Some good news on the education front from Christopher Rufo

The New Neo Posted on by

Rufo observes:

After mounting a successful fight against DEI, the political Right has come to accept that if there must be a civil-rights regime, it should be one of its own making. Rather than continue to defer to left-wing interpretations of civil-rights law, the Right can now advance a framework grounded in colorblind equality, not racialist ideology.

The first field of battle is higher education. The Trump administration has set its sights on the Ivy League universities, which have not only advanced the ideologies of left-wing racialism but made them administrative policy.

Many Ivy League presidents see themselves as heirs to the civil-rights movement. In fact, they are among the most active practitioners of racial discrimination, stereotyping, and segregation in America today. Shielded by a virtuous public image, elite universities have institutionalized discrimination against disfavored racial groups, implemented DEI policies based on racial rewards and penalties, hired and promoted faculty according to skin color rather than merit, and overseen racially segregated student programs, dormitories, and graduation ceremonies.

The Trump administration has ruptured this illusion. In a series of letters to Ivy League presidents, it has threatened to withhold billions in federal funding, citing violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other non-discrimination policies.

The argument is straightforward: racial discrimination is wrong whether it targets whites, Asians, and Jews or blacks and Hispanics. Any institution that continues to discriminate based on race is ineligible for federal support.

I think Rufo is somewhat too optimistic. But I think the general thrust is true: more people are aware of the extent of the problem, and Trump is using the tool of withdrawing federal funding – or the threat of withdrawing federal funding – to deal with it.

In the larger sense and not just limited to universities, the idea that discrimination against some ethnic groups is in the service of non-discrimination has been going on for many many decades and is a deeply flawed premise and needs to stop. The right has long been saying that we need to go back to equality of opportunity rather than a false and unattainable goal of equality of outcome. We’re taking steps in that direction.

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) The man arrested for firebombing Pennsylvania Governor Shapiro’s residence is a pro-Palestinian socialist. Fancy that. We won’t be hearing too much about those things from the MSM.

(2) Joe Biden – remember him? – gives a speech that reminds us of what he does best: lie. Does he think he can run again for president? Actually, he can – after all, he only served one term. He hammered on the idea that Social Security is threatened, something Trump and other Republicans have denied over and over again. But this is a message that Democrats have been pushing from even before the election with some success; I personally know people who believe Trump is intent on taking away their Social Security, and who have been in a panic about it ever since November. The GOP wants to cut fat and fraud in the system, but not benefits.

(3) Chinese companies’ move in the trade war:

China is taking the trade war to a new battleground: America’s TikTok feeds.

Chinese suppliers have been flooding American social media this week, urging users to outflank President Donald Trump’s 145% tariffs on Beijing by buying directly from their factories.

One TikTok user, who goes by Wang Sen, claims that he is the original equipment manufacturer for most luxury brands, while standing in front of a wall of what appear to be ultra-spendy Birkin bags. OEMs work behind the scenes to make the products that another company then sells under its own brand.

“Why don’t you just contact us and buy from us? You won’t believe the prices we (will) give you,” he said in one clip.

This doesn’t seem so very new to me, although mention of the tariffs might be. But I’ve noticed for years many many companies based in China (although there is sometimes an attempt to disguise that fact) that sell goods that look like one thing in the online photos and text and actually end up being very shoddy when delivered. People complain all the time about such companies and their products, and there are tons of them.

(4) The UK Supreme Court rules on the definition of men and women, and finds the traditional point of view sufficient.

(5) The wife of deported El Salvadorian (and alleged MS-13 member) illegal alien Kilmar Abrego Garcia had twice alleged that he was guilty of domestic violence.

(6) A full half of Democrats would like the party to move further to the left:

The poll, which took place April 2-6 with 859 Republicans and 885 Democrats, found that among Democrats, 50% wanted the party to “become more progressive,” while only 24% said “stay the same” and 18% said “become more moderate.”

Letitia James: justice and poetic justice

The New Neo Posted on by

Letitia James campaigned for her New York AG job by vowing to get Trump – for what, she didn’t yet know. But like Beria, she would find the offense, charge him with it, and convict him.

