Archives for November 2024

Saturday, November 30, 2024

The other day I was getting gas. The fellow on the other side of the pump was arranging five medium sized plastic gas cans on the back of his truck’s tailgate preparing to fill them up.

I debated. What was the best way to suggest that it would be a good idea to put them on the ground? Most pumps have warning to do that. Something about static electricity and gas fumes. It just isn’t a good idea to mix the two. Even an empty used gas may be a bomb, as numerous examples have been illustrated throughout my life. A fire on a loading dock where workers went to smoke right next to a pile of old gas cans marked empty. My brother welding a gas tank. You’re suppose to fill it with water. He did, only left a few inches at the top. Next thing he knew the tank blew forty feet in the air and settled in a tree.

I hadn’t thought of all that when I turned to the fellow and said, “You know, I’ve always heard you’re supposed to put those things on the ground when you fill them up.”

He smiled at me. Young man, in his thirties, beard, longish hair sticking out from under his trucker’s hat, a fish hook lure on one side of his cap like a pencil over the ear. “Well, if it’s my time, I figure the good lord will take me.” He smiled. A big welcoming smile.

I finished gassing up and I said, “Well, it’s not my time so, just in case, I think I’ll get out of here.” 

He smiled. I smiled. We both smiled.

It was a pleasant enough exchange. I was happy that I had raised a concern without pissing him off.

Then the other day I was listening to an interview with Billy Bob Thorton. He’s one of those tangential movie personalities that is on my periphery of knowing who he is and what he does. He’s in a new mini-series where he plays a guy who made it big in the oil patch, lost it all, or most of it and now works for a man who didn’t lose it all. Billy is the fixer manager. They played a clip of an exchange between him and a lawyer.

There was an explosion on a rig. The roughneck was opening the well by hitting the cap with a hammer. There was a spark and the thing blew. The lawyer asked wasn’t it dangerous to do that especially when the well wasn’t OSHA compliant. Billy told her that’s the way you do it. Was it worth a man’s life? She asked. Well, it may not be to you said Billy Bob’s character but if you’re a felon with an eighth grade education making 180 thousand a year is a god damn golden ticket.

And there you have it. I’ll call it reverse baseball. Bottom of the ninth, two out, two strikes, and you hope that you get the hit – or in the case of the two examples above, you hope you don’t. 

Dumb luck? Well, kind of. You can increase your odds if you know something, and you try to minimize the conditions. Some minimize, some don’t. Maybe, you get lucky?

Most of us wander through life, ending up not where we thought we’d be. A few have dreams and pursue it, and make it. For most of us, that isn’t the case.

I saw a little clip that said New York City is laid out in a grid so you can figure out where you are. Not so Boston, if you make a wrong turn in Boston you’re screwed – go home – is what the clip said to do. I beg to differ. In Boston the roads curve around a peninsula. If you make a wrong term keep driving, you’ll hit the road you were looking for on the other side of the peninsula. But there again you have to know something.

Which brings me to The Standells – Love that dirty water, Un huh, Boston, you’re my home.

Once again we are in a race as Alexis de Tocqueville wrote when he visited America in 1831 and wrote about it, publishing in 1835. One of his observations was that America was in a race between its good and noble intentions and its bad. He did this to help people in France understand what was going on in America with its transformational Jacksonian Democracy. France was struggling with coming to terms with its fading aristocracy and the cries for liberty and equality.

That struggle continues to this day throughout the world. A dictator can get the trains to run on time, as Mussolini promised, but at a huge cost to the rest of the population that is kept in check by violent means. Grand promises to fix things, even things that aren’t really broken but were said to be as they gained power.

The solution? Seems to be truth. To gain truth one needs access to it. To do that one needs to be able to read or hear and to understand. Stupidity is often brought up. as in How could they be so stupid? Ah yes, well some have said no one was something or other by underestimating the American people. I am constantly surprised by the lack of a low standard. Can we go lower? Yes, we can!

I see the America I knew as a child being transformed. When I was growing up the goal was to have everyone being able to read and communication was doled out via means that allowed by and large to be factual and truthful. Now, neither is the case. A relentless push to take away public education and privatize it. Standard in reading, math, and general education are falling. This generation will be more ill-informed than the previous, and that has been true for several generations.

