Archives for August 2022

Sunday, August 21, 2022

I’ve always liked Hershel Walker. He and Earl Campbell tore up football for years with their running. When Walker went pro he didn’t get a team that appreciated his abilities. That was unfortunate, because had they, they could have gone to the Super Bowl. Walker was bullied as a kid. He was the fat out of shape child. He went to the football coach and asked what could he do. The coach put him on a developmental program, and the rest is history. One of the things Walker does is one thousand situps and a thousand pushups a day. I don’t know if he still does that but that was what I read a long time ago, pretty impressive. When he was on Dancing with the Stars they did a montage piece on him. I remember him saying, “I’ve done a lot of things in my life.” The piece went on to show him doing ballet, creating a barbecue sauce, and playing football. I can’t help but think that Hershel wants to be a senator to notch “another thing” in his belt of life. 

But there’s another side to Walker that isn’t talked about much. He has some deep seated anger or mental illness. I’ve heard it described both ways. The recent ad where his ex-wife says he held a gun to her head and said he was going to blow her brains out illustrates that other side.

Hum. Hershel is a nice guy with a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality. Perhaps? Whatever he is, he is not senate material.

Then there’s Ron DeSantis and lord knows what he is thinking, or any of these right conservative whatever you want to call them. They seem to want to stop all abortions, destroy public schools so they can siphon the money off into christian white nationalist madras and impose some kind of weird utopian view. The problem is it will make those going through that process bigots, which they seem to want, and uneducated and ultimately incompetent, which will lead to a new dumber reality. Which will destroy the nation as we know it.

An article in the Atlantic talked about a fellow who went down to a conservative conference and visited a lot of people he has known. The new young conservatives actually believe that there is a left wing that wants to eliminate them. This is of course nonsense, but it empowers them to do that* to anyone who has different views that they have.

*ie make people into “the other” and see themselves as under attack and therefore anything goes.

Very disturbing.

Then there are all the right wingers who decry the raid on Mar-a-Lago. They, of course, don’t mention all the attempts that were made to try and obtain the material by other means. I also decry the search at Mir-a-Lago because it was not conducted like most searches. I would have preferred they come in the middle of the night when Donnie and Melanie were there. That they break down the door with a battering ram, even if the door was unlocked. Hold everyone at gunpoint, cuff Donald in his underwear and make him stand on the front porch for hours where everyone could see him and take pictures. And that they tear up his lawn with their vehicles, eat chicken wings in his house, throw the trash wherever and make fun of him by saying things like “there ain’t a damn thing you can do about it.” That. That would be a more typical all-American raid.

But NOOOOO, they went in and did a professional no-nonsense job.

And despite all the ballyhooing that the rightwingers are having, no one has explained why he wanted those records or why he didn’t return them when asked.

We are in a long dark slide. I am hopeful that some of these people will lose in the upcoming elections.

The amazing thing to me is that one party is actually doing things to improve our lives and the other is doing everything they can to rob us and screw up the country. Yet we are in a 50/50 stand-off with the balance able to go either way.

Saturday, August 20, 2022

I was listening to an NPR piece where an economist was asked, “What is inflation?”

He went into the standard, “Too much money chasing too few goods” explanation.

My BS detector went off – big time.

Here’s the problem with standard economic explanations – they begin with a model and explain “in a perfect world – all things being equal.” But we don’t live in a prefect world and all things aren’t equal. In other words to quote Ayn Rand, “Check your assumptions, one of them is wrong.” In this case, a lot more than one assumption is wrong.

When you ask an economist about the economy they will tell you what their model says and they why the model isn’t working in this case. Whatever the case is, that is if you are lucky and they get to talk that long.

Let’s look at housing. Prices are up. People are homeless. Therefore there must be a shortage of houses and we need to build more. WRONG. There’s plenty of housing. Bill Clinton pointed this out after he left office. The problem is that entities are holding on to those houses and spaces and wanting more money than people can afford. Developers keep building expensive houses and apartments. Who wants to build cheap housing? Which is what we need.

Why can’t people afford the housing that is out there? Because big firms have bought up all he cheap housing and are charging exorbitant rates and or spiffing them up and charging more.

