The Supreme Court Has Found the Rock and the Hard Place.

All indications are that the Justices will either invent the idea that Trump has sweeping immunity, or they'll send it back to a lower court.  Either decision creates a problem for Trump.  And for the Court.

The analogy that has been floated in this case is whether or not Trump would have immunity if he had political rivals killed.  His lawyer says he would, but this immunity would be retracted if Trump was then impeached and convicted.

Keeping in mind how enraged are most Americans over the Supreme Court's removal of their rights to abortion, and considering how much further enraged they would be if the Supreme Court told them King Donnie can do whatever he wants, it becomes more or less unfathomable that Donnie gets elected this coming November, if it's not unfathomable already.

But let's say, for purpose of discussion, he does.  But Congress becomes more Democratic.  Donnie not only gets impeached immediately, but the Senate, unlike the one headed by Mitch McConnell, who said he didn't care what the House did about impeachment, because the Republican Senate wouldn't convict him anyway, does in fact convict him.  Immunity gone.

Or Donnie somehow, unimaginably, gets elected, and Congress shifts right, too.  At that point, 250 years after we detached ourselves from King George III, we're under the autocracy of King Donnie and his yes-people (if he needs them, and doesn't just discharge them), and the "democratic experiment" is over.  We lost.  We failed.

Or, if the Supreme Court says a president has immunity, and can have rivals assassinated, why can't Biden have Trump assassinated?  Biden wouldn't, because he's not like that, but if the SCOTUS says he could, and if he does it now, the House will impeach him, and the Senate, if it was as amoral as the one McConnell led, wouldn't convict him.

But the fact is that Donnie himself knows he's not immune.  The last time he lost an election, he did the right thing, at first.  He brought the matter to the courts.  Sixty or sixty-one times.  Sure, there was the famous call to Raffensperger in Georgia, and the denied request of Pence, but he didn't take matters in hand, and declare himself the winner, as if he was immune.  (Or have Biden and Harris assassinated.)  He knows he's not immune.

And the SCOTUS doesn't have to send this matter back to a lower court.  It's already been there.  The Supreme Court of Colorado already ruled against Donnie.  It said he was guilty, had violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, and couldn't hold any office.  The Colorado Supreme Court simply suspended its decision for a little while, because Donnie wanted to appeal to the SCOTUS.

So, what's the SCOTUS to do?  They shouldn't have agreed to hear this case, and it's going to be more or less impossible for them (the right wing supermajority) to get themselves out of it without making fools of themselves more than they've been doing.

Nobody Saw That Coming.

Well, it's been a helluva week or so.  Last week Saturday, I went to South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center, and saw a magnificent dance show ("Ballet X").  Monday, I went to musimelange and heard a gorgeous baroque music concert.  Last night, I saw a very captivating exhibit (and had wine, Barbancourt Haitian rum drinks, a beer, and finger foods) at MOCA.  Tonight, I went to Sandrell Rivers Theater to see a play ("Bourbon at the Border").  Tomorrow and Saturday, I'm going back to South Miami-Dade.  Sunday, I'm going to an Indian music concert.

But I want to talk about the play I saw tonight.  It was put on by the M Ensemble, which is an African American theater company, and essentially all of their plays are about African Americans.  I almost always go on opening night.  It's more expensive --  well, when I say "expensive..." (it was $41) -- but after the opening night performance, there's food, drinks, socializing, and the actors come out after they've gotten cleaned up.  So you can meet them, and tell them if you think they did a great job.  There were four characters in the play tonight.  Rosa had a new boyfriend -- Tyrone -- so their relationship was part of the play.  And May is married to Charlie, who had gotten out of a psychiatric hospital for one of a succession of admissions for depression.  Charlie also had a limp from a fracture he sustained at some point.  Rosa and May were best friends, although Rosa was very fun-loving and was either libidinous or knew how to work men, and May was plain and seemed comparatively exhausted, likely, it seemed, because Charlie was so unstable and prone to depression.

Charlie seemed much better after this most recent hospitalization, and he was eager to get a job.  Tyrone worked for a trucking company that was hiring.  So maybe Charlie could get a job driving trucks.  Tyrone was going to put in a good word with Neil, who was the boss.

As May and Charlie reviewed their relationship, or May talked to Rosa about it, because they had come across some old photographs, it was revealed that May and Charlie had gone down to Mississippi in the 1960s to encourage black people to register to vote.  The setting of the play was during or shortly after the Vietnam war, so the background music from the radio was from that period.  So we're talking about something like a 12 year difference.

