Picture This

    My grandparents went on a short vacation to Buffalo, NY in about 1920.  Though they had been married 3 or so years earlier, I'm sure they went the few miles to Niagra Falls while they were there. While in Buffalo they found a Kodak 3A bellows camera that had been forgotten on a park bench. It was quite the find.  In those days that camera cost $20.  A week's salary.  It became the family camera. It took marvelous pictures. It had infinite focus.  I guess a kind of primitive, reflex lens.  Every find implies a loss. Lately, I've thought about that.
    There were hundreds of photos, each with a sweet story.  My parents had a Brownie Hawkeye and I had both an Instamatic and a Polaroid.  None as good as that old Kodak and none of them as good as the camera on my cell phone or yours.  The stories are every bit as sweet.  The message ignores the medium.
    A century of holidays, vacations, graduations, reunions, departures, arrivals, sunny days and winter storms. Decade after decade of family lore and old friends, all in albums and shoeboxes. They would be brought out every year or so and pondered again and the oral history would be repeated and to some degree re-lived.  Children's questions answered and the answers propelled into the future.
    Well, I put a stop to that shit. I lost all those pictures. They only exist in my aging memory which most certainly could be absent-mindedly left on a park bench.
    When video cameras were first available I refused to buy one. Looking at smiling wives throwing bouquets and baby's first steps, old Christmas trees just made me think, 'How depressing would that be if something went wrong?'
    The static quality of a moment frozen in time is much better to me than a living and breathing video.  I think it's better my memories are only captured just so much and imperfectly. I could not bear the smiles or frowns or tears of a departed loved one. My imperfect memories are just perfect enough.  To me.
    Still, I return to the regret of the loss of those old photos a couple times a week. For example, I'm writing about it now.  I berate myself for carelessness.  Pfft, yeah, who doesn't?

Stay Warm Old Man

    I rarely mention my faith because my faith tells me that's inappropriate. This time of year does kinda call for comments of affirmation.  So let me show you how I think it's supposed to work.
    Oddly enough, I was in jail. It was not quite yet Christmas and it was years ago. I wasn't particularly upset by the mere circumstance.  You adapt. This too shall pass.  I was awfully upset and resentful of how I had gotten there. LOL. I was wroth.
    These boys didn't like me much and dug up some crap from nearly a decade before which had been resolved, I thought.  As it turned out I was right about that but that didn't slow these boys down much. As a matter of fact, they actually tried to beat my ass. Had I not worked hard for forty some years they might have succeeded. I didn't resist. It was like some biting flies but they did throw my old ass in jail and it took about a month to sort itself out. It took me a bit to sort it out as well.  Did I mention I was wroth?
    I'm trying to think of all the ways I was upset. I felt violated. My sense of fair play had been just, trashed.  I'd been physically assaulted in my own home for no reason other than, they could.  I'd had to allow myself to be helpless in the face of outrage and lesser, seemingly evil men.
    Seemingly, evil men.  It finally occurred to me these men were no more than self-righteous. We do sorta pay cops to be self-righteous. They had merely been angered because I dismissed their righteousness. That had caused them to do demonstrable evil.  It was then I realized their souls had been stained, not mine and should, rightfully receive not my contempt but my prayer.  So, I certainly felt better and said my little prayer for these little men. They certainly have never gone up in my estimation but they were sincerely forgiven and I did and do have a concern for their souls.  Sorry, that's the best  I can do. Probably, being such a condescending bastard was part of the trouble.
    I'm trying to imagine how to relate this next part without being a total asshole. It's just what I have observed.  It doesn't have anything to do with my outlook, at least I hope not. There seem to be three types of black guys in a county lock-up.  One group are just folks who don't think much about race and freely associate with anyone.  The second and I would say, the largest group, are quiet, self- assured and contained. They'll associate with you but don't trust white folks in general and won't initiate contact.  It seems like a reasonable response to overall circumstances to me.  The third group is guys that will not acknowledge even the existence of white folks. They look thru you and merely walk around you like so much furniture.  I can't imagine a reason to disagree with that approach either. There is certainly a deeper dynamic to that whole thing too but not the point today. This is Faith, not sociology.
    So, I am in jail.  I know there's no reason for it.  I'm dealing with this inner rage, mainly because, on some level, I know the rage is wrong and I know I'm missing why it's wrong. It's not until I realize that I haven't been hurt, need no existential pity or justification and that my, would be, tormenters have seriously injured themselves that I find inner peace in the embrace of forgiveness.  It was a literal epiphany.
    County jails are cold. Ya got your skivvies, your socks and some ill-fitting PJs.  One thing you can buy from the canteen is a thermal undershirt but it's very expensive. At least twice what you would pay at Sears.  It's a prized possession and a foregoable luxury.  Hmm, simple comfort as a luxury.
    A few minutes after my epiphany and my brief but sincere prayer I was finally at peace, sitting in the common room watching television.  This guy walked over to me. I'd never spoken to him or he to me.  He was part of that second group I mentioned.  "Here ya go." Out of the fifty or so guys there and out of the blue he handed me a thermal shirt and walked away.
    A simple, unbidden act of kindness.
    That completed my epiphany and that epiphany remains a solid pillar of my personal faith.
    Here endeth today's lesson.

What If We Don't Get High?

    Thirty years ago a subversive sticker appeared for a brief while plastered in various places. It said, " Do not defy authority.  Ignore it."  I first saw it stuck to a toll booth which I thought was absurdly appropriate.  Most people, if pressed, would define anarchy as defiance of authority or rejection of authority but refusing to acknowledge authority as a viable concept in the real world is far more subversive and seems to really piss em off.  I realized that concept had become not just my unspoken motto but the unspoken motto of millions of passive-aggressives everywhere.  A lot of them stoned.
     Over 40 years ago people just started ignoring authority and started using marijuana among other recreational drugs.  When you consider what the penalties were in those days that was a pretty big rejection of authority as some sort of viable concept.  It was subversive and corrosive but not really.  In the end well over 99% of those people went on to become productive, willing participants in society and willing subjects of authority albeit with some reservations. Although, there is something about legalization that makes me uncomfortable on some level.
    Most people are honest but the idea that what the IRS doesn't know won't hurt them is pretty common.  Most people don't lie.  Well, that IRS thing again but as a general rule people only lie to their spouses.....their kids, well and bosses sometimes but for the major part.
    My point is, the average person, to this day wouldn't dream of committing a major felony or defying authority in any significant way but there is a kinda laissze faire attitude about the more prominent committing more prominent crimes.  The days of Pat Nixon's good, Republican cloth coat are long over. That scandal in 1952 or so was over a relative few thousands that Nixon couldn't really account for. It nearly ended his career. By comparison, Trump wrote a check for 25 million to settle fraud allegations the same week he was elected President and that, in the overall picture is just the tip of a very dirty iceberg. Nobody seems to care at least not in proportion to the fantastic amounts of money involved.  I wonder why that is.
    Is it possible our collective decision to roll a joint and ignore authority seeped into other areas?  Our elders said it was a decline in morality.  We didn't think so. What if that was right? What if we had recoiled from euphoria in favor of Sunday School morality?  I know, not likely but what if?
    I guess the question here is: Would society and we be different if we had been more amenable to authority just because it was authority?  Would frauds and thieves be less likely to rise?  Would nude models be less acceptable in polite society?
    My point is, we are seeing things today that just wouldn't have happened 40-50 years ago well outside of political conviction.  Is that at least, in part due to our casual attitude to morality?
    I don't think the morality of the fifties is going to make a comeback but maybe we shouldn't be so casual. Spin one up and we'll talk it over.

It's Just Never Discussed

    There are 144 million Russians.  They are the rightful owners of natural resources that rival any other region of the earth.  We see articles about the daily lives of the average American or Brit or Finn or what have you.  We don't see much about the average Russian.  I'm reminded, by saying that, that as a schoolboy I  used to receive a copy of the Soviet equivalent of Life Magazine on a monthly basis because I wrote to the Soviet Embassy in Washington and asked for some information.  I wonder what the FBI made of that?  I wonder what the Soviets made of that come to think of it. Hell, I wonder what our mailman thought of that.  My parents just thought I was a tad strange.  I just figured I needed more information.  They were used to it.
    I didn't imagine I got much real information about the average Russian.  Now, we still don't but it's different.  Our current ignorance is based on disinterest.  We're looking at trouble just because we aren't much interested.
    The first British envoy to the Moscovy Court was appalled to discover they were usually drunk to a man, all the time.  In modern times both Gorbachev and Putin have complained about pervasive drunkenness thru out Russian society. Another thing that has been constantly observed is the governments responsible for managing Russia's resources have been uniformly dishonest, incompetent and brutal. That means the Russian people have been uniformly subjected to dishonesty, incompetence and brutality from their representatives.  Now, rather than being a perennial Russian problem it's becoming a problem for the rest of the World.
    The malefactors of great wealth in Russia make our malefactors look like Boy Scouts.  Putin, though he has amassed great wealth is more motivated by power.  He doesn't want to see the glory of the Soviets restored.  He wants the previous glory of Mother Russia restored.  He wants the hegemony of Imperial Russia restored.  What can I say?  The heart wants what the heart wants.
    The oligarchs have a different problem.  They have stolen pretty much everything that isn't nailed down but their ill-gotten gains are in rubles which are essentially useless outside Russia.
    Putin wants international power for the sake of power itself and he uses the means that are familiar to him as a result of his career with the KGB.  This meshes with the oligarchs who want international power to further the greatest money laundering scheme in history.  Unfortunately, some of our malefactors are disposed to help.
    I think it's an undeniable fact that either Nixon or Reagan could have easily been bought. It just never occurred to anyone until the Bush family became a willing subsidiary of the Saudi Royal Family.  When that happened the gloves were off.
    Is there a solution to this assault?  I see two things that need done.  International financial transactions need to be more extensively monitored and misbehavior much more severely punished.  We were starting to do this until the current administration backed away.  International and extra-national access to the internet needs to be curtailed for any regime that continues to digitally assault other nations.  Well, how do we do that?  We created, control and own most of the internet.  Act like it.  That will take political will beyond the corruption we currently see.
    In the end, the Russian people need and deserve a break.  Bringing them more fully into their patrimony will benefit all of us.  Maybe we should be doing to the Russian State what they are doing to us.  I dunno.
    We should discuss it.

