Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Steve Kerr, Jane Fonda, Al Franken, and a Number of Others

All day, every day (especially at this frantic "year end" time), I get e-mails asking for donations.  "Donate," "give," "gift," "chip in," "rush," "contribute," "match," "2X match," "3X match," "4X match," and all kinds of language that mean they want money.  How much?  "$1," "$3," "$20.24..."  And of course, they have boxes, so you could choose to donate $50, or $100, or $250, or whatever you want.

It's always about something.  Either it's about a candidate, a cause (violently horrible videos shown), an extra emergency, or now, a last minute opportunity to make an end of year "tax-deductible" contribution.

The request/plea is presented as having been sponsored by someone.  A partial list of familiar names is in the title of this post.  Norman Lear used to be one of the names, but he died this year, so I don't see him any more.  (Those are for the requests I get.  If you favor the "other side of the aisle," the pleas/invitations you get probably feature someone else.)  Are we supposed to imagine that these names are just devoted to the causes, or are they part of the cost of the appeal: do they get paid?

Today, I got one (no headliner) from the "AOC" campaign.  The title was "You Are Not an ATM."  I'm not an ATM, because I don't donate to candidates, but starting when am I not treated as a possible ATM?  And here's the funny, crazy, hair-pulling (if I had any hair left to pull) thing about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her campaign's fiscal pleas that don't treat me like an ATM.  I replied to one of those e-mails once.  I explained that I do not donate campaign money to candidates, because private money in politics is what has killed democracy in this country.  We don't have a democracy any more.  We have a plutocracy.  But I said that we have a huge problem with American "health care," and no one could understand how the dysfunction works unless they were in it.  (Except everyone knows how the overcharging works.  It's just plain old garden-variety greed.)  But I included my phone number, and I said that if Ms Ocasio-Cortez would call me, or if she asked me to come to DC to explain it, to her and to anyone else who wants to understand the problem, so they can try to create a meaningful solution, I would donate $1000 to her campaign.  I never heard back from anyone.  All they wanted was for me to activate the "Donate" button.  If I didn't do that, then I didn't do anything.  And they don't hope I'm an ATM, or they imply they wouldn't want me to feel like one?

But here's the thing about the celebrities whose names are featured in these appeals.  (There are actually two or three issues, but we'll start with this one.)  These are very famous people.  And in more or less every case, what they did to become famous also made them wealthy.  So, why do they want $1 or $3 or $20.24 from someone like me?  Why don't they just donate it themselves.  Unless, of course, they themselves are part of the expense of these outreaches.  In that case, they don't give.  They take.  If that's the case, I should donate money, of which I don't have a lot, to give it to people who have vastly more than I do?  Come on, Ms Ocasio-Cortez, I love the hell out of you, but what am I to you if I'm not an ATM?  (Well, of course I'm not, because I refuse to be one, but it's your campaign's intention that I should be.)

And it's not in any way just candidates.  Everyone wants to squeeze a final 2023 dollar out of as many people as they can.  I donate to lots of these.  It's tricky what they do with the money, though.  When I donate to something like Skylands, then I know they/Mike uses the money to provide for the animals.  But when I donate to any of the anti-gun groups, how do I know they don't use the money to try to grease electeds, which is exactly the thing of which I don't approve?  If they give me a clue, like calling themselves a PAC, then I know to avoid them.  It's like encountering a beggar on the street.  If they were really impaired, and they really wanted a handout so they could buy food, I wouldn't mind at all giving them something.  But if they were able-bodied, and they intended to use the money to buy drugs, then giving them money wouldn't solve a problem.  It would enable and aggravate one.

So, I still don't know what to think of all those celebrities.  At the very least, I think I can confidently assume that a certain list of them, like the ones in the title of this post, aren't also featured asking potential donors on the other side of the aisle to cough up money.  I think I can assume there's at least superficial honesty.  Even if I don't donate to candidates anyway.

Whoa!

MicheleWojciechowski on X: "Thanks @JohnFugelsang https://t.co/4qKtFAZKGG" / X (twitter.com)

If there was such a thing as "god," and if Jesus existed and was the son of "god" and the Messiah, he'd want you to reconsider today, this being his birthday, and all.

"No Country For Old Men"

The 1928 poem by W B Yeats is called "Sailing to Byzantium."  Its first line is "That is no country for old men."

Sailing to Byzantium

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
– Those dying generations – at their song,
The salmon‐falls, the mackerel‐crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing‐masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium

Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Belen Fernandez has told her own personal story from this poem, and her dying father's recitation of it.

The US is no country for old men (msn.com)

I sign petitions every day, sometimes more than one a day, complaining about the pharmaceutical industry's abuse of sick people, and their money.  The petitions are very much along the lines of Fernandez's article.

But it's not just the pharmaceutical industry, or even about American "health care."  There's a broader, underlying problem which supports this whole dysfunctional scheme.  It's the mindless fixation on money, or, if you will, capitalism.

Today, I watched yet another episode of "The Twilight Zone."  This one was about a ravenous man about whom it was said that having all the money he did didn't have much meaning to him.  His addiction was getting the money, not just having it, and the sense of endless control, and crushing the people whose money he could get.  An addiction to getting money is certainly a powerful driver in this country.  But even that isn't enough.  Not only do some people feel a need to get as much as they can of other people's money, but they also want to control other people's lives.  They want to get your money, control your life, and determine your sense of history, and reality.

It's not just old men who wither under such relentless, and ruthless, pressure.

I Really Mostly Don't Understand This.

Donald Trump has run for president twice.  Most voters didn't want him either time.  Trump isn't subtle.  He's overwhelmingly obnoxious.  And people had no trouble seeing that.  The first time he ran, although most voters didn't want him, his minority of support was distributed in such a way that he actually got a majority of the Electoral College.  Most voters didn't want him to be president, but he won anyway.  Helluva system.

What's really weird is that most voters didn't want him, because he's really obvious, and it was painfully easy to see, or assume with very great confidence, that he was a phony, an inveterate liar, and cared about only one thing in the universe: himself.  But when he ran for re-election, having proven for four years that he was without question a phony, an inveterate liar, and completely and exclusively self-focused, he got more votes than he did the first time.  (They don't have an emoji of someone scratching his head.)  But the other guy did sufficiently better than that that we weren't saddled with Trump again.

It was after that that some of the support, like on Fox News, started to fall away.  Not all of it, but some of it.

Now, I said I "mostly" don't understand this.  I do understand part of it.  Enough people had hitched their wagons to whatever they told themselves, or feared, was Donald Trump's star, or star power, that they thought that regardless of what they really thought, or knew, they couldn't afford to admit he's a complete loser.

And even now, after all this, Trump is way ahead in surveys of Republicans, or likely Republican voters, or Republicans willing to complete surveys.  Clearly, there's room for these surveys not to be accurate.  But they're the ones that are made public.  Even broader surveys about who is more likely to get the voters' votes show that Trump and Biden are about even.  I'm not a Biden fan, either, but come on.

I have to admit that when it comes to people like the Fox crew who have fallen away, I really wish I could ask them about that.  I imagine telling them I don't think I'm any smarter than they are, and asking them why they couldn't at all detect what was screamingly obvious to me and to the majority of voters.  Assuming they weren't just saying they approved of Trump when they perhaps really didn't, but knew their base wanted that kind of statement from them.  Those people have jobs that no doubt overpay them, or violently overpay them, on condition that they please the viewers.  And I imagine asking what finally led them to recognize, and be willing to admit, what most people already and clearly knew?

But today, I saw an article about Trump's having gone after some Texas federal Representative named Chip Roy, and calling Roy a "RINO" (one of Trump's common dismissals of other Republicans).  Roy's crime against Donnie Trump was having declared Trump's past actions impeachable.  But Roy, a good (R) boy, didn't vote to impeach Trump.  How many times have I said that no one can adhere to the Rep/com agenda without being a hypocrite, dishonest, or both?

Well, Trump's response to Roy (the usual list of insults) stimulated some noteworthy blowback from Texans.  One person said it: "Trump thinks he is more important than voters...Trump is all ego and doesn't care about anyone but himself."  No information was given about this person.  Is this someone who in fact voted for Trump, once, or maybe twice?  If so, how did this person somehow fail to recognize the torturously obvious before now?  And how is s/he able to see and acknowledge it now?

Trump famously, and correctly, said that he could walk down 5th Ave in NYC, shoot someone dead, and not lose support over it.  Is the message here that he could get away with shooting one, or two, people dead, but people will start to react once it becomes more of a mass murder?  I wish I could ask these people.

Do You Have a Coin?

I go to a number of kinds of dance shows, and two of them are very similar to each other.  Dance NOW! Miami (DNM) has been around for 23 years, and is run by Hannah Baumgarten and Diego Salterini.  Dimensions Dance Theater of Miami (DDTM) has been around for about 10 years and is run by Carlos Guerra and Jennifer Kronenberg Guerra (they're married, and they met when both were at Miami City Ballet).   Both groups are a blend of ballet and modern dance.

For some years, I had the impression that DNM had better choreography, which was mostly older pieces, and DDTM had better dancers.  DDTM's common choreographer has been Yanis Eric Pikieris, whose father, Yanis Pikieris, also choreographs.

But I've changed my mind about which organization has which greater strengths.  Yanis Eric is getting better by the year, and whether or not I was right about who had better dancers, they seem equally magnificent now.

