Goals for America

                                    Goals for America

Communication, despite our technological advances, seems to have become more difficult. As a social species, we are eager for interaction but writing is new to us and speech is our real medium. The written word has to be approached and decided upon so it is easily avoided but we are subjected to speech, whether we want to be or not. Technology has taken us far beyond the annoying town crier or the drunk in the road. We now have television, radio and countless portable devices chatting or blasting at us through walls or from across the street.

So, despite our basic tendencies, we are getting good at tuning things out.

We are protecting ourselves from everything; bad music, arguing spouses, advertisements, talk shows, weird game shows…and politics. We really try to protect ourselves from politics. There was a time when some profound leaders roamed the land but they are extinct. Now we are the victims of simply astonishing political nonsense, caused partly by the growing belief that everything is a performance. Children can make a good living performing on Facebook or Instagram. Clothing must startle. Private tattoos are creeping up the neck and into the face. 

When politicians perform, bad things happen. Intensity and distinctiveness demand politicians step from center stage to the sideshow. In the last months we have had an avalanche of political debris of every kind characterized by insincerity, grandstanding and laughable mendacity, lying so profound and pervasive that we accept it as a sort of compartmentalized argot to be understood, tolerated and ignored like Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Since Vietnam, military men seem to be in decline. And Lord knows what we can think of churchmen. Indeed, one might wonder if our culture of advertising, seduction and insincerity is capable of producing probity at all. Even baseball cheats.
            If true, we might turn to one group that consistently speaks with insight and truthfulness in their area of expertise: Hockey coaches. Whether between periods or at game’s end, hockey coaches consistently give accurate, unflinching assessments of the performance of the team and its coaching staff. They are determined, always looking forward, always as upbeat as the situation allows, always offering some suggestions for improvement. They don’t wander out beyond their field of influence. They seem to be better dressed. And they don’t cry. This is a virtual description of a desirable chief executive.

This leads to an obvious conclusion. Section 1 of Article Two of the United States Constitution sets forth the eligibility requirements for serving as president of the United States, under clause 5: 

            No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

It is time to change this rule to allow hockey coaches born in Canada, to run for president. And if they refuse, perhaps we could conscript them.

                                

shark attack

The Bubba Wallace outrage cum fiasco is telling. This is an accomplished guy who saw a threat where there wasn't one. He probably has a right to be hypersensitive but others have a right to be innocent. In an instance like this, the imagination rules. And it can never be satisfied.




                                        Shark Attack

A shark attack death has closed the beaches in an area of southern California for four days. Why four days? Do they think the predator, with time,  will become a vegetarian?

These victims are usually young, vigorous people; the future of the nation. (People with walkers are usually not such victims.) The loss and damage to such people are is a heartbreaking event for friends and families--and a national loss. So, why don't we stop it? Why don't we just say "No."

There is a way to guarantee safety--and this will work completely: Outlaw recreational ocean bathing. Ban anyone from going into the water. Ever again. Collateral advantages include no drownings, lower medical costs, no safety administration costs, and decreased skin cancer rates as starters.

We know this will work. So why don't we do it?

The Devil Talks Education

                                The Devil Talks Education

In that promising land the spirit of I’m as good as you has already become something more than a generally social influence. It begins to work itself into their educational system. Once you have grasped the tendency, you can easily predict its future developments. The basic principle of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils. That would be “undemocratic.” These differences between the pupils – for they are obviously and nakedly individual differences – must be disguised.

This can be done on various levels. At universities, examinations must be framed so that nearly all the students get good marks [grade inflation]. Entrance examinations must be framed so that all, or nearly all, citizens can go to universities, whether they have any power (or wish) to profit by higher education or not. At schools, the children who are too stupid or lazy to learn languages and mathematics and elementary science can be set to doing the things that children used to do in their spare time. Let them, for example, make mud-pies and call it modelling. But all the time there must be no faintest hint that they are inferior to the children who are at work. Whatever nonsense they are engaged in must have – I believe the English already use the phrase – “parity of esteem.”

Children who are fit to proceed to a higher class may be artificially kept back, because the others would get a trauma by being left behind. The bright pupil thus remains democratically fettered to his own age-group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his contemporary’s attempts to spell out A CAT SAT ON THE MAT.

