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Who is President of the United States?

[ by Charles Cameron — going all diagnostic on you! ]
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Roberta R. Greene in her Social Work with the Aged and Their Families (p. 100) lists questions nurses routinely asked by physician using Kahn’s Mental Status Questionnaire. I’m only too aware of these, having been subjected to these questions regularly over the past year..

5. What year is it?
6. How old are you?
7. What is your birthday?
8. What year were you born?
9. Who is President of the United States?

They are going to ask President Trump these questions, I immagine, as part of his overall medical evaluation. But that last one:

Who is President of the United States?

That’s an ouroboric question right there — what will he say?

If he says, President Trump, then he’s third-personalizing himself, and that’s diagnostically called illeism: Julius Caesar uses the third person in describing his French campaigns in De Bello Gallico.

But if he avoids that third person usage —

Me! It’s me!

That would suggest he may be uncertain of his victory over Secretary Clinton back when — after all, she won the popular vote!

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Oh the ouroboros! Oh the dilemma!

I had one of those medical questionnaires this morning. My conclusion: the questionnaire or routinized test has not yet been devised that doesn’t seem faintly ridiculous..

Please note that Roberta Greene’s work currently costs $100 as a book book. Urgh. Kindle $45.95 us a little better.

4 Responses to “Who is President of the United States?”

  1. Charles Cameron Says:

    Ouroboric Trump?
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    It’s hard to beat this Atlantic headline: How Trump Built an Obstruction of Justice Case Against Himself

    This para from that article does sometthing nice with “echo”:

    Trump ordered his White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and potential obstruction of justice by the president, The New York Times reported. Trump relented only when McGahn threatened to resign, an echo of the 1973 Saturday Night Massacre, in which President Nixon’s top Justice Department officials resigned rather than carry out his order to fire the special counsel investigating the Watergate break-in.

    That’s basically a DoubleQuote in the making — but the Watergate / Mueller parallel was a little too obvious for me to trouble you with a DQ graphic — you’d have yawned, and yawning is not the response I hope for when posting my DQs.
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    Oy.

  2. Charles Cameron Says:

    While we’re at it, here’s a troubling, fascinating, ouroboric story from WaPo about the LA Times: ‘Anything could happen’: Amid newsroom clashes, Los Angeles Times becomes its own story

  3. Charles Cameron Says:

    I think this qualifies as an ouroboros: Reporter rushes to Kentucky school shooting – and learns the alleged gunman is her son
    .
    I suppose statistically this had to happen eventally. It adds hideous personal sorrow to an already grievous story — grief resoubled?

  4. Charles Cameron Says:

    How ’bout this?
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