She succeeded in all those things. She was elected. She found a supposed offense, although Trump’s record was so relatively clean that she had to apply a law to a real estate valuation situation that hadn’t hurt anyone, and to a practice that was actually standard in the business. The law had never been applied to anyone in the way she applied it to Trump, but in the very anti-Trump venue in which the case was tried, she won.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the 2024 election: Trump became president-elect. Oops! And then the MSM began to bleat about how bent on “revenge” he would be.

One might expect that during this whole escapade Letitia James would have made sure her own personal behavior was squeaky-clean. But then, one would have expected the same of Fani Willis under similar circumstances. But one would have been wrong.

Now we see that that James has been referred to the DOJ to possibly be charged with, of all things, real estate fraud and in particular mortgage fraud. And this appears to be a much more straightforward case of actual fraud:

Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director William Pulte sent the missive to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy AG Todd Blanche, alleging that James had “falsified records” to get home loans for a property in Virginia that she claimed was her “principal residence” in 2023 — while still serving as a New York state prosecutor.

That occurred in late August 2023, weeks before James began her civil fraud trial against the Trump Organization for overinflating the values of many of its properties, which ended in a $454 million judgment.

“Ms. James was the sitting Attorney General of New York and is required by law to have her primary residence in the state of New York — even though her mortgage applications list her intent to have the Norfolk, VA, property as her primary home,” the letter stated.

“It appears Ms. James’ property and mortgage-related misrepresentations may have continued to her recent 2023 Norfolk, VA property purchase in order to secure a lower interest rate and more favorable loan terms.” …

In February 2001, James also purchased a five-family dwelling in Brooklyn — but has “consistently misrepresented the same property as only having four units in both building permit applications and numerous mortgage documents and applications,” the letter noted.

That last bit would have gotten her more favorable loan terms as well. There’s also an application on which she lists her father as her husband – yes, which would have gotten more favorable terms as well (James is single). These certainly are credible evidence of straight-up mortgage fraud, no law-twisting needed.

As Jonathan Turley says:

There could be statute of limitations issues, though James herself showed such such statutory periods can be stretched. James has issued a statement of defiance and suggests that this is lawfare or bullying by the Trump Administration. …

Notably, the Justice Department has prosecuted those who have committed this common fraud.

For example, in 2017, it charged a man in Puerto Rico with false statements on a reverse mortgage loan application in which he falsely claimed the property as his principal residence.

It emphasized that “mortgage lenders provide capital so people can purchase homes, not enrich themselves illegally.”

There are other such cases under 18 U.S.C. 1014 and related laws.

James could claim that these representations were made by a third party acting on her behalf.

However, that is precisely the argument that she repeatedly rejected in the Trump case, insisting that he was legally obligated to review all filings made in his name or that of his companies.

This potential prosecution seems to me to be both justice and also poetic justice. And yes, it also serves as revenge, but it doesn’t consist of cooked-up lawfare with ridiculous claims. Let’s see how it plays out, which depends in large part on the federal venue chosen.

Wny was James so careless or reckless, despite knowing she was about to try to bring down the leading GOP candidate? My guess is that she was accustomed to being untouchable legally, and certainly never thought Trump would end up as president. “When you strike at a king, you must kill him” is a famous quote attributed (perhaps falsely) to Emerson. James thought she had killed the king, but it turned out it wasn’t checkmate.

Who let the dogs out? say climate activists

The New Neo Posted on by

It was probably only a matter of time before we heard this:

Dogs have “extensive and multifarious” environmental impacts, disturbing wildlife, polluting waterways and contributing to carbon emissions, new research has found.

An Australian review of existing studies has argued that “the environmental impact of owned dogs is far greater, more insidious, and more concerning than is generally recognised”.

While the environmental impact of cats is well known, the comparative effect of pet dogs has been poorly acknowledged, the researchers said. …

In the US, studies have found that deer, foxes and bobcats were less active in or avoid wilderness areas where dogs were allowed, while other research shows that insecticides from flea and tick medications kill aquatic invertebrates when they wash off into waterways. Dog faeces can also leave scent traces and affect soil chemistry and plant growth.

