Trump

Day 1168 – Brilliance in Stupidity – The Magic of The Donald

Tuesday March 31, 2020

215 Days until the election on November 3rd

295 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

I heard Trump lie again last night. It was an audio clip of him with the governors on a phone call. As I thought about it afterwards I realized I had heard this same shuck and jive before from him – many times.

The guy is not smart, and therein lies his brilliance. He’s repetitive so it’s easy to imitate him. It’s also easy to know what he’s going to say because of the fact that he uses the same phrases and the same adjectives and the same behaviors in the same ways over and over again.

Alec Baldwin said in his studying to imitate Trump he saw a man looking for a word that he wanted to use, who searched his brain trying to find that word, and when he couldn’t find it, used another word – over and over again. And there you have it! That’s Trump. But it’s not just a word or a phrase, he does this with the way he handles himself: be it when he’s being asked a question, being criticized, or trying to sell something. The shuck and jive is the same. There’s no change. There is absolutely no change. Which is to say the man doesn’t learn.

Last night I heard the audio clip where the governor of Montana was telling Trump that he was not going to be able to get ventilators because he would not be able to compete. Trump replied that he’s never heard of people not being able to get ventilators. This would be a John Oliver “What the Fuck are You Talking About” moment, but it was Rachel. Even she in her erudite way asked that question. 

When was the last time we heard Trump pull this stunt? The “We haven’t heard that before” bit or in it’s other guise “I don’t know. I didn’t do it. Maybe, someone else here did it, but I didn’t do it.” 

He did it at his press conference in the last week. Where he denied doing something he himself had done. He turned to his right and asked the person he saw there if they had done it. Then the video of him doing and saying whatever it was surfaced.

Sometimes he gets caught out by a reporter who uses his own words or actions against him. Then what does he do? The adjectives used are “terrible”, “nasty”, and “bad.”

Remember “Bad Hombres”? “Nasty Women”? 

Last week when Yamiche asked him to explain how he was more prepared than the Obama administration was for this pandemic when he had dismantled the pandemic response team, she got a “That’s a nasty question” response.

When Peter Alexander asked him to say something to the American people that were scared, he got a “You’re a terrible reporter” and “that’s a nasty question” response.

Yaniche went on, later in the week to earn another “nasty” for asking another legitimate question.

That’s why Trump plays so well in the era of the 20 second sound bite. You already know the script. It’s just a question of putting it together in slightly different ways. Maybe not even that, just substitute the new person’s name.

If you listened to the sales pitch he did for Trump University and the one he used as a candidate for president there isn’t any difference. It’s the same shuck and jive. Remember, “I’m going to have the best people” bit? Quick, which sales con is that from? His presidential run or his sales pitch for Trump U? If you said both – you’re right!

Now, we are facing a pandemic that has killed thousands and will probably kill hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, and we’ve got the same shuck and jive. 

What did you expect? Action? Leadership?

Those are nasty questions and you’re a terrible person. Next.

215 Days until the election on November 3rd

295 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

PS Railroad tracks – Cairo

Day 1167 – Why give $25 Million to the Kennedy Center you ask?

Monday March 30, 2020

216 Days until the election on November 3rd

296 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

Because the Kennedy Center is the National Theater supported by Congress by law, started by Eisenhower, suggested by George Washington, boosted by Kennedy and named by Johnson that’s why. 

Moving on.

This whole Corona virus thing could have been avoided. I know. I know. Speculation you say. Remember the Ebola epidemic that wiped out America? Of course not, it didn’t happen. Why? Because we had a real President that took decisive action and stopped it in its tracks that’s why. Remember the same dumb shit Republicans that are screwing around now and doing nothing are the same dumb shit Republicans that were screwing around then and recommending we do nothing.

How did that turn out?

Well, in the case of Ebola our President stopped it in Africa and strengthened our defenses here and the African defenses abroad.

In the case of this president and this pandemic, he did nothing. Well, that isn’t true, he did everything he could to tear down what was built, and he’s not done yet! His idiots are in court trying to get rid of what is left of Obama-care. His cronies are still trying to cut funding to the CDC and NIH. (Not true, you scream? Oh, I forgot. You get your news from a place that is being considered for suit because of their false information and their broadcasters are furiously removing their tweets to try and pretend they didn’t lie to you about the Corona virus.) 