I Try Not To Do This

    This is what I've been trying to do with this public space.  If something in current events catches my eye, I try to relate it to the underlying principles involved rather than discuss the personalities involved and the daily wear politics.  I do that for a couple reasons.   First: My politics are too obscure and too extreme but my principles are about as mainstream as it gets.  Secondly: That kind of comment on current affairs involves a fair amount of prediction and I'm always wrong in the short term.
    On top of that, this kind of thing has the shelf life of a mayfly
    That being said; let's go.
    There are things involved with the Kavanagh hearings that need said and understood.  Because I worked alone for years I have listened to pretty much every major set of Congressional hearings for the last 30 years or so.  These particular hearings have been a near travesty.  Kavanaugh is a bald-faced liar.  I've never seen anything like it.  That's in addition to his record on the bench just being an outrage. The man has literally spit in the eye of anyone earning less than the one percent.  He, literally, has no appreciation of what being an average American is all about.  That leads to the real point.
    He worked for Ken Starr for 3 years and was the lead author of the Starr report which looked like a 50's porn novel written by a Sunday School teacher you wouldn't want around your kids.  It really kind of explains his behavior around women. The guy's a creep.

    He was an upper echelon participant in the GW Bush administration.  The truth is that group was engaged in criminality on a global scale. They ALL escaped prosecution because they had created such big problems we just couldn't afford that type of spectacle while trying to fix that mess.  That's why they have tried so desperately to hide the details of his participation.  Who the hell ever heard of the National Archives being blocked from releasing public information on the basis of party affiliation?
    The gentlemen's agreement was: They would be allowed to serve out their careers and retire in obscurity.  The first violation of that agreement was the appointment of the torturer Gina Haspel to head the CIA.  The second violation was the elevation of Bolton.  Those two could and would be credibly prosecuted at the Hague.  The latest outrage is trying to appoint this cipher to the Supreme Court.
    It's entirely possible Trump simply doesn't understand the concept of a gentlemen's agreement.  It's possible his advisors just chafe under the silent recognition of the criminality of the Bush people and themselves. It's possible a lot of these people don't understand the crimes they committed.  Who knows but this guy is totally unacceptable for those reasons and it's a damned shame this sleazy sexual abuse had to come to light.  It's just weird this is the only thing that gets republican's attention.

Let's Remember What Really Happened.

    We were talking about the turn of the new millennium and how brief it seemed between now and then. The tumult of current events seems to overshadow all the things in between.  We lose perspective.  We count the current presidency in days and forget that history is actually composed of decades, at least.  We tend to forget.  We tend to forget. Some people just never do know.
    Where to begin without covering a thousand pages with fact and conjecture?   I think a lot of things we face today began with the Reagan administration so let's go back 30 or so years to the flagging of Kuwaiti oil tankers.  I can see a lot of eyes glazing over but ya gotta start somewhere and nothing happens overnight.
    The flagging of the Kuwaiti tankers was seen as supporting Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war.  What it really was, was the rental of the US military by the Saudis and Big Oil.  It was also a genuine mistake that, as predicted, led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands and decades of regional instability.  I could tell you about millennia of hatred between the Arabs and the Persians, read Iranians but all that would do is point out the common American mistake of having no clear idea of what actually motivates most of the rest of the world.  We paint, haphazardly, with a broad brush of willful ignorance usually dipped in simple greed.  We faithfully imitate the British Empire, right down to the willful ignorance and the greed.
    Old habits die hard. During the Cold War, there was a default justification for interference in things that actually weren't our business. After all, we had the geo-political thingy to consider.  In most cases, it's easy to see now that was just nonsense. That was then, this is now. The important thing to understand is; at no point in history have the affairs of Iraq had any impact on the peace and security of the United States.  The only duty of the government of the United States is to address things that actually affect our peace and security. Violating that dictum negatively affects the peace and security of the United States and the World.  We sure have proved that.
    The flagging of the tankers and, by the way, giving the Iraqis nerve gas, convinced them we were allies. Silly boys. They actually came to the Bush people and asked if we'd mind if they took over Kuwait. The response was, " Local issue, why would we care?"  That's a fact. You can look it up. So, the Iraq touring company went to Kuwait and were really surprised when we demanded the show close on the road.
    Only 9% of the American public opposed the first Gulf War.  A friend of mine who happened to be a veteran asked me what I thought of it at the time.  I observed it was the dumbest thing I'd ever seen but now we were committed, we had better win.  It was something new.  We were no longer constrained by the Soviet threat. The Russians were incapable of response or meaningful opposition. The men of the Bush 41 administration, steeped in the Cold War, were simply not up to the challenge of a free hand.
    We didn't win by any American definition and Bush 41 paid an immediate price for that in the following election.  It wasn't the "economy, stupid" as Bill would have us believe.  It was, just as Cheney and company thought.  Bush Sr was seen as weak and ineffectual for leaving Saddam Hussein in place.
    There were two other elements that weren't discussed. The Soviet Union was as dead as Casey's nuts but a large portion of their remnant economy depended on arms production and export. The Iraqis had the world's fourth largest military armed to the teeth with  Russian weapons.  Russia and the United States were the leading arms merchants to the world.  The whole thing was an advertisement for the Russian 'brand X'  against the American brand.  That didn't work out so well for the Russians.
    The other thing that went unnoticed was instead of addressing some Cold War related, geopolitical aim we were suckered into supporting Saudi regional aims that had absolutely nothing to do with our peace or security. That was a monumental mistake which is still playing out in deadly fashion.
    That sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.  Well, as I've said before, most conspiracies are really confederacies of dunces. This is not an exception to that rule.
     I'm trying to call to mind the proximate casus belli for our invasion of Iraq either time. Oh, that's right.  There were none. Both times it was an irrational act. In point of fact if we were going to attack some country other than Afghanistan for 9/11 it should have been Saudi Arabia but realistically the only goal was to kill Bin Laden and smash Al Qaeda. It's part of our willful ignorance that we don't understand the importance of faction and Islamic regional sects.  We don't know these things because we insist on being lumbering fools.
    I'm going to be blunt. Cheney and company thought the reason they lost power to Clinton was the failure to remove Saddam.  They were right but that doesn't mean they were justified.  At that time GW's presidency was on the rocks.  He was known to be an ineffectual minority, illegitimate President lacking in gravitas.  He did get his tax cut. Without the 9/11 attacks, he certainly would have been a one-term president.  Our outrage was co-opted.  To this point at least a million innocent people have been murdered and a volatile region of the world has been plunged into chaos that will last for several generations.  Guys like Bolton see this as driving the eventual agenda. That's outright bullshit and will see no more success than that kind of thinking ever has.  He's wrong and it will lead to further chaos.
    Why bring this up?  Well, it's fun to point out I was right.  Everyone likes that.  Trump is doing terrible things to us domestically and that is certainly dangerous but at this point, it seems temporary.
    It's good to remember that he hasn't murdered anyone, at least not in great numbers.  It's really doubtful if he'd be allowed to employ the military.  His criminality, so far, has been strictly domestic.  The public is making a list and checking it twice to make sure his predations are immediately repealed.
   Our public life moves slowly.  That's a good thing.  Education will triumph over ignorance and racism will be forcefully corrected.  Classism will be addressed. We will learn to not judge progress by only success for the wealthy.  The coming, decade-long, prosecutions will inform the malefactors.
    We will emerge on the other side imperfect but having progressed.  That's the idea.
    The kids are pissed.  They can't understand why anyone would tolerate this bullshit.  They'll calm down but they won't forget.

    Now, a year after I wrote the above, Trump is being allowed to dabble in foreign policy.  It's an unmitigated disaster as anyone could have foreseen.
   Two years later Trump's  incompetence has killed at least 100,000 U S citizens.