The carbon footprint of pets is also significant. A 2020 study found the dry pet food industry had an environmental footprint of around twice the land area of the UK, with greenhouse gas emissions – 56 to 151 Mt CO2 – equivalent to the 60th highest-emitting country.

The researchers were careful to state that they’re not anti-dog and that dog ownership has important pluses.

“A lot of what we’re talking about can be ameliorated by owners’ behaviour,” Bateman said, pointing out that low compliance with leash laws was a problem.

“Maybe, in some parts of the world, we actually need to consider some slightly more robust laws.”

He suggested that dog exclusion zones might be more suitable in some areas. …

“If nothing else, pick up your own dog shit,” he said.

I can’t disagree with that last sentiment – although I object to calling it “your own” dog shit. It’s really your dog’s, isn’t it?

Who is Mohsen Mahdawi (sometimes spelled Madawi), what’s he been doing here, and why was he detained at his citizenship appointment?

The New Neo Posted on by

Good luck getting the answers to those questions from most of the MSM. The story as written yesterday – and I read many articles on the subject, because I was curious and remain curious – is that he was a graduate student at Columbia and one of the leaders of the anti-Israel protests. Every single article quoted his lawyer thusly (this is taken from yesterday’s NY Post article on Madawi, but it’s basically the same quote I saw over and over):

Mahdawi “was unlawfully detained today for no reason other than his Palestinian identity,” his attorney, Luna Droubi, told the outlet.

“He came to this country hoping to be free to speak out about the atrocities he has witnessed, only to be punished for such speech,” she added.

That sets the tone that Mahdawi is just an innocent guy who merely is Palestinian and as such was picked up by the big bad fascist Trump administration. I have little doubt this is the “narrative” that many (perhaps most?) people who read or hear the story in the usual MSM left-leaning outlets would take away and will take away. And even the NY Post, which leans right, didn’t initially tell us much more about his participation in the Columbia demonstrations or the reasons he was detained other than that he was a protest “leader” and then what his lawyer said.

This is reporting? The “protests” – and how they targeted and harassed Jewish students, for example, or damaged property – were not described in any depth. We learn that Madawi is from the West Bank (traditional Judea and Samaria) and is a student in the US, but that’s just his identity. Most articles didn’t say what he is alleged to have done, which is a pretty important detail.

Mahlawi is reported to have been here ten years. Was he a student that whole time? That’s quite a stretch. This article says he’s in his mid-thirties, a trifle old for studenthood; this one says he’s been studying philosophy. Does that take ten years? Does Qatar or some NGO pay his tuition? I assume he originally came here on a student visa once Columbia had admitted him. I suspect the real reason he came here was to become a pro-Palestinian anti-Israel activist, although I have no proof of that.

More from yesterday’s Post article:

“It’s kind of a death sentence,” Mahdawi, who previously led Columbia’s Palestinian student union, said, according to the Intercept.

“Because my people are being killed unjustly in an indiscriminate way.”

His people? Killed unjustly – after 10/7? And if it was in “an indiscriminate way” the death toll would be much much higher, and no one would be warned before a bombing to get out of the way. But we’re used to Mahdawi’s sort of rhetoric.

More:

“This is the outcome,” Mahdawi said, according to [The Intercept]. “I will be either living or imprisoned or killed by the apartheid system.”

“The apartheid system” – that’s his description of Israel, probably the most ethnically and religiously mixed country in the Middle East. Again, typical rhetoric. But do we really need to import it? Don’t we have enough of it already, especially in universities?

My search for more information about Mahdawi last night turned up almost nothing that answered my questions about his actual actions, until I found this at Canary Mission, a group that describes itself this way:

Canary Mission documents individuals and organizations that promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses and beyond. Canary Mission investigates hatred across the entire political spectrum, including the far right, far left and anti-Israel activists.

Canary Mission is motivated by a desire to combat the rise in anti-Semitism on college campuses.