As Neil deGrasse Tyson points out – just because you have an idea and you go on-line and find others with the same idea does not mean that it’s true. It may mean that you’ve connected with every kook who shares that idea. (I paraphrase.) And just because you and a bunch of other people believe it, and there is no proof or evidence of it being true, does not mean that it should be held up as being equal to something that has been rigorously tested and shown to be true.

But that is where we are. I fear that in four years we will see, I hope, that at least the foundations of our democracy are still here, even if the walls have been torn down.

Wednesday, November 27, 2024

Who remembers? The answer is, “To stop the spread of Communism.” Because if Vietnam went Communist, so too would Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Malaysia – all of Southeast Asia. This theory was called “The Falling Domino Theory.” Remember? 

Yeah. It didn’t happen.

Why?

Chris Miller in his book Chip Wars explains. The transistor was discovered or should we say invented at Bell Labs in the late 1950s. Japan and other nations in Asia were still recovering from WWII and China had been through a revolution in 1948. There was much turmoil and poverty. However, some saw or took opportunity. The U.S. decided to help Japan and other countries get back on their feet economically. Texas Instruments was looking for cheap labor. Taiwan, desperate for work, formed an alliance with Texas Instruments to produce chips. Japan and later Korea got in the chip making business. Singapore and Malaysia got into the fabrication and assembly of electronic components and products. The result of all this is an integrated production and assembly system that has employed thousands, millions even.

So why didn’t Communism take hold in South East Asia? The answer Miller suggests is that the people were working. They had jobs. They had money. 

If Miller is correct, and I think he is, if you want to stop a revolution, put people to work. Huh? Who knew? One person who understood this was Henry Kissinger. He went to Latin America for President Nixon. His report said that if we don’t pour money into those countries to help them become economically viable then those people will come here. Guess what? Those people are coming here! Amazing. 

So, the answer to the immigration question is not to seal the border, that’s head-in-the-sand thinking, You’re ignoring the problem. The answer is to figure out how to help those countries employ their people. By ignoring the problem for decades it has only gotten worse. Now, drug gangs and cartels are more embedded in those societies than ever. In some cases, they may even be running the country. 

There are a few glimmers of hope. One is to get people to face the problem. It’s easy to sit and complain when the problem is not at your door. Greg Abbott has made tried to make that very clear in Texas. I don’t agree with his methods, but it does highlight the problem. Chef Jose Garces has invited Joe Rogan to accompany him to Ukraine. That should be interesting.

There’s a charter school in Washington State for teenage parents. They help the soon to be and the new parents graduate from high school. The school addresses real world problems these young people face. Problems like child care and baby supplies. Many clothing articles and baby equipment like strollers and cribs are donated. There’s a lactation center and diapers and other supplies. The school helps the students with transportation and with homelessness, which is a huge problem. Many young women when they become pregnant are either in foster homes or their parents kick them out. 

How well has it worked? Of the kids that graduate, all have been accepted at colleges, and 95% of them go. That’s not to say everyone who is in the program makes it, because there are many problems to overcome, and some don’t overcome them. But, many do – with help.

So, here’s an idea. It seems to be working here in the U.S. and it’s shown to work in Southeast Asia. If you help people overcome their day to day struggles, if you give them work, if you educate them, they can function in society. That means they aren’t a drag or cost to society, but rather helping to make the world a better place. 

Why do it? We have two choices: 

one) we can blame the people and lecture them or complain on a podcast or whatever, You know, give ‘em the old “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” routine, or say, “they have to pay because they signed the usurious loan deal.” etc.

or

two) we can try and figure out what they need to be able to function on their own. And we can figure out how to employ people.

I say option two is not only better but cheaper. 

If Trump invokes the tariffs he has said he will, then the cost of goods will go up, trade will stop, the economy will decline, and he’ll hold a press conference saying it’s not his fault. He has claimed, for instance, that this will give a huge boost to U.S. built cars. There’s a problem. Let’s just say that he puts a 40% or 60% tariff on all goods from Mexico and Canada. Let’s say Mexico retaliates and does the same.

Let’s say that a U.S. built car that costs $50,000 depends on parts from Mexico. Not only that but the parts are made in the U.S. then assembled in Mexico shipped back to the U.S. where they are put into large assemblies and then shipped back to Mexico, where they go through more assembly and shipped back to the U.S. 

