The Fog of Faineance

--Obama talks of Phony Scandals

Yes I am
In a bang with the gang
They gotta catch me
if they want me to hang
Cause I'm back on the track
and I'm beatin' the flak
Nobody's gonna get me on another rap 
--Back in Black, AC/DC

A half truth is a whole lie
--Yiddish proverb

You will see light in the darkness
You will make some sense of this 
--Secret Journey, The Police

If you're down he'll pick you up, Doctor Robert
Take a drink from his special cup, Doctor Robert
Doctor Robert, he's a man you must believe,
Helping everyone in need
No one can succeed like 
--Doctor Robert, The Beatles
__________________

 Ranger is delighted to hear President Obama dismisses his phony scandals (though still hailing his phony recovery); perhaps RangerAgainstWar's rhetoric of veil-ripping with the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) is having some effect. A friend lives by the mantra, "What's real, what's important and what works?" Let's try that.

Some friends of RAW have expressed confusion over recent writings. My concern has little to do with the TMZ case, but everything to do with how the press handles us when they forefront such matters, and how we behave once thrown the bone.

What should be disinterested reportage today is full of nuance, and the readers Tweet the untruths and half truths around the world in real time. People are pressed from biased news and biased dialog on either side; with culture and religion conforming our front and back,  we live in a cage, and given any opportunity we jump for the joy of a little movement.

TMZ is but one iteration of the phenomenon. The story of abortionist Dr. Gosnell the week I broke my arm a couple of months ago began my simple thoughts; TMZ will be exhausted here, and then Gosnell.

The police and public attorney decided that the TMZ should not have been tried; that is their job and they make these decisions daily. Some reporter sniffed out what he thought would a cause celebre, and after deft publicity it was (though probably not for the original intent.) It was really a rather sad, absurd little tragedy in a life full of such things. Ultimately, the city of Sanford was correct, but the press sure got a lot of copy, and we took the bait.

It is always surprising the ardor these little flame ups arouse, and how quickly they die down with zero net gain. ISTM social networking platforms are being used primarily as a site for public flogging and self-flagellation and ritual purification. The liberal penitents have a hierarchy of those most "hard-done-by", and always champion and exonerate the usual suspects prima facie.

I wonder how they confer their most-favored status? Is their temporal view limited to the founding of the U.S. (+/- 250 years)? The U.K.? The Crucifixtion? I always thought liberals were the freethinkers, but they operate from a predictable playbook. The media and entertainment who twiddle with their emotions dial up an offense du jour to amuse, incense and preoccupy. Social networking allows us to respond passionately and immediately to teapot tempests in lock step with our fellows, thereby gaining validation. Toeing the party line (masquerading as independent thought) is the only requisite.

Charitably, we do this because we are so inundated with the relentless news feed that we haven't the time to ponder the stories, or even consider if they are worthy of our time. Entertainment junkies, we are addicted to our fix, and in order to feel safe and smart we huddle together with those of like mind in Plato's cave, discharging our discomfort in the same way our ancestors did, calling for heads to roll and ostracizing the challengers. The reactions are primitive, and the supposition flies 'round the world on the wings of Tweets. "I read it somewhere" becomes innuendo's rubber stamp.

The group is ever-vigilant for the spoiler, for he introduces the possibility of a cessation of hostilities, and that must not be allowed. Strife makes for a more colorful life. We do our penance and after a certain grieving period (depending on how incessantly the news feeds us the story), we are off to the next great tragedy. We are Chauncy Gardener in the film "Being There", our lives lived by the illumination of the teleprompter and computer lights.

Why the rush to judgement and condemnation in the TMZ case? Why advocate for only one side? If you are concerned about hate crimes, a real one happened earlier this month, but the Atlanta Journal Constitution couldn't be less concerned to bring it to your attention even though it has all of the salacious elements: racial profiling with intent to cause serious bodily harm resulting in murder.

A bright friend helpfully offers that the youths said they attacked the man not because he looked like a cracker, but rather because he "looked gay". I guess since the Supreme Court overturned DOMA, gays are no longer the liberal cause du jour. We were shocked by the Matthew Shephard killing, we dutifully watched "Brokeback Mountain". Gays can openly have same-sex partners in the military. Next.

