Special Poodle Report from Department of Editorial Intelligence (DEI)

The Dangers of Civic Virtues and Human Decency in Santa Barbara County and the Country

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County Health Director Dr. Mouhanad Hammami | Courtesy County of Santa Barbara

CAVEAT EMPTOR AND E PLURIBUS NUMEN LUMEN: You can’t be too careful these days. Or more precisely, too paranoid.

When I saw that the County Department of Public Health was going through the great bother of changing its name to the County Health Department, my initial reaction was to think, “How silly.”

Upon closer inspection, it was worse than that. Wasteful, maybe. Stupid. Gratuitous, even. Where was Elon Musk and his chainsaw when I needed him?

Then I read the fine print. I was aghast. The new brand, I learned, was all about drilling civic virtues into the minds of unsuspecting citizens.

Top of the list was “equity.” Didn’t they get the memo? The people have spoken; Trump is president; being woke is verboten. “Equity” is not just woke; it’s part of the Holy Trinity of woke-dom, along with Diversity and Inclusion. Had the Deep State of County Health joined the resistance? Not only were they all in on “equity,” they proclaimed, they’re all about “Health care that is unapologetically equitable.”

Unapologetically?

With lingo like that — albeit buried in the fine print — federal dollars to that department could soon be cut off.

And given Donald Trump’s manic fixation with the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Dr. Mouhanad Hammami — Santa Barbara’s Health Department director — perp-walked into an unmarked van by six masked men clad in black pajamas, never to be heard from again. With a name like that, he’s bound to be an alien. Or an enemy. Besides, he wears a bow tie. And from what I’m told, he has an astonishing jazz collection.

Do people not remember that the only reason square dancing was ever included as part of the physical ed curriculum in public schools was to counter the pernicious non-white influence of jazz?

Not looking good for the good-looking Dr. Hammami.

FYI, that tidbit about square dancing happens to be factual, not any over-the-top hyperbole. It was Henry Ford, Detroit car maker and famous anti-Semite, who made that happen; if you don’t believe me, look it up. But pretty soon, it won’t be there anymore. Dr. Hammami, by the way, worked in Detroit for 18 years before coming here. Think that’s a coincidence?

To be accurate, I don’t know where Hammami was born or what his religion might be. The county public information officer wasn’t inclined to ask on my behalf. Who can blame her? Given present realities, such details — whatever the facts are, and especially if they exonerate him — probably wouldn’t spare him a one-way ticket to some federal prison in Louisiana, to be followed by another one-way ticket to El Salvador.

And even if administration attorneys were to admit they got it wrong — like they have in one highly publicized case — the Supreme Court has shown no urgency in forcing them to do anything about it. In that case, for the record, the White House responded by firing the attorney who made that admission. That, too, is factual. At least for the moment.

Legally speaking, the Alien Enemies Act gives the White House a blank check to lock up anyone born anywhere else in this country who is not a citizen. In the three times it’s ever been used, it was also used to lock up a whole lot of people — without charges and without trials — who also happened to be born here. Citizens, in other words.

Many were put in what we delicately like to describe as internment camps. For this act to be unleashed, however, you need to have an official declaration of war. To get technical, we are not officially at war with anyone.

The Supreme Court has evidenced no urgency to do anything about this violent transgression of the Constitution either. In contrast, the Supreme Court did rule last year that the president cannot be held accountable for any crimes he commits so long as he commits them while in the performance of presidential duties. Not to get even more technical, performance is all but impossible to pin down. Technically, that’s two blank checks. But who’s counting?

Given all this, maybe I’ll get deported too. It turns out my father — a card-carrying Get-the-Brits-Out-of-Ireland kind of guy — donated some money to a bunch of Hibernian rights societies, one of which turned out to be funneling money to the Irish Republican Army (IRA). That’s back when the Troubles were still very much a bloody thing and the IRA was still blowing up pubs. My father stopped the donations as soon as he found out. Or so he thought.

All I know is that at his graveside services, some clench-jawed guy with beef jerky muscles and cold unsmiling eyes showed up in his military greens — decidedly not American — with a military-issue rifle slung over his shoulder. Without saying hello or even giving a nod, he fired off about seven rounds, and saluted the sky with stern solemnity. Before we hummed a few bars of “Danny Boy,” he was gone.

Was he a terrorist or a freedom fighter? Typically, the answer all depends if you’re on the sending or receiving end of the bullet. Given what passes for evidence these days, that’s enough to have the whole pack of us rounded up and sent back to Mother Ireland, from whence not one us were ever bairn.

All that, too, is 100 percent factually gospel.

Historically speaking, we’re in uncharted waters, and it appears we’re about to drown.

It would be nice if some of those self-righteous Fenian Catholics now overpopulating the Supreme Court would grow a pair of spines and stick up for the old U.S.A. Or at least the Constitution.

But in the meantime, if you need help, don’t bother calling the county’s Public Health Department. It doesn’t exist anymore. But then, neither do a lot of things.