In a word, we may reasonably hope for the virtual abolition of education when I’m as good as you has fully had its way. All incentives to learn and all penalties for not learning will vanish. The few who might want to learn will be prevented; who are they to overtop their fellows? And anyway the teachers will be far too busy reassuring the dunces and patting them on the back to waste any time on real teaching.

Of course this would not follow unless all education became state education. But it will… I’m as good as you is a useful means for the destruction of democratic societies.

(from C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Proposes a Toast, 1959)

The Picture

Isonomy guaranteed … equality, but not because all men were born or created equal, but, on the contrary, because men were by nature ... not equal, and needed an artificial institution, the polis, which by virtue of its νόμος would make them equal. --Arendt

Painful game last night. As the game has changed, it has become less fun but there is still some basic provincialism and occasional athleticism. And, of course, combat. But last night was an exceptionally bad display. The Steelers were cringeworthy. They were beaten in every aspect of the game and then bullied. On the other side, the Browns had not beaten the Steelers in years and this should have been a signature win. Instead it was a mugging. It was almost as if the Steelers could not defend themselves. Rudolph was awful but he had a lot of help. They could not run; after JuJu was knocked unconscious, there was no one to throw to. And the offensive line was totally over their heads with the Browns' defensive line. In the end, the Steelers were all hospitalized, the Browns incarcerated. The NFL has never looked worse.
The Mercedes is going to have to put down. Born in 1997.

New FBI data on hate crimes in 2018 reveal that there were more incidents of anti-religious hate crimes against Jews in the US last year than against all other religions combined, and Jews were 2.7 times more likely to be a victim of a hate crime than a Muslim-American.

After 16 months of debate, the Continental Congress, sitting in its temporary capital of York, Pennsylvania, agrees to adopt the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union on November 15, 1777. Not until March 1, 1781, would the last of the 13 states, Maryland, ratify the agreement. In 1777, Patriot leaders, stinging from British oppression, were reluctant to establish any form of government that might infringe on the right of individual states to govern their own affairs. The Articles of Confederation, then, provided for only a loose federation of American states.

                         The Picture

The Picture of Dorian Gray was written at the end of the 19th Century by Oscar Wilde, the only novel he ever wrote. It was a problem from the beginning, a Faustian story of sensuality, dissipation, and ruin that was always under attack from his publisher and the British censors.
In the story, a handsome young man sells his soul to the devil. The deal is that a beautiful picture of him will suffer the damages of his dissolute life but his personal, living appearance will remain unchanged. Over time the picture becomes distorted and ugly, a physical reflection of Dorian's soul. 
In the end, Dorian attacks the picture with a knife but he himself suffers the mortal wound and, Shangri-La-like, instantly grows old and dies.
In our more civilized modern life, we do not attack our revealing, ugly selves with knives; we use impeachment.

The Snooky Tax

"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there'd be a shortage of sand."--?Friedman

Dinner at Alexander's. Hated it. Saw Fr. Drew there. Learned that the certification of architects is a forty-hour exam and there are only 123K in the country.

Do we really give money to other countries without expecting anything in return?

Google will soon offer checking accounts to consumers, becoming the latest Silicon Valley heavyweight to push into finance. (wsj)

On September 30, a federal district court judge in Boston upheld Harvard’s use of racial preferences in undergraduate admissions against the challenge that they discriminate against Asian-Americans. 

 This year through July the US produced nearly 100% of the energy consumed according to data from the Energy Information Administration and marked the first time since 1957 that America was basically energy self-sufficient. As recently as 2005 America produced less than 70% of the energy consumed, which was a record low that followed a downward half-century trend from 100% energy self-sufficiency in 1957. US net petroleum imports declined to only 4.8% through September of this year, which is the lowest level in at least 70 years going back to 1949. 

 USC sent a letter to students and parents, acknowledging there have been nine deaths among the student body this year.

There is exactly one language on Earth whose present tense requires a special ending only in the third‑person singular. English. I talk, you talk, he/she talk-s – why just that?


deRugy:    