Last Sunday, I went to a DNM show in downtown Coral Gables.  It was a bit of a mess, because they were having some sort of Orange Bowl related event on Miracle Mile, so the street was closed, and parking was not easy.  Nor was it cheap.  But if I had wanted things to be easy and cheap, I would have stayed home.

DNM called its show "Random Patterns of Falling Leaves."  The week before, it was presented in Broward County.  On December 10, it was presented at a performance hall that had been a church.  Of incidental interest, Michael Eidson had taken a long term lease on this building, and he used it for performances like this one.  I don't know what Mr Eidson does or did for his career, but his wife, who had been a nurse, was in the medical school class just before mine.

The choreography for these pieces was spectacular.  And each piece was choreographed by Hannah Baumgarten, Diego Salterini, or both of them.  I hope it occurs to them that they have no need to present shows choreographed by anyone else.  The music was a mix -- essentially medleys -- and the costumes, which were very captivating, and fit the autumn theme perfectly, were by Haydee Morales, Maria Morales, Floyd Nash, and Marilyn Skow.  I know nothing about any of them, except they did a magnificent job, both of designing costumes, and keeping in mind the interplay of the people wearing those costumes.  There were not many dancers altogether -- one in the first piece (of four), and seven in the last piece -- and they were not familiar to me from past DNM shows, but they really could not have been better.

Two pieces, by the way, were from 2005, one from 2011, and one a "world premier."  DDTM's pieces are often new or recent, too, because seemingly most of them are choreographed by Yanis Eric, and he doesn't look like he's older than 20s.  Actually, he looks like a teenager, but I'm sure he's not.

Do you have that coin?  If DNM and DDTM are performing on the same night, flip the coin.  If they're not, go to both.  I feel very sure you won't be sorry.  The sizeable majority of DDTM's performances are at South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center (SMDCAC), way down in Cutler Bay.  DNM performs in different places in Dade and Broward.  I did hear one unsettling rumor.  DDTM gets a lot of backing, encouragement, and performance opportunity from Eric Fliss, who is the impresario of SMDCAC.  The rumor I heard -- very disappointing, if true -- is that Eric has a contract with DDTM that prevents them from performing anywhere within 20 miles of SMDCAC.  That probably includes the Sactuary of the Arts in Coral Gables.  I know that DDTM is appreciative, if not grateful, for Eric's support, and it would cost him nothing to loosen that leash.  They like performing there, and the audience likes attending those performances.  If Eric's concern is a less than full schedule, all he'd have to do is ask DDTM to add dates there.

By the way, so you understand both of these local groups better, not only are they top flight, but DDTM paid their performers, even to participate in video streamed performances, during the worst of the pandemic, and DNM paid one of their dancers despite the fact that he had an Achilles heel injury, and couldn't dance for a year.  But there was nothing else he could do, so they paid him.  You can send me a list of the organizations/businesses/corporations you know that are that devoted to the people who work for them.

"This Area of Medicine is Too Complex to Legislate, Too Complex For People Who Are Not Trained in Medicine," Although That's not the Point.

I remember Jim Esserman.  He was either in my class in medical school, or in the class behind me.  I didn't keep up with him, and apparently, he went into OB/GYN.  It sounds like he made a nice success of himself.  He wrote this letter to the Herald.  No, Attorney General Moody, Florida’s doctors and their patients are not confused | Opinion (msn.com)

Maybe it sounds arrogant when Jim Esserman says it.  Maybe it sounds arrogant when I say it.  People who are not doctors simply have no idea what they're talking about.  Even if they looked something up on "Dr Google."  I have told patients many times that I will beg them, and if necessary on my knees, not to look things up online.  If they have questions, they should ask me.  That's what I'm here for.  They have no way to know who put that there, what their credentials are, why they put it there, and certainly not whether or not it's true.  There's a reason people have to attend medical school for four years after college, then several more years of residency, and maybe fellowship, after that.  The vast, vast majority of doctors are clinicians.  They do not do research.  So, part of medical school is learning how to understand research papers published by others, in often important part to look for clues as to whether the paper is legitimate.  Very many of them are not.

So, Jim Esserman focused his attention on whether or not fetuses at one stage or another are viable.  But he also notes that "women in Florida have fewer reproductive rights than they did 40 years ago" (before Roe was overturned).  And whatever Jim Esserman criticizes about Ashley Moody, he has reason to make the same criticism about the entire Florida government.

Esserman's focused complaint is that the state wants to do what it is incapable of doing: determining viability.  But apart from noting the erosion of rights, he doesn't address what is most likely the bigger issue: two people who wanted to have sex, but didn't want a child to result, and who took precautions to prevent one, and experienced a pregnancy anyway.  Has the state of Florida not only gotten into the impossible business of determining viability, but also decided how many children Floridians should have?

It's a slippery slope to banning contraception, and some jurisdictions are trying to do that.  But what's the underlying theory?  We've gone over this before.  The people who demand that other people, who are not they, have children they don't want and aren't prepared to rear, are not "pro-life."  They like to say it, because it's one of their few opportunities not to be anti something.  But they're not pro-life.  And if they think their personal religious beliefs suggest that abortion (not mentioned in any of the bibles, to my knowledge) is not a good thing, and "god" wouldn't like it, they really need to read and re-read the First Amendment to the Constitution, so they will be reminded that they can have any personal religious beliefs they like, but this has nothing to do with anyone else.  (I'm skipping over the massive hypocrisy here.)

But the simplest fact, considering Esserman's letter, is that people should not play at being professionals, which they're not.  Have an opinion.  Have a preference.  Help yourself.  But do not pretend you know what you have no way of knowing.

Do You Want Proof That We Just Like to Fight?

Carl Sheline just won re-election as the mayor of Lewiston, Maine.  I don't know anything about Carl Sheline, his opponent, Jon Connor, and almost anything about Lewiston.  (I pass the I-95 exit for it to and from Bangor or Southwest Harbor.  But I have no reason to go there.)  Perhaps the most noteworthy fact for me, and for everyone else, is that Lewiston just suffered a sizeable mass shooting a couple of weeks or so ago.

So, it was presumably election time in Lewiston, and Sheline and Connor opposed each other.  In a runoff.  (That, in itself, should be an attention-grabber.)  "No party affiliation" is given for each of them.  They were just two Mainers running against each other for mayor of Lewiston.

There are two, or possibly three, striking things about this story  Carl Sheline wins Lewiston's mayoral run-off election by slim margin (msn.com)  Perhaps one is that neither candidate had a party affiliation.  I don't know how common this is in Maine, but it was true in this case.  So there was no primitive reflex basis to say "he's terrible, because he's a..."  But the two more striking things about this election were that the candidates related to each other, and to the public, in a respectful and non-confrontational way, and that the voter turnout was 16%.  (It's also noteworthy that this runoff election was very close, with only 122 votes separating the winner from the loser.)  And the candidates congratulated each other for a good campaign.

If things aren't ugly, nasty, mean, and combative, we're just not interested.  It doesn't engage us.  It's not our idea of fun.  Sixteen percent?  A turnout of 17% or 18% maybe gives the opposite result.  But only about one in six voters could be bothered, if there wasn't a dog or cock fight to capture their interest.

If you're thinking I've failed to note that the platform is important, in terms of how it affects the public, it isn't.  It's never mentioned in this article.  Sheline thanked the voters for giving him another term.  He didn't say anything about how, or if, his approach was helping them.  And Connor didn't say anything about a different approach out of which the voters had cheated themselves.

I don't watch political debates, by and large.  There's little to learn from them.  But I did see a couple of clips from the last Republican debate.  DeSantis and Ramaswamy were making wisecracks about Haley, and Haley thanked them for the attention.  They made fun of her, and she made fun of them.  Christie, who's running against all of them, supported Haley, and said he'd worked with her for years, and she was very capable.  DeSantis, Ramaswamy, and Haley were all versions of wiseasses, and Christie was a respectful gentleman.  Do you want to know who's last in that group?  And do you want to know who's leading, by a very large margin, in the Republican primaries, even though he's one of the most obnoxious people on the planet, and doesn't respect his opponents or the public enough even to bother to participate in the debates?

I'm telling you there's something wrong with us.  And part of the evidence is our love of aggression.

WOW! 631 Now

On October 26 (that's about a month and a half ago), I posted that we had had 565 mass shootings this year.  Now, we're up to 631.  And we still have about three weeks to go this year.  If we apply ourselves, we can wipe out maybe a bunch more Americans.  If that's someone's idea of population control, it seems pretty effective.

And you can't accomplish that by strangling people, or having police kneel on their necks until they can't breathe and die, or even by knifing them.  For that kind of result, you really need guns, and the quicker firing, the better.  Don't forget, if you're in the wrong place, and you start shooting people, someone (I know I'm kidding myself, because it essentially never happens) might shoot you.  Or, if your piece is too slow, there might be time to call the police.  And you don't want that.

Some of these mass murderers kill themselves, after they're done killing the other people they had a hankering to assassinate.  And I think this is a very good idea.  I'd just recommend doing it the other way around: kill yourself, and then kill all the other people you've decided have no right to live.  Of course I know that killing yourself first makes it more challenging to wipe out other people, but be sporting about it.  Test your skills.

 

Don't Listen to Me. Listen to Mitt Romney.