The geographic setting of this play is Detroit, which also influenced the choices of music.  The couple sitting behind me were singing along, even though I thought they looked too young to remember that music.  I told them so.  The woman was, shockingly, two years older than I am -- she could easily pass for 50-55 -- and her male companion was two years older than she was, and also looked much younger than he was.

I have to admit I wasn't sure where this play was going.  The write-up about the playwright was such that I expected something very interesting, but I couldn't figure out to what interesting place it was going to go.

And I'm not going to tell you how it ended.  The play runs until April 28 -- not every night, so you have to contact them at 305-705-3218 or tgcooper@aol.com to find out their schedule -- and I strongly suggest you go.  If you care, the regular ticket price for shows other than opening night is somewhere around $35.  Parking is free.  Staff are wonderfully friendly.  Pat and Shirley operate the M Ensemble.  They have very nice staff who take tickets, if you have them, or sell them, if you don't.  Sandrell Rivers Theater is at the corner of NW 62nd St and 7th Ave.  It's reasonably close to here.

You don't know how this play ends, but I do.  When the actors arrived at the post-play reception, I told them they did a great job, and I asked each of them if they saw the end coming as they were reading the play.  Not one of them did.  Nobody did.  I'm reluctant to be hyperbolic about this, but it's kind of brilliant.

Do yourselves a favor.

"Me, Too."

One of our neighbors sent me a frankly painful e-mail.  The e-mail said "Regarding the 'Anonymous' comments on your blog post regarding Ryan Huntington, I'm truly scared about the population and future of BP and our country."  I didn't ask for permission to reprint this, because I can keep the author confidential, and it doesn't matter who it is.  It's one of our neighbors, and someone I know.  I responded "Me, too," and I suggested that our neighbor could have entered this as a comment, instead of a private e-mail to me.  I also said the blog is ours, not mine.  It's true that because of the way blogspot is set up, I have unique proprietary discretion and control no one else has, but I try to minimize that.  I could block comments, or condition them on my approval, and I don't do either of those things.  I invite guest authors -- it's my pleasure to have their input, with which I most certainly don't always agree -- and those guest authors have as much control over the blog as I do.  In the past, I regularly offered guest authorship to people running for Commission, even if I was running against them.  I figured it was a good way for them to make their presentations, or cases, and we could have a nice discussion, or even debate, about their campaigns.  But few candidates took me up on it, and now, no one, frankly, seems to have an agenda.  Nor do they do their neighbors the common courtesy even of campaigning.  So I don't bother to do the legwork to go find the candidates, and offer them space and a circulation.

Which brings us back to our neighbor's lament, certainly about the Village, and also about the country.  Anyone who reads these posts, and the comments (which means the reader has to keep checking back every day or every few days, to see if there are any new comments), has seen the profusion of comments from someone who calls him- or herself "Anonymous."  And I will tell you that "Anonymous'" first comment under the last post came so soon after the post was published that it led me to wonder if "Anonymous" is in fact one of the people on the new post circulation I have compiled.  Either that, or it was a coincidence that "Anonymous" just happened to check the blog right after a new post was published.

"Anonymous'" comments are rambling, often incoherent, filled with misspellings, grammar mistakes, and what are probably the results of someone who has poor verbal ability trying to dictate, commonly enough have nothing to do with the topic of the post, are very often nasty and insulting, and seem to be the products of someone with frankly serious problems.  One of "Anonymous'" common refrains is hope or confidence that Donnie Trump will get re-elected this year, which I guess is part of the reason that our neighbor who e-mailed me expressed concern not only about the Village, but also about the country.  It does appear increasingly glaring that people who are in favor of Trump have in common noteworthy dimness of wit, to put it in a certain way.  Even increasing numbers of people who have been staunch Republicans and "conservatives" (it's still unclear to me what they think they're trying to conserve) are falling away from Trump.  But not "Anonymous."  S/he is still claiming to be a stalwart.  Clearly, that's part of what feels frightening and deflating to our neighbor who e-mailed me.