Also, people have not gotten a raise since Reagan was in office. They don’t have any money. So the argument that inflation in this case is “too much money chasing too few goods” is crap. The problem is hoarding and no money.

Okay. Moving on. Four failed museums. This has nothing to do with the economy but shows a problem in our society. The four museums are: The Getty in LA, The Centre Pompidou in Paris, The Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, and The Hirshhorn in New York.

Okay, let’s go to the most egregious first – The Getty. Two problems: one) who designs a museum to be a glass box in a place with lots of light and heat? It’s so bad that the staff has to wear sunglasses inside. I can’t imagine what the AC bill is. The second thing, and this really bugs me because Getty himself wrote about art and said only buy good stuff, why is most of the art they have second rate? Okay, second tier? There are no famous names in his collection, no iconic pieces. It’s all okay, but not great.

Let’s move on to the Pompidou in Paris, same problems as the Getty: glass box and in this case really bad art. It’s not second tier. It’s just crap. One of the problems I have with the last twenty or thirty years of modern art is the need to explain what it is. This manifests itself in one of two ways. Either the artist has to explain ad nauseam what they were doing or, and you see this in a lot of current folk art, they have to put a lot of words onto their pieces.

I think what kicked off my wanting to write about this was watching a news program where there was a painting on the wall. If I was asked to describe it I’d say it was thick finger paint applied with a squeegee. First blue in a vertical peanut like shape and then red in the center.

Okay, it’s a painting. It has color. It’s fine for taking away from the drab beige but that’s it.

Moving on – The Museum of Pop Art Seattle. It might be unfair to say they are a failed museum. They have some interesting stuff. It’s style is what I’d call it upgraded children’s museum. But the outside? OMG. I know it’s supposed to look all new age and modern, but to me it looks like many of the homeless tarp cities you see all around the Seattle, but cast in metal. Maybe I’m being a bit harsh here, because as I said they do have some interesting stuff. However, I can only look at so many back stage passes for Pearl Jam before I say, “Okay, I got it.”

This brings me to The Hirshhorn. It’s iconic! The second you see the building you know it’s the Hirshhorn. Okay. Great. Can you think of one piece of art in the place? Or one iconic show it has had? No. You know why? There ain’t that much art in the place. Why? It’s designed as a big circular ramp looking into a giant open area. That means you only have one wall to display stuff and most of the covered space in the center is useless. Not only that but buildings with circular ramps disorient people. People like to be able to look out a window and orient themselves to their surroundings. Circular ramps with no windows eliminate that sense of where you are in space and consciously or unconsciously you will feel uneasy. Who wants to wander down a ramp looking at a meager collection of art all the while feeling uneasy?

Tomorrow maybe I’ll take on Ron De Santis and the right’s attempt to “re-educate” our children.

Thursday, August 18, 2022

Yesterday, was a day of legal analysis and explanation on may fronts, but there was one clear winner – Fani Willis in Georgia.

She’s the prosecuting attorney who is looking into the possible election crimes in Georgia’s 2020 election. You know the one where DJT is caught on tape committing a crime and where Rudy is caught on video committing a crime? Yeah, that Fani. For her there was Rudy showing up at the courthouse in Georgia to comply with a subpoena. One he fought. His lawyers said he was too frail to fly. However, none of that frailty was evident when he got out of the car to climb the steps to the courthouse. Nor was there any of his BS bravado or lying. He kept his mouth shut to reporters, climbed the steps to the locked courthouse door, was let in and testified for over six hours.

But that’s not the big news on Fani’s investigation. Apparently, the Governor of Georgia doesn’t want to testify and in a disclosed email to his lawyer Fani explained several legal things to this lawyer. One – her investigation is not political. Two – she had afforded the Governor every courtesy including to let said lawyer sit in on the questioning. Three – That offer was now off the table and he, the lawyer, could wait outside the courtroom while she personally questioned the Governor.

She went on and it is devastating. I will post the clips from Lawrence O’Donnell’s show about that.