I don't entirely understand (Willard) Mitt Romney.  His father, George (the XXth C American politician, not the XVIIIth C British painter) was the governor of Michigan, and Mitt went into politics, too.  He attended Harvard first -- yeah, blah, blah, blah -- then took a job in finance, at which point he was an "Independent" (aren't we sort of technically all independent?), and then, he declared himself a Republican.  I think it was while Mitt was at Harvard that he met Bejamin ("Bibi") Netanyahu, which has created a problematic friendship.

Romney ran for Senator in Massachusetts, which he lost, but later became Governor there.  Massachusetts, which is generally considered a very blue state, has an odd habit of electing (very moderate) Republican governors.  Bill Weld was one of them, then Romney later, and most recently Charlie Baker.

After his stint as governor or Massachusetts, Romney moved to the San Diego area.  It was from there that he ran for president against Obama.  And didn't win.  He's a Mormon, and had gone to BYU for college, and somehow decided to move back to Utah,  He won a Senate seat there.  And now, he's talking about running for president again in 2024.  Apparently, he's put off by the other garbage who's running for president on the Republican ticket, and he thinks he has a better chance to beat Biden than it appears he did to beat Obama.  He's still a Republican, though, although the kind of Republican who can be elected Governor of Massachusetts (so, not a MAGA nut job).

Normally, I have little or no use for Republicans.  A couple of years after I was born, Eisenhower became president.  I would certainly admit I have not many memories, and no understanding, of Eisenhower's terms, but I do know he presided over income tax rates as high as the 90%s, and he also presided over the establishment of the interstate highway network.  No one would think of Republicans that way any more.  And Eisenhower, who had been a revered WWII general, cautioned this country to "beware the military-industrial complex." Either the military-related contractors/donors hadn't gotten to him, or he actually cared more about the country than he did about military contractors.  Also unheard of these days, especially among Republicans.

I gave Romney a thought in 2012.  I wasn't happy with Obama, and I was open to someone else.  But Romney, who had a lot of money, was playing games with his taxes, and I decided to vote for Obama again.  (I had thought about McCain before that, but I thought W was a disaster -- little did I know what deeper disaster was coming after Obama -- and McCain didn't criticize W or specify one thing he would do different from W.  So I voted for Obama then, too, even though he didn't have good enough experience.

But, as I said, or as I read, Romney is reportedly getting ready to try again.  And it's an interesting choice.  Biden is definitely too old, and has provided a few too many important disappointments, and the rest of the Republican field are nowhere near possibilities.  The only other one who might come close, or who might have come close, is Christie, although he was very importantly instrumental to Trump in '16 and '20, so it would be really hard to believe he has suddenly turned away.  In theory, that leaves Romney, if he runs.  (Sanders is too old, too, and Ocasio-Cortez too young.  Warren is just the right age and experience, but the DNC is backing Biden, and essentially won't let anyone run against him.  Too bad.  The others actually care about the American people, and this country, and democracy in general, and the climate and ecology, and are smart, and would make great presidents.)

Anyway, here's something about Romney: Mitt Romney on 2024 Presidential Run, Trump’s ‘Failure of Character’ and the Republican Party (msn.com)  Not only is he willing to acknowledge that Trump has a "failure of character," or has no character, but he even (page 4, if that's not what displays first, acknowledges that today's Republicans don't believe in the Constitution.  That's painfully obvious to people who are not Republicans, but it's unheard-of to hear a Republican admit it.  Although on page 12, he does list his revered Republicans, and he includes Reagan and W.  So that's not encouraging.  And to make matters slightly worse, he celebrates those presidents for being anti-Putin, anti-Russia, anti-Kim Jong-un (why is it important to the Republican party to be "anti" things?), but he does not include his old buddy anti-Netanyahu.

I admitted I had little use for Republicans.  Mitt Romney explained part of the reasons.  Although he is one, so he's in conflict, which might explain the self-flagellation. 

"Moms" For Liberty

It's hard to imagine you don't already know this story.  However...  Florida GOP chairman's hunt for a threesome results in sexual assault allegation (msn.com)

"Moms" For Liberty is a right wing group started by Christian Ziegler.  (Or at least he's the Chair of the Florida chapter.  A dude who's the Chair of a group of "Moms?")  Mr Ziegler is married to Bridget Ziegler.  I don't know if the Zieglers have children, but clearly, Mr Ziegler is not a "mom."  So, we have some gender flexibility involved in this situation.  "Moms For Liberty," by the way, is alleged to advocate for "pro-family values," whatever they intend that to mean, except they're virulently opposed to "LGBTQ..."  I wonder if that's like that "Jr" guy whose father was a famous evangelist, and who liked to watch his wife having sex with other men.

Anyway, Christian and Bridget Ziegler, as it turned out, had a "friend."  Their "friend" was another adult woman who liked to participate with them in menages a trois, although she acknowledged her main interest was Bridget, not Christian.  So her gender preference was a bit flexible, too, at least with respect to what we would normally and reflexly expect of people involved with a right wing, "pro-family values" "organization."  (It sounds pretty disorganized to me.)  And especially in Florida -- the Zieglers and their friend live in Sarasota -- where you can't say "gay."  "Gay" sort of scratches the surface of this situation.

So, what happened, apparently, was that on the scheduled day, Bridget turned out not to be available.  Christian was, but that's not what the Zieglers' friend wanted.  She decided another time would be better, for her.  Unfortunately for her, Christian was running hot, and he reportedly went to her apartment, and imposed himself on her.  He wouldn't take no for an answer.  So now, she's accused Christian of rape, since he forced himself sexually on her when she told him she didn't want him to.  (Hey, I'm male.  I know what male impulses and pressures feel like.  But you have to be civilized, and sometimes, you just take no for an answer.  And if the heat is too high, then go pay someone who won't tell you no, and just wants the money.)

Frankly, I don't care what the Zieglers and their friends do in the privacy of one or another of their homes.  I don't care if Christian, Bridget, and their friends are into S&M, as long as they all agree.  I wish they could have the same level of what they probably like to call "grace" about the rest of us.  I don't care if Christian is a transvestite, or if he likes the ladies to spank him.  If they like to spank each other, and Christian likes to watch, that, too, is OK with me.

I can't begin to count how many times I've said this.  It is not possible to adhere to the Rep/con agenda without being a hypocrite, dishonest, or both.  And whatever are your (almost always religious) values, they have nothing to do with anyone else.  I have Republican friends.  They're my friends because I like them.  But they don't tell me how to run my life, and I don't tell them how to run theirs.  Do we disagree with each other about some things, like I know there's no such thing as "god," and they know there is?  Sure.  But that's OK.

The Zieglers are welcome to have sex any way they both want.  And if they can find a friend to broaden the possibilities with them, I don't quarrel with them about that, either.  They're all adults, and until recently, they were all consenting adults.  As long as they all consent, they can do whatever they want.  It's just a shame they're unable to realize that the rest of the world, and the rest of the country, are entitled to the same deference.

PS: Bridget inexplicably resigned from "Moms For Liberty" in 2021, very shortly after it was formed.  Hmm.  I have also said before that in my experience and opinion, on the average, women are smarter than men.

"Fear and Loathing" (And Guilt)

You could zone out listening to the allegations, because they're rampant, ridiculous, and honestly not worthy of your attention.  But while I was listening to the radio today, there was a story about something-or-other (I was exercising in the garage, and I was paying more attention to counting repetitions than I was to every detail of every radio story), and "MAGA Mike" Johnson was going on in typical mind-numbing fashion about immigrants, and how they account for drugs and crime, and who knows what else.

As a loosely related aside, I was just now listening to one of Brian Cohen's youtube presentations, where he was talking about how Republicans vote against various kinds of improvements, and against what the American people want, then take credit when the improvements happen.  (So, apart from the political "optics" of frankly childish rebelliousness, if they eventually take proud credit for these improvements, why did they vote against them?  Is it like the "terrible twos" reflex of toddlers?  And let me say that the "terrible twos," and adolescent rebellion, are critically important to development, because they help young people create distance, and their own space, so they can develop autonomy, which they will need.  But adults, who just say "no" to things they're prepared to celebrate, just so they can find some theory of opposition to some other group of adults, and at the expense, in the case of electeds, of the people whose interests they're supposed to represent?)

The question, then, is what the "no" reflex is about.  And again, it's not the important and necessary personal evolution into autonomy and adulthood.  They're already adults, at least chronologically.  It's something else.

If you bother to read these posts, you might remember some time back that I wrote about Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine."  Moore was trying to figure out why the prevalence of gun deaths in this country is as high as it is, which is higher than other non third world countries, and despite the fact that Canada (that was the comparison he used) has or had the same rate of gun ownership, but far less gun death.  Moore concluded that Americans are a fearful people.  They're terrified, they think they need protection, and their reflex is to shoot other people.  We have a distilled version of that problem in Florida, where the law says you can shoot anyone who makes you feel uneasy.  You can even go out of your way to provoke them, as George Zimmerman did to Trayvon Martin, and once you've provoked them enough that you can tell yourself that their reaction or resistance to being provoked makes you feel threatened, you can shoot them.

But back to "MAGA Mike," he trotted out a frankly very tired trope about immigrants.  And he is not in any way the only one.  The whole "MAGA" crew, and the common Republican platform, are founded in part on xenophobia.

Everyone in this country, except the Native Americans, is an immigrant (personally, or his or her forebears were).  And every immigrant group -- the Irish, the Germans, the Chinese, the Jews, and every one of them -- has been reacted to in precisely the same way: they're dirty, they're lazy, they're criminals, etc.