One of the critically important things about "Anonymous" is that "Anonymous" is anonymous.  So, when "Anonymous" talks, for example, about Village matters, in favor of or opposed to anyone or anything, it's not possible to know who "Anonymous" is, how "Anonymous" thinks s/he knows what s/he says, or if any of these ramblings are worth taking seriously.  So, if I, for example, can't tell, then the sensible choice is to ignore the content.  But if "Anonymous" is a Village resident, then s/he still gets a vote.  Hence, part of our neighbor's concern.  A complete moron with a vote can use that vote any way s/he wants, which imperils the Village.  And because, to take the example "Anonymous" keeps giving us, whether or not it's germane to anything, if the same complete moron is a remaining stalwart devotee of Donnie Trump (it's still impossible for me to believe the polls showing Donnie's considerable support among whoever agrees to respond to these polls), that person (benefit of the doubt here) can imperil the country, just as our neighbor feared.

Back in 2015 and 2016, when Donnie was first running, every available piece of evidence strongly suggested that Donnie was intellectually impaired, completely dishonest, and 100% self-centered.  Although Donnie did not get the support of the majority of the voters, he won because of the distortion created by the technicality known as the Electoral College.  Four years later, after he proved beyond any doubt that he was most definitely stupid, a total and inveterate liar, and had no thought for anyone but himself, he got even more votes than he did when we just strongly suspected it.  So the voters aren't very smart.  It's clear, although faulty and unnecessary, I hope, why our neighbor is as "scared" as s/he is, at least about the country.

Regarding the Village, we have crashed.  We've had the occasional dysfunctional and failed oddball on the Commission from time to time over the decades.  We've worked around them.  But starting in 2016 (yeah, I know: hmm), Commission candidates have stopped campaigning, commonly aren't properly "seasoned" for being Commissioners, and have no agendas.  Which certainly explains why Commissions since then haven't accomplished anything.  We've had 2 1/2 good Commissioners since 2016.  Dan Samaria started out surprisingly very well, until he went in some weird direction, Roxy Ross filled in for Betsy Wise or someone, who ran for the hills when the Commission problems got increasingly bad, and there's been Mac Kennedy.  I'm giving Mac full credit, Roxy full credit, even though it was just to fulfill the end of a term that had been vacated, and Dan half credit because he lost his bearings and didn't have to.

So I totally, totally understand our neighbor's concern, and I share it.  It's sort of heartbreaking to see what's happened to the Village, and to the country.  I even had a brief e-mail conversation with whoever is our current manager, and I suggested he fire police chief Luis Cabrera, because Luis isn't interested in safety on 6th Ave.  The manager said it was the Commission's job to manage the police chief.  So our manager presumably hasn't read our Charter, he doesn't know whose job is what, and which bucks stop at his desk.

Yup, I very much get it.  The straits are most definitely dire.  Whoever can be bothered to vote in the Village this coming Tuesday will have zero good choices out of three options.  In November, apart from the Village election -- again -- among others, we'll have the choice of Joe Biden, who is too old for this, and whose best accomplishments have been to undo some of Donnie Trump's damage, and then get out of the way (although he continues to help the Israelis annihilate innocent Palestinians), or Donnie Trump, who is the stupidest and worst past president this country has ever seen.  Great, huh?

I'm Guessing Ryan Huntington Hasn't Seen "Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror."

Early in that movie (one of the old ones starring Basil Rathbone as Holmes), Holmes is invited to join the British High Command to figure out who's behind the German recordings of attacks against England.  One member of the Council is very opposed to bringing in Holmes, a civilian.  But Holmes has already been invited, and he arrives as the Council members are debating the fact that he was invited.  Holmes shows off some of his stuff, and he notes that one particular admiral clearly objected to his being invited to help.  The Council members are very surprised that Holmes could have known this, and Holmes points out that the Admiral in question had been leaning against a table, and left heel impressions dug into the rug, clearly signifying resistance.

So yesterday, I went to the Village event before the Commission meeting.  Daniela Levine-Cava was there, I had met her before, and I wanted to talk to her for a while.  But while I was there, Ryan Huntington, clearly at the urging of Mac Kennedy, introduced himself to me.  He said he knew about this blog (hmm, he didn't ask me to include him in new post announcements from now on), and that I had mentioned him.  I confirmed I did, twice.  So he wanted to make an introduction, and he apologized for having missed meeting me while he was campaigning.  He said he had been in a hurry to distribute his materials, knocked on doors, and probably knocked on mine when I wasn't home.  Nope.  He distributed a door tag to my house when I was home, and he didn't knock.