"The more I follow the Democratic presidential campaign, the more I see how little I understand some people. After all, we can have differences when it comes to ideology, and we can aspire to different things in life. We can even have different understandings of what morality means. Still, there are things on which we should all agree: Because our government is $23 trillion in debt and its annual budget deficits are permanently heading north of $1 trillion, every American should agree that there isn't much space for more spending.And yet Sen. Elizabeth Warren promises that if she becomes president, she will spend $49 trillion over the next 10 years on programs like "Medicare for All," "free" college and many new family entitlements. Meanwhile, Sen. Bernie Sanders would like to spend as much as $97.5 trillion over the next decade. That's on top of a $15.5 trillion baseline deficit, according to Brian Riedl at the Manhattan Institute. None of these politicians has a plan to pay for most of what they propose, and the tax plans they have so far are mostly a recipe for less revenue and seriously slower economic growth....What truly puzzles me is that while the math doesn't add up at all — and the worlds they want to produce won't see the light of day without serious pain for most Americans — they have hundreds of thousands of people cheering them along the way. This is crazy. Let's be honest, the plans by Warren and Sanders almost sound like a 4-year-old's wish list to improve the country (e.g., more candy, more unicorns, more desserts, cartoons throughout the day, all of which is to be paid for by the Wicked Witch of the West and Captain Hook)."

Scheherazade: A storyteller, especially one who tells long, entertaining stories. After Schehazade, In One Thousand and One Nights, a collection of stories from the Middle East, the king Shahryar discovers his wife being unfaithful. He learns that his brother’s wife is unfaithful as well. He kills his wife and decides to take revenge on all women by marrying a virgin every day and having her executed the next morning so she never gets an opportunity to cheat. One day it’s the turn of Scheherezade, the vizier’s daughter, to be the bride. She asks the king if she could say farewell to her sister Dunyazad first. The king agrees and the sister, who has been prepared in advance, asks Scheherezade to tell a story. The story is engrossing and the king is awake listening. Scheherezade stops the story just before dawn saying there’s no time left to finish. The king spares her life to find out what happened. The next night she finishes the story and starts another, even more captivating story. And so it goes for 1001 nights and by that time the king has fallen in love with her beauty and intelligence and makes her the queen.

When Napoleon invaded Russia, only something like 55% of his army were French. He invaded Russia with 615,000 men which was the same size as Paris at the time. By the time he crossed the river Niemen back in the other direction in December, he had lost over half a million of those men. In that sense, you have to go back to the ancient world to see such an enormous military catastrophe.--Roberts

On November 13, 2015, a cell of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant committed a string of terrorist attacks across Paris, killing 131 and injuring over 400. It was the deadliest day in France since World War II, as well as the deadliest operation ISIL has carried out in Europe to date.

                     The Snooky Tax

Tamny writes: "Money is what governments can produce, while wealth is what we produce. If money were wealth, as opposed to a certain consequence of wealth, poverty could be stamped out with ease. Warren, Sanders, and others vying for the favor of Democratic voters forget that a dollar in the hands of Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell is nothing like a dollar in the hands of Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett..."

That said, I would suggest The Snooky Tax. 

Under The Snooky Tax, money would be taken only from people who had demonstrated that their handling of money was worse than the government's. That is, transferring money to the government would be done only under circumstances where that money in the private sector would be otherwise applied worse as private investments than it would be were it applied by the government.

A whole new world of financial frugality would emerge and an industry--and mindset--would appear that was devoted to lowering one's taxes by proving the individual handled money well.

Let It Be

Commerce always results in inequalities of outcome, and always should result in unequal rewards because different people have different abilities and desires to add value to the economy. It is, however, also true that commerce, which is based on contracts between consenting buyers and sellers, insinuates throughout society an egalitarian ethos that is subversive of aristocratic status.--Will


Dinner at Zinho. Mom thought her food better than at Senti.

There are more electric scooters than people in Pacific Beach, a crowded neighborhood in San Diego. Scooters from Lime, Bird, Lyft, Uber, and Razor are parked along the main path. People can even rent tiny electric bikes from a company called Wheels.

According to Pew Research estimates, about 2 percent of American adults are Jewish and 1 percent are Muslim.

This is surprising and under-reported: In the Marist poll, 90 percent of Democrats thought a plan that provided for a public option was a good idea, as compared to 64 percent who supported a Sanders-style Medicare for All plan that would replace private health insurance. The popularity of the public option also carries over to independent voters: 70 percent support it, as compared to 39 percent for Medicare for All.
Medicare isn't very popular.

The interviewer and stand-up comic Joe Rogan reaches over 5.8 million subscribers on his YouTube channel. That's O'Reilly levels.

27 percent of Americans say immigration is the most important problem facing the country today, the highest number of any issue, according to data released by Gallup this week. 

Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden are the most popular of the 2020 candidates among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, according to recent Gallup polling, with Sanders at 72 percent favorable and 17 percent unfavorable, while Biden is at 69 and 17 percent.