But people don't come to this country with the ambition of acting out base instincts.  They're all leaving something that wasn't working out for them, or was bad and dangerous, and all of them, except the African Americans, are looking for a better life and more opportunity, just like the rest of us and our forebears.  And in very many cases, we essentially mistreat them.  We make most easily available to them jobs no one else wants to do, and which pay poorly, and frequently are dangerous, and we subtly, or not so subtly, corral them into neighborhoods where they are more likely to be endangered by pollution and other problems, and less less likely to establish themselves and any meaningful sense of legitimacy, so they can move out and move up.

Why do we treat other people this way?  And when there's presumably so much advantage here?  "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown."  Despite all of our advantage, there's something wrong with us, and we know it, and we're afraid of the people we mistreat.  But we can't admit that we're afraid, or that we should be afraid, and feel guilty, because we mistreat them, and look over our shoulders to see if the karma is coming.  Instead, we demonize them, and decide they're terrible people (much worse than we are), and we should hate them.

"Dust"

I loved "The Twilight Zone" when I was a kid.  There are about 150 episodes, of which I still remember some.

In recent years and even decades, some TV network or other has shown "Twilight Zone" marathons on New Years' Eve day and New Years' day.

Many people who became famous later acted in some of those episodes.

Recently, I bought from ebay the whole series.  And I've been watching them, maybe three or four 24-minute episodes in a sitting.

Many of these episodes were written by Rod Serling, who I read developed "The Twilight Zone" after his proposal to write something about the murder of Emmett Till was rejected.  You can see some of that hopeless tragedy in a number of "Twilight Zone" episodes.

An episode I watched today, and which I didn't remember, was called "Dust."  It was the story of a Mexican man who was despairing over the misery of his life, got drunk, accidentally ran over and killed a young girl with his horse-drawn wagon, and was to be hanged.  The villagers came out to watch the spectacle.  One man brought his wife and children.

Serling introduced the episode this way: "This village had a virus shared by its people.  It was the germ of squalor, of hopelessness, of a loss of faith.  With the faithless, the hopeless, the misery-laden, there is time -- ample time --to engage in one of the other pursuits of men: they begin to destroy themselves [and each other]."

Thomas Gomez, whose character was a hustler, a drinker himself, and an opportunist and conman, had sold the village the rope to hang the convict, and sold the convict's family, at a highly inflated cost, of course, "magic dust" (which he simply scooped up from the ground), which he told the convicted man's father would turn the villagers' hate into love.

When an attempt to hang the convict was made, the rope broke.  The parents of the accidentally killed girl, who had come to see "justice" done, decided one death was enough, and gave the sheriff permission to let the convict go, instead of trying again to hang him.  If the convict's family were deeply relieved, it was Thomas Gomez's character who was unspeakably puzzled.  He gave the money he took from the convict's father to the convict's children.

Maybe My Friend Was Right

I was having an e-conversation with a lawyer friend, and somehow, we wound up talking about some of the differences between lawyers and doctors.  I did not point out that an important difference is that doctors have to get it right, but lawyers only have to win an argument.  But we did talk about the difference in how much post-college training lawyers get (three years) versus how much post-college training doctors get (10 years for me), and noting that lawyers charge vastly more than do doctors.  My friend said the amount of training was deceptive, because lawyers continue to learn after law school.  I pointed out that precisely the same is true of doctors, and of other professionals, and that's why they call it "practice."  I said that with respect to the very different number of years of learning after college, either lawyers are smarter than doctors (and can learn what they need to know in much less time), or doctors have to learn a lot more than do lawyers.  I told my friend he could choose.  He said lawyers are smarter than doctors, except for me.  I told him that was cleverly diplomatic.

A woman I know, who was herself a doctor, until she retired recently, has had a number of medical and orthopedic problems.  Her problems have been impairing, and it's taken a toll on her emotionally.  I just saw her at Thanksgiving, and she told me her PCP suggested the possibility of an antidepressant.  She wanted to know if I thought an antidepressant would help her feel better.  (She had been skeptical, and declined the offer.)  I told her no, an antidepressant would not help her feel better, and she'll feel better when she gets better, which I have reason to assume she will.

I also told her, as a matter of perspective, that it is true now, and it has always been true, that the vast majority of prescriptions for psychotropics (medications used to treat psychiatric problems, even including depression and anxiety) have been written by people who are not psychiatrists (doctors whose specialty is not psychiatry, or people, like nurse practitioners and physicians' assistants, who are not doctors.)  And studies have shown that psychotropic prescribing by non-psychiatrists is comparatively inefficient and ineffective.  I've seen some horrible results of psychotropic prescribing by non-psychiatrists who couldn't even recognize the problem.  So doctors, and other people authorized to write prescriptions, are, in effect, not smart enough to know that they don't know what they're doing, or how to do what they intended to do, at least if they're not psychiatrists, but they're trying to treat psychiatric problems.  I am proud, and perhaps a bit relieved, to note that psychiatrists very, very rarely attempt to treat conditions they were not trained to treat.  If that means that psychiatrists are (it's complicated, but we now have to say used to be) smarter than non-psychiatrists, or non-doctors, then so be it.

Lawyers, on the other hand, tend to settle into specialties, and they tend not to try to practice in areas of the law that are different from the special areas in which they honed their skills, and learned the rules and relevant laws and landmark cases.  Or at the very least, they know there are relevant laws and landmark cases, and they find out what they are, if they're stepping into an area which is not typical for them.

So, maybe my friend was right.  Maybe lawyers really are smarter, or less foolish, or less cocky, than doctors.  Do I get to cling to "some" lawyers, and "some" doctors?  There are some pretty incompetent examples of the former, and some excellent examples of the latter, too.

"We Have Met the Enemy, and He Is Us."

You have to be as old as I am to remember this line from Walt Kelly's "Pogo."

If you remember Brad Kern, who was one of the BP adjunct police officers, I saw him this morning.  He's my chiropractor.

While I was in the car, I was listening to the news, and they had a story about Qatar.  Qatar occupies a unique position in the middle east, because they seem to get along with everyone.  They get along with the Arabic countries and with Israel.  One part of the story said that Israel actually supported Hamas, like with money.  If you just fell off your chair, I'll wait for you to get back on it.  This, of course, ended abruptly on October 7 this year, when Hamas attacked Israel.  The story was about Qatar, so they didn't get into why Hamas, which was supported by Israel, would have attacked Israel.  Like, what was their beef with Israel?  But they did talk about Palestinians who had worked for Israeli companies, until October 7, and how they had to be careful at work not to talk about anything political.  And how many of them got fired after October 7 for displaying banners pleading for a cease fire.  One person even talked about getting fired for not talking about this crisis, as if not talking about it signaled inner hostile feelings, or even collusion.  So, Qatar managed itself to get along with everyone, but everyone else didn't necessarily get along so well with each other.  Although well enough that Palestinians could get good jobs working for Israeli companies.

All of this raises a question.  If Qatar could get along with everyone, and even possibly effect some countries' getting along, at least somewhat, with each other, why couldn't the commonly classified greatest country on earth get along with everyone?  To be a bit harsher about it, what's our failing?

As best I can evaluate it, we have two.  One is our tendency, under some US governments more than under others, to be belligerent.  We seem to like hostility.  (And I'm setting aside that hostility is very good business for military contractors, who pay off electeds to keep the Pentagon budget as inflated as possible, and who might very well suggest that conflicts in other countries are a great way for us to supply, and try out, weaponry.)  But even setting that aside, we just like hostility.  We like fighting.  In our own country, we like shooting each other up with guns.  The rich like impoverishing the less rich, until they're poor.  We just have a very bad attitude, and it prevents us from striving for peace.  Anywhere.  Yeah, OK, Jimmy Carter was an exception.  And once we found out he liked peace, and solar panels on the White House, we voted him out.  Jimmy Carter was simply unAmerican.  We replaced him with Ronald Reagan, who lied, didn't make any sense, handed us a large deficit, and got us mixed up in Iran Contra.  That's what we like.  And now, the worst, stupidest, most dishonest president we've ever had is running to try to get elected again, and he's reportedly polling ahead of the incumbent, who is notably imperfect, but vastly better.  Poll reports like that are unbelievable, but I do keep seeing them.  How bad, and destructive to ourselves and everyone else, are we?

Our other failing is quirky.  Despite all the antiSemitism in this country, it turns out that the public, including the antiSemites, accuse anyone who doesn't blindly and automatically take Israel's side in anything, of being antiSemitic.  That sentence was no easier to write than it is to read.  The public wouldn't permit the US government to get along with, let's say, the Palestinians.  If our government tried to do that, Netanyahu would protest, and our government would be accused, including by antiSemites, of being antiSemitic.  (I simply can't make these sentences make any sense.  Because we don't.)  Imagine the opportunities for negotiating and peace-making if the supposedly great US of A was like Qatar.  Alas, we're not.

I also listened to a story about AI, and how maybe the most powerful AI creators and purveyors would come to rule the world.  I suppose if it's just all about money and capitalism, that might be true.  But if it's about decency and ability, and will, to find peace, maybe Qatar will rule the world.  The United States has given up on that kind of good will and peace-making.  But bring us a fight we can have with someone...

Unimaginable Gymnastics

I have not seen "Killers of the Flower Moon."  My sister is urging me to see it.  But my sense is that it's very depressing (she says the ending is upbeat, but from what I know today, I doubt it), and it's 3 1/2 hours long.