I don't know if Mr. Chellow looked gay, but it seems he did come from the cracker element of society, and crackers have never been stylish victims. We laugh at the Honey Boo Boos and Welcome to Myrtle Manor because they are white and stupid, and clever white people who are still paying penance project their self-loathing into a tin trailer on the tube, thereby reducing their guilt-induced anxiety.

Who is on the media menu today -- blacks vs. whites (blacks win), Palestinians vs. Israelis (Palestinians win), Middle Eastern revolutionaries (revolutionaries win; rebels, not so much)? Will this week's rheostat be turned to "glad", "mad", "sad" or "disgust"?

Mostly, it seems to be stuck on outrage these days, and otherwise smart people are stuck in an impotent reactivity. What seems disingenuous is to ask how these problems might be solved, because our political correctness requires that we only view half of any story. Why? Perhaps because if we figured things out and solved them, we wouldn't need the talking heads (we would listen to our own.) We wouldn't need the anti-depressants and all the other escapes. But maybe we need our distractions, and these are as good as any.

As they say in the South, "Y'all all bigots," but you got there honestly. Question is, how to unencumber yourself from the architectonics of hate. You gotta say the whole truth, not half, if you want to try, and you gotta figure out if there is even a payoff for waking up. Leaving the safety of the clan is to operate against millennia of instinct.

But please don't cry crocodile tears over TM in the TMZ story and think that you would have it any differently. As long as you hold hatred and bias (even in the name of being pro-black), you're operating in bad faith.

Here's Charles Blow last week, one of the TMZ NYTimes Pied Pipers, telling you how it is (but not mentioning that he's in on the game). His words will make you feel clean for a minute, but he will suck you back into the miasma next week.

his is not the time for evanescent anger, which is America's wont.

This is not the time for a few marches that soon dissipate as we drift back into the fog of faineance - watching fake reality television as our actual realities become ever more grim, gawking at the sexting life of Carlos Danger as our own lives become more dangerous, fawning over royal British babies as our own children are gunned down.

This is yet another moment when America should take stock of where the power structures are leading us, how they play on our fears - fan our fears - to feed their fortunes. ... (Standing Our Ground).

Sounds like some powerful truth, no? Don't worry, you'll soon forget all about it, because that is how the media wants it. The power structure is leading Mr. Blow to his next paycheck.

It's like feeling so happy when you think you have finally reached someone at your internet email service provider to solve your computer woes, but finding you have actually reached some ersatz Indian person named "Rick" who is scamming you into buying a $300 plan to "save" you from the Zeus Trojan virus which he says some shady Nigerians have installed remotely (which he has actually just tried to install remotely himself.)

Blow is one of the cheerleaders -- he'll jerk your head to and fro, and keep you angry about things you have no ability to solve, because he doesn't, either.

Per TMZ and similar stories, either we believe in our rule of law or we don't. Reader "no one" correctly suggested that liberals lack a True North: Civil Rights was a good issue, but now things are not working in society and we are like rats incessantly pressing the bar hoping a goody will come down the chute, but the experiment has ended.

Liberals are doubling down on the tried-and-trues, but a different tack must be taken now if we want to help "poor blacks" and help ourselves to be a thriving society.

Not One to Let an Opportunity Pass

All the stuff goin' on in the news,
it's just a trick to get your mind off the war.
That's all it is
--Chris Rock 

I can cast a spell 
With secrets you can't tell 
Mix a special brew 
Put fire inside of you 
But anytime you feel 
Danger or fear 
Instantly I will appear 
--I'm Every Woman, Chaka Khan 

We sing about beauty and we sing about truth 
At ten thousand dollars a show   
--The Cover of the Rolling Stone, Dr. Hook  
_________________

More on TMZ (Travyon Martin / Zimmerman) as artifact of our culture and ourselves:

President Obama said in 2012 "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon".  After Zimmerman's recent acquittal and subsequent liberal self-flagellation he told RollingStone.com,"Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago". Ranger has a suggestion for a final bravura installment: "George Zimmerman IS me!" as he meditates upon his drone killing of 16-year-old U.S. citizen Abdulrahmen al-Awlaki. It would be momentous. The truth shall set you free, Mr. Obama, and the humility may even effect a reconciliation with your mentor, Rev. Wright.

