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.