The story, as I understand it, is that the Osage Nation, which may have been consigned to a reservation in Oklahoma, somehow discovered that "their" land had lots of oil below it, and they tapped the oil, and got extremely rich, and the Caucasians (most prominently represented by Robert DeNiro) decided they should take the oil, and the money, for themselves.  As I understand it, this even involved killing members of the Osage Nation, not to mention tricking them into marrying Caucasians (Leonardo DiCaprio), who would presumably take ownership of the land, and the money.

The latter is interesting, because it recalls Arthur Conan Doyle's "Hound of the Baskervilles," which involved a half brother, who stressed out the reigning Baskerville until he died of a heart attack, and when his half sister got engaged to Baskerville's next heir, he tried to kill the younger Baskerville (by having a hound attack the younger Baskerville).  He had discovered through genealogical research that he was a distant Baskerville relative, and he presumably planned to kill his half sister after she married the younger Baskerville, so he could have the estate for himself.  I guess he's not a believer that "no one lasts forever."

If you're thinking that all of this is insane, I agree.  But that, in a sense, is the problem.  It's insane, but it's prevalent.

I was listening to a "Lever" presentation called "Movies vs Capitalism," and they were discussing "Killers of the Flower Moon," and also segueing into discussions of the problems of capitalism (yeah, imagine if capitalism was a problem), and referencing Marx's Das Kapital for a contrasting view.  (The fact is that we don't have a capitalist system in this country.  We have a blend of capitalism and socialism, as do most developed and civilized countries.)

It's not hard to recognize the problems of communism, as we've seen it played out in the XXth and XXIst centuries (not as described by Marx), but there are massive problems with capitalism, too.  (Not the charming and peaceable capitalism fictionalized by Ayn Rand.)  To the extent that anyone thinks communism suffers from the possibility of laziness, capitalism suffers from overpowering greed and selfishness, and the criminally bad behavior that actualizes them.  We read and hear about it every day, from bloated corporations that work hard, and spend a lot of money, not to pay workers properly, (and not to pay taxes,) to inhibit them from unionizing to protect themselves, to mistreat workers, including children, and to take as much money as they can possibly get, regardless of whom they're disadvantaging.

People who are fierce advocates of undiluted capitalism should be ashamed of themselves?  They are ashamed of themselves.  They don't want anyone to know how they behave, or what's of primary importance to them.  That's what the book-banning, and censoring of what's supposed to be taught, and government based on payoffs are about.

And they'll tell you that.  They'll tell you that if school children, for example, had to learn about slavery (you know, you get to own other people, and have them work for you for free, and you can [mis]treat them any way you want), the children might feel bad, or feel badly about themselves.  If capitalism was so wonderful, the students should feel great about themselves and about their forebears, who made the very best of the capitalist dream.  But they don't.  And everyone knows it.

And on another note, Donnie-Boy Trump is unable to stop shooting his mouth off, commonly about precisely the things judges tell him to belt up about.  And his excuse for himself is that he thinks he has unlimited freedom of speech.  But when he ran for president, and the public wanted to see his tax returns, he whined that he was restrained from releasing them, because, as it appears he invented, he was under audit.  So Donnie-Boy gets selective about when his authorization to communicate is restricted, and when it's not.  He appears to make up these rules himself.  Imagine a fat thing of his age engaging in such gymnastics.

Skylands, The Gentle Barn, and Kindred Spirits Sanctuary. There Might Be Others.

I know for a fact about the first three organizations.  They get/collect/buy/plead for what we would call "farm animals," not infrequently meant for slaughter or to produce dairy, and they provide expansive places for these animals to live out their lives.  They have many or hundreds of acres of land, and they make these pastures home for these animals.

Obviously, not only do the owners of these properties make caring for these animals their full time jobs, but they also need hay and other normal food for the animals during the winter, and they need veterinary access for the ones that are acquired unwell.

Skylands is in New Jersey, The Gentle Barn is in California, Missouri, and Tennessee, and Kindred Spirits Sanctuary is in (Citra) Florida.

I'm not being subtle here, and the point is that they need income.  If you care, they're all non-profit, and they all rely on donations.

The Gentle Barn is unique, in a good way, I hope, in that they have a program where the public (your children, you) can pet and interact with the animals.  That's not a meaningful feature unless you're there, but it might create an excuse for a vacation destination.

If you participated in Give Miami Day, you might be relatively tapped out just at the moment.  But even if you are, none of these would turn up their noses at a modest monthly donation.  I just got an e-mail from Skylands today.  Their barn is empty of hay.  The good news is that hay only costs $6 a bale.  The bad news is that cows, for example, eat 200 bales a day.  Mike, from Skylands, asks donors to provide "a bale or two (or three) during [the] Thanksgiving Food Drive."  Clearly, it will take a lot of people donating 1-3 bales of hay to provide 200 bales (for one cow).  Mike says his goal is to fill at least one empty barn before Thanksgiving, and that will amount to 150,000 pounds, which will cost him $12,500.

You can ignore this, because it's just someone else who wants money.  Or you can feel bad for the animals.  Or appreciative of Mike, and of the people who run The Gentle Barn and Kindred Spirits Sanctuary.  Or this can lead you to think of non-human animals, and the industry in which they're stuck, in a different way.

I donate $20 a month to Skylands.  (That's just over the three bales Mike requested.)  I give the same to The Gentle Barn.  I haven't yet committed to Kindred Spirits Sanctuary, but I probably soon will.  And I reduce pressure on the other end by restricting to a vegan diet.  So there's that much less reason to raise non-human animals to be slaughtered for food, or used for dairy.

Anyway, it's something to consider, if you're moved to share your money.  You can "google" these organizations, or you can go to Skylands' site at skylandssanctuary.org.  The Gentle Barn is gentlebarn.org.  Kindred Spirits Sanctuary is kssfl.org.

True, But Incomplete

Research reveals which Americans are most likely to believe in conspiracy theories (msn.com)

The proposal here is that Christians are most likely to believe in conspiracy theories.  The two that are mentioned are vaccines against the coronavirus, and who won the 2020 presidential election.  And the repeated explanations for naming Christians are "biblical literalism" and "Christian nationalism."

It's true that Christians have a unique burden when it comes to being rational and open-minded: it is their understanding that there's such a thing as "god," and that Jesus is the Messiah, but they long ago reneged on their commitment to Jesus as Messiah in what they originally proposed to be the meaning of the concept, and they're now waiting for a "Second Coming."  Frankly, who knows what they're waiting for, or how they would know if the wait was over?

But there are two other problems.  One is that it is in no way only Christians who are susceptible to believing in conspiracy theories.  All religions are built on nothing but fantasies, and anyone who believes in any of them is available to believe in anything else that is built on nothing.  That would very definitely include the sampling of conspiracies.  Anyone who takes literally something that cannot possibly be taken literally, and that is filled with inconsistencies and contradictions, is painfully easy fodder for conspiracy theories.  And that's a lot broader than fantasizing that this country was built on "Christian nationalism," which the Constitution (the First Amendment, anyway) explicitly says it was not.  I know plenty of non-Christian religious people who breathe a combination of oxygen and conspiracy theories.  It's true that there are far more Christian people than non-Christian religious people who live in this country today, but no other reason is given in this article to single out Christians as uniquely susceptible to conspiracy theories.  This article came from msn.com, which is not always high quality, and gets lazy, and maybe Christians for them were just low-hanging and juicy fruit.

So, one broad group of people who are susceptible to conspiracy theories are religious people, who insist on taking as "truth" something that is not at all true, and most certainly not confirmable.  But there's another group of people who are susceptible to conspiracy theories, and we talked about them some time ago.  They are people who are comparatively uneducated, or who don't have professional educations.  They literally, as it is said, "don't know what they don't know."  These are people who have not had to learn something rigorously in a way that holds them responsible for finding and understanding the truth of it (and challenging what's questionable), or at least understanding what, outside its own assertions, supports it.  And once you agree to believe something just because you do, or because someone on TV said it, you have departed any concept of solid ground, and you can believe, or refuse to believe, anything.  If you wish to believe a certain candidate won an election, and the election mechanism doesn't support your preferred belief, and all 61 court cases brought in the matter go against you, you can tell yourself everyone is wrong, and lying criminals, and only you and like-minded people are right.

So, it's fair to say that some categories of people -- Americans and otherwise -- are "most likely to believe in conspiracy theories," but this article doesn't go far enough, and work hard enough, to clarify and explain what those categories are.  And why some people are so susceptible.

Give Miami Day

Two of the things I've said often include that if I gave the minimum requested amount to every cause that I myself consider very worthy, I would go broke fast.  There are loads of them, of various kinds, and I can't donate to everyone.  My choices are admittedly arbitrary: I choose some, I don't choose others (because I can't choose them all), and I hope and assume someone else chooses the ones I don't.  And their choices will be arbitrary, too.

A second thing I've often said is that most of my credit card bill every month is automatic monthly donations.  It's easier for me, so I don't have to think about it, and whatever organization it is gets a predictable donation from me, which they need.  Some organizations don't want to pay the credit card commission.  If they ask donors to pay just a little more, to cover the commission, I do it.  If they ask to be able to withdraw the donation from my bank account, so there is no commission, I agree to that.

By far most of my donations are $5-$20 per month.  The amount depends on a number of things.  I almost never add a payee (there would be no end to adding payees), and I never donate extra when they say they have an emergency, which they all always do.  I have a number of areas of devotion, so there are various kinds of payees.