[Addendum for those who could not understand why the Obamat - Z nexus: They are both whitish-dark-skinned men who have killed a dark person; however, Obama's kill of Abdulrahmen was premeditated, while Z's was not.]

Alas, the press continues to spin its inanity and lies. National Public Radio this week reported on the small protest at Florida's capital against the state's "Stand your Ground" law, but ended the piece stating -- incorrectly -- the law was a significant factor in the acquittal of George Zimmerman.  In fact, the law was not invoked in the case.

Next, the reliably unreliable William Saletan in his recent Slate feel-good piece "Rules for Racism", cloddishly slips in the following fabulation disguised as fact:

"Yes, Zimmerman is the one who pulled the trigger. Yes, white-on-black racism dwarfs black-on-white racism. ..."

Um, no, this is purely conjecture, and actual homicide data from FBI.gov would seem to contradict Saletan's supposition. It's a slicky boy one-two punch -- fact followed by a non-sequitur imaginary statement, but the latter gains credibility by proximity to the leading statement (ergo propter hoc).

"White-on-black racism" is an unquantifiable statistic. Racism is a felt emotion and as such, purely subjective. One could extrapolate racist intent from crime stats, but that would be pure conjecture; myriad other motives could explain the vastly larger number of violent crimes committed by blacks against whites, however, that statistic stands.

And today I note the liberals are chomping at the bit to diminish the public black-on-white murder of a white man by four blacks in an Atlanta suburb last week. The most egregious and non-sensical of the damage control articles was exemplified by this one, which blames the victim for his own situation, without any notice of the blatant hypocrisy of the title: "Joshua Chellew: Right Wing Propaganda Tool."

The rambling piece quotes Mr. Chellew's passenger as saying, "He was a good person, one of them funny, outgoing kind of people" -- just so you get the message: They were probably ignorant hicks (see the pronoun error?) and didn't know how to behave any better than getting four young black punks to kill him, no doubt as a result of their racial Sturm und Drang. He didn't know how to defuse a situation which took him from life to death in two minutes, but that'll show him for being an ignorant cracker.

So there you have it -- my disgust for the media and those who call themselves liberals, hawking their pet interests and points of view, entrenching their biases. They are worse than the neocons who at least do not deny their reactionary stance. There is nothing new or wholesome in the liberal message, just deaf, impotent rage and anger.

For all the gnashing of teeth, we are still a racist, sexist, ageist -- you name it -- bunch. We are guilty as sin, and a little penance feels good, even for the most godless among us; perhaps, by virtue of that fact. Oh, as long as they don't have to actually dirty their hands ... it is all done in the neat and tidy realm of the computer.

Believing in nothing or maintaining dissonant views, their rancor stews, running the lines of least resistance, seeking the easy fault line so it may erupt and discharge their passions for a moment. They love to slaver and congregate over their own pathos, but their rage belies their project.

The media is happily complicit with their disunity, starting little fires here and there as their denizens run hither and thither to squawk and gawk, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.


[In justification for addressing TMZ @ RAW: the war within ourselves and our society is expressed also as the war without; it is inescapable.]

Our Inner Captain Renault

--Mob Rule

 There isn't any real good reason for fighting
except self-defense 
--The Outsiders, S. E. Hinton 

I'm shocked, shocked to find
that gambling is going on in here! 
--Casablanca (1942)
 ___________________

We have been discussing the small tragedy of the Zimmerman - Martin story not because it is unusual but as the phenomenon it is: a too-common story usually ignored, but once the media hops on (for whatever self-serving reason), one for which liberal people feel compelled to pull out their inner Capt. Renault --shocked, you know? All very predictable.

We will have a few more things to say about the disingenuity surrounding the tale (=The Spectacle), but today, a look at the neighborhood watch: Good Neighbor Policy, or stateside Counterinsurgency (COIN)?

For those inclined to exploit the event, The Trayvon - Zimmerman story is one of vigilantism, and becomes an excuse to label an otherwise reasonable self-protective action (=neighborhood watch) as racism. This is an involution of the posture vis-a-vis crime which we have been encouraged to take as a nation since becoming the victims of terrorist acts, namely, one of reasonable caution and vigilance. Florida highways have state-sponsored billboards which urge citizens to be alert, and not afraid. It is a foolish entropy to encourage a naive approach to one's safety.