Anyway, Ryan and I had a nice chat, under the circumstances (he's running for office, and I'm not supportive), and I told him Mac thinks highly of him, and notes that he comes to Commission meetings prepared with good questions.  (Ryan revealed he's lived in the Village for 13 years, so apparently, coming to Commission meetings is a new thing for him.)  But I told Ryan that he was at a disadvantage, and he was proposing to put his neighbors at a disadvantage, because he hasn't given himself an adequate opportunity to understand how the Village works, what our problems are, how we've addressed some, why we didn't address others, etc.

Ryan mentioned one thing he considers a problem: speeding.  I agreed with him, and I told him our biggest speeding problem by far is and always has been on 6th Ave, and we're not doing anything about that.  But that's not the speeding Ryan had in mind.  He's fixated on our interior streets, and how we should have speed bumps and rotaries.  I told him we already have speed bumps, and they're faulty.  I don't know if Ryan didn't hear me, or if he was just lost in his own thought process.  So I tried again to explain.  We have speed bumps/tables, and they're so high that no one can negotiate them at the accepted speed limit without damaging their car.  As it happens, one of my friends, who's lived here longer than I have, and was standing there, told Ryan the same thing.  Ryan thinks the answer to this is to drive slower (than the speed limit).  I asked Ryan if what he really thought is that 25 mph is too fast, and we should lower the speed limit, again.  (He can't know that we already lowered from 30 to 25, for no reason, or about the traffic studies we've already had.)  He didn't answer.  The purpose of traffic calming devices is to make sure people drive the speed limit, not to make it impossible to drive the speed limit.

Ryan did what Mac escorted him to do: he met me.  He is interested in his own thought process, not in anyone else's (despite his claim to want to include his neighbors more), and he still thinks it's reasonable and not disrespectful to his neighbors to imagine he can dope this all out while in office.  Heel prints are noted.

Have a nice day next Tuesday.  Give my regards.

The Problem With Opposing DEI.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is the subject of lots of opinion (for and against) these days.  DEI is criticized (by its critics) for deliberately and seemingly unfairly giving an advantage to some groups of people.  The most extreme objection goes by the slogan "The Great Replacement Theory."  As if making room for some groups of people to be here, exist, and thrive was a "zero sum game," which meant that other groups of people were displaced or deprived.

And the critics are partially right about their understanding of DEI.  In earlier days, we called it Affirmative Action, and it most definitely does give an advantage to some groups of people.  To the extent that it smooths the way for some of those people to enter this country, settle and stay here, and become citizens, it does make room that was selfishly hoarded before.  Whether or not it "replaces" anyone is much more a matter for interpretation.

But here's the problem.  If we say, for the sake of convenience, that the groups advantaged by DEI are guaranteed a right to be here, and common advantages, about which the critics complain, those critics didn't complain when they themselves had all the advantage.  They complained about Rosa Parks sitting at the front of the bus, but they didn't complain when she was relegated to the back seat.  They don't mind if some people are winners, as long as they're the winners.

When the Pilgrims came here in the 1600s, there were already people here.  Today, we call them Native Americans.  The Pilgrims didn't feel unentitled to impose themselves, and their religion, and their diseases, on the Native Americans.  And they violently mistreated those Native Americans in ways worse than they claim to think current immigrant hopefuls would mistreat them.  And took most of their land.

What's curious (and infuriating, frankly) is that in the past 60+ years, we've welcomed immigrants from Cuba, and many of those Cuban immigrants now claim to object to our welcoming other immigrants.  They fear, or claim, presumably, that they think the immigrant hopefuls to whom they object would behave in ways, and occupy this country, that the rest of us didn't fear when we opened the doors to them.

We've settled on various bogeymen over time.  The same things are alleged about every immigrant group: Germans, Irish, Italians, Middle Easterners, Chinese, Japanese (shocking mistreatment during WWII), and others.  During WWII, we turned away some ships carrying Jewish immigrant hopefuls, because we didn't want any more of "those" people here.  And over time (at most one generation), they all adopt American styles and values.  Well, all except the Native Americans, whom we appear to be unable to stop abusing, and the African Americans, who never came here looking for a better life, and whom we also appear to be unable to stop abusing.