I am told that cars built in America depend on Canadian and Mexican parts, and that those parts may cross the border several times. So in reality, there is no such thing as a car built in the U.S.

So let’s say that the $50,000 car, “Built in America” depends on $10,000 worth of parts from Mexico. And that those parts are made in America shipped to Mexico where the Mexican government in retaliation to the Trump tariffs slaps a 40% tax on them. They now cost $14,000 and they get shipped back to the U.S. and receive a 40% U.S. tariff – $19,600. They go back to Mexico – $27,440, and cross the border again to the U.S. $38,416.

So the $50,000 “Made in the USA” with $10,000 worth of parts from Mexico now costs $38,416. Which means the sticker price of the car would be $50,000 – $10,000 + $38,416 or $78,416.

However, a $50,000 car built elsewhere and shipped to the U.S. and paying the 40% tariff would cost $70,000.

Hum. Buy America! Make America Great! Wait, I can get the foreign car cheaper than the U.S. built car?

Brilliant.

Tuesday, November 26, 2024

If I’ve learned anything …

Well, imagine …

I was thinking about my last screed where I wondered if anyone would spike the punch at Mar-a-Lago with LSD. This morning I started by asking Alexa to play Surrealistic Pillow by The Jefferson Airplane. I consider it one of the seminal albums of the 60s. It has rock, and folk, and ballads. It is sweet and it has songs like White Rabbit and Someone to Love, both are iconic songs with a driving build. After that I think the Airplane went into decline, mainly due to drugs. I heard The Starship live, once. Loud and confused. At the time of Surrealistic Pillow the thought was drugs like LSD would “open your mind.” All things seemed possible. But then drugs took hold of the mind and all was lost in a miasma of confusion and self absorption as people sturggled to function – stoned, drugged, out-of-it. 

But there was that time when it was thought to be hilarious. The stumbling around, barely, but still funcitoning. I’d like to see those times return for Project 2025 and the Trump Team. They are incompetent yes, but imagine stoned and incompetent! Steven Miller out on the South Lawn baying at the moon, and mooning the fence as tourist stick their iPhones through the black metal bars to get a shot. Bannon standing on the table with the punch bowl pissing in it. Ah yes. Good times.

And Donald? He’d be quieter but otherwise you wouldn’t notice much difference. Then someone would find the horned furred buffalo head and the music would thump by some never heard of band and a conga line would start ,headed by one of the Project 2025 dickheads with Pam Bondi and dog shooter Kristi Noem holding on to the sides of some evil bastard as they wove around the ballroom. Donald would be standing on the stage waving a – what? Poker from the firplace? A Maga flag? 

Then thiings would get ugly as the drugs hit home and people either passed out or started fights or tried to copulate. Such fun.

Monday, November 25, 2024

There is woke.

There is anti-woke.

And now I propose there is anti-anti-woke.

It’s not as long as antidisestablishmentarianism.

Nor as cute as Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, which is the shortened version of

 Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, and imho is the only way it should be written.

btw I can pronounce the whole thing!

But that’s Welsh and so is not the longest word in the English language, which is antidisestablishmentarianism.

But that’s neither here nor there as my point is that antidisestablishmentarianism was a movement opposed to those who wanted to no longer have the Church of England the official Church of the nation. And woke and the supposed woke movement was opposed by the right who made a thing of it by claiming to be anti-woke. The problem being that there is no specific meaning for woke. It seems to be defined by those who claimed to be woke and pointed the finger at those who weren’t woke enough as being for caring for others and sympathetic to the plight of others less fortunate or who were oppressed through no fault of their own other than being born of a certain race, gender, religion, or place. 

Those who then claimed to be anti-woke seemed to define it as being opposed to giving a hand out to those they see as undeserving moochers. This is an old argument in new clothing. Remember the Greatest Generation? They were the returning GIs from WWII. They got to go to college on the GI Bill. A government handout! It was fashioned by the Dems. Then there’s the aid to farmers. They get low interest loans from the Agricultural Department. Most farmers and certainly not Fox News types even know it’s the Ag department because they work through local banks. As Michale Lewis pointed out in his book about this one Agricultural Department worker points out that without this program rural America would look like rural China. Republican bankers have been salivating over grabbing those loans so they can jack up the prices and make big bucks. Maybe with Trump in and Project 2025 they’ll succeed.