Mueller’s investigation ignored that FISA applications evidence presented to justify warrants to surveil Trump associates were not verified. Mueller did not seem to even know about this problem, the essential reason the investigations were initiated.

A recent YouGov poll found that one in six British people agreed with the statement: “The moon landings were staged.” Four per cent believed the hoax theory was “definitely true”, 12% that it was “probably true”, with a further 9% registering as don’t knows. Moon hoaxism was more prevalent among the young: 21 % of 24- to 35-year-olds agreed that the moon landings were staged, compared with 13% of over-55s.


Despite what we hear from politicians like Bernie Sanders, labor unions and the “Fight for $15” crowd, employees compete not against employers for higher wages, but against other employees. And it’s also the case that employers compete against other employers for the best employees. It’s like that in every market: buyers (employers) always compete against other buyers (employers), and sellers (employees) always compete against other sellers (employees).--Perry

On this day in 1949, the world’s first jet-propelled airliner, the British De Havilland Comet, made its maiden test-flight in England. The jet engine would ultimately revolutionize the airline industry, shrinking air travel time in half by enabling planes to climb faster and fly higher.


               Let It Be

The Beatles may have been hiding evil beneath their lyrics. This is from "Get Back:"

Sweet Loretta Modern
thought she was a woman,
But she was another man.
All the girls around her
said she had it coming
But she gets it while she can.

Get back! Get back!
Get back to where you once belonged

This is an obvious criticism of the sacred concepts of Identity generally and the Trans Community specifically, hostile and intolerant, with preemptive reminiscence of "Send her back!"
So...should The Beatles and their music be banned?

Jo Jo was a man who thought he was a loner,
But he knew it wouldn't last.
Jo Jo left his home in Tucson Arizona,
for some California grass.

Get back! Get back!
Get back to where you once belonged
Get back! Get back!
Get back to where you once belonged.

Get back Jo Jo

[nstrumental verse]

Get back! Get back!
Get back to where you once belonged
You better go on back! Get back!
Get back to where you once belonged.

Get back
Yeah

Sweet Loretta Modern
thought she was a woman,
But she was another man.
All the girls around her
said she had it coming
But she gets it while she can.

Get back! Get back!
Get back to where you once belonged
Get back! You better get on back
Get back to where you once belonged.
Get back! Get back!
Get back to where you once belonged
Get back Jo Jo
Get back! Get back!
Get back to where you once belonged
Ah yeah, ow
Get back, Loretta
You're mama's waitin'
Oh yeah
Oh yeah
Ow Ow
Ow Ow Ow
Get back

Me and you
Jo Jo was a man who thought he was a loner,
But he knew it couldn't last.
Jo Jo left his home in Tucson Arizona,
for some California grass.

Songwriters: John Lennon, Paul McCartney

© Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

Authentic Food and Lives

Gordon Ramsey is getting a lot of flack for opening what he called an "authentic Asian restaurant." Apparently one cannot be an authentic Asian restaurant and serve Asian food without being Asian. The mind just swims with the potential of this great breakthrough.

Imagine what items will have to come off the menu depending who owns the restaurant or cooks the food. French onion soup. Stir-fried anything. Eggs Benedict. And will the restaurant need specific sub-sets in the kitchen? Will Normand food require a western French chef? Could a mulatto serve soul food?

And we could not tolerate pretenders, the cultural appropriators like Elizabeth Warren. We would need  proof of authenticity and certification. A bureaucracy could emerge--a good jobs program--to ascertain the righteousness of the kitchen and truth in advertising.

We could live in a kosher-like world.

A Test Case

Now we are all worried about the climate. There is an unquestionable upward trend in the last century in the world temperature. Some of this may be technical; the models have not been shown to be accurate thus challenging their basic assumptions. But some of it is likely due to human activity though there are certainly questions about its source and its implications.

There are no questions about the source and the implications of the major, certain risk to human life on the planet, however. Nuclear weaponry in the hands of nations--and perhaps small ideological groups--certainly has the potential to ruin the earth and the humans who live on it. So....it sounds reasonable to, as a test of our ability to get along, protect our planet and make a few sacrifices, disarm. Well meaning leaders can step up. Put those suicidal weapons aside. As a first step. To show we can approach a larger problem in global warming. A test case about which there is no debate. A problem that is technically easier to solve than global warming. Certainly reasonable men and nations could start there.