I have two payees that are less than $5 per month.  One of them is Wikipedia ($1 per month), which has a massive number of people who rely on it, and the other is NowIKnow, which I recently increased from $1 per month to $2 per month, because the owner and publisher made a reasonable-sounding case that he needed more of his readers to donate, or those of us who do donate to donate a little more.

It is extremely well known, by the way, that the vast, vast majority of the "audience" of many things do not donate.  They just get what they get from listening or watching, and it's for free for them.  You do not need me to opine whether or not I think this is childish and irresponsible.

Some of my donations are more than the total of $5 to $20 per month.  I'm on the board of directors of Orchestra Miami, and I donate $1000 per year to them.  I have a special fondness for Dimensions Dance Theater of Miami, and I donate $1000 per year to them, too.  Dance Now! Miami is an almost identical organization, and I don't have a good argument as to why I don't donate $1000 a year to them, too.  I think I just think they have a larger following, so they have more access to ticket-buyers and donors.  I could be wrong.  I don't remember if I donate $250 or $500 a year to them.  I donate $500 a year to GableStage, because I think they don't need as much.  I used to donate $2500 a year to musimelange, because the connection was personal, and the experience was incomparable, but it's not clear to me they survived the pandemic in a reliable way.  When my income was stronger (I used to have more work, and I had one job that paid way too much, and I couldn't get them to lower the pay, so I just gave away what was excessive, and I didn't need it), I used to donate about $2000 a year to Miami Symphony Orchestra and about the same to Nu Deco.  But I couldn't keep it up, and I had what amounted to artistic differences with each of them, and Nu Deco has a very devoted and well enough heeled following, so I stopped those donations.  But I always host visiting Nu Deco musicians, so that saves Nu Deco money.  I still donate about $1000 a year to Seraphic Fire (I buy my season tickets, which come to around $500, and tell them to round up to $1500), although I think they're doing pretty well, but they're off the charts artistically, and my connection to them has come to feel personal.  I also used to donate $1000 a year to Miami Light Project, but I've sort of lost parts of the connection, and it's not as clear to me what they're doing now.  And whenever I get reminded, I give a yearly membership fee, of about $100 or $50, to MOCA.  It's beyond curious, and heart-warming, by the way, to note that lists of donors revealed in programs for at least some of these organizations list performers, who are paid by the organizations to perform.  Talk about "giving back."

It is critical to note, by the way, that cultural organizations (all of them) cannot meet their budgets by selling tickets.  I used to have the impression that ticket sales satisfied around 25-50% of these organizations' budgets.  But one of my friends who was a tenor, but now consults to cultural organizations, told me that any of these organizations that are particularly successful earn not more than 30% of their budget by selling tickets.  We're talking here about local organizations in Miami, the Louvre, the NYC Ballet, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, or any of them.  The rest of their budget is met by grants (federal, state, local, and funds like the Knight Foundation down here) and donations from people like me and you.  None of this happens just by selling tickets.

And then, there's Give Miami Day.  This year, it's slated to occur on November 16, but apparently, it started early: today (11/13).  Give Miami Day is extensive, somewhat disorganized in who are the available payees, and why they're available payees, and a little bit mysterious (to me) in terms of how much payees get.  There are loads (possibly hundreds) of possible payees (non-profits), and they're of many kinds.  I guess/assume that what they all have in common is that they're all non-profits.  I used to assume that Give Miami Day took some amount of the money donated (do you know that GoFundMe takes 25% of what's donated?!), but in more recent years, I've heard reports that payees actually get more than what was donated, because of Give Miami Day.  If Give Miami Day can somehow pay payees more than donors donate, then I have no idea from where they get the extra money.

I donate to several non-profits on Give Miami Day.  Most of the donations are about $250, and maybe the occasional one is about $100.  I think I donate $500 to Catalyst Miami on Give Miami Day.  I used to send them my donation personally, but now, I do it on Give Miami Day.  All Give Miami Day donations are via credit card.

Please take a look at Give Miami Day.  You can find them at givemiamiday.org.  It'll take you some time, because it's a long list (several or many pages).  There are all kinds of non-profits.  Whether you like culture, like people, have children, have feelings for non-human animals, adhere to some religion, or any of many possibilities, you'll find non-profits it will be your pleasure and your honor to support.

Not One Whit of Disrespect for Brian Cohen

I've watched many videos of Brian Cohen's presentations.  I see them either on youtube, or on atAdvocacy, which republishes them from youtube.  Curiously, Cohen, if you look him up, is described as a comedian.  He was also a high school or college wrestler.  He talks too fast, but he's a dramatically intelligent guy.

But I have said many times, and I will always say, that on the average, women are smarter than men.  They're socialized to act as if they weren't smarter, or to be secondary, submissive, or subservient, but their "brain power" makes them smarter than men, if they're given an unimpeded opportunity to exercise their capacity.

And here's one of those women: (140) MUST-SEE: Nancy Pelosi takes on new Republican Speaker - YouTube.  She's beyond smart, she's classy, and she's charming.

"You Can't Handle the Truth."

It's remarkable about that line from "A Few Good Men," because Jack Nicholson was so into his character that he spoke this line even though it was not part of the script.  But it was such a perfect line for the character and the situation that it was preserved in the movie.

Nicholson's character hasn't been the only person to reveal truths many people don't want to hear.  And the rest of them have not been fictions.  But the message is always the same: "you can't handle the truth."

GHWB, who referred to Reagan's "trickle down" money theory as "voodoo economics," which it was, stopped complaining about it once Reagan tapped him as VP.  And after Reagan's second term, GHWB ran for president, and got elected.  He vowed "no new taxes."  But by the end of his term, he could see how right he was when he ran against Reagan in the primaries 12 years before, and he got himself unelected when he revealed that tax increases would be necessary to preserve the economy.  The voters couldn't handle that truth.

In 2016, Colin Kaepernick, championship-winning quarterback for the Oakland Raiders, kneeled while most others on his team stood during the national anthem.  Setting aside that a national anthem has nothing to do with a football game, Kaepernick knelt in protest.  He was protesting the large swath of racism in this country, police brutality against African-Americans in particular, or both.  Kaepernick was soon benched, dropped from the team, and despite spending all of every year keeping himself in excellent condition, and wanting a spot on a team, has been black-balled from American football.  Many teams have needed, and hired, quarterbacks since then, and almost all of them have been unsuccessful.  But no one will touch Kaepernick.  Because Americans, and football fans, can't handle the truth about Kaepernick's protest.  And setting aside what we generally like to claim is our commitment to the US Constitution and law and order, the plain fact of the matter is that Kaepernick was, and still is, right.

Chris Christie Rips Into Hostile Crowd at GOP Summit (msn.com)  Erstwhile Trump enabler and sycophant, and now Trump critic, Chris Christie found the crowd at the GOP Summit to be hostile.  There was no mention of what Christie said, unless the complaint about him was just that he was no longer a Trump enabler and sycophant, but when the crowd booed him and tried to silence him, he said "The problem is you fear the truth.  You want to shout down any voice that says anything different than what you want to hear."  And there it is again.  Even if someone argued that whatever Christie said wasn't the truth, the fact is that Americans can't handle hearing anything that doesn't comport with their presumptions.  (And frankly, if I had to choose what was more likely true -- something said by Donnie Trump, or some different thing said by more or less anyone else -- it wouldn't be a very hard choice to make.  Yeah, absolutely, I'll bet money that whatever Donnie says is wrong.)

It's a longer list, and we've been through various other parts of it: whether or not someone is "pro-life," whether or not the "Second Amendment" has anything to do with guns, whether or not the founders, and the "Founding Fathers," of this country intended it to be religious/Christian, etc.  But the fundamental fact is that Americans "can't handle the truth."  What makes these truths Americans can't handle more tragic is that they're either very clearly and explicitly stated, or they're obvious.  But Americans can't handle them anyway.

An Inability to Read, an Inability to Comprehend, Presumed Other Intellectual Impairments, and a Breathtaking Disrespect for the Principles of This Country and Its "Founding Fathers."

It started recently with Antonin Scalia and his stooges.  Scalia decided that the "Second Amendment" to the Constitution, that says "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed," had nothing to do with militias.  Yeah, it says it's about militias, but Scalia et al decided that whoever wrote that didn't really mean it, or didn't know what they were talking about.  He didn't say they were all intoxicated with something, but he might have thought so.  For Scalia, neither the "Amendment" nor the relevant Federalist Paper had anything to do with what they very clearly stated.

And now, there's this: “Christianity Will Be the Law”: High-Profile Advocate for Ending the Separation of Church and State Is Well Acquainted With Speaker Mike Johnson (msn.com).

Where the "First Amendment" "clearly states that 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,'" some suggest that the "Amendment" might clearly state that, but it doesn't remotely mean it.  The way Mike Johnson and David Barton "read" this "Amendment," what it really means, although it says the opposite, is that the Union will(/did) without question make a law (not quoted, but supposedly, according to people like Johnson and Barton, overwhelmingly tacit) imposing religion on Americans.  And that religion is Christianity, and the choice Americans are, according to Johnson and Barton, allowed to make is which branch of Christianity.  (If you've never listened to Emo Philips' religion joke, I very highly recommend it, so you know which choices Johnson and Barton have decided you have.  Apparently, according to Philips, they're a lot more restricted than you think they are.) Barton says "We would best understand the actual context of the 'First Amendment' by saying 'Congress shall make no law establishing one Christian denomination as the national denomination.'"  How does Barton know this?  Is he over 250 years old, and was he one of the "Founding Fathers?"