Here’s Mahdawi’s page there. There are several videos and a lot of information, no allegations of direct acts of violence on his part but lots of support for Palestinian terrorism. One of his statements is that he was born in a “Palestinian refugee camp,” which conjures up images of a temporary encampment but actually usually refers to ordinary towns with ordinary homes – in his case he says he’s a third-generation Palestinian refugee. Only Palestinians inherit their refugee status and the UN supports it.

So, what rights does a non-citizen green card holder have? The law states:

Green cards can be revoked, New York-based immigration lawyer Linda Dakin-Grimm told VOA.

“It’s not that common, but it also isn’t rare. People lose their green cards most often when they’re convicted of crimes. … A green card is not citizenship. It’s seen as a privilege that you earn, but you can also lose it if you engage in conduct that is contrary to the conditions that green card holders live under,” she said.

Examples of crimes that can cause a green card holder can lose their status include aggravated felonies, drug offenses, fraud, or national security concerns such as ties to a terrorist group. Green card holders can also lose their status and lawful permanent residency status for being deemed a threat to national security.

How are “ties” defined, and what sort of threat to national security is enough? I suppose it depends on the judge – as do so many things in law. As far as I’m concerned, the bar should be fairly low for deporting a non-citizen. Why should the US tolerate someone who has this sort of profile (from the Canary Mission site)?:

Mohsen Mahdawi is an anti-Israel activist leader who called for Israel’s destruction and justified Hamas terrorism in late 2023. Ten years earlier, he celebrated a terrorist who had murdered dozens of Israeli Jews in 1978. Mahdawi also showed support for the pro-Hamas encampment at Columbia in April 2024. …

Mahdawi was also affiliated with the pro-terror activist group Within Our Lifetime (WOL) in 2023. He was reportedly a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) that same year. …

In an October 22, 2023 interview for a local New England newspaper, Mahdawi said: “Hamas is a product of the Israeli occupation.”

According to the newspaper, soon after October 7, 2023, Mahdawi and leaders of other anti-Israel student groups at Columbia wrote a statement that said: “We remind Columbia students that the Palestinian struggle for freedom is rooted in international law, under which occupied peoples have the right to resist the occupation of their land.”

Anti-Israel activists use the term “resistance” to refer to violence and terror perpetrated against Israeli civilians and their allies. It is used to glorify and encourage anti-Israel and anti-Semitic violence. Anti-Israel activists chant slogans such as: “Resistance by any means necessary!” and “Resistance is justified when people are occupied!” in response to terror attacks.

The statement that Mahdawi reportedly co-authored continued: “If every political avenue available to Palestinians is blocked, we should not be surprised when resistance and violence break out.” …

In December 2023, during Israel’s war against Hamas, Mahdawi was interviewed [00:06:07] on the television show “60 Minutes” to discuss his campus activism.

During the interview, Mahdawi said [00:08:17]: “When somebody is hurting you, when you see this person is being punched in the face and this feeling, it is: You now feel my pain.”

The interviewer replied [00:08:30] back to Mahdawi: “But this Hamas attack wasn’t a punch in the face. This was a horrible terror attack.”

Mahdawi then said [00:08:43] that he “can empathize” with what Hamas did and continued: “To empathize is to understand the root cause and to not look at any event or situation in a vacuum. This is for me the path moving forward.” …

On February 3, 2013, a Facebook user shared a poem Mahdawi wrote that paid tribute to terrorist Dalal Mughrabi. Mahdawi left comments thanking the poster for sharing the text.

The poem said: “I will breathe home… / And fill my shame / And clean my gun / And collect my packages, my bombs / And embrace my gun…”

Dalal Mughrabi, a member of the Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), participated in the 1978 Coastal Road massacre in Israel. She and other terrorists hijacked a bus in an attack that left 38 Israeli civilians dead, including 13 children.

Much more at the link, including a description of the activities of SJP. Also please see this.

Just because Mahdawi managed to become a student here and get a green card, does he have a right to become a citizen? I don’t see why. This writer (law professor Mark Goldfeder) agrees:

The current debate concerns § 212(a)(3)(b)(i)(vii), which allows for the deportation of any alien who “endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization.” Some have claimed that deporting someone for these reasons violates the First Amendment. That is incorrect.

