Is George Santos Actually the Ish Master?
Can it really be that simple? Can three little letters transform a blatant lie into a statement that, if not precisely truthful, sounds like less of a lie? Is this a magic elixir? Is George Santos on to something here? Or Anthony Devolder? Or Kitara Ravache?
For those of you who just awakened from a coma, George Santos was recently elected to the U. S. House of Representatives for New York’s Third Congressional District. So were Anthony Devolder and Kitara Ravache, who are also George Santos.
George Santos is Jewish, except that he’s not. After being criticized for claiming to be Jewish even though he is a Brazilian-American Catholic, Santos poured those three little letters into his word blender like a magic incantation. He did not claim to be Jewish, he explained. No, he actually claimed to be Jew-ish. “I am Catholic,” Santos told the New York Post. “Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background, I said I was ‘Jew-ish’.”
So simple. Why didn’t I think of that?
Oh, how those three little letters could have dulled the sting of confession. “Bless me Father, for I have sin-ished,” I could have told the priest. “I had impure-ish thoughts. I was untruthful-ish. I took-ish the Lord’s name in vain.” Even if he sanctioned me to ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys, I could later claim that I performed my penance completely-ish. That’s not being bad. It’s only bad-ish.
Most of us have used the three little letters at times. It’s useful when we agree to a scheduled appointment without actually agreeing. “What time will I get there? Oh, eight-ish.” That kicks the door wide open. “Dude, it’s eleven o’clock! You said you’d be here at eight.” “I did not,” comes the reply. “I said I’d be here at eight-ish.” Ish has no definition and no limits. Is it eight-fifteen? Nine o’clock? Ten o’clock? Whatever. All of them are sufficiently ishy.
It’s kinda like when a Southerner uses the phrase “down the road a piece.” Years ago, when I was in Atlanta, I wanted to walk to a nearby grocery store and pick up a few things. (Okay, I admit it: I wanted to buy some beer.) I asked the Concierge for directions and he said there was a Publix market “down the road a piece.” Turned out be quite a piece-ish. It was actually three miles. A twelve pack gets damned heavy after three miles. At least I worked up a thirst.
But I digress. I was talking about George Santos. Actually, he’s George Santos-ish, because he’s also Anthony Devolder and Kitara Ravache.
The latter, Kitara Ravache, is a name Santos-ish used when he was a drag queen in Brazil — except he claims he was never a drag queen. True, he dressed up in drag and pranced around like a drag queen, but he said he was just having fun. He was merely drag queen-ish. That’s different, right?
George Santos also claims to be gay, which is not something people generally lie about. But he used to be married to a woman, so maybe he’s gay-ish. Consistent with his brand, he proposed to his teenage boyfriend while still married to her. The boyfriend, Pedro Vilarva, had the good sense to reject Santos’ proposal.
George Santos is also Anthony Devolder, a movie star-ish, as well as Kitara Ravache, the drag-ish queen. He’s openly gay but was married to a woman. He’s not bisexual; he’s tri-sexual. He’ll “tri” anything, He claimed to have attended schools he never attended, starred on a volley ball team he was never a part of, lied about having both knees replaced because of the wear-and-tear of his fantasy volleyball career, and claimed his mother was working at the World Trade Center at the time of the attack. (She was actually in Brazil.) He claimed his Jewish (Jew-ish?) ancestors were Holocaust victims and survivors. All of this is on the record, the spoken words of Congressman George Santos-ish.
Anthony Devolder is famous-ish. Variety reports that, according to his Wikipedia page, he appeared in “Hannah Montana.” The page (which has been taken down, sadly) also stated that he starred in the movie “The Invasion” with Uma Thurman and Alicia Silverstone. There actually was a movie by that name, but Anthony Devolder was not in it. Neither were Uma Thurman or Alicia Silverstone. Maybe Santos-Devolder saw the movie and imagined he’d been in it. He was just a movie star-ish, not the real thing.
Santos–Devolder–Ravache seems to argue that he never lied about doing things he never did; they were things he did-ish. He wants to escape responsibility for his fabrications through the magic power of ish. Could it be the Ish Master is actually onto something brilliant? Maybe he’s learned to bend the truth the way a prism bends light. Maybe he’s a genius.
Or maybe he’s just a lying piece of ish.
© 2023 by Mike Tully
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All Hail the Interdog!
