History was made this past week in New York City. Mayor Eric Adams appointed the city’s first Director of Rodent Mitigation.
Kathleen Corradi won the race for chief rat wrestler. She’s an educator, not an exterminator, but Mayor Adams says “The rats are going to hate Kathy.”
Adams actually didn’t appoint her. He said he “anointed” her New York’s “rat czar.”
I find the whole “czar” thing that has become so common in American government, very peculiar. First, a little history lesson.
The Russian monarchs called themselves czars, a Russian derivative of Caesar, because they so modestly thought their capital city of Moscow would rise to become the third Rome. In fact, the Russian Empire eventually did become larger than the Roman Empire.
Czars ruled Russia for 300 years. The first one was the aptly named Ivan the Terrible. He killed his eldest son and beat his pregnant daughter-in-law for wearing immodest clothing. Not a good guy.
The last czar was Nicholas II. We all know how he was booted from power in 1917. The world hasn’t been the same since.
But why would a liberal democracy like the United States so freely use that title that is so linked to despotism, death and defeat?
America’s curious use of the term apparently started with President Woodrow Wilson, before his stroke, when he named Bernard Baruch to head the War Industries Board in World War I. Baruch came to be known as the “czar of American industry.”
The first known czar in New York was in 1926 when none other than the New York Times called the guy who was named to clean up corruption in the milk delivery industry, a “czar.”
And now, New York has a “rat czar.”
I’m frankly surprised why The New York Times freely calls governmental appointees czars since it recalls a regime that reeks of repression, oppression and suppression.
It triggers in me, a descendant of czar-countenanced pogroms, intense negative emotions. After all, the TImes had no hesitation banning the word “slave” from its Wordle word game. And where’s AOC and her squadsters who should be self-righteously screaming their objections to using the exclusionary title linked to a decadent ruling class that was overthrown by a clearly superior (eyebrows raised), form of government. Certainly not suitable for a progressive city like New York!
But I leave it to them to struggle with their own hypocrisy. Being the incorrigible reactionary that I am, I humbly propose some other czars we need in addition to the rat czar.
I think President Joe Biden should appoint a czar of steps, who will make sure each step the President climbs will be no more than 3.5 inches, the exact height he is able to lift his legs.
I think Donald J. Trump should promise, if elected president, to appoint a czar of lies. This czar will send anyone in his administration who tells the truth, to Trump Village Siberia that he will have leased from the Russians, Russians, Russians.
And I think New York’s Mayor Adams should appoint a shampoo czar and recruit an imperial brigade armed with scimitars, and free all the shampoo, currently locked up in the aisles of the city’s CVS’s and Duane Reades.
Oh, and if I was advising Russia’s current leader, I would tell him, Vlad baby, just reinstate the czar title, you’re acting like one of the worst ones, anyway.
I’m truly wishing Mayor Adams and Kathleen Corradi much success,
but I’m still gonna bet my money, and my pizza, on the resilient rodents of the Big Apple.
Experts consider rats one of the smartest species on the planet. In fact, shortly after the announcement of the “rat czar” I swear I saw a group of rats, huddled under an outdoor dining shed, passing around little red pamphlets and laughing their tails off.