The premise of the question rests on the assumption that an alien (even a legal alien) has First Amendment rights that are exactly the same in every situation as the rights of a U.S. national or citizen. That is not the case. As the Supreme Court has made clear, sometimes the government may impose distinctions and conditions. …

As it turns out, more than 120 years of Supreme Court precedent explain that this is just such a condition the government might legitimately put on the holder of a visa or a green card without offending the First Amendment. Turner v. Williams was a case about anarchists who wanted to violently overthrow the government, but you can substitute for anarchists Hamas-affiliated anti-West agitators who want to violently overthrow our institutions. In that case, the court held:

“…Congress was of opinion that the tendency of the general exploitation of such views is so dangerous to the public weal that aliens who hold and advocate them would be undesirable additions to our population, whether permanently or temporarily, whether many or few;”

It certainly seems to be the case here.

Also:

In this [Khalil, friend and colleague of Mahdawi] case, it is possible to read the INA narrowly, as referring to the kind of endorsement or support that would not be protected speech even if done by a citizen — i.e., the provision of material support, including advocacy and even speech done in coordination with a foreign terrorist organization (see Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project). Under that reading, there is again no First Amendment concern because the First Amendment does not protect political speech or expressive conduct that materially supports foreign terrorist organizations. Several of the groups Khalil is affiliated with are accused of doing just that.

Today the NY Post has another article on Mahdawi, and this one finally covers the State Department’s stated reasons for calling a halt to his citizenship proceedings:

“Mahdawi played an active role in fall 2024 student protests at Columbia University, instructing protesters to physically push a small group of pro-Israel students, events that university officials later acknowledged as threatening rhetoric and intimidation,” the [State Department] source said.

The source also said Mahdawi was behind “antisemitic rhetoric” during the protests, including referring to Israel Defense Forces soldiers as terrorists and “shouting through a megaphone” at Jewish bystanders and supporters of Israel.

Mahdawi was shown in video footage speaking into a microphone during a campus protest while standing in front of a banner reading “By any means necessary” in a profile on CBS’ “60 Minutes” in December 2023. …

Mahdawi was co-president of Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which celebrated the Oct. 7 terror attack, calling it “an unprecedented historic moment for the Palestinians in Gaza.”

The university later suspended the group in November 2023 for repeated violations of campus policy around protests.

Families of hostages still held by Hamas after the terror attack filed a lawsuit last month that alleged SJP had advance knowledge of Hamas’ bloody plans, accusing it of being “Hamas’ American propaganda arm” and pointing to an Instagram post by the group proclaiming “we are back!!” that it said was published minutes before the attack.

I have no problem with stopping this man from becoming a citizen, and even of deporting him.

On Iran and nuclear talks

The New Neo Posted on by

Iran would dearly love to stall:

Trump rightly would rather Tehran verifiably dropped its nuke quest than act militarily to end the nuke threat, but the regime needs to move a lot faster in offering detailed hard commitments to a full squad of US experts, and not get away with empty symbolic concessions.

I think Trump is well aware of the danger. I’m not sure about Witkoff, but I assume he’s not out there on his own.

More here:

Revealed here for the first time, Trump’s position is that Iran’s leaders either destroy their nuclear facilities, or the US, likely with Israel’s help, will do it for them by taking military action.

That’s his offer, and no other options are on the table, the president tells confidants. Certainly there will be no more agreements requiring international inspections that rely on Iranian honesty and compliance.

Nor will there be any tolerance for Iran’s enriching uranium at levels that have no use other than nuclear bombs.

The unicorn fantasy that Iran would use its enriched uranium for domestic energy only is a dead letter to this president.

His approach dramatically heightens the stakes for the talks that began Saturday in Oman.

Time will tell, as usual.

A nation of cobblers

The New Neo Posted on by

ABC’s Jon Karl asked Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick a question:

The president also said there’s going to be a transition cost, transition problems. I mean we are going to see higher prices in America. It’s not like you can open a factory tomorrow to build iPhones or to – to make sneakers, shoes. I mean we – we – we buy a lot of shoes in this country, 99 percent of them are made elsewhere. I mean do you – are we going to become a nation of cobblers again? I mean what – this is going to mean higher prices, isn’t it?

