Day 581

Day 581 Thursday August 23, 2018 997 Days to Go

Every once in awhile I have to take a step back and breathe. It’s been an awful 581 days, but before I get to that let me tell you about “The Dreams That Stuff is Made of.” It’s a compendium book of the original papers of the men and women that began to figure out the atom. Stephen Hawkings has written intros to each section, explaining what the papers you are about to read are addressing. It starts at the beginning of the twentieth century with the problem known as black-box radiation, which is trying to explain why metals when heated glow red and then, if heated more, glow white. It turned out that they couldn’t explain what was going on using regular Newtonian physics.
Something new had to be introduced. Notably the idea that a metal didn’t heat up uniformly, but instead lots of little pieces heated up, and they did so in steps, not continually. In other words, atoms would have jumps in energy absorbed or given off. These amounts were referred to a “quanta” or it was said that the atoms did jumps in “quantum,” and hence the beginning of quantum physics. A world very different from our everyday world.
It was Neils Bohr who figured out the earliest model of the atom and it’s been refined since, but he gets credit for the basic idea. Otto Geiger (of Geiger Counter renown) and Ernest Rutherford worked on the age old question of whether matter could be divided in ever smaller amounts. They bombarded gold foil with energy particles and watched the splattering to deduce where the negative and positive charges inside the atom were positioned. They discovered that the positively charged pieces were all in the center of the atom, but how could that be? Things of the same charge repelled each other in the larger world. They didn’t know. It wasn’t until the 1920s that an explanation was brought forth.
Think about that. It’s been less than one hundred years for our basic understanding of the atom, and we still don’t understand all of it. Einstein’s break out paper on special relativity was published in 1905.
The first street light* in the U.S. was installed in 1934. (*incandescent) I went out early this morning before the sun was even hinting at coming up and looked at the stars. The ones I could see. The ambient light blocks most of them. Damn street lights.
DeTocqueville had said that America was in a race between its vitality and its unseemliness. How true!
Today we see that more starkly than at other times. We have created energy from nuclear fusion but we haven’t figured out what to do with the residue. The world is pockmarked with places no longer safe for us as humans, but it will be okay in 10,000 to 28,000 years! That’s longer than we have been viable as a species. What are the chances that we will be here when those first spaces become safe? How many more will we create in the meantime?
Politically, there are some folks who are hoping for Brett Kavenaugh to become a Supreme Court justice. Why isn’t clear to me. His views aren’t just conservative; they are odd, oddly dangerous. He seems to want to have us return to “the good olde days.” Which good old days are not clear to me. But certainly he and Neil Gorsuch, who shouldn’t be on the court, want to repeal Roe v Wade. Many alive today don’t remember the days of rusty coat hanger abortions, or they think it’s not true, or something. But it was very true in my lifetime. I still remember the collective sigh of relief when this simple medical procedure was made legal.
Kavenaugh has said that the case against Nixon may not have been properly adjudicated. So what good old days does he envision? Does he want to get rid of Brown versus Board of Education? Do we want to go back to segregated schools? Betsy DeVos is working hard at doing that. How about getting rid of the fair housing act? That way people like Fred Trump could once again sell only to whites.
When I moved to the DC area the folks who sold me their house showed me the original title to the place. There were two large paragraphs of covenants listing all the types of people you were not allowed to sell to: Jews, Arabs, Negroes, were at the top of the list. Do we want to return to those days?
My mother told me the “funny” story of Sidney Poitier looking at real estate in my home town. His agent wanted to show him a friend’s house. I remember my mom saying, “of course they’d have to let the neighbors know.” I asked why, and got the “You know” answer. (I had no idea, but guessed it had something to do with his being black.) It turned out that his entourage of three cars pulled in the driveway of the place. He took one look at Bill, the guy who owned the place, sitting on the patio. He was all hot and sweaty from doing yard work and Poitier signaled the lead car to keep going. (“Whew” crisis averted.)
We are still in that race with ourselves.