Vigilantism has been a part of our society since its inception, and actions like tarring and feathering loyalists served many functions, primarily identification and ostracism of The Other. Neighborhood watches are not vigilantism, for The Other is already identified qua his Otherness.

The function of the watch is to identify possible criminal behavior before the action takes place, the purpose not to punish, but to identify. When one enters such a community, one can expect to be asked about one's purpose within the gates; the residents therein have usually paid a premium to feel their safety will be enforced. When an outsider enters the perimeter, he can expect to be identified as such; this is not racism or vigilantism, though it is vigilance.

Profiling has become taboo as it has become conflated with racism, but profiling is the basis of solving most crimes. In Zimmerman's case, the community had suffered numerous robberies and criminal situations in the preceding months. Surely he was aware of the descriptions of the perpetrators in these cases, and it would be sensible to identify figures which match those descriptions and confirm their intent.

And Zimmerman is not alone. Our own President racially profiles every time he sends a Predator or Hellfire downrange in the sandy regions of the world. Mr. Obama acts as the Neighborhood watch captain of the World with every missile strike. Yet when Obama approved the strike which killed another 16-year-old United States citizen, Abdulrahmen al-Awlaki, no liberals cried crocodile tears.

In fact, no one did, despite the sad fact that our President made two kills on that day -- one of the young man, and one a direct shot through the heart of our Constitution.  The young man's grandfather recently wrote a plaintive letter published in the NYT 17 July 2013 asking "Why?",  but there will be no answer ... State secrets, you know?

As a nation, we are an easily-distractable crew. We are suffering an en masse plague of ADHD, and we get our daily feed of pap through the umbilicus that leads to the online and on screen "news" outlets.

Here is the reality on neighborhood watches: Community-based policing has always been the center of our police functions; as citizens we can and must participate in ensuring our own safety. When neighborhood members shut their doors and roll into automatically-controlled garages and don't know their neighbors, you have a community ripe for crime.

Since the events of 9-11-01, U.S. police forces have been degraded as the military and contractors have bled off personnel who now work for Counterinsurgency (COIN) and Foreign Internal Defense (FID)-sponsored programs. At the same time public safety funds have shriveled on the home front, and community-based policing has been drastically reduced.

The Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) has come home to roost.

If we as citizens do not have the right to ensure own safety in our own neighborhoods, then we have crossed into a police state mentality. When the death of Trayvon Martin is criminalized by a witch hunt trial, what is the message? When the police are not on the scene, the safety of the streets devolves to the citizens.

One may argue til the cows come home why young black men constitute the pages of most police blotters -- hint: economics -- but nonetheless, there you have it. It is a sad fact, but if you live in a vandalized community and see a black youth appear to be scoping out residences, you have reason to suspect. The comic Chris Rock has a skit, "You can't have shit when you around niggas, you can't have shit." referring to the high burglary rates in black communities. We laugh in recognition and then walk out of the theater.

Why pretend it is not a problem?

Liberal's Horsehair Shirts

--Scene on the third day of the Los Angeles riots
following the Zimmerman acquittal. The story calls them
"demonstrators" and the peace sign is nice, but note the
rioters in the background. 

 Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee,
Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven
--Matthew 18:22, KJV 

 There is no political solution
To our troubled evolution
Have no faith in constitution
There is no bloody revolution 
--Spirits in the Material World, 
The Police

 And now it's all right. It's OK.
And you may look the other way.
We can try to understand
The New York Times' effect on man 
--Stayin' Alive, Bee Gees
_______________________

 Almost no one has addressed the concerns in the previous two posts (Zimmerman Lynch Mob; Oh, Man), which is the way the press and the media are shaping, dividing and entrenching you. Oh, and let us not forget "distract".

The presentation over the hawked party line, and those liberals who march in lock-step ... they are creating nothing new, and are simply regurgitating their own brand of hatred. The sheer power of their only partially-informed outrage is astounding.

Friend BadTux is the pied piper for many who wish to fashion this sideshow into some sort of legitimate dialog on race. I appreciate his concern for racial bigotry, which is an ugly and persistent thing which is the sole domain of no class, race or religion. In his comments he shares specifics of what it was like (presumably) for him growing up black in America.