What are the odds of that happening?

An Up-To-Date Modest Proposal

Both socialism and communism are political entities that flower from conflict and strife. To one degree or another both originate in the smoldering--if often unspoken--antagonism among peoples and each sees itself as the protagonist in the maturation of human economics that requires the destruction of the current corrupt system that is run by an actively hostile opponent.

The playbook for these conflicts are written down and distributed. Many are revered and taught in universities. The generalities are that a group--or groups--of people, knowingly or not, are selfishly strangling most of the population and must be overthrown and destroyed--in Marxist thought, deracinated--and replaced by the next phase embodied by a more pure, worthy and inevitable group. The animosity between these groups--whether appreciated by the antagonists or not--must be taught to the protagonists and brought to a boil to destroy the other group.

So one group is generalized, hated, and--if history is any indicator--hunted down and killed--every man, woman and child representative of the enemy class--and replaced.

So why, looking at history and the very written declarations of these groups, isn't Socialism a Hate Crime?

The Prism of the Wealthy

An author and investor I have some respect for was writing an article disparaging the new Trump tax plan and was quoting a Representative about the proposal:

"Referring to Trump’s cuts to the federal food stamp program, Rep. Harold Rogers, a Republicans from Kentucky said, “These cuts that are being proposed are draconian. They’re not mere shavings, they’re deep, deep cuts.” Mulvaney says he’s received lots of questions about “compassion”. He says, “Compassion needs to be on both sides of that equation. Yes, you have to have compassion for folks who are receiving the federal funds, but also you have to have compassion for the folks who are paying it.”...
The author then wrote this comment:
"Right?  Think of it from the billionaires’ point of view."

This ludicrous opinion has in it the germ of how we are supposed to think. On every question we are to view the discussion from the point of view of the very rich and how the point would impact them, not us. So Zucherberg can give a commencement speech at Harvard filled with apologies and self-abasement over his financial success and call for a universal basic income for all.
How such a notion fits into the concept of a free nation is simply not asked. How the average guy--where the real money is--is going to underwrite it is not asked.
It will be alright. Just "Think of it from the billionaires’ point of view."

Women and Low T

Low T and Women

 

There is a debate over the preventative benefits of testosterone therapy for testosterone deficient men. But there may be, hidden from the stats, a great advantage to society's social and physical health. What is the largest subset of the American population with low testosterone? And what area of inequality is most obvious? Female gender. The largest subset of humans suffering from low testosterone in America is women.
Despite the fact women are healthier than men and live longer, perhaps they would be healthier and live even longer if they took testosterone. And perhaps that would decrease whatever gap there is in social vulnerability and pay equality. And it would likely decrease unwanted pregnancies.

Now, in this time of gender fluidity, might just be the right time to broach this obvious and important topic.

War

The Broken Body Fallacy


This is really worth some thought:

Ian Morris from Stanford, in his recent book War: What Is It Good For? has argued for the utility of war. The bigger the war, the better things become in the long run. War gives the state the power to make their citizens’ lives safer and richer. This is strange stuff that could come only from a university. "The utility of massive, random death."

 

Scheidel has a book called The Great Leveler which is pleased to inform us that income inequality is attainable only through war, savage revolution, disease periods and the implosion of the State. I guess once you start writing, you just can't stop. But you can stop. Look at this: “Whether communism’s sacrifice,” Scheidel writes, “of a hundred million lives bought anything of value is well beyond the scope of this study to contemplate.” Apparently, what you stop at is judgment.

Scheidel is also from Stanford; maybe there is something in the water.

“Whether communism’s sacrifice of a hundred million lives bought anything of value is well beyond the scope of this study to contemplate.” It is hard to believe someone wrote that--and got it past an editor. As an indicator of a political mindset, it should be memorized by everyone and never forgotten.

Babe Ruth/Jeffrey Dahmer

Loretta Lynch asked Comey to call the government inquires into the Clinton emails a "Matter" not an "investigation." News management.

There has been an effort to call Comey's revelatios as the work of a "Wistleblower," not a "Leaker." News management.
 

Years ago the baseball teams closed up their Grapefruit League season and headed north on the train. Late in the evening the reporters--all men--sat in the smoking car drinking and smoking when the car door opened with a bang and Babe Ruth ran through the car and out the other door, naked. A moment later the door banged open again and a women ran through, naked, with a knife, chasing Ruth, and ran after him through the other door.
Great story, right. Not a word of it was written. The reporters liked Ruth too much. And the game too much. News management.

