dow over 28,500 at presstime, it’s sort of easy to predict a day or two when it won’t rise, but still …. Things have been worse.

So that was January 2020. February is up next. Let’s see what we can make of it.

I noticed something interesting in the recent British election in which Boris Johnson came out the majority winner. To put it in context, remember that the media all reported the race as too close to call, with Johnson’s party coming out with a plurality, resulting in a minority government. 

The night of the election, the exit polling showed a smashing win for Johnson’s Conservatives, with a projected majority of 384 seats, and a smashing defeat for the previously reported polls. The British media reporting on the win projected that the final tally may not be 384, but that the particular poll in question had never been off by more than 15 seats and it was reliable to assume the majority would hold near 384. 

Well, it didn’t. The final tally was 365. This is still a Conservative victory, but the media has cruised right on by the fact that their revered, never-wrong-by-15 poll was wrong by 19 – a greater-than 20 percent error.  

This is significant. In today’s hyper-politically charged atmosphere, I think this fact is worth noting, as it goes to audience manipulation by the media. To be clear about media, I am one, have been for a while, and know what I’m saying. 

The fact is, media outlets run on ads and ads run on audience. No audience hangs around to hear the end of a foregone race. It’s like last Sunday’s Kansas City Chiefs v. Chicago Bears game where people leave in the 4^th when the score hit 23 to 3. Life’s demands are pressing, and this one’s done. 

So, it is in the media’s interests to create political drama to keep people’s attention from wandering off. 

Concurrently, politicians need to advertise where the audience’s attention is focused, and they spend millions of dollars and spread the spend over years, so you have millions of ad dollars in play, a contentious political environment and a handful of national news outlets competing for their share of the millions. 

Along come the polls. You may recall the 2016 election. I sent out an e-letter the morning of the election pointing out that I thought, despite every poll showing a landslide victory for Clinton, that there was something wrong in the polling reports, and I called a Trump win. I am not a cheerleader. I also do not have a history of making wrong calls. I did, however, have enough confidence in my sources and the way I read them that I called the election correctly, and was very lonely in that prediction until about 1:00 the next morning. 

Does this mean I’m some kind of super-pundit? Not at all. It does, however, mean I have a great deal of skepticism about what the media is up to with its reporting, I watch other sources and I make sure I am educated about markets. At this point, I guess the upshot is that the credibility of polls is very suspicious, and it appears they are being manipulated by the media to generate excitement between the two parties as if they are each some kind of sports team, with the media being the beneficiary in both sports and politics. 

And the kicker is, even if the press is acting totally outside the facts and is doing so for money and fame, there is essentially nothing we can do about it. The press is protected. 

Another thing I am concerned about it is the manner the House has conducted its “impeachment” proceeding against Trump. If we take off our blue or red jerseys and just look at the facts, they seem to be concerning. 

For example, take the existence or non-existence of the “whistleblower.” The lawmakers and pundits are crawling all over the concept of whistleblower like a colony of ants. “Can we call him? Should we call him? Is he protected? Should he be protected…..” Endless. 

A better question, it seems to me, is, “What if the whistleblower is actually Christopher Steele, Adam Schiff, Rod Rosenstein or James Comey?” If it is, then anonymity would work against the people. 

I was a whistleblower, once. I was working my way through college and ended up repossessing furniture for a rent-to-own scam – er, company. I was also working with the county attorney. The outfit in question was doing stuff like letting a customer miss a payment early in the contract, letting them pay out the (outrageous) contract, then invoking the repo clause based on a late payment months or years earlier. This, by the way, is the contractual essence of the Whitewater scam that the Clintons were involved in. 

Anyway, I thought I found a violation, reported it to the county attorney, the managers were listening in and I got fired. There was no protection for whistleblowers, then, and I was both happy to take the risk and happy to get fired. 

The point is, from my perspective a whistleblower should be operating based on his or her own moral convictions and, as Henry David Thoreau pointed out in his seminal Civil Disobedience, should be willing to bear the cost of his or her actions. I can understand that people don’t want to lose a job, but if the protection of a few leads to an anonymous shadow from which to shoot people in the back, then any virtue intended in the protections is lost. 

I’m not saying I think Comey or Rosenstein wrote the whistleblower report. I AM saying there is something rotten when Schiff first says he doesn’t know the whistleblower, then he does; will certainly call the whistleblower, then does not. We are not idiots and we are owed the right to know what our elected representatives are doing. And why. 

It was painful to see Joe Biden attack an 85-year-old Democrat supporter in Iowa. Biden called him old and fat, and challenged him a push-up contest or IQ test. I can’t do push-ups because of a back surgery, but I’d like a piece of that IQ action. I may not be the sharpest knife in the block, but I would be happy to expose my score to the world simply for the privilege of holding one of these guys to account. Biden may be as smart as he thinks he is, but I have my doubts, and it would be interesting to us all to see. 

So with that, we head into Christmas, 2019. What a year it’s been. It appears Trump and China have patched things up between them, but it remains to be seen what the outcome will be for secondary wood products in America. I’m thinking it will be good, with some imports from China getting back on track, and with increased costs of compliance and more accountability for China. The essence of a deal is something for both parties. 

For those of us at Wood Industry US, we continue to believe in the ultimate good of mankind, the inherent failings of us all and the chance, if we take it, of making things right on our side of the street. My special thanks to Nicholl Spence at NS Graphic and Web Design, Mike Edwards at Edwards Media and Design, our never-slow-down associate publisher, Stephen King, all our associates in the world of circulation auditing, database management, IT and printing, and, of course, my faithful, loving and ever-attentive wife and partner, Lee Ann. 

Merry Christmas from all of us to you and yours. 

Stille nacht.