Certainly most of us born without a silver spoon in our mouth -- which would be most of the people taking time to blog -- could share similar stories of injustice. Surely my grandparents, parents and I all have our tales of woe. But I see the tragedy inherent in your trying to out-tragedy me, BadTux, and you fail to see that.

You also note the familiar sociological phenomenon of youth "trying on" other identities. Certainly not all young women who don Beyonce's or Lady GaGa's bling are hootchie mamas, and not all young men whose drawers fall mid-thigh will be robbing a bank, but what precisely are you defending? The male gansta culture is steeped in an angry, misogynistic attitude -- are you suggesting that we forbear the young men who "try it on for size" and "scuffle" with us? Should we allow our heads to be bashed on concrete due to the societal burden into which they have been born? Jesus may have turned his cheek 7 times 70, but not many of us are He.

The liberal news service I mentioned failed to publish my comment questioning the violence in the Good Liberal's responses, but did see fit to publish letters calling for Z.'s murder. This is a blatant contradiction, and a hatred which is not any liberalism familiar to me. (In addition, The Good Liberals at that site have published the most slanderous anti-Semitic screeds I've read this side of the century, yet they will not brook censure from an outsider.)

I see these too-many liberals for what they are, full of ugly sound and fury, signifying nothing. They stand revealed in The Emperor's New Clothes. Ranger says to me, "Let's stick to military matters"; I respond, "This is a war, too, and probably a more relevant one to most people's lives. This incident reveals that there is a war on in the media and the press for your mind and your very soul (if you are so inclined.)"

The power of bigotry and blind hate is seductive,winning over most people -- liberals and conservatives, alike. The jagged energy that fuels the many makes me cringe. You are the bright people, the intellectual and involved ones. You are probably not the ones pulling the strings in society, but you have the capacity for reason; sadly, it does not seem as though you are engaging it.

In Violence Unveiled, author Gil Baile makes a strong argument for our being at a crossroads regarding how we view violence. He argues that Christianity ushered in reverence for the meek and compassion for the scapegoat. Our collective guilt and shame makes liberals forbear any burden imposed by those whom they identify as having been dealt with roughly.  At the same time, we are reckoning with the admiration of violence as a mechanism for group catharsis and purification. Baile's book is based upon the provocative theories of anthropological philosopher Rene Girard.

One cannot hold bile and hatred -- not even for the right side -- and be balanced and healthy. You are either conflicted or in automaton form, and the best you may achieve is an artful presentation of your anger.

[correction: blogger BadTux writes that he is not black.]

Zimmerman Lynch Mob

--this cartoon shows the 
 typical facile liberal perception

Ahm seventeen. Almost a man.
He strode, feeling his long loose-jointed limbs 
--Almos' A Man, Richard Wright

I am looking for a human 
--Diogenes of Sinope

How could they see anything but the shadows
if they were never allowed to move their heads? 
--Allegory of the Cave, Plato
_________________

I opened my news on a muggy North Florida Sunday to read the verdict of the Zimmerman trial: "Not guilty". I have faith in the jury system, and believe jurors -- my peers -- largely get it right, when provided the relevant data.

The form in which the news came to me was via a liberal news service which ran the Yahoo news article by Liz Goodwin. The lede begins,

"Zimmerman, 29, was charged with second-degree murder in the death of Martin, a 17 year old black boy ..."

"Black boy" -- evocative, no? My passing acquaintance with UPI and AP press manuals would suggest, "young man / adolescent / juvenile / or teenager" as fair descriptors, but "boy"?  BOY? Not for a 17-year-old young man, and especially not a young black man. It seems so uncouth as to be risible. It is derogatory, emasculating and humiliating.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit decided in a judgement last year that the use of the term "boy" towards a black man showed evidence of racial discrimination (Ash vs. Tyson Foods).  A retired judge commenting on the case was quoted in the New York Times as saying “It’s the same as calling him a nigger.”

Were Ms. Goodwin to describe a young black man thusly in our neck o' the woods, she would be liable to be jumped. Especially you, Liz-miss-white-person. No sir. Snoop Lion may say "boy" or "niggaz" ("fo shizzle my nizzle"), but certainly not you. Using a non-evocative, non-pejorative adjective is Journo 101, and it is sad when a national news service cannot get that right.