Almost everything has a bit of a slant.  When Bush was president, Middle East combat deaths were common on the news but that information rarely appeared during Obama's tenure. Remember when HIV was primarily a heterosexual disease? Is Trump's immigration plan a religious ban or a country-of-origin based slowdown? How could Bernie Sanders possibly be accepted as a national presidential candidate by the Press without at least some hesitation? Is it common to publish the cost of the First Lady's dress?

Let us accept for argument's sake that some element of subjectivity creeps into news stories. And the news media seems to have accepted a certain oppositional stand to Trump as if it were the media's job. Sort of the "loyal opposition." During warfare, such news management was planned, considered perfectly reasonable, and was known as "propaganda." Dangers to society should not be presented in a favorable light.
We currently have a problem with people who consider themselves paramilitary enemies of the West and might qualify for a little "management," particularly since there is a significant on-line recruitment program for them that needs opposed. If that is so, I have some suggestions for some news "management" regarding the current fad of murdering strangers for no reason:

1. Stop naming and showing the pictures of terrorists. Never describe them. When possible, denigrate them.
2. When the organizer is revealed, refrain from writing, "..[  ]... claims responsibility.' Instead write "...[  ]... apparently accepts blame."
3. Get rid of the phases "terrorism" and "terrorist acts." Write instead "atrocity" or some synonym.
4. Never imply a motive in reporting an atrocity, apply a diagnosis. We are quite willing to have public figures diagnosed from afar, why not terrorists? The Press should make every single lunatic homicidal maniac sound like Jeffery Dahmer. They are serial killers, just very fast ones, and should sound like serial killers. Ted Bundy was never presented as the complex and interesting guy he was and should not have been. "Homicidal Derangement Syndrome" would be a pretty good diagnosis to hang on these people. If you can add some sexual deviance to them, do it. (For example, a study from professors at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law found that 46% of transgender men and 42% of transgender women in the study had attempted suicide. So......)
   

The Press seems to think they have a duty to influence us. This might be a reasonable place to start.

Dahmer, ready for the NYT's annual Men's Fashion Shoot:

First Lady

There is clearly dissention in the Trump White House: We are not going to have a First Lady. Great cheekbones and jawline or not, Melania is not going to be The Washington Hostess. She says she wants to be with her son, who will stay in his New York school, but, clearly, that is not enough. She simply does not want the Washington gig.

This, more than anything else in this overturning election, might signal the true enormity of the change brought by Trump's victory: The obvious suspects do not want the spoils. There will be no multi-lingual beauty in the White House receiving line. What politician's wife in the entire history of the world would not want to pick clothes, silverware and china to provide the opportunity to have social events where she could be envied? What good looking woman would not salivate at the chance to step into the spotlight, beam and favor a follower with her gentle smile or reduce an enemy to dust?
But Melania does not want the gig.

There has been little made of this so far; likely the press has been stunned mute by events. And some narratives are emerging, albeit slowly. Will there be a First Lady pro tem? Is Melania deferring to Ivanka? Would such a handoff be appropriate? Is an attractive First Daughter just too creepy as the First Lady? Does this entire problem signal a shift away from Washington? Will Melania be First Lady in New York? (A revolution in itself.)

Perhaps Melania is shy--but history does not suggest that. So what are we to do? A concerned nation expects a First Family, all of it. Does she feel like an outsider? Does she not like us, like Michelle? Should we be offended? Clearly something must be done.
Perhaps we have had a peak at what is to come. Kanye West was one of the first show business people to visit Trump. His wife, a renown beauty, has significant reality show experience.

Kim Kardashian for First Lady! Kim, a lonely nation turns it eyes to you!

ImpeachThemNow.org!

“Sir, there is no point in establishing a matter of precedency between a flea and a louse”.--Samuel Johnson (pun intended)


During the presidential debate Sunday, Hillary Clinton denied being Secretary of State when President Obama said in 2012 that Syria President Bashar Assad would “cross a red line” by using chemical weapons on civilians in the country’s years-long civil war. Most believe this statement and development of policy afterwards seriously weakened the presidency, the nation and the West. It was important.
Clinton's response? “I was gone,” Clinton said. “At some point, we need to do some fact-checking here.”