Yesterday, a large ship rammed and took down a bridge in Maryland.  The bridge is a total loss, and although traffic alerts were broadcast to warn drivers, the people working on the bridge were not alerted.  Six of them died.  As far as I know, all six were from Central America.  Those are the people some of us keep trying to keep out, imagining it would be terrible to have them here.  They were working, on the bridge, had been here for years, had families, paid taxes, and were at least as creditable citizens as the people who don't want them to be here.

When we're not in some sort of hysteria over immigrants, we call (or at least used to call) this country a "melting pot."  And it is.  That's one of our great strengths, as long as we don't pick nonsensical fights with each other.  More or less no one who rails at DEI is a descendant of the Pilgrims, and even if they were, their forebears were unwelcome intruders.  DEI is what this country, when it functions rationally, is about.  African Americans can vote, except where the backward "Americans" are still trying to suppress them.  Women can vote.  Few but the most lost are distracted by miscegenation.

If you've never seen Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine," you'll see that Americans tend to be a terrified people.  And for no reason, other, perhaps, than some self-consciousness and guilt.  We're entitled to feel that way, and the best way to keep ourselves self-conscious and guilt-ridden is to follow people like Ronnie DeSantis, and pretend we don't have to know about our mistakes, and the things we did wrong.  DeSantis, huh?  Sounds like maybe a French name.

The G.O.A.T.

I've been back and forth about following sports.  I finally gave up years ago, because the teams aren't devoted to the players, the players aren't devoted to the teams, the salaries are ridiculous (ridiculously high now*, although many decades ago, they were ridiculously low), protections often not good enough, and way too many players seem to want to hurt or damage other players.  To put it in a certain way, I don't follow basketball for the same reasons I don't follow boxing.

*I always remember when Mo Vaughn was a beloved player for the Boston Red Sox, but he left to go to the Los Angeles Dodgers.  The Red Sox were offering him $6.2M a year, and he said he had to worry about supporting his family, so he went to the Dodgers, who offered more.  Anyone who can't have a perfectly wonderful life, and provide luxurious support for their family, making $6.2M a year, has problems that more money won't solve.

And it's less likely to decide on a Greatest of All Time (G.O.A.T.) in baseball than in something like basketball, because there are more people on a baseball team.  But there has been talk about Shohei Otani, who is a remarkable pitcher and a remarkable hitter.  These disciplines are commonly thought of as opposite of each other, in the sense that expertise at one undermines quality at the other.  But Otani is sort of off the charts at both at the same time.  Babe Ruth started as a pitcher, too, but when his hitting became pre-eminent, he stopped pitching, to save his arm for hitting.

There's a population of people who say Tom Brady is the G.O.A.T. in football, which has even more players than does a baseball team, but Brady was not great in college, and he wouldn't have been great in the pros without a very protective offensive line, and excellent rushers and pass-catchers.  It would even be hard to say that Brady was the greatest quarterback of all time, because the game has changed, and many quarterbacks these days, most certainly including Brady, don't scramble as they did decades ago.  They just get protected.

Soccer fans seem generally to consider Lionel Messi the G.O.A.T.  He's great, and a great member of a team.  For me, it's Ronaldinho.  But perfectly solid arguments get made for Pele and Maradona.  Thierri Henri is on various people's list, too.

But there's an ongoing and entrenched idea of deciding which player is the G.O.A.T.  Or there's an ongoing and entrenched idea that there could be something like a G.O.A.T.  In team sports, there really couldn't.  With a rare possible exception which we'll explore.  In team sports, everyone depends on everyone else, and even if, let's say in basketball, one player scores more points, or logs more assists, or pulls down more rebounds, it's a team effort, in which plays are concocted, so that a player in a certain position will get more points, assists, or rebounds, and no one could use the stark statistics to decide someone was the G.O.A.T..

And not only that, but various conditions change.  When Wilt Chamberlain played, he was, as far as I know, the only seven foot tall player.  Now, there are several or many.  But Chamberlain had a unique advantage at the time.  And the rules change, favoring rushing, or passing, in football, or, in basketball, a more physical game or a less physical game.  The fans like scoring, so the rules are changed to allow for more points.  That's why in basketball, a three point line was instituted, so that a successful shot from far enough back to earn two points, now earns three points.  What would the earlier point producers have accomplished if a percentage of their shots had produced 50% more points?  Were they not considered the G.O.A.T. then, but they would be if they were playing now?  And what about a shorter player like Steph Curry, who is considered a master of the three point shot?  If that shot doesn't exist, and he has to come to the basket, is he a lesser player?

