Politics, Religion, and Money
People marvel at the fact that southerners can be so civil and gracious to one another. It’s simple. We simply don’t discuss three of the most contentious subjects on the planet: politics, religion, and money.
It’s an interesting contrast to life around our Can’t-Stand-the-Heat Kitchen here in Tel Aviv, where these are precisely the topics everyone talks about, incessantly it seems.
Not surprisingly, I prefer balance. Talking non-stop about this shit can be a bit over the top. But on the other hand, total silence seems just plain wrong. I’m going with balance. As in most things. As in most of our soul food dishes, with their balance of acid/salt/fat/heat. As in the way we put a menu together.
But here is where balance gets to be a bit tricky. Let’s think of the Republican scuttling of Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court four years ago. And now, hypocritically undermining their own logic of 4 years ago with their push to get a new nominee appointed just weeks before the presidential election. If you’re a Democrat, you are screaming “foul play.” You changed the rules four years ago and now you refuse to play by them. And if you’re a Democrat, you want your fair measure of pound of flesh, an eye for an eye, what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. And so on. Let’s balance the scales. Let’s right the wrong of four years ago. Emotionally, I completely agree with this position.
On the other hand, There is nothing in the Constitution that says you have to defer a Supreme Court nomination in the lead-up to an election — pure self-serving sophistry on the part of Mitch McConnell & Company. And so, if we are trying to adhere to a rule of law, the Republicans are well within Constitutional boundaries to push forward a nomination now. Anything else, and we begin to cherry pick those parts of the Constitution we like versus dislike. Intellectually, I find this argument to be compelling.
So, which is it? I’m a southerner at heart, so I will keep my opinion to myself. But I will turn to a metaphor from our soul food kitchen for a bit of help. Regularly, a guest of mine will request that I refrain from using a specific ingredient or two — onions or parsley or coriander or leeks or dill. Oftentimes, they ask to back off on the use of spices like cayenne pepper or spicy paprika. It’s not that these requests can’t be handled. They can. But I don’t think most people realize is that when they do this, they are wreaking havoc on the balance of a dish. There are work-arounds. But essentially, the balance of the dish is gone. The genie, so to speak, is out of the bottle.
Although I have my strong opinion regarding what the response needs to be in the wake of this Supreme Court putsch, my basic response is that no matter what that response is, balance, true civic-minded balance, can’t be put back in the bottle. But what do I know? I simply cook for a living.