“Cobblers” – love that word. It conjures up visions of Hans Christian Andersen’s father – at least for me. But ask any New Englander over fifty or sixty years old about the shoe industry and what its American demise meant to New England, and you’ll get an answer, and probably no one will use the word “cobblers.” Here’s a 2023 article on attempts to bring shoe manufacturing back to New England, with a little bit of history.

For me the phrase “a nation of cobblers” also conjured up the famous saying “nation of shopkeepers” supposedly uttered by Napoleon and referring to England:

There is reason to doubt that Napoleon ever used the phrase. No contemporaneous French newspaper mentions that he did. The phrase was first used in a derogatory sense by French revolutionary Bertrand Barère on 11 June 1794 in a speech to the National Convention: “Let Pitt then boast of his victory to his nation of shopkeepers”. Barère was referring to the British victory over the French at the Glorious First of June. Later, during the Napoleonic wars, the British press mentioned the phrase, attributing it either to “the French” or to Napoleon himself. …

After the war English newspapers sometimes tried to correct the impression. For example the following article appeared in the Morning Post of 28 May 1832:

“ENGLAND A NATION OF SHOPKEEPERS This complimentary term, for so we must consider it, as applied to a Nation which has derived its principal prosperity from its commercial greatness, has been erroneously attributed, from time to time, to all the leading Revolutionists of France. To our astonishment we now find it applied exclusively to BONAPARTE. Than this nothing can be further from the fact. NAPOLEON was scarcely known at the time, he being merely an Officer of inferior rank, totally unconnected with politics. The occasion on which that splenetic, but at the same time, complimentary observation was made was that of the ever-memorable battle of the 1st of June. The oration delivered on that occasion was by M. BARRERE [sic], in which, after describing our beautiful country as one “on which the sun scarce designs to shed its light”, he described England as a nation of shopkeepers.”

A short while ago I posted a video that contains a good description of Trump’s actual plans and hopes for new industry in the US as a result of his policies. You may have already watched it, but if not here it is again (I doubt Jon Karl is especially interested; he’d rather talk about “cobblers”):

The Governor Shapiro arsonist and other political violence

The New Neo Posted on by

Police have the man in custody who is suspected of firebombing the residence of Governor Shapiro of Pennsylvania. The bombing – accomplished through Molotov cocktails, and which occurred while the governor and his family were in the home – did quite a bit of damage. As for the man who is reported to have confessed – well, he fits a relatively familiar “crazy” profile combining aspects of right and left in an idiosyncratic manner:

Cory Balmer’s mother Christie Balmer told CBS: “So he was mentally ill, went off his meds, and this is what happened.”

That’s the “crazy” part. As for the political part:

Balmer appears to have expressed far-left beliefs on social media in recent years and attacked both President Trump and former President Joe Biden. …

“Biden supporters shouldn’t exist,” he wrote in a Facebook post in January 2021. “Where were you his first run? Well aware of the trash he is. As for the second, still knew what scum he is. Now why did y’all forget? What, because he did?” …

Balmer also shared a Facebook post supporting mask mandates during the COVID pandemic as well as rants slamming “toxic femininity,” and other posts complaining about gas prices and supporting Kanye West’s presidential run.

Kanye West has become rabidly anti-Semitic in recent years, and of course because Governor Shapiro is Jewish and the crime happened during Passover, Jew-hatred may have entered the mix.

It’s also possible that Balmer thought this crime would endear him to the ladies a la Luigi Mangione. Looking at Balmer’s creepy mugshot, I very much doubt it. But there’s a subset of women who are indeed attracted to homicidal lunatics.

Speaking of the more photographic Mangione, CNN seems to be giving his supporters a platform.

And speaking of other homicidal political lunatics, Ace describes two recent wannabee Trump-killers. The first is a Wisconsin 17-year-old who apparently murdered his parents in order to get funds and the wherewithal to assassinate Trump. This guy seems to have been a white supremacist who – get this – hated Trump.