In current news:
Remember those two guys? One pleading guilty to eight counts, and the other being found guilty on eight counts? That was the day before yesterday. Yesterday we got new cases and different players.
The State of New York had filed a civil case against The Trump Foundation, Donald, Don Jr, Ivanka, and Erik for not really running a charity foundation, but rather using the foundation as their personal piggy bank, and later to help fund Dad’s campaign. In fact, there’s even a note signed by Donald explicitly written to tell the foundation to pay off a campaign debt (or was it personal? I forget. It was only $100,000 what’s the big deal?) That seems to be the current excuse out of the White House, “It may be illegal, but everybody does it. No big deal.” Except, not everybody does it, and it is a big deal.
Speaking of which in the day before yesterday’s indictments Rep. Duncan Hunter who along with his wife were indicted for using his campaign fund to pay for all kinds of personal expenses like trips to Europe and the like was asked for comment. He seemed to be at the wharf of the yacht club when he spoke and you’ll be glad to know that he cleared it all up. Yup. Turns out its the Democrats are out to get him. It’s all a plot by the Democrats. I guess Dunc it was the Democrats whispering into your wife’s ear to put those golf shorts on the campaign fund account and you’d say, as she suggested, that it was some golf balls for wounded vets? Is that how the Justice Department got you?

So now the State of New York wants to speak to Michael Cohen because the civil suit against the foundation may become a criminal one. That could mean jail time for the board of directors of said foundation. That’s the Donald and his oldest three kids. (Tiffany had the good sense to get off the stage as soon as possible, and isn’t in on the scam.) The treasurer of the foundation, Trump’s long time accountant, may be off the hook too, because he didn’t know he was the treasurer until investigators told him. So if this case wins as a criminal case and Don and the kids are convicted they could do jail time and that ain’t something the President of the United States can pardon. Aw too bad. The NY AG also sent the information to the taxing authorities, both state and Federal (See, if you take in money and you claim to be a foundation, but you really aren’t you owe taxes. It’s a difficult concept for someone like Trump to understand because he doesn’t pay – period.)

This brings me to another point. As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in “The Great Gatsby” – “The rich are different from us.” He went on to say how they casually ruin people’s lives and just go on.
There seems to be this hidden or veiled understanding between rich people. Mainly, that the rules don’t apply to them. They shouldn’t have to pay taxes because they are rich. Or as Nancy MacLean put it in her book “Democracy in Chains” there are the “takers” who want to take away their money. Translation: voters who authorize taxes. This attitude and behavior manifests itself in all kinds of hidden off-shore accounts, and shell companies, and tax dodge schemes. It’s a uniting principle of the rich. Be they here in the U.S. or in Russia. “We shouldn’t have to pay because we are rich. Let others pay. Not us.”

In other legal news Trump’s security team is being sued by protestors who were attacked by the big goon named Schiller that Trump had hired for years and two others on his security team. Five protestors were attacked by Schiller outside Trump Tower. The tape shows Schiller walking off with one of the protestor’s signs. When the protestor tried to get the sign back Schiller slugged him. Trump said at the time that it was disgusting what the protestors were doing. (Doesn’t he have any other line?) Yes, it certainly was disgusting. They were protesting that Trump called Mexicans rapists and drug dealers – disgusting. The protestors were of direct Mexican heritage. The tape shows this guy who is about two thids of Schiller’s size trying to take his sign back. Schiller slugs him in the neck. Hey, but Schiller says it was self defense. Watch the tape. Poor Keith Schiller, after grabbing a sign away from a person half his size he then slugs him. I’m sure Schiller felt threatened.
The case is going forward and the three security people and the Trump organization are named.

People who have been prosecutors (there seem to be a lot without jobs. Oh that’s right Don fired them) say that the way Trump and the Trump organization act is familiar. It reminds them of how a mafia family acts.

997 Days to Go

PS The Truth