Random Thoughts On The Movies

    A very good friend of mine owns a family bar and a family restaurant.  I haven't seen him in 20 years.  I would be welcomed like a long lost relative and also then treated as if I had been there yesterday, to this day.  Our acquaintance caused me, one time, to comment, that you can't make friends.  You have friends if you deserve them.  I digress but the memories are so pleasant it's hard not to comment.
    So, the movies.  At that place, at that time, Wednesday evening was Movie Night.  The owner of the local video store would bring over 3 new releases and we would watch one or all of them depending on the time we had. They all played but we had individual curfews.  How late we were allowed out.  That evening the first video was "The Terminator".  I don't know what your first impression was but the thing is riveting.  It was highly touted as futuristic/science fiction.  Time travel, cyborgs,  real Galaxy Magazine stuff.  About 2/3's of the way thru  I began to realize it was actually an old-fashioned monster movie, a lot like Frankenstein or Nosferatu. I kept that thought to myself and enjoyed the mayhem. "I'll be back."
    In that connection, someone asked what movie gave you nightmares as a kid.  Hell, I grew up in the 50's and 60's.  No movies; the evening news gave me nightmares. Forty years later the sequel to "The Terminator". depicted a nuclear explosion at a playground.  That scene gave this middle-aged man nightmares.
    Now, everyone is fascinated with zombies.  It's just stupid.  In the late 80's and 90's people loved Anne Rice and vampires. I never got that either but my kids (late teens, early 20's) loved it.  One day, I came in after work and they were watching "Near Dark".  In the course of maybe 15 minutes of conversation, I was exposed to 15 minutes of the movie I had dismissed as just more vampire nonsense.  I went on about my business but I noticed I kept thinking about the snippet I'd seen.  That always indicates to me I've seen something of artistic value that might be revisited.  I watched the movie the next day.  It scared the living bejesus outta me.  Lestat and all that gothic crap still seems like just crap to me. Sorry, Anne.  If I want chewing gum for my eyes I prefer Anne Perry.
    The thing about 'Near Dark" was it's just so naturalistic in its settings.  So contemporary. You can actually see yourself having a beer in some hole in the wall bar in the sticks and a bunch of people come in and murder everyone and you're helpless.  It still gives me the shivers.
    A few years later TV Guide published a list of the scariest horror films of all time.  "The Terminator"  and "Near Dark" made the list.   Everyone likes their thoughts confirmed.  "The Terminator" was a science fiction movie. "Near Dark"  was a vampire movie.  Nah, they are true horror movies and though my mind runs to "Bringing Up Baby" or 'The Front Page",  I recommend them both.
    Movies.  I just had occasion to rewatch "David Copperfield".  It made me think about the fact that as a vaudevillian, W C Fields always traveled with a trunk of books.  He spent an entire career imitating Mr Micawber.  Who better to play Micawber in the movie?  That made me think of what we think of as quintessential Bogart.  If you read Hammett,  you realize  Bogart was just taking stage direction right down to the smallest gestures.  It testifies to Bogart's power as an actor and his belief in Hammett's vision and it's testimony to Hammett's talent.  Interesting. Like everything else, the more you know the more interesting something is.
    I was thinking about authors and the movies made of their work.  You can always tell how much the movie makers loved the novel they're working on.  "Sometimes a Great Notion" by Ken Kesey is a good example of this.  I think it's one of the 10 best contemporary novels.  You can tell by watching that Fonda, Newman, Remick, et al just loved the book and wanted to be as true as possible to what they loved.  I watched "Nobody's Fool" years ago.  If you're an older guy it's just really great.  If you're from a small town, it's great.  It captures the rough and tumble and love of life-long relationships to a word.  To a touch.  Watching that movie got me to read Russo's novel.  I can't remember having done that before.  I normally read the novel and then make a point to see the movie.  Most people do, I expect.  I discovered why the people made the movie. The novel is great but the screenplay is so much kinder to the characters. It made me love the movie even more. I recommend both.  I liked Benton's touch so much better.  He polished the rough edges off of Russo and so doing brought out and enhanced the beauty of the grain.
    I just had occasion to rewatch the 2010 version of  "True Grit". That's been made twice from a novel.  John Wayne bought the film rights as soon as he read the book.  Eventually, the character of Rooster Cogburn earned the Duke his only Oscar for a specific performance.  I think the Cohen Brothers did a better job with the Charles Portis novel.  I can't ever fault the Duke but it's pretty obvious Jeff Bridges read the book pretty closely.
      In the spirit of random thoughts, I was thinking about "Big Jake".  I love John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara in the movies.  There is a scene in that movie where Wayne realizes O'Hara is in agreement with and instructing his more rigid nature.  He looks at her and says, " Is this the way you want it?" to which she replies, " These men should get exactly what they have asked for."  I actually get that.  My wife can look at me and instruct me to do the exact opposite of what anyone overhearing would think.  I just like that little moment.  Been there, done that.
     Sometimes the more you know, the dumber something is.  Here's something in the westerns, which I love, westerns that is.  A couple desperadoes will rob a bank and high-tail it out of town with a posse a couple hundred yards behind them.  Who saddled the horses that fast?  If you left a horse saddled all day it wouldn't be fit to ride. On top of that, how far are you going to ride a horse at full gallop? Not far. The old adage is: Run on four, walk on two.  it could never  happen that way.
    Another thing.  A man the size and weight of John Wayne would not have ridden a quarter horse. At least not far.  He's too big. If he wanted to ride all day he'd be on a plow horse.  Traditional cowboys were all little, wiry guys.  On top of that, about a third of them were black because it was one of the few jobs open to them.  Oral histories will tell you that but written history wasn't open to black folks back then.
     Here's another thing.  I really like the movie, " McClintock" but I was at a loss to see how it was made even then and it certainly couldn't be made now.  It's sometimes, violent misogyny throughout is kind of jarring.  It wasn't until I learned it was a conscious remake of "Taming of the Shrew " that I got it.  If the Bard can do it, so can the Duke.  I guess.
      Did you know that a silencer won't work on a revolver?  The side blast from the cylinder wouldn't and can't be suppressed.  Not only would it be just as noisy it would probably burn hell outta your hand if you tried it.  Well, it's just the movies but you'd think people would know that.  I don't know why I add that except it just annoys me.
    Speaking of things that annoy me. I watched "The Day Before Yesterday" a bit ago. It has a few deliberately mean, comic moments.  I'm sorry but the news reporter getting nailed with the billboard is funny. You would think it would be instructive but if recent hurricanes are any indication, apparently not.
    Now, this movie postulates global warming triggers a new ice-age. That's hilarious.  It just don't work that way.  In the process of this immediate freeze over the climatologist's kid gets trapped in the New York Public Library with a few friends.  Meantime, some sort of tidal wave they can't explain has brought a North Atlantic freighter to just outside the door.  They're inside burning books to try to stay warm. Outside is a freighter with probably several thousand tons of fuel oil equipped to handle North Atlantic conditions. It doesn't occur to them to not burn the books that would show them how to light the boilers and pretty much go wherever they needed.  Luke! Go to the ship! And by the way, call your Dad's cell phone.
    That's something that's changed a great deal in recent years.  I love film noir and mysteries but now I keep noticing that so much of some plots depend on the character being out of touch with his office or other characters. I find myself saying, "For God's sake, just call his cell!"  In that vein, you gotta wonder if Perry Mason's answering service wasn't clairvoyant.  He gets all his calls at just the right time and in obscure places.

    Star Wars was a shift in the way science fiction was made. There's been reams expended on how it changed the genre.  Here's what I noticed when I first saw it that set it apart.  Greasy fingerprints around the light switches. Ever before that the future had been very well maintained, groomed and dressed.  Uniforms were, well...uniform and freshly laundered and pressed. I think the future will actually be a cross between Star Wars and Spaceballs and parts of it will smell pretty bad.  The idea that men or women for that matter, will ever commonly wear clothing that zippers up the back is just stupid.
    As you can see I really enjoy the cinema.  After all, it's only a movie.

The Deep State

    That is obviously a pejorative catch-phrase but in a way, there is such a thing.  It's interesting that it's almost impossible to get a definitive number for Federal employees.  The numbers range from 2.7 million to 2.1 not counting the military or the Post Office.  The Federal government is second only to Walmart as an employer.  That's a little disturbing but not the point right now.  I couldn't find an overall percentage for the Federal workforce. (Probably just too lazy to deduce the figure.)  But employees of all governments nationwide are reported to be 17% of the overall workforce.  On a side note, the Federal Budget accounts for about 22% of the GDP.  That's understandable.
    So, what's the "Deep State"?  Each partisan administration appoints about 15 thousand upper and mid-upper level administrators outside of Civil Service.  There's no set figure for that either.  It's a process that takes about 2 years.  These people set the tone and overall philosophical direction of the government in harmony with the philosophy of the Chief Executive.  I don't think it's partisan here to point out the Trump Administration was unprepared for this detail of actually governing and that has slowed the process.  They were heavy on philosophy and light on the nuts and bolts.  They do seem to be coming up to speed.
    The government is a fantastically complex 4.5 trillion dollar a year enterprise.  Apart from any philosophy, it takes an extensive group of skilled, educated people to just keep the lights on and manage the paperwork.  They may or may not have certain philosophical ideas but they do have a detailed sense of what actually works and how to make it work in the real world.  They have to have detailed ethics and contact with and adherence to established practice.  They constitute the so-called, "Deep State".  In other countries and cultures, these people are known as apparatchiks.  The political appointees are known as "nomenclatura".  My point is, it's a common and necessary development.
    In our case, the problem, as seen by some, is when politics collides with that entrenched sense  of ethics and utility. In other words, " That's wrong and it won't work."  Idealogues don't like to hear that and we are seeing that conflict play out.  Hence the pejorative connotation.  Something that's making things worse right now is these career people know not just utilitarian things but what's legal and what isn't.
    It's not uncommon for political operatives of either party to discover the reason things that seem obvious to them have not been done in a particular way is because they are simply illegal.
    This administration has a lot of complete newcomers to government by design.  A good deal of the problems we are seeing have more to do with a lack of experience and information than inherent dishonesty.  It's always been true that a little knowledge or a lack of knowledge can lead to a lot of trouble.
    Politics aside,  I don't think we're seeing some deliberate "deep state" resistance. I think it's natural given the circumstances but those being resisted do have to blame it on something.