So, here's the question: the US Constitution and its amendments are straightforward.  They're not subtle.  How have Johnson and Barton, and Scalia, read them so dramatically differently than they were written?  Or, did they bother to read them at all?  Johnson, for example, is said to believe that despite extensive science and geology, he believes the earth is 6000 years old.  Frankly, I don't mind if Johnson believes that.  He can believe that there's such a thing as "god," or Santa Claus, or the tooth fairy, or that the Holocaust didn't really happen, or anything he wants.  The question is what beliefs like these have to do with anyone else.

Barton says that the "'Founding Fathers' were orthodox, evangelical Christians."  I don't know what leads him to think so, but I gather he's not including the atheists among them.  Yeah, oops.

If Johnson and Barton endeavor to get their wishes, what do they propose to impose about women's rights, including the right to vote?  And get educated?  As far as I know, Amy Barrett agrees with Johnson and Barton.  But she got extensively educated, agreed to be a judge, and is now a Supreme Court Justice.  Why isn't she serially barefoot and pregnant, with a couple dozen children, giving all that intellectual stuff up, and tearing up her voter registration?  It would complicate this discussion if we had to consider that some people who adopt a position are hypocrites or dishonest, and say things they don't believe.  Or if they were just unbearably self-centered, and wanted the United States to be a Christian country, because they themselves personally happen to believe in Christianity.

I have said this many times, and I'll say it again: religious people do not understand religion.  They do not understand that religions are called beliefs and faiths, because there's no evidence for any of them, and you just have to believe in them and have faith in them, if you want to.  You can think there's no such thing as "god."  Or you can think there's such a thing as "god," but that Jesus is not the Messiah. Or you can think there is such a thing as "god," and Jesus is the Messiah, but it didn't work out the way you thought you were promised, so now, you're waiting for the "Second Coming."  And you've decided you don't agree with the Rastafarians, and Haile Selassie is not the "Second Coming." Or you can think Jesus is the Messiah, +/- "Second Coming," but Mohammed is not the Prophet of Allah.  Or you can think Mohammed is the Prophet of Allah.  Or you can believe in all the Hindu "gods."  It's fine.  "Knock yourself out."  But understand that this is pleasing and satisfying to you, but it has nothing to do with anyone else.  (Frankly, I think people who believe in the religions are skating on very thin ice, and they sort of know it, and their apprehension, or misery, loves as much company as they can try to corral.)

Almost Everyone Was Wrong Almost All the Time

After WWII, the majority of the world community decided to dedicate a safe home for Jews.  That was right

They considered a number of possible places, and settled on Israel, under heavy lobbying from Theodor Hertzl.  That was complicated, because there were already people living there.  1M Palestinians were displaced from their homes.  Not only did they not want to be displaced, but no neighboring country absorbed them.  That was wrong.

Having essentially lost a decision to the world community, and indirectly to the Jews who first settled Israel in 1948, the aggrieved Palestinians, who were very clearly overpowered, did not accept the state of Israel.  That was wrong.  They were allotted the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which could have been enough for them.

Before terribly long, the new Israeli Jews began to stretch their territory into the West Bank, mostly, and they erected illegal settlements on land designated for the Palestinians.  And some of them attacked Palestinians.  Generally speaking, the state of Israel mistreated the Palestinians, and relegated them to second class citizens.  The word "apartheid" has been used with some frequency.  That was wrong.

All this time, the world community is mostly inclined to express support for the Israelis (wrong) in part at risk of being accused of anti-Semitism (wrong).

The Israelis claim to be counterattacking Hamas (right, if true), but they are destroying extensive structures and people, including things like women and children, and hospitals and ambulance convoys (wrong), while supposedly advising non-Hamas Palestinians to go to south Gaza, where they have no way of getting (wrong).  Egypt has begun letting some, but not nearly enough, non-Hamas Palestinians in (wrong that it's not enough) so that Israel can continue destroying north Gaza (wrong).

At the same time, some countries, like ours, has tried to get provisions and other life supports to the civilians in north Gaza (right), but the Israelis won't allow them/us (wrong).  Shortly after the October 7 Hamas attack, Netanyahu said openly that it would take the Palestinians "generations" to recover from what the Israelis intended to do to them.  Clearly, Netanyahu was not talking only about Hamas (wrong).

It is possible that between the advocates of one country and the advocates of another, the middle east is on the verge of exploding, because no one is willing to intervene.  The last person who intervened (successfully) in the middle east was Jimmy Carter, who brokered peace between Israel and Egypt.  But Carter is way too old, and in hospice now, and no one else is motivated enough and "man" enough.  And everyone now is distracted by the political "optics" (wrong).

I Was Young and Inexperienced Once, Too.

On October 1, I was driving south on 6th Avenue, and when I approached about 98th St, there was a girl who had stopped at the STOP sign, preparing, it seemed, to cross 6th Avenue.  Nope.  She pulled onto 6th Avenue, just as I got to the intersection, and she turned south.  (There's a designated lane for people at that street, who want to merge south, but she didn't use it.)  I slammed on my brakes, but there wasn't time to avoid her in the intersection.  I was unhurt, and I got out of my car to see if she was OK.  She had a passenger who was, as I estimated, her slightly younger sister.  My guess was that the driver was in her late teens, or maybe about 20.  Yes, she and her sister were OK.  Metal and plastic are one thing, but people are more important.

I was trying to find a diplomatic way to ask her this, but the best I could do was to say I didn't mean to be provocative or criticizing, but did she think of herself as at fault.  Yes, she did.  Would she tell that to someone else, if necessary?  Yes, she would.

Her mother soon arrived (I assumed she or her sister called their mother), and so did two MSV cruisers.  I don't know who called them.  I have no idea what the other driver told them, but they allowed me to leave, and told me the fault was not mine.

My insurance and the other driver's (her parents') insurance was the same -- GEICO -- so the next step was to get an estimate of the damage.  Oddly, my car is aluminum, which is light weight and soft, and the other car was steel, which is heavy and hard.  But the other car had far more damage than did mine.  I could drive my car, but the other driver couldn't drive hers.  So I eventually made an appointment with the GEICO estimator, and he estimated the cost of repairs to be just over $1900, which they sent me.  If it turned out to be more than that, I should contact GEICO.  This interaction took place at a car repair shop, but he said he was prohibited from "steering" me to that shop.  I'd have to find one on my own.

The last time I needed any body work done was several years ago, and I relied on one of my friends to recommend a shop.  His son worked there.  I called them again this time, and the owner has retired, and the shop is no longer in business.  But my friend recommended another shop at about 154th and W Dixie.  So I went there.  We took a good deal of time to do the paperwork, after which I started walking home.  I got about a block or so before the shop called me to say they'd called Tesla, and Tesla will only sell parts to me, not to the body shop.  They're not authorized by Tesla.  I mean...  I have a contract with GEICO.  I signed a contract with the body shop.  I have no contract with Tesla.  What do they care to whom they'll sell parts?  And why would I have to go to a Tesla dealership to buy and cart away parts that might not fit in my car?  There was no one with whom to argue (I tried calling Tesla, but they were intransigent.  I told them this was the first Tesla I ever bought, and it would be the last.  Yeah, next.)  But there was a guy in that shop, and he told me he had worked with a Tesla authorized shop very near 135th and NE 16th.  And I should talk to Betty.  So I went there.  Betty wasn't there, but yup, they could do it, but it would take 3-4 months for them to receive the parts.  It was a long walk home, and I had to take, for who knows what reason, the charging cables from my rear trunk.  The damage was to the front bumper.  Betty called me the next day to tell me I would have to take everything out of the rear trunk, and everything out of the back seat, and on the floor in front of the back seat.  Enough was enough -- why didn't someone tell me that yesterday? -- and I took an Uber ride to the shop, and retrieved my car.  I didn't know what I was going to do about this (which also involved that my AC no longer worked, because some wires in the front bumper had been severed), but it wasn't going to include these garages.

Then, it dawned on me.  As much as I didn't want to do this, I decided to find a Tesla body shop, and have them do it.  The closest one is on Sunrise Boulevard in Ft Lauderdale.  Right: nowhere near here.  But I went up there, and they could get the parts in about two weeks, and I'd have to rely on a gas-burning rental for about two more weeks.  All paid for by GEICO.  I had run out of options, so I agreed.  And I came back home until they would call me to tell me they had received the parts.  Maybe in two weeks.

Probably the next day (Thursday), I was at Target, at the Tesla supercharger, when this guy in a Corvette stops in front of my car, points to the damage, and asks me if I want him to fix it.  His 19 year old son was in the car, cruising around, learning how dad does business.  And dad will fix it now, in front of my house (I had a couple of minutes left until I was fully recharged.)  And if dad doesn't fix the car to my satisfaction, I don't have to pay him.

If you can think of a better arrangement than this, you can tell me what it is.  I finished charging, and I went home, dad and son behind me in their Corvette.  Dad, whose name is Chris, got to work, replaced nothing, and simply applied the artistry he learned from his father, and presumably hoped he was teaching his son.  He used a blowtorch and epoxy, and paint, and fixed things.  He didn't throw away the bumper, or anything else.  And he quoted me a price of $1500 (I had already received $1900+ from GEICO).  He finished the body work, and it looked perfect.  I reminded him that my AC didn't work, and the thermometer inside the car, showing the outside temperature, didn't either, and they still didn't when he was done.  He said I should wait 24 hours for them to "reset," and call him Saturday if they didn't.  They didn't.  So he came by today (Sunday) with his son and the Corvette, and he spent significant time reconnecting the wires.  He wanted $500 more for that.  So, I was behind a little, but I got my car fixed more or less on the spot by someone who has more of a passion for fixing cars than he does for taking money.  He also told me he does various other tasks, and he suggested I hire him to pressure clean my driveway for $200, which is a low price, (unless I either find my pressure cleaner, or get it back from Derrick Murray, if he still has it).