Elon Musk did not become the richest man in the world all on his own. He had tons of help from the U.S. government. And my point is that you don’t do it, whatever it is, on your own. Others have helped you. Either it’s a mentor or a government program – something. The anti-woke folks are opposed to making anything systematized. Better to let people scrap and beg. 

I remember an example from when George “Papa” Bush was President. Someone in his detail was in tough straights due to some unforeseen incident. They passed the hat and gave him the money. Tip O’Neil pointed out that The President had just vetoed a bill that would have done the same for millions of folks. “The Dole” was what FDR was always afraid of being accused of doing. Grace Perkins talked him out of that notion and we got Social Security and Medicare. But Republican Senators and Republican appointed Supreme court justices are hoping to cut all that back. Yeah, don’t want anyone getting something for nothing. Oh you want to give me a luxury trip to wherever? How nice. What’s wrong with that? Hum.

Then there’s the student loan debt. They should have to pay it off like I did, back in the day! Yeah. Back in the day the government made sure you got a great deal. Today’s students are saddled with interest rates bordering on usury and not allowed to refinance. Not only that but universities are being run like corporations . They charge the maximum they can. Don’t use their endowments to help students and keep growing that nest egg. For what? It’s not clear.

No wonder folks are pissed off.

So if woke means helping folks – I’m for it. And if anti-woke means “F. U. I got mine you get yours.” I’m agin’ it. I guess that makes me anti-antiwoke.

See where I’m going with this?

And if you wish to comment and your comment includes “Yes, but …” Well, God Bless you, because I won’t.

Sunday, November 24, 2024

No, I’m not talking John Lennon. I’m talking Grace Wing, a graduate of Finch College. The same college where Tricia Nixon went. When Tricia’s daddy was in The White House her graduating class buddies were invited to afternoon tea. Grace came with her date Abbie. Imagine if …

Grace Wing was now Grace Slick and her date was Chicago Seven’s Abbie Hoffman. They got stopped at the door. Too bad. Abbie was going to dose Tricky Dick with some acid – a double dose. Now, in his latter time in The White House old Dickie got kind of weird, walking the halls drunkenly and talking to the pictures of past presidents that hung on the walls. Just imagine what he would have been like after acid?

I miss the old days where people thought acid and other drugs were going to change our consciousness. And remember stoners?

“Hey whatcha doin”?”

“Huh?”

Now kids don’t need to take dugs to tune out, they have social media! 

“Hey, I got twenty dollars for you if you can name the city and state where you live.”

“What?” 

Then there’s all kinds of stuff to really ruin your brain, and kill you. There’s no happy happy to any of it, just hopeless, hopeless.

The continued assault on education and reason coupled with a whole universe of propaganda and lies has turned half our country’s population into the “Huh? What?” generation. Those whose brains aren’t fried on drugs are stoopid on Fox News and other such outlets of disinformation. Or Robert Kennedy Junior’s fried  worm eaten heroin recovered brain. He’s going to make us healthy? OMG.

In order to have a functioning democracy you have to have an educated population, but the population is no longer educated. We have a narcissistic sociopath with a ninth grade reading level who went to some good schools but never paid attention in class and who managed to bankrupt every business he’s ever had who is leading a nation half of whom have a sixth grade reading level or less and are being constantly indoctrinated by lies and Russian (and other) propaganda.

The shit show is just warming up. Imagine when he takes office? The Steves Miller and Bannon will be shoveling the excrement through a high speed blower assisted be a cadre of Project 2025 minions and billionaires. To say it’s going to be ugly is to understate the case.

They have no idea how things work. Be it medicine, government, social welfare, science, – it doesn’t matter. When it gets really hinky, and we’ve seen this before, is when reality – real reality – hits them in the face, like Covid. Or sending a couple of legal hacks to Italy to find out the truth about something that is false. How do you do that? Well, you can’t. But the Italians in that case gave them real criminal evidence. Surprisingly it was on the guy who sent them there in the first place. What to do? BURY IT! Well, not before having a press conference where you tell everyone that you have evidence of criminality and forget to mention of whom it incriminates.

Or think of Zelensky when Donald asked him to get that information off the non-existent server. Apparently, this time around Donald has told Vlad to stop it. Well, that settles the war in Ukraine.

Maybe, someone will go down to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring and spike the punch.