Meanwhile the president is trolling around looking for more dregs to put in charge of critical stuff. Peter Navarro! Step right up. What do you have to recommend you to a post, any post in the government? Oh right, you’ve written a bunch of books about China. None of them make any sense and are delusional. Yeah, we’ll put you in charge of something. Lemme see, what do we have? (Who cares. It will be another diasaster.)

And then what was one of the latest things Trump has done? Oh yeah, accused health care workers of stealing stuff and selling it. No, no, no, you got that wrong. Those are your people doing that shit.

God. It is so disgusting.

The right wingers have gone back to blaming Hillary, Obama, and Soros for the countries woes. None of them have the guts to face the reality of what the problem is.

Oh oh oh, yesterday Trump listened to scientists. Yipee! Let’s all go celebrate. Drinks on me at your favorite bar or mega church! (I will, of course, pull a Trump and not pay. Ha ha ha. Jokes on you.)

216 Days until the election on November 3rd

296 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

Day 1166 – Atlantis? Our Fate? Our Destiny.

Sunday March 29, 2020

217 Days until the election on November 3rd

297 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

People are still looking for Atlantis, while the explanation is right there in front of them, but there’s something in some people’s nature to not understand or accept the obvious. Instead they stare openmouthed in disbelief. Then they move along in their fantasy world.

Let me explain. I’ve done this before in other guises and ways so I apologize if you’ve heard it before (eyeball roll please, turn the head, a little more “I’m so bored”, good good, well done.) Where was I? Oh yes, Atlantis.

As far as I know, all this stuff about Atlantis was started by Herodotus. It boils down to two sentences. One said that these folks lived beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, out in the Atlantic ocean, and that therefore he named them Atlanteans  (or Atlantans), and the second thing was that their city was 300 miles across. Why did he say this and cause all this foolishness? 

Before I explain know one other little tiny fact. From Greece to someplace in the Atlantic Ocean is 3,000 miles. This and the 300 mile wide capital city will become important (and it will be left to you – the student at lab time – to deduce what might have happened to Atlantis. Verily, I say unto you “Did.” “Did happen to Atlantis.” Hey, stop kicking my soap box.)

Herodotus never went to Atlantis. Hell, he never went to Egypt. He did interview people who had been places. In fact, he interviewed a guy who had been to Egypt, and herein is where the story of Atlantis was born. 

Question for the student – If you travel from Egypt by boat and go directly to Greece what is in the way? Or to put it another way, what might you pass by?

Ah, very good Grasshopper, you would pass by, or run into Crete, and the Greek Isles. Interesting.

Now there is one other little fact you need to know. The ancient measure in Greece and in Egypt were different but sounded about the same when spoken. Like site and sight, or pi and pie, better yet puck and … never mind.

The other thing to know is that between the two similarily sounding units of measure the difference in length was a factor of ten. So if one person was saying “cubit” and the other was saying “quebyte” and one was one mile long and the other was ten miles long then there would be a problem. 

Now think about if Herodotus misunderstood the man coming from Egypt and was off by a factor of ten. Now this place, he named Atlantis, would only be 300 miles away, and it’s city only 30 miles wide. Not the three thousand and the three hundred as he thought.

Hum. Let’s get out a map and see if there’s anything within 300 miles of Greece that might have had a city 30 miles across. What did you find? No that’s north and was not there when Herodotus was alive (dumb shit.) I’m sorry, what? I should have added “And was between Greece and Egypt?”

What? Crete, you say? Good job.

And looked there, they had a capital city called Heraklion that is about thirty miles across. “Wait, you don’t think Crete could have been what Herodotus was talking about do you? I mean if he misheard the unit of measure then it fits perfectly doesn’t it?” Yeah, I think that is exactly what Herodotus was talking about.

There was a volcano, called Santorini, that blew up in the 16^th century B.C. That sparked a massive tidal wave. Actually, a series of tidal waves. Waves tend to come in sets of seven. Santorini is 125 miles from Crete. The tidal wave that the explosion of the volcano created is estimated to have been seventy meters high. That’s 230 feet. The largest monster waves in the world are typically around 100 feet.

Imagine what you would do if you saw a 230 foot wave coming at you? I’ll tell you what you would do. You would turn like the people in the monster movies or the natural disaster movies. You would stare in wonder, not comprehending what you were seeing, or what to do. You would be a deer in the headlights.

Then bam. It would hit you and you’d be dead, and then swept out to sea. Good bye Crete. So long. But she lives again, in Herodotus’ History.

(And just in case the first wave didn’t get you remember there are six more of similar size coming, and that’s just the first set.)