Not to mention the Butler Pennsylvania resident who planned to assassinate both Trump and Musk as part of a leftist revolution.

There’s political assassination in the air, and a lot of people think they’ll be considered heroes for it.

And a question regarding the Shapiro arsonist is: what’s up with security at the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion? How did Balmer get so far?

On stepstools

The New Neo Posted on by

The other day the bulb in the overhead light in my kitchen burned out. I had one of those long-life ones in there, so it had been years since I had needed to change it. Now, however, it was necessary, and because the fixture is fairly high I had to get a stepstool.

That shouldn’t have been a problem. After all, I’ve got three of them, even though my place is rather small. One is a conventional one-rung stepstool that I keep in my kitchen. The second is a two-rung affair that resides in a closet in the bedroom. The third – well, I’ll get to that in a moment.

Standing on the first stepstool, I found I had to really stretch and stretch to reach that bulb. I also found that – now that I’m no longer twenty years old – I felt a bit less stable doing this than in earlier years. But although I managed to finally get that bulb out, I couldn’t quite get the new one in. The fixture kept swinging and eluded my attempts, and I realized I had to get up high enough to hold onto the side of it with one hand while I screwed the bulb in with the other.

Enter stepstool number two, the one with two rungs and a little bar on top to hold onto. I got that one out of the bedroom closet and lugged it to the kitchen. But there I discovered that I wasn’t quite high enough and also that, if I held onto the bar for stability, I still had the swinging fixture problem.

Then there was the third stepstool. That was the one I had trouble finding; I hadn’t used it in years, and it was larger. I knew it probably was in one of the closets, but they are pretty well jammed with stuff and I just couldn’t see it, even with a flashlight.

That stepstool looks like this. Note how tall. Note the high bar. A great stepstool indeed – and it was the first gift Gerard ever gave me.

Yes, an odd gift. But Gerard was no dummy; he knew what he was doing. This gift came to me in January of 2006, when he and I were somewhat acquainted but were not yet romantically involved. I had written this post about a difficult day I’d had full of petty annoyances, and it included the following:

Oh, actually, today wasn’t so bad. It’s just that when I was about to start working on today’s post at my computer, the power went out.

… Oh, right, the toilet will only have one flush in it – I forget why, but something to do with a pump. And in the winter, the cold starts seeping in within minutes, reminding me that lingering around the house would not be a good thing. The computer, the post? Fagettabout it. Time to leave and go about the other business of the day.

Ah yes, time to leave. Leave. And then I remember: that wonderfully convenient electric garage door opener has to be disabled. Now, how do I do that, again? Each time it happens, I have to learn anew–get out the manual and the flashlight (even though the day was young, it was so dark a flashlight was needed to read the diagrams).

Then, out to the garage. Piece of cake. Just pull that red lever dangling from a rope on the ceiling, and then lift the garage door manually, the old-fashioned way. But the red lever is just an inch out of my reach, even when I stand on tiptoe. I can unlock the door to the house, go back to the closet and get out the stepstool. But really, is it necessary? And by now I’m late. So I decide to jump and grab the lever at the top of my jump. I used to be quite the leaper, having been a ballet dancer/teacher not so very long ago …

Well, I guess it’s been longer than I thought between leaps. Or maybe I’m not used to leaping on a concrete floor. Because somewhere between up and down (it didn’t seem to be on the landing; it seemed to happen in the air) I got a sudden sharpish pain in the ankle that went down the foot.

Expletives undeleted, I hobbled around the garage, and found that I could at least walk, although with pain. So I set off.

There was more to the post, but that was the gist of it. About five days later a large package arrived in the mail. What could it be? It was the stepstool, with some sort of clever message from Gerard. It most definitely was an endearing thing as far as I was concerned.

Fast forward to now. I finally found the thing hiding in a closet, hauled it out, and discovered it to be the absolutely perfect instrument for installing that lightbulb. It got me way up there in a way that felt secure enough that all I had to do was to lean my legs and lower torso against that top bar, hold onto the light fixture with one hand, and screw that bulb in with the other. Voilà, mission accomplished!

The gift that keeps on giving.