A Thousand Points of Light

    That was Bush 41's idea.  He was trying to sell his idea of a "kinder, gentler conservatism".   It was a tacit admission he thought most people found the bombast and bullshit directed at the poor and working classes by the Reagan people to be offensive and corrosive.  Who are we to disagree?  It was an admission Bush knew we had been moved from making war on poverty to damned near making war on the poor.  Bush acknowledged Reagan's "Voo-Doo" economics had turned the working class into the working poor. Somehow,  Reagan was able to sell devastating economic stagnation as some sort of success for genuinely bad ideas.  As it turned out, Bush 41 couldn't repeat that kind of "success".
    Before I go further, it's necessary to point out there were a lot of reasons for that stagnation that Reagan had no control over or responsibility for.  The problem with Reagan was that very few of his ideas or actions did anything but make it all worse.  Ignore the rhetoric and just look at the stats.  I know we have a generation who think Reagan was their kindly grandfather but statistics and results don't lie.  It's all there in bold print and it runs thru the fine print like  black crepe.
    Bush was trying to continue the "voo-doo" myth by building up the Angels of our better nature.  He was trying to encourage private entities to take up the slack in what the financially crippled government just was no longer willing to do.  All of that to protect the violence the Reagan people had done to the tax code.
    To be honest we did a pretty good job.  Working people of all intermediate classes had no tax cuts but they did step up charity.  We had no relief of our burden we just accepted additional burdens while the upper tax brackets were significantly reduced.  Burdens on the economically most productive shrank. Try as we might, conditions definitely deteriorated.
    Now we face an official assault on the least among us that doesn't seem to have precedent. It's both gross and subtle.  Even Reagan never attacked the hungry.  Even Reagan never tried to elicit cheers for the idea of the poor dying in the streets.  What sense does it make to attack a simple appeal to charity?  There are wheels within wheels even in Heaven just as there are wheels within wheels in Hell or republican party politics.
    Well, that's all pretty bleak but the response is encouraging.
    There was an attack on and a cut in federal funding for Meals on Wheels.  It's been privately funded far beyond what the feds were doing.
    There has been an attack on civil liberties across the board.  I just read contributions to the ACLU have increased five-fold.
    A powerless individual can't be attacked without some sort of Go Fund Me page providing more than enough for their defense.
    The children taken into custody at the border have fully funded defenses. Though why they need some sort of defense is a mystery to me.
    Look, my point is;  here we are, perfectly capable of providing for the things we see that need done. The things I've pointed out are the exceptional cases that have drawn attention. But what about the mundane?  Didn't we used to have a government where we all worked together to relieve the exceptional and the mundane?  Why do we pay ever more to have a government that doesn't extend help to all?  That's not the idea.  The government is not supposed to make enemies of some segment of society whether they be rich or totally deprived.
    This is America. We encourage the exceptional and support the less fortunate.  We've proved for two centuries that model works best.
    Get with the program!  We're all points of light. How brightly can you shine?

What Have You Done?

    I believe in open borders.  I believe our country has been made great by the concept of open borders.  I know I'm right.  The evidence is all around us from sea to shining sea.
    I'm an American.  I don't admit of fear, nor apprehension or hesitation.  The majority of us are that way.
    Our founding documents do not say, "All Americans."  They do say "All men."  Some sort of citizenship is not a precondition to all of our inalienable rights.  But if you will insist, I have a question for you.
    Exactly what the fuck have any of you ever done to earn your "citizenship" except to be dumb shit lucky enough to be born here?  What deserts have you crossed, what rivers have you forded holding your children?  What uniformed authorities have you confronted?  Don't bother telling me about your military service.  Lately, we've been deporting not just veterans but disabled veterans.  I can't imagine what genius came up with that but there it is.  If that doesn't tell you the entire idea of exclusion is bullshit there's just no point in talking to you.  You can stop reading now.  This is too advanced for your brand of citizenship.
    Lately, I've been reading about what people go thru to appear at our southern border with their children or just by themselves.  I highly recommend that reading.  These people are not murderers or drug dealers or gang members.  Nor are they any member of some class infesting us in some racist wet dream.  To say that from the greatest pulpit in the country is shameful on an order that can't be adequately described.  It certainly can't be adequately condemned.
    The truth is, just one of these individuals, families, mothers or children is worth 10 of those who would pervert our national promise and values.
    So, exactly, what have you ever done?

Obscurity and Absurdity

    This is an incredibly busy society and culture and a lot goes on that just isn't noticed much or it just wouldn't go on.  Sometimes, if you have your profitable little niche,  keeping a low profile might be a good idea.  If you're in the entertainment industry that might seem counter-intuitive.  You wouldn't think there could be such a thing as 'too much attention' but there is.  The idea of  'say whatever you want about me, just spell my name right' only goes so far.
    I think the "Duck Dynasty" guys are a good example.  Here they were, laboring on in relative obscurity.  The average person was pretty much indifferent to them.  In terms of the overall market, their record cable numbers were paltry but they did manage to generate hundreds of millions in ad revenues.  Then one of these guys emerged in the mainstream media and said some outrageous shit. They spelled his name right. The content of his remarks didn't matter. The attention did.  People associated his name and the name of the show with the network and started just skipping past the network, in total, in the endless surfing, in general because of that negative connotation.  Absurdity.
    It's thought the show was dropped like a hot potato for some bullshit, PC reason.  Nah, they saw the numbers and realized the objectionable bullshit was a poison pill that had generated too much of the wrong attention.  So much of what we are tempted to see as politics is just the simple operation of capital.  Ahem. Back to capitalism.
    Laura Ingraham is kind of having the same problem.  Until recently, it's safe to assume not many had the slightest idea who she is.  She's kind of a poor man's Ann Coulter.  If you have a rudimentary education her brand of fallacious, circular reasoning is, patently absurd.  The problem she's having is people are beginning to associate and identify those who advertise on her show with her less than attractive message.
    I'm beginning to think this is the dynamic at work in bi-annual elections.  Rather than motivating dissatisfaction the people in power are probably just attracting too much attention.  It's pretty easy to make the case that the average political message, no matter the source, doesn't stand up to much scrutiny.  It's the republican's bad luck their message is being increasingly identified with crying children and bankers lighting cigars with hundred dollar bills.  That could be a little hard to overcome.

Colin Kaepernick

    It's more complicated than you might think.  First off, the elevation of Kaepernick to starter status following Alex Smith's injury was a monumental coaching mistake.  Kaepernick was never more than a competent back-up.   Alex Smith has proven to be a winner ever since.  It was just part of a series of coaching errors that have plagued the 49ers in their free-fall to the cellar-dwelling status they now hold.  It happens all the time in professional sports.  The NFL is probably the least forgiving and most prone to mistake.  The seasons are brief and brutal.  There is very little margin for error.
    Here's the truth.  Kaepernick signed a new contract that paid him just less than 14 million up front.  Ever after, his performance wasn't just suspect.  He stank up the joint.  NFL player/personnel people notice that and avoid those types of players.  There was never a chance he would be signed by an elite team based on his performance alone.  If you add in his "social" baggage he rendered himself unemployable.  Now, his time away from the league probably means the reasonable and understandable end to his NFL career quite apart from any "social" consideration.  You would think he would know that. Perhaps he does know that.
    As a degenerate gambler and an avid sports fan that ends the sports aspect of this discussion.  It would be nice if the discussion stopped there but it hasn't and it's not going to.  It would be a good joke if I could say,  "Houston, we have a problem."  but Houston isn't going to sign him either.
    Now, it gets serious.  This guy managed to step into some powerful, complex and perhaps, dangerous currents in our society.  First, let's deal with misconceptions about NFL players.  Maybe the graduation rate isn't as good as it could be but the truth is, these are highly accomplished individuals with great wealth who have had more than a little exposure to a detailed, higher education.  If they speak up, people should and do listen.  That can be troubling.
    There is something going on with the police in this country.  Not all police but there is a kind of misled minority that's becoming more and more vocal.  I happen to think the widespread abuse of PEDs by law enforcement is a major problem.  I think it's a bigger problem in law enforcement than it is in sports and we're seeing that play out.  If you add in the constant undercurrent of racism you begin to see the extent of the problem and you can begin to understand what we're seeing.
    Then we add in the current appeal to the worst impulses of the least among us. That's not new.  We've always had these recurring waves of nativism and 'know nothing-ism' and we've always had those willing to motivate and exploit those waves.  The thing that I think is worrisome and perhaps dangerous is the convergence of these things and the unrealistic responses.
    Look, it's impossible to look at the cases of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown and others and not understand why reasonable people could conclude they were murdered.  You can certainly understand why black folks might want to point out Black Lives Matter.  They do.  How did the backlash become so vociferous?  How did these understandable conclusions become conflated with some sort of disloyalty?  How the hell did respect for the military get involved in this?  There are actually people who want to start a civil war over this.  Hell, there are people who think we should have a civil war over the Fed or Windows 10 but this looks a little more serious but it's going nowhere.
    It's 50 years since the era of 1968, 69, 70.  Major national figures just flat murdered.  A guy like Wallace polled 13% of the vote nationwide.  We had a record number of policemen murdered for no reason other than they were policemen. The Chicago police literally rioted on national television.   We had millions in the streets in direct opposition to and a  total disrespect for the military and the government in general.  People didn't kneel they stood up and burned the damned colored bits of cloth by the thousands.   As Dylan pointed out, it wasn't civil war.  Revolution was in the air.
    What happened?  Well, it was the largest economic enterprise in the world bound together by common goals, common education, common aspirations, common entertainments and occupations.  By dint of education and simple decency, we reformed, progressed and excelled.  Our international relations were repaired.  The malefactors trooped off to jail and for the most part, died in shame.  Not much happened nor will it.
    So what is wrong?  Hell, it's all wrong.  Kaepernick will be a hero and a villain for at least a decade but one thing he'll probably never be again is an NFL quarterback.
    I hope that clears it up for ya.  Enjoy the show.