In basketball, it's fairly common that Michael Jordan, most of whose career was in Chicago, is considered the G.O.A.T.  But let's also not forget that whole teams are constructed around a good or great player, so that player looks better, and the team wins more.  It wasn't Jordan who won six championships.  It was the Bulls team.  And there's an argument that Jordan and the Bulls would not have been as successful without Scottie Pippen.

One of my all time favorites, for a number of reasons, is Larry Bird.  He is very widely acclaimed for his "basketball IQ" and his work ethic.  He started turning the then losing Celtics around as soon as he got there.  But Kevin McHale was then brought in, as was Robert Parish, and Dennis Johnson, and Danny Ainge, and Bird had a short career, due to injuries.  The Celtics of which he was a member for about 12 years won three championships.  How many would they have won if he hadn't gotten so injured because of his fearless play?  Bird was rookie of the year when he started, almost always an all-star, a two time "Dream Team" member, a three point championship winner three times, and after he stopped playing, went back to Indiana (the Pacers) and became coach of the year, and later manager of the year.  One story I heard about him, from one of his Indianapolis players, was that the team was stretching, and Bird, injured and after his playing days, in his suit and leather shoes, got up to leave, and started shooting three-pointers.  The team were flabbergasted that a retired player, not dressed for the court, could, without practice, still put them up like that.  And Bird's influence on the Celtics was to make them all better than they would have been without him.

There are frankly several or many choices for G.O.A.T.  People talk about the late Kobe Bryant, and now Luka Doncic.  And Oscar Robertson, and the immensely successful Bill Russell.  And they're all dependent on their teams, the times, and the rules.  Except for one player.

LeBron James grew up in Ohio, and he didn't go to college.  He didn't have the advantage of extra years of experience and coaching.  He went from high school to the Cleveland Cavaliers.  The team was not built around him, and it did not have great success when he first joined.  He was then traded to the Miami Heat, which won two championships with him.  He then went back to Cleveland, which also won a championship with him.  He then went to Los Angeles, where he still is, and they won at least one championship with him.  James is still playing, now at age 38, after 20 or 21 years.  He makes an impact, and many active and past players are in awe of his talent.  He owns the record for most NBA points at over 40K.  (Although there's a Brazilian guy -- not NBA -- who had over 49K points, and is rooting for James to break his record, because he considers James a "perfect player.")

So, I still say there is no basketball G.O.A.T., or a G.O.A.T. of any team sport, and there can't really be one.  But Larry Bird and LeBron James seem as close as it gets.

So, Ryan Huntington Has Stepped Up His Campaigning. Sort Of.

When I went to get the mail from the box immediately outside my front door today, I also found a door tag from Ryan.  No one knocked on my door today, so someone blew by my house for the purpose only of leaving the door tag.

The tag was completed on both sides of a glossy card.  On the "Vote Ryan Huntington" side, there was a photograph of Ryan (and one of him, presumably, in a group of firefighters), and his "Mission" statement.  Ryan aims to "review, interpret, and understand the culture and history of our Village, so we can create healthy, sustainable and tangible change for residents now.  Which can lead to growth opportunities for the future, while staying true to the integrity and beauty of our Village."  At the end of this side of the card was Ryan's suggestion that we "Vote for Change."

There are several issues here.  First, as I mentioned, someone just wanted to leave the card, but not get, you know, bogged down or waylaid by the time-wasting possibility of a conversation with the people whose votes Ryan wants.  Second, I'm still assuming that Ryan spoke to Chester Morris.  Chester is on the new post announcement circulation for this blog, and if Chester reads the posts, I would have thought he would have given Ryan a heads up to be sure to meet me.  The fact is not only that I did a post about Ryan, but I always offer candidates guest authorship, so they can use the blog to say what they want.  It would have been to my advantage and to Ryan's advantage if he met me.

Third, Ryan wants to become a Commissioner so he can "review, interpret, and understand the culture and history of our Village," etc?  Isn't that backwards?  Hasn't someone who would be a useful and meaningful Commissioner already reviewed, interpreted, and come to understand the culture and history of our Village?  I realize that there are always people who think they can be effective electeds with no prior knowledge, but I haven't seen any evidence that they're right.  I still don't know how long Ryan's lived here, or if he's indoctrinated himself or served the Village in any way.  His door tag seems to make clear he hasn't.  So, he imagines he's going to get elected, then waste time finding out about the Village and how it works, what we've done, what we haven't done, and why we haven't done what we haven't done, on the job?  I don't know anything about firefighters, but I would strongly suspect that firefighters have more sophisticated training than just being children or unrelated civilians who are overtaken by a sudden idea that they should join the FD, then figure out about fires and how to fight them later.