That is simply not true. But no journalist cares. Actually, no one cares.  Hillary Clinton served as the 67th United States Secretary of State under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013. Obama made the infamous "red line" comment in 2012. She just looks at the American public and lies. Or, worse, she doesn't remember. But Trump was so incompetent, he did not know.

Unaware that Clinton was lying, Trump pressed on, suggesting instead that the Democratic presidential nominee remained in close conversation with the administration after leaving the department and in some vague, improvable way, influenced Obama's bad decisions.

“You were in total contact with the White House,” Trump said. “And perhaps, sadly, Obama probably still listened to you. I don't think he would be listening to you very much anymore.”

It does not matter to anyone what either of these two say.  And the press will do anything to defeat Trump. We are stuck with one of them. 
Why do we have to put up with this?
One of these terrible people will be elected President of the United States. The most important nation in free world. This insanity has been foisted on us by a perfect storm in the party system, on both sides.
Can't we do something?

​There is no mechanism set forth in the U.S. Constitution that allows for the removal of a  president save for impeachment, which is limited for instances of "high crimes and misdemeanors." So the results of an election can not simply be overturned by the whims of voters. Nor can we vote for "none of the above." The stability that imposes is probably a good thing.

The Constitution limits the impeachment of the President (through the process of bringing charges by the House and voting on those charges by the Senate) under the following conditions: the President "shall be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors."

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There is evidence that the Founding Fathers were intentionally vague. Initially, the framers considered defining impeachable offenses as just "treason or bribery"  but they added the additional phrase because George Mason worried that "treason or bribery" was insufficient for removing a president who began to become dictatorial.  So the framers offered a soft definition in the faith that Congress would know an impeachable offense when it saw one. (It is also clear however that Madison, at least, was worried about making the definition too vague, because excessive vagueness means that the president serves "during the pleasure of the Senate.")

Some argue that "high crimes and misdemeanors" has a well-defined meaning--it refers to an old legal term, the so-called "political crimes." A crime is "political" when it involves the misuse of a politician's official powers. So the president accepting a bribe would be a political crime but assaulting his girlfriend would not. You can see how this might apply to modern cases. Would Bill Clinton's perjury conviction be impeachable? Probably not. His seduction of a subordinate intern? A bit....stickier... but probably not.
Along the same line of thinking is the belief that "high crimes and misdemeanors" refers to "crimes against the state." So Bill Clinton's offences, while outrageous and galling--especially to the average guy who could not in a million years have gotten away with them--would not qualify as crimes against the state's workings. (Interestingly, the word "high" does not mean "more serious;" in English law is generally understood to refer to crimes against the state--insulting the king is "high treason," insulting your brother is "petit treason.")

There is another translation: those punishable offenses that only apply to high persons, that is, to public officials, those who, because of their official status, are under special obligations that ordinary persons are not under, and which could not be meaningfully applied or justly punished if committed by ordinary persons. That translation would make Bill Clinton vulnerable and, in fact, English law occasionally acted on such a principle.
A Chief Justice William Scroggs was impeached in 1688 for, among other things, public drunkenness.

Our current dilemma is worse because neither of the two reprobates running for office have been elected yet. But both rely upon their shameless mendacity in their campaigns. It is their campaigns' defining quality. I think that, as a candidate for the most important elected office in the world, one has some obligation for basic truthfulness. More important, they should show some basic respect for the electorate. One may argue that this requirement has never been made before; I would argue that is the very reason we have this problem now.
It is time to care.

ImpeachThemNow.org!

You Say ISIL, I Say ISIS, You Say Tomato...

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible… Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness… the great enemy of clear language is insincerity. Where there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms-- Politics and the English Language, George Orwell

It is high time that everyone sees the Heroes of Beslan clearly.
Burnings. Beheadings. Torture. Mass gang rapes. This kind of man is not unknown among us. The drug cartels, Mengela, the murderers of the Clutter family all have spotted human history with unspeakable savagery and pain.
It is clear that governments the world over are paralyzed with some inexplicable conflict here. There seems to be uncertainty, some unique thinking that exceeds our grasp, that makes even the name ISIS--spoken pointedly as "ISIL" by administrators--abstract. With such ambivalence, action is hard to follow.
I have a modest proposal. I propose a popular uprising of words. No more use of words and phrases like "action," "violence," "terrorism" or "attack" by these people. Only "atrocity, " "fiendishness" and similar words and phrases should be used. And no more "fighter," or "Islamist," or "terrorist." Only truly judgmental words like "Unhinged," "Deranged," "Sadist" and "Maniac" should be used. No "killed," only "murdered." When a maniac is killed , he should be "put out of his misery." Everyone involved is an "accomplice" or "enabler" until proven otherwise.
And everyone should spread the word that "virgin" is a mistranslation of "raisin." Fewer guys are likely to die for 72 raisins. And nothing hurts self-absorbed mania like humor.