The Search for Divinity

   I can tell you what I think.  I can not tell you what I believe. That would be against my religion.  Faith is an intensely personal thing only to be experienced and not shared except thru sincere good works.  We all fall short as examples to even ourselves.

    The question has been posed:  How did we get here?  Is there some purpose, rhyme or reason?  Are we alone in the universe as the Bible says?

    We seem to think not.  Most instruments to find other intelligent life are pointed away from Earth and haven't yielded much. Of course, the few instruments pointed toward earth in search of intelligent life haven't yielded much either.  When you consider the universe is expanding and is 13.77 billion years old it should be alive with radio signals if there were developing sentient, civilizations.  The argument that time limits our ability to receive signals presupposes the entire universe reached the ability to create radio waves at about the same time. That doesn't seem reasonable to me. However, it does support the idea of a "first cause".  It also brings up the idea that our notions on the age and size of the universe are limited by our powers of observation.

    It certainly could be a case of the old Chinese proverb that a fool can ask enough questions to confound a thousand wise men but the logic does seem to follow.  Why would we be the first in the vast universe to be able to create and receive radio waves?  I dunno.

    There is the idea mankind is a kind of pilot project by God to see if it's worthwhile or even possible to populate His creation.  That seems like a lot of responsibility to me. A responsibility placed on rather frail shoulders.  Why would an omnipotent being need a pilot project?  These are unanswerable questions that dissolve on the concept that faith is the belief in things unseen.

    OK, there's the faith-based arguments or at least some of them.  There are totally secular arguments.  They can be sort of summed up by the statement that life is one of the more amusing properties of carbon.  Sentient life is the operation of random chance in an infinite universe. To suppose we are alone is a conceit.  Maybe so.  Maybe Lorenzo Snow had it right.  "As man now is, God once was.  As God now is, man may be."  Maybe man doesn't just create the Godhead, maybe he is evolving into it.
    There is a theory that sentient life is no more than an unintended infestation of the operation of simple physics.  In the end, we are no more than pond scum or mold or rust.  That leaves us on our own to develop concepts of morality, right and wrong and so forth that only apply in our unintended universe.  A universe small and meaningless dwarfed by a "creation" we have no hope of understanding.
    I don't think that belittles our hopes, aspirations or values in the slightest.  Those things are ours to perfect and employ within limits we have no hope of understanding. They are ours to keep. I don't think it reduces divinity or simple decency one iota. They just become more our own to craft.   It only increases their importance that we must perfect them in relation to each other.
    Man IS the measure!

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Ellis Island

    I was reading about immigration law.  Contrary to what I normally say about now in these screeds, I do recommend we all do that.  Just type in "US Immigration Law" and prepare to be ashamed.  It's OK. We're Americans and in fact, we have a lot less to be ashamed of than most.  Now that you figure I'm a Commie Bastard, can we talk?  It's not like I watch soccer.
    Let's get that Commie thing out of the way.  There is absolutely nothing in the truly transcendent history of the United States that justifies any type of immigration exclusion.  The type of human aggression that fuels immigration fuels capitalism and if there's a better idea than capitalism I haven't seen it. If our imperfect employment of capitalism doesn't prove that, well, I'm at a loss.  So, screw the Commies.  No offense.
    As for my native American friends in relation to that "aggression" thing.  Sorry.  Unlike a lot of humanity in its expansion, you guys didn't run into opposition until the Europeans came along.  You did manage to generate some inter-tribal warfare.  To be honest, you just weren't very good at it.  That may be to your credit and I truly believe it is but it kinda sucks to be you in an incredibly aggressive environment.  I digress.
    We seem to have a "problem" that people can't find a good answer to.  It doesn't occur to these geniuses there is no answer because it's not a problem but there you have it.
     This can't be intelligently discussed without acknowledging the number one consideration is fear.  Fear of the unknown, fear of the "other".  There's a fancy word for that we have obviously, not spent enough time teaching: Xenophobia.
    This is the primary expression of this fear.  People are afraid the minority, interlopers will become the majority and having done that will behave as badly in the majority as the current majority has.  They are afraid people will do to them what they do every day to others.  The fear is so entrenched, if you point it out you're somehow naive or unmanly or subject to a range of other, belittling insults; unpatriotic.
    In the meantime, there are real problems. Some people bring disease, some bring a criminal background that escapes recognition or regulation. Well, that's not good but the primary problem is, without proper documentation they have a myriad of problems engaging with and participating in society.  This leads to a number of subversive, survival strategies some of which are actually low-level crimes and can lead to real harm.  Unintentional or not, it's still harm.  We're right to be concerned.  We are not right to refuse to employ obvious solutions because unrealistic fear blocks our judgment.
    How many different ways can that be said?  We can not allow unrealistic fear to block our judgment.  It's a recipe to create real problems. It's time to dismiss those fears and employ realistic solutions to actual problems.  We have a model for that we employed to beneficial effect for decades. For some reason, we seem to get the idea our forebearers didn't think clearly.  That's not right and our successful model is Ellis Island.
    40% of the American public can trace at least one ancestor to Ellis Island.  This is how that process worked.  For the most part, people were screened for criminality in their home countries before they embarked.  That resulted in a minor 2% being rejected at Ellis. People were screened for obvious disease and quarantined and treated. Then they documented them. Ya, see that?  They addressed, in a realistic way, the obvious problems.  For the most part, the process took a couple hours.  We didn't have a wall, we had a gate.  We don't need a wall, we need a gate.
    Yes, I am advocating open borders on the Ellis Island model.  That really only raises one question: Won't we be flooded with immigrants?  Reasonable estimates say we have 13 million illegal immigrants.  We can honestly observe; anyone who wants to be here is here.  Even the famous 2018 caravan of illegal invaders petered out to a pathetic 1200+.  There are 334 million Americans.  I think we can take it.  I ain't scarit.

Proof of Insurance Please.

    It is important to know that every right implies and actually thrusts upon us a responsibility.                Imagine we're driving down the road in 1950.  The insurance industry is about to start a decades long campaign to make our trip infinitely safer.  Through incentives and insistence they are going to change the cars we drive and the roads we travel. They are going to forge a public/private partnership that serves us well to this day.  In the process, they are going to save thousands of lives and become very profitable.  When you think about it, it's very doubtful,  given the types of vehicles and the condition of the highways at that time, if those liability companies would have been in favor of universally mandated insurance. Just too damned dangerous and not much profit left.  So progress was slow.
    The first thing I remember them mandating was safety glass.  Shatterproof glass. Can you even imagine driving a car without shatterproof glass?  Can you imagine the injuries?  They were commonplace.  I can think of three movie actors who were badly disfigured but gruesome trivia is not the subject today.
    The next thing I remember was the mandatory inclusion of flashing turn signals and believe it or not, brake lights.  They had public service announcements showing you how to make hand signals for turns and stops.  I'm sure the hand signals we are all familiar with now were common then as well.  There's only so much you can communicate with flashing lights.  But, they decided to try a bit. Eventually, they got to the point, if you had a vehicle without turn signals it had to be retrofitted.  That was probably the first collaboration of insurance company insistence and government mandate.  I was too young to notice if people complained but I'm sure some did.
    Next underwriters became influential in the design of roads, proper lighting in some places, roadside gradings, breakaway light standards, guide rails instead of guardrails and on and on.
    Then seat belts, much larger brake lights, emergency flashers, running/side lights. Uniform bumper heights and on and on.  It's getting to the point where it's kinda hard to get killed in a car and because of that insurance profits are through the roof.  Just look at the ubiquitousness of the advertising.  That costs excess cash. They have it.
    They have that excess cash because that public/private partnership is a good model and it works.  By giving industries a tangible financial stake in the safety of their products there has been a substantial improvement in safety, usefulness and profit.  In case you missed it, that's capitalism in action. The benefits have flowed to the public and the insurance industry and the manufacturers.
    This is not an isolated example and when you think about it, why should it be?  Commercial and residential buildings, workplace safety, fire codes, electrical and plumbing codes.  By the way. Plumbing codes are not enforced by some office of the zoning or building commission.  Plumbing codes are developed and enforced by the Health Department.
    Isn't that nice?  I bet you didn't know or at least, never thought of that stuff.  Well, now you have.
    Let's go back to the original example.  Automobiles are useful, ubiquitous and can be dangerous.  They are prone to misuse.  They can fall into the wrong, unauthorized hands and do great damage.  We insist that potential damage be indemnified.
    Firearms are useful, ubiquitous and can be dangerous.  They are prone to misuse.  They can fall into the wrong, unauthorized hands and do great damage.  There really doesn't seem to be much difference because there isn't.  The long-term solution to the problems we face seems to be a public/private partnership that indemnifies those negative outcomes.
    We need every gun, every gun existing or newly made to have a liability policy.  The evolving solutions to our problems will be gradually and effectively addressed by simple capitalism outside the hurly-burly of political faction and well inside the 2nd Amendment.  The problem is not our rights. The problem is our responsibilities.  We know how to address the responsibilities our rights burden us with. Let's do it!