Let’s remember that Brian Kemp had been Secretary of State when he ran for governor against Stacey Abrams. He refused to let someone else oversee his own election and there were numerous “irregularities” in that election. All to benefit him and hurt Abrams. You know like forgetting to process 50,000 voter applications, eliminating poling places in neighborhoods that would be helpful to Stacey. She sued and won a little but the judge threw out most of her claims. Odd huh? A Republican judge threw out claims of a Democrat.

But there’s more, Ari Melber, a lawyer by training did an excellent half hour expose on how the right has been hoisted on their own claims (you thought I’d say petard? Ha.) of “Just Comply.”  He showed Fox News (an entertainment organization not a news organization – btw) claiming when black people got shot in the back that they should have “just complied.” Yet, when it come to white people like Bannon, Navarro, Graham, and Trump it’s some kind of left wing Nazi Fascist evil. Melber showed video of Graham making “they should just comply” claims. Melber went on to point out that if the black people who were shot had been treated like Bannon and Navarro they’d be alive today. So why the difference? Racism. Plain and simple.

Okay, got to move on because there is so much stupidity to cover. Ron DeSantis, the Governor of Florida, is pumping out more idiocy, as is the state governance in general. 

First there is his “dumpster fire of Wokism” statement about education in his state. He’s not going to allow it. Ain’t that great? He’s facing a huge teacher shortage.Why? Oh, I dunno. Maybe it’s that he doesn’t pay crap. Maybe, it’s that he is trying to force teachers to teach about slavery in America as a whitewashed bunch of hooey. (ie It wasn’t that bad. The Founding Fathers had slaves yet they were opposed to it. etc.)

De Santis graduated second in his class at Annapolis. If he’s second, I’d hate to see who is third and below.

A lot of these MAGA politicians are smart people and know better. But now we are getting a new crop and they aren’t smart. They believe. They are even more dangerous than the smart ones. I don’t know if the meme about MGT is true but it said she claimed to be against solar panels because she wanted electricity after dark and solar panels wouldn’t work then. OMG! Really? I dunno.

But Florida isn’t done with “the stupidest thing of the day” candidates. There’s the court that ruled that the 16 year old girl who is pregnant is not mature enough to have an abortion. WTF? Yet, she’d be mature enough to have a baby? 

And then we get to some positive news:

– Gas prices have been falling for weeks,

– The President signed a major piece of health care legislation, despite every Republican voting against it.

– The President has gotten passed a major piece of legislation that will address climate change and the economy. Despite Republican and special interest lobbying to stop it. (not that the special interests weren’t able to get some concessions via Sinema, but still.)

Oh, and then there’s Dr. Oz and his crudité video. His opponent, John Fetterman, has raised half a million off of that. “In Pennsylvania we call it a veggie tray.” And I have to say Dr. Oz raw asparagus on your tray? Really? And salsa being six bucks is joe Biden’s fault? (connect the dots it’s a vast woke conspiracy of anti-fa leftist FBI agents and all that.) But David Plouffe put it best, “Dr Oz is a tool.”

Meanwhile, election deniers are winning primaries. Our country is in serious danger of democratic collapse. Not since the 1930s have we seen such a threat.

Tuesday, August 16, 2022

This August I have been reminded of many things that happened in this month: Woodstock, Rocky Horror premiere, and Cheap Thrills released. It’s ancient history for most. For me it’s my youth and coming of age.

Other things are afoot now. The Republican cult can not get out from under the lies of the orange one. Laura Ingraham has said maybe it’s time to let him go and find someone else who embodies the MAGA ideals. What? What ideals? Racism? Homophobia? Untruths? What is she talking about? Who cares?

The raid at Mira-Lago has raised fears that the FBI agents involved may be targeted. The changing claims and threats by the right keep spinning as the truth grinds on. First, it was an unprovoked search; until it was revealed that every attempt had been made to get the documents by other means. Then it was “release the information.” Ignoring the fact that The Donald could do that whenever he wanted. Then the AG said okay. He went to court to get the okay. The search warrant was released and folks were pretty stunned by what they were after. Like, you know, super top secret stuff, like nuclear secrets. 