Is that what we are facing with this pandemic? Is this our tidal wave?

217 Days until the election on November 3rd

297 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

PS Homo Sapien! 

Day 1165 – We Could Be Leading the World, but Instead …

Saturday March 28, 2020

218 Days until the election on November 3rd

298 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

At the end of the book “Lost City of The Monkey King” the author talks about contracting a parasite that causes a condition called Leishmaniasis. It is a parasite that is spread by the bite of a particular sand flea that lives on The Brown Wood Rat. The parasite likes to eat soft tissue, notably the earlobes, nose, and cheeks. It can literally “eat your face off.” The cure is a medicine that is only available in one place in the world – the National Institute of Health (NIH). There’s a guy there that has raised those sand fleas and studied the parasite and come up with a cure. (The other antidote is a poison that can help, but might kill you.)

When I read about this I was quietly proud of our country that we had someone on the case. I’ve been worried ever since Trump came in that this program and others like it might be cut. I mean why bother? You can always hire or buy this when you really need it. – That’s the argument. Of course, you have to find and develop a person that would be interested in such a thing. He had ten years of work into the project when Robert Patterson came to him and was sick. “Hey bud, no problem, sit here and wait ten years.”

When Trump dismantled the pandemic response team we didn’t pay much attention. Now? Don’t you wish we had? Don’t you wish we had screamed at him? Of course, the intelligence and health communities had been doing that on Covid 19 since January. He finally, kind of did something yesterday. He tweeted that GM  better make ventilators fast because we need them. We’ve needed them since January, but he ignored the reality of the coming storm. Now, thousands will die because of his stupidity and arrogance. We really don’t know what he did yesterday, do we? Did he invoke the War Powers Act and order GM or did he just tweet that he was going to do it? With this guy you don’t know.

And therein lies one of the many problems.

Cases of Leishmaniasis have been reported in Texas. People are being infected that have never gone to remote jungles where this condition is known to occur. What can explain this? Climate change, the Brown Wood Rat is moving north with the warming climate.

218 Days until the election on November 3rd

298 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

PS Say Yes to the Dress!

Day 1164 – Failure Mode, How well does the system work?

Friday March 27, 2020

219 Days until the election on November 3rd

299 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

I can’t remember when I first heard the question, “How well does your system work in failure mode?” Nor do I remember the system in question, but I remember the statements leading up to that question. The argument commenced with the idea that it didn’t matter how well the system worked when it was working the way it was supposed to work but rather how well it worked when it was broken (or not working). Seems silly, but that’s where we are.

I saw a recent post asking who had the guts to repost a statement that said vote the straight Republican ticket. I asked myself, “What have the Republicans ever done?” 

If you list all the government programs that you and I depend on and like, by and large they were all Democratic initiatives. 

It got me to thinking about the Great Depression, which was kicked off by the stock market crash of 1929. However, what really hurt and extended the depression was the credit squeeze of 1932. That’s a polite way of saying the banks wouldn’t lend money. Obama learned this lesson when he bailed out the banks and they didn’t lend the money to people and small businesses but rather gave themselves fat bonuses and bought stock back.

The crash of ’29 was preceded by some good times, and a giant flu pandemic. Calvin Coolidge was president and he famously said, “The business of business is business.” A man of few words, this was a mouthful. The other thing Coolidge did was to sign into law a bill that allowed Immigrants to get screwed over and not allowed into the country. This is the law that prevented a ship at the beginning of WWII to not dock on our shores that was loaded with Jews trying to escape Germany. Instead they went back to Europe and their almost certain death. 

I remember reading an article on one of the famous professors at my alma mater, Johns Hopkins, who got his start around the time of the Second World War. The alumni mag published one of his letters of recommendation. Basically, it said, “He’s a Jew, but he’s smart.” OMG. Yeah. There is a lot of prejudice out there. Not that the Jewish traditions don’t bring some of it on themselves. 

I wish I had that flash device Men in Black use to wipe out one’s memory of certain things. I’d wipe out a lot of bad stuff. 

Ah me.

We are watching the leaders of our federal government screw up. Not once, not twice, but so many times it’s hard to know where to start counting. And someone posted, “Let’s vote the straight Republican ticket?” Are you kidding me? What have they ever done? 

We will see how well our country responds to the failure mode of our nation. Just before I started writing this piece a buddy of mine sent me an email that pointed out if we all sheltered in place for two weeks at the same time this thing would be over. Think about that.

219 Days until the election on November 3rd

299 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

PS Goat!