Our press is riddled through with bias at every slice. This should be the story of a trial and its findings, not an effort whip up some after-the-fact angst.

In addition to the offensive coverage, the comments from my fellow liberals following the story were atrocious, hideous, beginning with the suggestion that a black person now kill Z. The following is the comment I left:

"Why does the writer use the phrase, "17 year old black boy"? "Black boy" is the phraseology of the Jim Crow South; at 17, Martin was a teen. 

Oh, I get it, the liberals are just as disingenuous as the conservatives, and use anything in their arsenal, without regard to bias; in fact, intentionally with the intent of biasing. Disgusting, really. 

Some of the readers here call for the murder of Zimmerman by a black man ... most of you people here are nuts. Any hopes I had that this might be a truly liberal community are gone -- if this is liberalism in 2013 America, you can have it."

Ah, but a "boy" was killed, and we are gulled into believing that it was precisely because he was a "boy" (=young black man.) Don't give me that hokum. As Ranger says, when a 17-year-old young man earns the Medal of Honor dying in battle for his country, we do not call him a "boy". Trayvon falls short of that mark, but his age is commensurate; "young man", not "boy".

What passes for "news" and reportage today bores me. That people accept it is scary and disgusting.

Pulp Non-Fiction

2.

Woman Tells of Encounters With Killer in Martin Case

Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual
and lost the original black box,
they still remembered to use the stones
--The Lottery, Shirley Jackson

I’ll tell you what’s walking Salem—
vengeance is walking Salem
--The Crucible, Arthur Miller

Do you take it upon yourself to determine
what this court shall believe
and what it shall set aside?
--ibid.
___________________

The above the second most viewed story in the New York Times at 2 p.m. yesterday.

Number two not in a tabloid, but #2 in the ostensibly top paper in the United States. These are the things that make me embarrassed to be a liberal today. Zimmerman's fate relies on the decision of a unbiased jury. In his case, as with any similar, the laws will be applied to his actions to arrive at a decision.

So why is the liberal press so assiduously committing character assassination in this case? This headline is naught but indictment sans trial, replete with dime store title: The Killer I Knew. This is nuts -- who is making these editorial decisions? These are the same journalists who would have been horrified by the tactics of the McCarthy era witch hunt trials, so why the about-face? Why feed us this prurient and lurid non-news, and why do we feast upon it?

Unfortunately, an overzealous press in the mistaken business of swaying public opinion has been scrambling to dredge up anything which will heap an adjudication of "guilty" upon Zimmerman's head, even before his case goes to trial (if it even does). The reason for this is unclear.

The WaPo's Jonathan Capehart and the NYT's Charles Blow have embarrassed themselves by keeping up the drumbeat of insinuation against Zimmerman (it is said his family likes blacks as long as they behave like whites ... -- living in South Georgia, I can tell you that attitude blindsided me. Yup.) This is pathetic gruel for a paper of supposed note to be indulging in.

So why is Zimmerman being publicly pilloried in the top paper in the nation? Why are we reading pulp fiction heads like "Woman Tells of Encounters with Killer"? The late Paul Fussell called it "prole drift" in his, "BAD -- the Dumbing of America".

And what were those "encounters"? Zimmerman apparently diddled her under a blanket while they watched t.v. when she was 6 and he 8.

Says witness 9, "a lot of kissing, groping. He would put his hands under my shirt and just rub and grab my chest and put his hands down my pants again ... ". It happened a few more times over the years, but when she was 18, boy, she just got up and left him high and dry: No more groping, so there!

Now, not one to encourage groping, but it does happen, and is not a marker in the making of a murderer. Now, if they could come up with some singed cats or dogs over the clothesline (whoops, that's what pro football players sometimes do.)

Did the victim, Trayvon, ever diddle a girl? We are not told, making him seem virginal, locked in amber in a moment of the press's creation, iced tea and Skittles in hand. Zimmerman grows more heinous with each lurid innuendo, like something on a late night werewolf movie.

Anyway, I don't get it. This coverage is so blatantly inappropriate on so many levels. That the U.S. president spoke out sympathizing with the victim hopelessly biased the case. Why must Zimmerman be martyred for our collective sense of guilt? The witch hunt is so pagan and atavistic in nature.

He must have hairy palms, which would further prove something, if they can just trick him into opening them upwards.