Others have gone to jail for years for possessing one such document, but boxes of it? Now some are claiming the ex-pres declassified it before leaving office. I like the picture of the TOP-SECRET stamp with a black sharpie bubble in front of the left side of the stamp and the word “not” inside. There all done.

Now the Trump lawyers want the underlying affidavit released. This so they can target the witnesses and the agents I’d guess.

Apparently, the Secret Service was not involved in the search. They were only informed that the FBI was coming in. Of course the right wingers are claiming that the FBI is a liberal bastion of I forget what. You know that almost all white male conservative organization – yeah, right. 

Now the CFO of the Trump organization after getting a year reprieve from doing anything has agreed to something and will get five months in prison. That’s all? 

Lindsay Graham has been told he has to go to Georgia to testify. But he was just doing his Senatorial duty! You know calling up a Secretary of State in a state where he isn’t representing those people and trying to get that Secretary to change the vote outcome. Just a normal day at the office.

Rudy has to testify too. He claims he is too frail to fly. Yet he has tickets to Rome and he can’t make it down to Georgia? The judge told him to take the train or an Uber. There ya go Rudy – problem solved. Oh and by the way you are now a target of the investigation. Have a nice day.

Sarah Palin is running for Congress in her beloved Alaska. Unfortunately, she hasn’t been there much as she’s been trying to be a reality TV has-been.

Liz Chaney will probably loose her primary today. Why? Only 16% of the folks in Wyoming who would vote in the Republican primary believe Biden won the election. Her opponent is deep deep into the fake election nonsense, and the people of Wyoming believe it!

Trump could be in trouble for all those documents that are top secret. It’s a no-no under the Espionage Act. Rand Paul has a solution – repeal the act. Where’s my black Sharpie?

Sunday, August 14, 2022

In 1985 I went to see the movie Shoah. This is the Hebrew (I think it’s Hebrew) term for genocide and is particularly used to reference the mass murder by the Nazis. It references both the mass and individual murders asociated with it.

The French director Claude Lanzmann realized that many of the people involved in the holocaust were getting old and dying. Before they left this Earth he wanted to document their stories. 

He had a Nazi guard sing the old camp song. He talked to farmers near Auschwitz. He spoke to the trainman who had to move the trains into that death camp. He reviewed with that man the number of train cars in each train, the number of people in each car, the number of times a day he moved a trainload into the camp. By simple math you understood how many people were being exterminated every day. The movie opened with the trainman recreating what he did when the Nazi guards weren’t looking. He would cast his hand down toward the ground quickly several times. He would pass his hand across his throat in knife slitting gesture. This is how the movie opened. “Why were you doing that?” asked Lanzmann. “To tell them to jump off the train, that they were going to be killed.”

I didn’t understand that gesture at the opening of the movie, but it became brutally apparent by the end. The movie was over nine hours long and was shown in two parts. I saw it on successive nights in different theaters in Washington DC. The second night I was sitting amongst some Jewish women. A person was talking for quite awhile. No subtitles came up. The women nodded knowingly in agreement with whatever was being said. Finally, the subtitle appeared translating the Yiddish (or was it Hebrew?). “it’s a long story,” was all it said. I’d love to know what that story was.

At some point in the second part there was an interview with a Jewish scholar who pointed out that the rhetoric of the Nazis was nothing new. It had been around for years, like seven hundred years. And the pogroms carried out by the Russians in earlier times had the same hateful messages. ( Interestingly, we saw “Fiddler on The Roof” recently which documents the Russian pogrom in Ukraine years before the Nazis. )

Einstein and many urban Jewish people worried when the rural Jewish populations forced off their land and migrating to the cities would stir up anti-jewish sentiment because of their uncouth ways.

But the thing that really struck me in the movie was the Jewish scholar’s comment about the rhetoric being “nothing new.” “Except,” he said, “the final solution.” This was racist code for mass-murder. Hitler like people today use such terms to cover-up their true intentions. The term “Christian Nation” and “Christian Nationalist” is such a term. Hitler never okayed an order to kill the Jews. At most, he said it was time to implement “The Final Solution.” Everyone in his command structure knew what that meant.