The Sane Society

    In the early 1970's, I read a book by Erich Fromm, titled "The Sane Society".  It's available for free download as a pdf.  I'm not sure I recommend it.  I certainly don't recommend the 30 to 40 pages of introduction.  Those people talk too much.
    I've read several reviews of the book.  It seems to me the various reviewers and the people who wrote the introduction hadn't really understood the book.
    Now, the book was published in 1955.  Somehow philosophical works of that era devolved into an excessive navel examination apparently frightened by Freud.  The fact of that devolution seems to support his thesis.
    His thesis is: There is no observable evidence that our society isn't based on and isn't resulting in insanity.  There is no reason to claim, collectively we are sane or have been sane for quite some time.
I think proof of this is, in 1970, when I first read it, his assertions made sense and now some 63 years after publication in the fifties, they continue to be true.  He nailed it.
    I think there are levels to this.  I honestly believe the reason we universally think our relatives are crazy is simply that we know them better than we know others and they know us every bit as well.  Believe me, your Aunt Mary and your cousin Johnny think your nuts.  Be honest.  Don't you really think they're nuts too?  All my aunts and cousins are.  Have you met them?  Banana Whackies.
    Look at our entertainments.  This is totally out of hand.  It has devolved into a cross between head wound theater and the Danse Macabre.  I understand that often violence is a necessary component of drama but how does a rational person explain the popularity of  "The Walking Dead" and other such things?  There simply is no rational explanation.  It seems like, over time, we have descended from the theatrical violence of Shakespear thru Poe to Dirty Harry to a societal Zombie Apocalypse.
    On a lighter note:  I can see the idea behind the dance of Shalome and the idea of the striptease of Sally Rand but how does that explain burlesque as a nationwide phenomenon?  How do you explain the continuing nationwide phenomenon of "gentlemen's clubs"?  If they don't have any clothes on they are not trying to appeal to gentlemen and if you are there you're not a gentleman.  If you're not gonna let me put it in my mouth don't show it to me.  Geez!
    Fromm goes on and on about war but he can be summed up in his quote of another historian who pointed out that from 1500 BC to 1860 there had been no less than 8,000 peace treaties lasting an average of 2 years. You can call that tragic, bleak, disappointing, whatever but you can't call it sane.
    Politics: His discussion of that portrays his fixed location smack dab in the middle of the Cold War.  None of it can be described as rational.  Beyond basic values, I try not to discuss current politics because I too am stuck in the passions of the moment and my own views which even I think tend to the extreme.  However, it is useful to note that we currently seem to have a cross between P T Barnum and Scrooge McDuck as president motivated only by the will to power with no discernable, coherent philosophy.  Does that seem reasonable to you?
    So, Fromm asserts there is no reason to think we are in a sane society other than we claim it's sane.  It seems we are forced to agree.  What do we do about that?  Well, we can try.

Two a Days

    For the most part, I resist phone calls with people I can simply write to.  Don't get me wrong.  I love conversation, with its misapprehensions and sometimes hilarious mistakes and I like the opportunity to ad-lib but I grew up in a different time when people wrote letters.
    In a time before that if you lived in a major city there were two a day mail deliveries. This was before telephones became ubiquitous.  People could exchange notes in the course of the day.  In case you missed it;  people could text back and forth with the aid of the Postal Service.  Technology changes.  People, not so much.
    I found a shoe box filled with these little notes and postcards exchanged between my maternal great-grandfather and his son and my grandmother in about 1917.  He had been born in 1846  and was a Union veteran of the Civil War.  They were just playful little notes just like you would expect from texts today.  He always wrote as though he had a smile on his face.  I never met him but I've always liked him for that. It's kind of interesting to note he would have been in his early 70's and my grandfather would have been about 25, my grandmother, about 18.  You wouldn't know that from the tone or content of the notes.  Just an easy exchange between friends.  I only mention that because it pleases me more than a century later. It's a goal in a family devoutly to be wished.
    Then, for a long time, people wrote letters back and forth.  A lot of people had little stationary kits.  I never did but I always had a favorite pen, envelopes, an address book and a roll of stamps. I maintained a wide correspondence as it was known then.
    Somewhere in the late '80s that seemed to stop.  I guess long distance rates went down and people just talked on the phone.  Of course, now there is no such thing as a long distance call.  When you think about the billing and convenience,  cell phones really have produced a revolution. We take it for granted now but if you think back it's kinda odd.  Everywhere you go people have a phone stuck to their ear.  Twenty years ago,  Garrison Keillor said he'd never have a cell phone because if God had wanted him to walk down the street having loud,  one-way conversations,  He would have made him insane.  I'd be willing to bet Keillor has a cell phone now.
    In the last several years I've noticed I have, again, a wide correspondence thru email and it's almost on that kinda two a day basis.
    So, I guess this all comes under the heading: The more things change the more they remain the same.  And of course, by writing this,  I'm putting off writing the three emails I'm behind.

The Abortion Debate

    For some reason, people have gotten the idea the debate about abortion has two salient features. 1: It began with Roe V Wade in January of, 1973  and 2:  It's exclusive to the United States.  Those two assumptions are features of the intellectual chauvinism of the American Right. Those two assumptions are incorrect and not at all what I've been thinking about.  That's why I mention them?

    Although, it is worth noting there was no government concern about abortion in the United States until people became concerned about the safety and the qualifications of the various providers in the 1880's. Attempts to outlaw the practice didn't come until even later.
    I was thinking about who pays for the continuance of the debate.  Abortion on demand is settled law and practice in the United States and it keeps showing up in the courts at great public expense as the result of the actions of various state legislatures.  The defense of the settled law and practice falls on the shoulders of private individuals and organizations at great expense. But the attack on settled law and practice is financed by state treasuries. Why?  How did we get to a point where all taxpayers are required to pay for attacks on settled law and practice?  In addition, when Roe challenged Wade , Wade and  the state of Texas defended themselves at taxpayer expense and Roe was privately financed.  You could certainly say the Texas law was settled and accepted practice.  What sense does this reversal of who pays the bill make?   Why do the taxpayers get stuck with the tab no matter what side they're defending, insurgency or settled law and practice?  Without partisan accusation I don't really have an answer for that.  I can't think of another example of that circumstance.  The anti-choice people have hijacked the various state treasuries.  When you think about it it's kinda odd no matter what side you're on.
     Sides. The debate has gone on for thousands of years.  The ancient Greeks talked about it.  Was it a violation of the Hippocratic Oath?  They didn't discuss it as a matter of law .  It just was and they wondered about the morality.  It pretty much stayed that way until the Christian Church came along.  That's when they started talking about penalties.  Even those penalties were ecclesiastical rather than civil although they carried a great deal more weight than they do now.  Morality was a separate realm from secular authority.  That's an interesting concept we might better follow today.  Render unto Caesar etc.  The medieval authorities seemed to think morality was separate from secular consideration.  It is worthy of note the Church did have a power to administer punishments including corporal punishments.  Think Spanish Inquisition.  If you really wanna go deep you can think about Sharia Law.
    So, as I followed the reading on the subject, this struck me.  It seems to me, as the concept of individual rights of man began to develop so did the concept of secular, governmental limitation of those rights.  It doesn't seem reasonable to me secular authority has a legitimate role in questions of morality but where do you draw that line?
    So, in actuality, it's an ancient debate and there is a serious question if it's a subject for government at all.  Interesting, but why do we keep getting billed for it?