Orwell believed language meant something and could do things. Let's try to prove it.

Beastly Bigotry

The word "spaniel" refers to the several breeds of small to medium-sized dogs with long drooping ears and a silky coat. But it means something else: A submissive or fawning person. It is an old word, coming from Old French espaignol/espaigneul (Spanish dog), from Hispaniolus (Spanish), from Hispania (Spain). Its earliest documented use is 1386. So its original meaning, "Spanish dog," became a "fawning person." Or perhaps the fawning element came first as a Spanish quality and was later applied to the dog breed. Does this imply something derogative about the Spanish? Could this hint at an obsequious quality that might diminish Hispanics?
Best be rid of the word entirely. And Paddy Wagon, too. 

Logical Food

There is a mine of resentment potential in the way the food of the world is channeled.


Half of all fresh water on the planet is used for livestock. It takes 1,500 gallons of water to produce one gallon of milk, and the water necessary for one pound of steak is double that. It takes fourteen pounds of feed to produce one pound of beef. The West eats about 200 pounds of meat per person per year. United Nations forecasts that the world's population will surpass nine billion by the year 2050. With increasing modernization and population growth one could conservatively imagine that by 2050 at least five billion people will expect to eat their 200 pounds of meat per year as well. In order to feed this many people this much meat, the world would need to produce one trillion pounds of beef and pork annually, and there is not enough land or nutrients on earth to support this kind of production.


Enter insect ranches. Thailand is the current world leader in insect farming, with about 15,000 farms raising locusts, grasshoppers, and mantises for human consumption. Insects also feature in the diets of rural Laos, Vietnam, Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico.


It will be grand when this food and resource allocation crisis becomes popular, demonstration arise, and pious politicians begin the campaign, then the persuasion, then the laws to set this right.

Working Stiffs

Sherpas are ethnic nomads who settled in eastern Nepal; "Sherpa" means "eastern people." They are said to be of the "Red Hat Sect" of Tibetan Buddhism which emphasizes mysticism and local deities. Indeed their clans are filled with disparate gods and holy places with stories of treasure and sacred valleys. They hold Everest in great religious awe, calling it "The Mother of the World." As a group they are renown climbers, mountain men and guides. Everest, specifically, is filled with Sherpa lore; the Sherpa Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary were the first men to climb Everest in 1953.
The Sherpa is involved in every Everest climbing attempt. They are aides and companions to the professional foreign climber and they smooth the climb for the less talented, the less prepared and the amateur. Often they will climb ahead, mark the safe trail, build ladders, prepare rest areas, prepare a camp for the next leg up, place the supplies there then return to the camp below and lead the amateur climbers on the path they have laid out to the camp they have created--sometimes all in the same day.

The New York Times had a recent article decrying the apparent abuse of these stalwarts.

In the United States there are two groups of people, those who do not work and those who support them. For example, 43% of people in the United States do not pay taxes and 20% of people in the United States pay 90% of the taxes. These people who work to care for and support those who do not work should be called "Sherpas."

Influencing a Child's Future

Illegitimacy rates in the U.S. are available from 2012. 72.3 percent of non-Hispanic blacks are now born out-of-wedlock; 66.2 percent of American Indians/Alaska Natives; 53.3 percent of Hispanics; 29.1 percent of non-Hispanic whites; and 17.2 percent of Asians/Pacific Islanders. That’s 40.7 percent overall.

The nation spends a fortune on hopeful programs in education, training  and diet in an effort to improve the lives of its citizens. Yet study after study shows that the single biggest obstacle to advancement in a child's life is being raised by a single parent. So what should be our response?

Sooner or later it will be to some politician's benefit, added and abetted by some media clique, to focus on these numbers as a problem. One can only imagine the direction. The religious right will demand everyone marry, the traditional right will find no Constitutional precedence for interference and will "abstain," while the left will want to outlaw marriage so parented kids do not have an advantage.