If you have car issues, or perhaps some other related issues, you can call Chris at 786-578-3782.  His card says "Auto Body Repair, Chris the Body Man, We Buy Cars, We Are Mobile, We Come to You, Same Day Service."  It cost me a few bucks, instead of costing me nothing, but it was quick, and it was easy.  And Chris is a very nice guy.  His son, Giovanni, is quiet, but also a very nice kid.

I still feel sorry for the girl whose parents are probably mad at her, but that's how we all learn.

Pence Out

Audible gasps as Mike Pence suspends his campaign (msn.com)

DeSantis has been sinking fast.  A couple other Republicans have dropped out of the primary bid.  Now, Mike Pence is surrendering.  His euphemism was that "it's not [his] time."  (I hope for his sake that he's not holding his breath until it is his time.)  He tried to make himself appear somewhat legitimate by saying that no one who puts him- or herself above the Constitution (Trump) should be president, and no one who asks someone else to him- or herself above the Constitution (Trump's request of Pence) should be president.  He seems to pat himself on the back for not having acceded to the request.  Although if he really meant what he said about people who put themselves above the Constitution, he'd join forces with Liz Cheney, instead of making a pathetic effort to ride uncle Donnie's coattails.

And Pence had a couple of ways of explaining why he was dropping out.  He did not explain why the trips to Iowa and New Hampshire attracted only a few audience members.  But he finally did the math, and took the dive he had to take, since his efforts weren't going anywhere.

Being a good Republican -- he calls himself a "Christian, a conservative, and a Republican" -- interestingly, he doesn't call himself an American -- (it's clear why he calls himself a Republican, entirely unclear why he calls himself a conservative, since the conservative agenda is meaningless, with a capital MEAN, and inconsistent, and totally irrelevant that his entirely personal religious beliefs are some form of Christian) -- he cited Abraham Lincoln.  Lincoln would, of course, not identify today's Republican Party with his own.  Pence quoted Lincoln as having said a president, or perhaps even any elected representative of the people (Lincoln was famously the "of the people, by the people, and for the people" guy), should "appeal to the better angels of our nature."

I've said it so many times that I'm sick of hearing myself say it, but here we go again: it is not possible to adhere to the Rep/con agenda without being a hypocrite, dishonest, or both.  And I feel very sure that Lincoln wasn't referring to hypocrisy and dishonesty as indicators of "the better angels of our nature."

As much as Pence or I know about Lincoln, we can, I feel confident, agree that the president who gave his life to get the slaves freed would not approve of the kind of anti-African-American hyper-gerrymandering that practically defines today's Reps/cons.  Lincoln was willing to engage in a horrible war to keep the Union together.  No one has a reason to assume he'd be cool with the current talk of secession we hear from some Reps/cons today.  "Honest Abe..." well, no, he wouldn't be a booster of today's Party.  Part of Lincoln's legacy was seeing to it that African-Americans had "40 acres and a mule."  Today's Reps/cons want the mule and the 40 acres back, and they want to make life so difficult for African-Americans that they'll have a shorter lifespan than Caucasians, be far more likely to get accused of something, and incarcerated for it, or get assassinated by the police, who turn out to be selective about whom they "protect and serve."

Mikey Pence (if his wife is "mother," what does that make him?) is one of those "Christian conservatives" who doesn't want abortion later than 15 weeks.  That's not consistent with American common law since the 18th C, and I don't have to repeat the joke about the guy who asks the gorgeous woman if she'd have sex with him for $1M, and then asks if she'd have sex with him for $20.  OK, Mikey, so it's established common law in this country that abortion is legal until about 18-21 weeks, Roe v Wade confirmed it, and you accept abortion.  So, what's your point?

Are you still riding the gripe train about immigration?  Are your forebears Native Americans?  Neither are mine.  Neither are hardly anyone's in this country.  We are built on immigration.  What kind of smoke and mirrors are you working here?  Oh, right, none any more, since you dropped out.  But your uncle Donnie's people are from Germany.  You know, as in some country in the world that isn't this one?  You all make this stuff up as you go along.  (Check with "Little Marco" Rubio and "Lyin' Ted" Cruz, and ask them how much trouble their parents were put to to enter and settle in this country.)

So, Pence, who was accomplishing nothing with his campaign, has ended it, no one else is accomplishing anything, and it thus far appears, unless voters are put off by a candidate who might be in jail, that uncle Donnie gets to try again against Biden.

Hey, I'm not a big fan of Biden's, either, but give me a real choice.

Ooh! 565!

In Maine yesterday, there was a mass shooting.  The 565th this year!  (Don't get hysterical.  That doesn't even average two a day.  Close, yeah, but still under two a day.)  16 people dead and 50 more injured in a restaurant/bowling alley.  The "primary person of interest" (caught on video) is a 40 year old Army reservist and firearms instructor with a "troubling mental health history."

I bet this is precisely what the Founding Fathers and early Congress had in mind when they passed the "Second Amendment."  (That whole "militia" thing was probably a smoke screen, because the government and the public really just wanted an excuse to see marginal individuals go to town on the general public.  They were way past people fighting lions in stadia, and somewhat past gladiators.)   It's no wonder no Congress since has wanted to finish repealing the "Second Amendment."  I mean, what's the problem?  We're all still having fun, right?  And some of us even live to talk about how much fun we're having.

It's Harder, and Apparently More Painful, Than Pulling Teeth

I moved to the Village in the middle of 2005.  The Village has its charms, and it's proud of some of them ("Tree City USA," "Bird Sanctuary").

Way back, Janey Anderson talks about a time when all the houses were white, except the slightly off-white ones owned by the adventurous homeowners.  At another time, Harvey and Vicki Bilt installed areca palms -- at their own initiative! -- in the median in front of their 121st St house, because they wanted more separation between their property in the Village and the southern border of CNM.  At some other time, Chester and Sandi Morris either installed a new irrigation system, or they extended the one they had on the south side of 119th St, so the system would cross under the street, and irrigate the median, too.  This was at their own initiative, and expense, like the Bilts' project, because they wanted the median in front of their house to look nice.

Before 2010, the Parks and Parkways Board, whose Chair was then Dan Keys, catalogued the medians.  Frankly, and in retrospect, it was never clear why they did that.  Dan says the P&P Board made a design plan for the medians, but Dan doesn't have a copy of the plan he says resulted, and no one else can find one.

We've had some other land development over the past 10-15 years, and they've included welcome signs, Roxy Ross' yearly MLK Jr Day of Service projects, which have been clean-ups of one small area or another, and a couple of Dan Keys' landscaping projects, which appear to be personal ambitions of Dan's, single-handedly designed, and executed with the labor of several or many of us.  The Village has acquired three outdoor sculptures, but only because a few or several Village residents personally bought them, and offered to give them to the Village for free.  We renovated the log cabin, and we constructed an Administration Building (with sizable grants), which was never landscaped as Dan Keys said he envisioned, or expected others to envision.  We cleaned up a mess that was the Public Works yard, which had fixtures like garbage trucks that didn't work, and the ground of which contains so much toxic waste that we couldn't sell it to a prospective home builder, and we put a Public Works building there instead.

And that's it.  Some of these improvements have been conceptualized and funded by Village residents, at their own initiatives (and expense), and some have been projects of the various Commissions.  We have not infrequently talked about stepping up Code enforcement, but we don't do it.

For the 18 years I've lived here, and seen our frankly ratty-looking medians, and watched people drive over them, because they can't be bothered to go to the end of the block and take a U-turn, I have suggested, and pleaded for, a median development scheme.  Our medians are completely unique, and we have sacrificed large enough driving lanes to have them.  But we refuse to make them the asset, and treasure, that they could be.  At one point years back, Dan Keys said he, and possibly P&P, if he allowed them to have any say about anything, would redesign two demonstration blocks of medians on 10th Ave.  That never happened.  And Dan has complained consistently about various trees planted by Village homeowners, like the arecas the Bilts planted, because they wanted something better than ratty grass, weeds, and raw dirt.  Dan doesn't want to improve the medians, and he doesn't want anyone else to improve them, either.

So, this is how we live.  And from all indications, it's how we're going to continue to live.  When I was on the Commission, I asked my colleagues to agree to task P&P simply with making a plan.  They didn't have to spend a dime.  The medians could all have been the same, or they could have been different, one from another.  Once we had a plan offered by our volunteer P&P Board, and everyone knew what that plan was, anyone on any block could donate personally to installing plantings that would fulfill the plan.  Maybe a friendly competition for the nicest median would have followed.  Nope.

We have about 1200 houses in the Village.  Mac Kennedy doesn't like some of them, because he likes an old Spanish, or MiMo, style.  Personally, I don't care, as long as any house looks nice, and is landscaped in a pleasing way.  Somehow, for whatever unimaginable reason, the Planning and Zoning Board allowed to be built a monstrosity on the south side of 117th St, and it has destroyed at least that block, because no one has privacy any more.

But still, no one wants improvement of our most unique asset.  Go figure.