Waco Etc

    There were mistakes made at Ruby Ridge and Waco that eventually resulted in hundreds of deaths.  Those mistakes have never been discussed.  Those mistakes center on basic principles of the establishment of any governed community and we're dealing with the debris 20 years later.
    First: And this is very important:  Society has a right and a duty to defend itself.  Secondly: All governments are ceded a monopoly on the employment of violence.  All arguments concerning the Constitution and civil redress do eventually meet the reality of first principles as well they should.  There is a reason why violating first principles is recognized as dangerous.  It is the first step on a "slippery slope".  This particular slope ended at Oklahoma City a few years later but that's not really the end of it.
    In both instances, Ruby Ridge and Mt Carmel,  society was confronted with overt violence by violent malefactors.  These malefactors had been brought to the attention of duly organized authority via their own anti-social activities centering on the advocacy of violence against society.  Their petit motivations are completely unimportant. They rendered their own message irrelevant by confronting first principles and no one in authority caught it.
    Randy Weaver et al were  given 11 days to surrender after they shot a federal official.  To be sure his wife was killed and well she should have been.  Oh, she was holding her infant child!  Isn't that just too affecting an image?  Who was holding the children at the day care center in Oklahoma City when they were murdered?  The idea we ever paid Randy Weaver anything but a bullet in the brain is an insult to common sense.  Had those people been treated as the violent, anti-social thugs they aspired to be and in fact were,  immediately,  the rest would not have happened.
    The Branch Davidians  were gun dealers. They lawfully dealt in mail order guns. They appealed directly to others with the same anti-government, end- times philosophies.  When confronted by lawful authority about suspect transactions they responded by murdering 4 federal agents.
    Here's an interesting aside.  If anyone who cares to could open their own government-funded school what kind of school do you suppose these people would have used your tax dollars to operate?  Someone should ask Betsy DeVos that question.
    What did happen was David Koresh, who was clearly irrational, was given 51 days to negotiate an end to the siege set off by the Davidian's murder of law enforcement officers.
    The negotiations failed for two reasons.  There never should have been a negotiation of any type.  That in and of itself was irrational.  The amount of force necessary to apprehend the murderers of our agents should have been immediately assembled and employed.  No lives were saved for the second reason.  Koresh was irrational and failing the duty to order and society did nothing but embolden other irrational people.  That should have been foreseen.  Just because circumstances have been imposed that make people loath to do their duty does not mean they shouldn't do their duty or make it less of a duty and this is a glaring example of why.  That needs to be recognized going forward.
    Two years later, to the day and in commemoration of the date,  the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed by malefactors encouraged by the mistakes at Ruby Ridge and Waco.  The ATF agents involved in the Waco siege were based at that building.  The bizarre ethos created by treating Weaver and Koresh as something other than common criminals killed 168 totally innocent people including 19 children.  That's a totally unacceptable outcome caused by a failure to understand the basic ideas behind government itself.  In this case those ignored ideas are: Society has the right and the duty to protect itself and government thru duly constituted authority has the sole license to employ violence.  If the protection of those basic concepts isn't immediate and zealous it will uniformly lead to trouble as we have seen.

   

How Much Ya Got?

    In a society that's so affluent, surrounded by so much wealth,  it's no surprise we study the poor. We study what makes them poor and how they might deserve and employ our generosity and how they can quit being poor.  Generosity.  Aren't we just wonderful?  Their poverty concerns us and we want them to quit it.  So do they.
    Eventually, someone got around to wondering exactly how generous various classes of people actually were.  What they confirmed is interesting.  I say 'confirmed" because John Steinbeck told us decades ago when he said, " If you're in trouble, hurt or need - go to the poor people.  They're the only ones that'll help - the only ones."
    I don't know where that quote came from in Steinbeck's works but it's the kind of "out of plot" throwaway observation that typifies good literature.  Not every word has to advance a narrative but just about every word should inform.
    At any rate, it turns out the poor, by any metric we know, are the most generous among us. They apparently have more free time to read the Bible.  My dad used to say you can never grasp anything with a clenched fist.  He was certainly never wealthy but in his way, he was never poor.
    Abraham Lincoln said, " God must surely love poor people.  He created so many of them."  Perhaps God was trying to teach us about fraternal love and charity.
    I guess it's a personal familiarity with the very concept of need that enables the poor to be free with generosity within their limits.  Maybe half of essentially nothing is better than nothing at all.
    Familiarity with the very concept of need.  There's a thought.  We've built a society that can and does isolate many individuals from a moment's need.  Maybe that good thing becomes a flaw.  I don't suppose we can teach poverty to make its attendant lessons more available. Although, sometimes life itself takes care of that detail.  I've been poor.  I don't recommend it.  Some things are better learned from a book even if imperfectly learned.
    Bill Gates is credited as one of the most generous people in the world.  I doubt if he had just one, he would give you half his blanket.  On the other hand, Warren Buffet seems to be a guy who just might give you half his blanket.  It's said that as Gates' fortune grew he came under criticism for not being more active in philanthropy.  Now,  the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation partners with Warren Buffet around the world.  You do have to wonder how that came as an afterthought to one of the richest people in the world.
    If you want to understand simple generosity wait for the large lottery payouts to reach into the hundreds of millions,  then go to an employee's lunchroom or a neighborhood tavern and listen to the music and magic of idle daydreams.

You Can't Be Serious.

    There is a philosophy at work here.  There is and has been for some long time a philosophy that says the Federal Government should only be involved in a very few things.  National Defense, international relations, fostering trade and internal commerce and actually not much else.
     Laissez Faire.  That's why people who believe various agencies should just disappear have been put in charge of those agencies.  It's a philosophy that no one has taken seriously for over a century.  However, it had to be shot as dead as McKinley to get them to stop and it literally was.  It was TR that opened that door to progressive government when McKinley was shot dead.  The grandparents of some of today's republicans were horrified by progressivism.  Remember, Wilbur Ross is 82. Trump, himself is in his mid-'70s.  Yep their grandparents and in some cases their parents.  Institutional memory dies hard.  We've created a different world and there are people who just don't like it much and definitely have the resources to fight back.
    Some of these people are just outright idiots but some of them are just wrong.  Geez, I hope you don't have to be an outright idiot to just be wrong.  Some of the smartest people I know have been wrong.  Some of them I know personally, quite well.
    For some reason, you can't convince these people the pittance we spend in the overall scheme of things to help and advance our fellow citizens isn't some sort of affront. They have not grasped the great lesson of the last century that by helping, in some small measure, the least among us we elevate us all despite the evidence all around them.
    Let's talk about government cheese.  Where do you think that came from?  It was purchased by the government to support prices to farmers who had flooded the market with dairy products.  The same is true with rice, canned hams and various fruit juices.  But it's worse than that on a growing share of our extremely productive economy.  The SNAP program streamlined delivery but in the end, it's a way of subsidizing agricultural production.  A growing portion of that production is concentrated in corporate concerns who shortly will instruct their republican friends to just shut the hell up. That's not where it stops.
    Let's look at energy production for home electrification and heating.  If it weren't for nationwide subsidies of these commodities 20% of their market would be gone.  We'd be looking at 20% of American households with some form of alternative electric production even if it was candles and home heating production even if it was scrap wood.. Telephones?  Without subsidies, the ubiquitous phone booth would be back PDQ.  Even Reagan got that.
    How about medical care?  Without Medicaid and Medicare, about 50% of hospitals would close and you'd likely die at 50.  Not because you can't afford to provide for yourself but the facilities you rely on couldn't be run without the provided subsidies and they wouldn't exist.  This provision benefits us all and has elevated us all. Can we economize? Of course. Can we abandon a century of progress?  Of course not.
    They are following a philosophy but it's a failed philosophy we all should know will not work.

The Burden of Taxation

    Who's paying the bills?  More of all of us are paying than you might think.  Let's look at it.
     The figures here come from the OMB and the CBO.  They are current for 2015.  That doesn't really matter, it doesn't change much no matter how you fiddle with the marginal tax rates. Thank God.
    It boils down to this: 46% of all federal revenue comes from income taxes.  In the end, the famous 1% provide about 24% of all federal revenue.  If they don't have enhanced access they certainly should.  However, 54% of all revenue comes from other sources. That's tariffs and excise taxes and fees.  It's interesting it took a Constitutional Amendment to make those not the only sources for federal revenue.  The Sixteenth Amendment.  That was the result of decades of debate, claim and counter court claim.  It's really kinda fascinating and not what I'm talking about.
    That 54%.  All federal and local taxes for that matter are eventually levies on individual residents. All corporate taxes, all tariffs and levies are paid by individuals going about their daily lives.  Do you rent an apartment rather than own a house?  You are still paying property taxes.  Several states don't just take note of that. They refund a portion to low-income individuals and have for decades.  You know it's only fair when even republicans think it's fair.  That's not a partisan 'knock'.  It's an observation.  I might get to the partisan knocks later.
    Here's a question: Are you a one pack a day cigarette smoker?  If so, you actually pay more state and federal taxes than a married individual with children who earns in excess of 100K a year.  You will certainly pay more in your lifetime than any amount your care might cost if you are unfortunate enough to fall ill from your habit.  That'll piss the kids off but it's true.  Smoke em if you got em.
    Do you enjoy a drink now and then or regularly?  If you live in Pennsylvania 51% of you liquor bill is taxes. Even a lousy glass of draft beer contains a myriad of micro taxes both federal and local. All of this contributes to and benefits the common weal.  Look that up. 'The Common Weal'. It's important.  Cheers and thanks.
    Just by living in a community an individual makes a major, lasting and important contribution to that community.  No matter who we happen to be, no matter the source of our income we are, perforce, contributing members of that community.  All of us deserve a say.  It's our money.  Our accidents of birth don't matter.  It's our money, hopefully properly directed at the common weal but our money in the end.  That means it's also their money in the end no matter who "they" happen to be and it should be spent with them in mind.
    In case you're too dense to get it this is an argument for so-called 'illegal' aliens.  These are our neighbors and with a little thought our friends.  It's also an argument for all of us.  You should be able to vote in, at least, local elections by showing a current utility bill.  You're there. You should have a say. It's your money. That's America!  Thanks for your contribution and I sincerely do mean that!