The other side of the door tag has a photograph of Ryan's family.  They're a nice-looking group.  If they wanted to be models, I'd encourage them.  The "About" section talks about how Ryan is a firefighter, paramedic, husband, father, and BP resident (right; he couldn't run if he wasn't a BP resident, for at least a year).  He also notes that he "care[s] deeply" about the Park.

Below that, he lists four goals.  They're essentially the usual boilerplate campaign platitudes, but #3 is curious, because Ryan says he wants to "Renew a culture of collaboration between elected officials and residents, where we seek resident input prior to any project."  So, Ryan doesn't have time to meet his neighbors when he wants their votes, but he wants to collaborate with them about projects once he's in office?  Must be that new math.

If I felt compelled to vote in this election, I'd have a problem.  Dan Samaria was already a Commissioner, and has given me reasons not to vote for him.  Ryan Huntington has a level of visibility that is more frustrating and insulting than it is enlightening and reassuring.  And I don't even know who the other candidates are.  I think there are some, but they're totally invisible.  If I'm wrong, and it's only Dan and Ryan, I won't bother to vote.  Dan won't make a good Commissioner (as if we cared any more, apparently), and Ryan is a "pig in a poke."  If my house catches fire, or I collapse in the street, I hope he helps me.  As a Commissioner?  I'm just not seeing it.

Jim Young, Conservative Republican From Oklahoma, and Christian (Whatever That Has to Do With Anything), Wants You to Know Something.

I voted for Trump – twice. Liz Cheney's book and DOJ's Jan. 6 indictment changed my mind (msn.com)

Young takes a very dim view of Biden, whom he strategically mischaracterizes, or to whom he misattributes problems*, so it's unclear what Young expects to do with his vote.  But he's made very clear what he's not going to do with it.  Although with two very dominant candidates, a vote not for one is a vote for the other.

I have my own complaints about Biden, but I will have no trouble holding my nose, and voting for him.  I won't really be voting for Biden.  I'll be voting against the person Jim Young now finally understands is an antidemocratic and antiAmerican criminal.  (How he managed to take this long to figure this out is a mystery he explains only by saying he read three things that all seemed entirely credible and were precisely in line with each other.  But the fact is that most voters could clearly see this in 2016 and 2020.  And those were the two years Young couldn't see the problem.  Well, he sees it now.  Maybe he was just mindlessly voting against any Democrat.  I didn't much favor Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden.  But against the alternative?  Not even close.)

*One issue Young misattributes to Biden is the imagined problem of immigration, or the "southern border."  Young does not mention that Biden agreed to strong shoring up of the southern border, only to have Republicans, on Trump's orders, then refuse to institute that shoring up, so that the imagined problem would still be there at election time, and it could be blamed on Biden.

Anyone who somehow still doesn't recognize how entirely self-focused Trump is, to the detriment of anyone or anything except himself (although his mindless crusades are even damaging him now) has his or her head even further in the sand, or up his or her ass, than Young did.  Until he finally, somehow, "got religion."

I don't know if it's reassuring to see that some people finally get it, or it's further demoralizing to see how many people take forever, or never get it.  It really, really ain't subtle.  Most of us could always see it, and increasing numbers of people eventually do.  If it's not clear to you, even yet, I just don't know what to tell you.  I don't even understand what your problem is.  I just know you very clearly have one.

"Vote Ryan Huntington?"

I was finishing my neighborhood "exercise" walk this morning, and I encountered about a half dozen campaign signs that said "Vote Ryan Huntington."  They were all on 119th St between 6th and 8th Avenues.  They had one of those square symbols in the upper right corner, and if you focus your smart phone camera on it, you get more information.  But not much more.  I have no idea where Ryan Huntington lives, except I'm guessing it's in the Village.  His wife is Danielle, and he has three sons, all of whose first names start with H.  He's a firefighter.