Long Before the Internet, There Was the Interdog
Humans domesticated wolves and they became our helpmates, gradually evolving into the domestic canines we cherish today. At least that’s what is commonly accepted, but I’m not sure. I suspect canines helped domesticate us as well. Early humans certainly noticed that wolves had developed a governing hierarchy, as they had. It was a shared trait.
So was the concept of quid pro quo. Wolves came to realize that humans were wasteful, and much of what they wasted was tasty. More importantly, it didn’t have to be chased down and killed. Pretty good deal, right? Not long after humans recognized that certain wolves seemed to be ever-present, a bargain slowly developed. Humans began to feed the wolves. The wolves began to merge with human packs. Humans learned that wolves could help protect the tribe and even assist in the hunt. Wolves smelled game long before humans detected them and helped bring it down.
When you walk your dog, you are replicating 15,000 years of the magical relationship between canines and humans.
Whether or not canines evolved a hierarchical structure before humans did, one thing is certain: they came up with social networking before we did. Long before the Internet, there was the Interdog.
Back to walking your dog. You know the drill: walk, sniff, walk, sniff, walk, sniff, repeat. It can be maddening for humans who aspire to a brisk walk (especially if the air actually is brisk). The problem is, a non-stop pace is not a reality in most dogs’ lives. That’s because a walk is more than a stroll to a dog. It’s an ongoing learning experience. We’ve all seen people who walk while using their phones. Sometimes they’ll pause to scroll the screen, send a text, or make a call. Well, the smart ones do. The others show up in videos showing them falling into a manhole, smacking into a tree, or (I actually saw this) walking directly toward an oncoming bear.
Think of smartphone walkers when you lose patience with your dog’s frequent sniff and pee stops. The behaviors are very much alike. Humans like to walk while keeping in touch with the Internet. Canines like to walk while keeping in touch with the Interdog.
You’ve seen the Interdog. It’s that large rock where your dog stops and sniffs on every walk. It’s likely that your dog will pee on that same rock, at least if it’s a male. But a male dog is not just marking his territory and female dogs also sniff and pee. All those rocks, fire hydrants, walls and other popular sniff and pee places are the structure of dogs’ social network. It’s Facebook with a different body part.
“This means that sniffing a fire hydrant or a tree along a route popular with other dogs is a means of keeping abreast of current events,” writes Dr. Stanley Cohen in Psychology Today. “That tree is really a large dog tabloid containing the latest news items in the dog world. While it may not contain installments of classic canine literature, it certainly will have a gossip column and the personals section of the classified ads.”
Dogs learn about other dogs when they visit the Interdog. They can discern gender, size, diet, age, even emotional state. “Urine can tell another dog how he was feeling when he peed,” observed Ada McVean, writing in Animal Wellness. “Dogs produce different hormones when exhibiting different emotions, and these hormones can be detected in their urine. When another dog sniffs the urine, he can determine the ‘pee-er’s’ stress levels.”
Remember the old meme, “On the Internet, Nobody Knows You’re A Dog?” That New Yorker cartoon, published thirty years ago, was a savvy comment on the anonymity of the new phenomenon known as the Internet. Anonymity means you can lie about yourself. But lies are told on the Interdog as well. Dr. Cohen notes that male dogs like to mark vertical surfaces for two reasons: (1) the scent will carry farther when it’s off the ground, and (2) it lets other dogs know how big you are. Size matters to dogs.
And small dogs lie about their size. Consider this example by Dr. Marty Becker, writing in VetStreet: “Have you ever watched the effort a tiny dog will put forth to make his mark more substantial than any other’s? It can be dramatic. I’ve known many little dogs who have an almost acrobatic ability to stand on their front legs and adjust their rear ones to squirt as high as any Great Dane can. They put the high-hitching leg-lifters to shame! These dogs are trying to ‘overmark’ the scent of other dogs, and they won’t let short legs stop them.”
That can lead to awkward dog park comments like, “Funny, you smelled taller.”
The human brain, with its frontal cortex and executive function, is a marvelous creation. So is a dog’s nose, which gives them a sense of smell between 1,000 and 10,000 times as powerful as the average human’s. We have the world at the tip of our fingers. Dogs have the world at the tip of their nose. They don’t need to carry a device and they never have to deal with ransomware.
There’s still spam of course. The other kind, if you’re a very lucky dog.
© 2023 by Mike Tully
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