I clave, thou clavest, she . . .

Dear Dr. Bones,

¡No craven is Klaving! It claves, ever steadfast, to . . . .

Well, there is a puzzle for the student of Neocomradology: ¿To what, exactly, does our _señorito du jour_ clave?

It assures us itself -- as a bottomline, no less -- that Klavingesque ‘values’ are more important than other volks’ ‘necks’. [0]

Such assurance is needless in the particular cases of the Muses and thee and me, naturally. We had the number of Master Narcissus Dexter well before there were any sellphones to put it into: "Narky loves Narky; that is, I am I." [1] So did Mrs. Trollope in the 1830’s, to whom, as you know, I prefer to appeal to when out to address specifically Yank self-infatuation.

Now whenever a whight-wing nutbat starts goin’ on ’bout ‘values’, the first thing to do, obviously, is re-read the fine print on Terms & Conditions, verifying carefully wherein this week’s standards an’ neocriteria differ from last week’s, whether she (the nutbat) has put her weasels to work on the wordin’, tryin’ to get that five bucks a month for the ScroogeBank suckercard by crook, Capt. Hook havin’ failed his employin’ Corporation deplorably.

By my lights, the best approach to "Klaving v. Cain" is whight up the middle through the lobby of ScroogeBank. I mean, ¿What do the TopPercenters who actually matter, fundin’wise, expect from their small people, from a Don Andresito Claving Patxama? ¿from a Mr. Nine Guy? ‘Values’ is indeed the pertinent word.

Uncle Ebenezer has long since disinherited me an’ changed the locks on the vault, of course, but I believe I had enough experience of his firstlordship before we quarreled to reconstruct how the Class of neogeezers think. It seems to be quite impossible that Uncle Ebb takes Mr. Nine Guy the least bit seriously, neither expectin’ nor desirin’ that Don Ermanigildo de’ Neri should become the POTUS of us all. The merest side-show is Mr. Nine Guy, a sort of Harold Stassen writ large an’ bold an’ colorblind-letter. Uncle Ebb is gung-ho for ‘Mittens’ Romney, of course. Everybooby knows that, posibly includin’ even Don Andresito. [2]

What I am undecided about is whether Uncle Ebb--an’ Daddy Warbucks _y Tio Ruperto_ an’ the whole Unionthugbasher League Club --are responsible for givin’ us Mr. Nine Guy, whether his godfathership be a deliberate ploy by the G.O.P. Geniuses® on the _panem et circenses_ paradigm, or no more than a funny thing that happened on Mittens’ March to the Forum .

(( DIGRESSION _ad homunculum. Though clearly "small people," Don Andresito is not utterly negligible. It barked somethin’ ’bout "allowing your opponents to hold you to their absurd re-creation of your standards," a thing which does indeed happen to whight-wing nutbats with some frequency. However it fails to point out that religionism is usually involved on such cases, with Lieberals an’ Demoncrats presuming to tell the kiddiecons, or even the freelordly Conners of Kiddies, what ‘true’ Christojudæanity would entail, usually Uncle Ebb givin’ all his R.O.I. to the Bad Poor an’ goin’ off to missionize at the cow-crazed Hindoo &c. &c -- pluperfect tripe and pepperoni..

(( True, in many specifically Christian models, the former-Christojudæan product line really did include that fun exuberance _credo quia absurdum_. That, however, was long ago. And in another country. And ¡fancy keeping a straight face while calling upon the neokiddies, or upon anybooby at all, to live down to Tertullianus of Carthage! ))

Happy days.
--JHM

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[0] Yes, of course I agree that those shudder-quotes LOOK silly. Looks, however, are not everything.

Reflect, sir, and I believe you must agree that the Neck of Arminius is quite as figurative an’ neorhetorical in the path of Party & AEIdeology, as are the señoritoly Values.

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[1] As you see, the Big Nine figured out _el clavanismo_ several centuries ago and reported Their preliminary research respults to Dr. Shakespeare.

BTW, ¿have Ms. Clio and the Sisters thought of suing a certain Person of Pizza for infringement of copywhight or trademark or patent or whatever? And then there is the _Bahá’iyya_ . . . .

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[2] I picture Don Andresito, in that garret that appertains to it _quâ_ ‘conservative’ ‘intellectual’, pacin’ back an’ forth with gritted teeth, resolvin’ every second even more resolutely that its own Values must not be influenced in the slightest by the practical politics of its paymasters’ Party. This performance, though, will be much more worth attending to once Mittens is in like Flynn .