Geographic Isolation

    We've been told so often and tried so often to walk a mile in another's shoes we sometimes forget we really do have shoes of our own.  We try so hard to keep an open mind some people seem to forget to not keep their minds so open their brains fall out on the ground.  The 'white man's burden' is becoming something other than Kipling's completely innocent but completely objectionable idea.  We're being burdened with blame we really don't deserve.
    The truth is the collection of 'scary white guys' that traditionally have run the United States aren't exclusively some manifestation of white supremacy. They're just the product of geographic isolation.
    We currently face and have faced the tension between accident of birth and true meritocracy.  Capitalism is the ideal venue to let that play out.  ( Boy, that'll get me in some trouble.)  Capitalism with its rewards can separate aristocracy and meritocracy better than any other system.
    Our aristocracy is just the product of a certain group of individuals being confronted with relatively unlimited resources and opportunities.  I don't think it would really matter if they had been white, black or purple.  It was a unique circumstance and they would have to have been pretty dumb not to make the most of it and they would have to have become some sort of different species to not pass on their success to their progeny.
     I guess that's all just a roundabout way of saying, in the end,  race plays a smaller role than we seem to believe.  It sure has played a different role than most people think in the debates of the last 60 years or so.
    The recent formulation is:  Scary white guys because of  'white privilege' run the show.  They somehow abuse the 'privilege' to hold everybody else down.  Do they?  Which white guys?
    It seems to me there has been an awful lot of progress made in the last 50 years or so.  An awful lot of it proposed by those white guys and at the very least promoted by those guys, encouraged by those guys, very often articulated by those guys and articulated well. Sure, we're seeing backsliding but we're responding to it.
    I don't like the idea that somehow I can't know your circumstance or understand your aspiration because I am not you.  It's so obviously untrue in actual result.  I don't think I have to be black or purple to see the value of ultimate truth.  I seem to have done fairly well being old,  white and fairly scary.  I have no more to do with northern Europe than other people have to do with Africa or Latin America. I do have a lot to do with America as an ideal I want to succeed, just as my neighbors do. We all can read and have a sense of right and wrong.
    I believe in inclusion across the board.  It works.  We've built a NATION by using it.  Let's not forget.  But also let's not forget who "all" includes.

A Three Legged Stool

    I find this to be annoying.  So, I'll annoy you.  Tom Selleck is a favorite B-List movie actor.  I like him.  One of my all-time favorite lines comes from him.  In " Quigley Down Under"  he says, " This ain't Dodge City and you ain't Bill Hickock."  It comes in handy as a put down in a gun rights debate.  Recently, he appeared in a commercial for some sort of financial thing or other.  In that commercial, in his best, gee shucks, sincere tones he told everyone how unstable a three legged stool was in comparison to a four-legged chair.  That is simply untrue.
     The production of an advertisement like this is a several hundred thousand dollar enterprise.  In the upper, decision-making process there are dozens of experienced, well-educated people.  How did they miss this?
     Any decent craftsman knows a three-legged stool is far more stable on an uneven surface and doesn't need precisely made legs to be stable on any surface.  You never have to stick a match pack or some other kind of shim under one of the legs to keep it from wobbling.  Most people who have ever milked a cow know this to be true.
     Now,  I kinda get it that a college graduate working at a production company probably has never milked a cow and might not be aware of that but how, among all those educated people, did someone not come across Buckminster Fuller?  You would think one of them had been to Epcot.  Epcot largely consists of a very large geodesic dome.  It's a series of interlocking triangles all based on Fuller's theories about the strength and stability of triangles and tri-pods.  Those facts, that should be immediately available to any well-informed person rendered what Ole Tom had to say absolute gibberish but boy, he sounded convincing. That's a problem.  It's a real problem in that at least one person involved in that production had to be aware it was gibberish but the decision was made that the reassuring style far outweighed any substance.  Further,  the decision was made that a majority of the potential audience was too ill-informed to know the truth.  That's a major problem of contempt for the average person.
When you translate that contempt into politics it becomes dangerous and a bit insulting if you catch it.
    Over the years we've seen a variety of public speaking styles in our leaders. There's the FDR style of careful explanation coupled with an appeal to the angels of our better nature,  couched in a kind of soaring, well crafted rhetoric.  It's the kind of thing you'd hear in the Ivy League mainly because these guys are from the Ivy League. Then we see the thing Selleck was trying to do rhetorically in Reagan's appeals. That kind of dead-pan unemotional assertion of assured, common sense no matter the content.
     I like Jimmy Carter's employment of the speaking style he'd grown up listening to from the pulpit.  It's a style heavily influence by classical ideas. That's mainly because of the heavy influence of Bible Colleges and Seminaries and their heavy reliance on classical instruction.  In that style not only do you hear the rolling cadences but if looked at on the page, the sentences nearly, physically balance.  That's evidence of a good education in Latin.  You can see it a lot in the writings of the Founding Fathers because that's the type of education they had.  Lincoln modified that style to suit his almost crunching logic mainly because he was self-taught and learned,  in large part, in a vacuum devoid of any Latin pretensions.  It's an interesting synthesis almost evocative of Truman.
    I have digressed but as a participant in several public speaking courses, it does kinda fascinate me.  You may have noticed these essays actually scan much better if they're thought of as little speeches.  For the most part, they are conceived that way.
    Back to the point.  I think it's obvious we have two types of leaders cut from the same cloth.  In the end, with few exceptions, these guys are highly educated.  The difference seems to be in their assessment of their fellow citizens.  Some have the realization that our people, en mass, eventually arrive at relatively wise conclusions.  A kind of common sense of the common herd.  In their rhetoric, they attempt to enlighten, inform and elevate the public debate.  They do this out of respect for those they address. Then we have people who think since they are better educated and better informed they are just better than the common herd.  Instead of respect for those without their advantages, they have a kind of contempt and believe people are meant simply to be led to whatever ends the speaker/leader desires.  There has always been a word for this: Demagoguery.  I wonder why common, constant truths seem to become shop-worn.
    So, the real difference isn't in the style.  The real difference is in the assessment of the audience. Some people will try to sell you a poorly designed chair and call it stability and some will refer you to the simple wisdom of a Buckminster Fuller.

How About Dem Stillers!

    Well, the Super Bowl is over.  People in Pittsburgh took a certain satisfaction in watching the Patriots lose. I'm a sports fan and a degenerate gambler.  I thought the Eagles would win  and was glad they did from a purely financial perspective.  I actually thought the score would be more like 34 to 10 but the game went pretty much the way I thought it would.  The  Eagles came out and whacked the Patriots on the pee-pee and didn't let up.  They are that good.
    I just looked out my window to confirm this.  This is Pittsburgh, so the only real story is the future prospects of the Steelers.  It's not good my friends. We got big trouble right here in the River City.
    Big Ben is not retiring and that's a damned good thing because there is no viable plan to replace him.  Exactly how would you go about that anyway?  There's no Steve Young on the horizon, not even a Danny White or a Bubby.  However, unless something changes and fast, they are looking at a losing season.  You'll have to make a reservation to jump off the Clemente Bridge.
    Well, Jim.  You sound like any other Yinzer fan.  No, I'm a degenerate gambler, remember?  Here's what I see.  All of last season the Steelers played down to their competition and sorta got away with it but then in the play-off game they played a classic 'look-ahead' game and lost a game they should have won.  Those two things are classic coaching failures you normally see in college ball.  Mike Tomlin is a talented, intelligent, prepared and insightful individual.  It would be ridiculous to think he doesn't see what I've seen.  The question is: can he do anything about it?  Sometimes, with some programs, it gets to be a cultural thing and those at the center of that culture become blind.
    It's a definite, 'we'll see' kinda thing.  Immediately, firing Haley was a good step in the right direction.  Not just the change but the way it was made.  Instant karma for failure.  That could be a strong indication that weakness is recognized and will be met aggressively. The organization doesn't share much of it's inner thoughts and workings.  That's as it should be.  They aren't fans eager to discuss every detail.  They are professionals being paid fantastic sums to create those details.  I know for a fact they don't care what we think. Chuck Noll said, if you start thinking like the fans, soon you'll be sitting with the fans.
    As a team, they are at the perfect spot in their collective careers.  Maturity, talent and experience.  We'll know about half way thru the third game of next season if they'll make a serious run or if it will be an opportunity lost like it was this past year.