If you want to know more, you have to enter his Instagram page, and since I'm opposed to social media (a discussion for another time), I'm not going to do it.  Oh, what happened to old fashioned BP campaigning, where candidates actually walked the Village, knocked on doors, met you, told you about themselves, and answered questions?  One of the cluster of signs I saw was in front of Chester and Sandi Morris' house, and Chester wouldn't allow someone to put a sign there if he hadn't met them.  So Ryan (is it OK if I call you Ryan?) must at least have met Chester, and probably Sandi.

There have already been a lot of Dan Samaria's reused signs around.  And I know Dan is running for the term that ends this coming November.  But Ryan (I'm going to assume it's OK) had signs made, which he would not have done if he had no ambitions past this coming November.  Frankly, the first thing that struck me about Ryan's signs was the darkish green color, and the upside down triangle outline (the BP outline) in the middle.  It was as if they had something to do with Vermont.  Maybe Ryan comes from Vermont.  Or not.

If I'm being honest and uninhibited (not like my usual inhibited self), I have to say BP politics have fallen apart.  In the past, it was the occasional dysfunctional oddball Commissioner.  Now, it's almost all of them.  It's been years since anyone except Mac Kennedy and I has actually campaigned -- you know, knocked on all the doors, and had sometimes lengthy conversations, and left flyers, and stuff -- and almost as many years since we've had a BP Commissioner who knew anything about the Park, and cared.  (And you know these people wouldn't get elected if we didn't vote for them.  So the lack of ambition and expectation is not just theirs.)  For a short time in the past eight years, Roxy Ross did the Village a favor.  Now, it's just Mac.  (I was hoping John Holland would decide he wanted more than to keep a seat warm for a month or so, but I haven't heard that he does.

This is why it's also been years since we had a competent and remotely interested manager.  And if we don't have a competent and remotely interested manager, then we have a police Chief whose main interests are being a big dog and collecting a nice check.  Actual improvements in the Village?  Um, not remotely.

I don't know if I should wish Ryan good luck.  Good luck with what?  He's got a day job, a nice family (I'll assume), and he probably makes enough as a firefighter that he doesn't need the $2000.  As I said, I have not the slightest idea where in the Village he lives, how long he's lived there, what he knows about the Village (its strengths and problems), and what is his vision, apart from getting elected, which I assume he wants, because he paid for the signs.  Should I imagine the no longer expectable possibility that he'll knock on my door, and campaign like a BP candidate?  Or am I supposed to find out everything I want to know from Instagram?  That's not gonna happen.  The Village is a tiny place.  If things have become that impersonal now, I'll just vote for Dan Samaria, or not bother voting at all.

Should They Look in the Mirror? Should They Just Get New Glasses?

As much as the majority of this country was mobilized against Communism, it's fair to say that Republicans were most virulent, aggressive, and sometimes mindless about combatting Communism.  Setting aside Joe McCarthy's moronic and destructive antics, we propped up a collection of pretty horrible dictators, just because they said they opposed Communism.

But Communism finally fell in most of the places where it dominated.  Its functional birthplace was in what became known as the Soviet Union, and it had other outgrowths, like in China and Cuba.  It also had an outgrowth in Vietnam, because North Vietnam won a war, sort of, and it failed to spread from North Korea to South Korea, because North Korea lost a war.  A number of other countries were absorbed into the Communist regime, but that's because of Soviet imperialism.  Cuba's largely hanging on, China sort of is, and the erstwhile Soviet Union, now Russia and other independents, have had an interesting and troubling journey. 

Two years ago, Russia staged a military invasion of the Ukraine, having earlier taken over Crimea.  Well, it wasn't really Russia.  It was Vladimir Putin.  He invented some nonsensical allegations, and he began expanding his empire.

Vladimir Putin was born into Communism in the Soviet Union.  He was a devoted Communist, and he worked his way up the hierarchy.  Eventually, after the Soviet Union disbanded, he became president of...Russia.  He did it the old fashioned Soviet way, which was all he knew.  He cheated, and anyone who got in his way got killed.  The last one was last week.  Putin is today's Stalin.

So, the United States, still telling itself it "exports democracy," even though it doesn't exactly have democracy to export, came to the aid of the Ukraine.  Until recently.  Now, the Republicans are niggling about supporting the Ukraine adequately, and some of them (famously and idiotically Tucker Carlson, who claims Russia is nicer and better than the US, but who inexplicably doesn't want to move there) are cozying up to Putin.  It's probably important to note that Donnie Trump also cozied up to Putin, because Putin, and a number of other world leaders, know that Donnie is shallow enough and stupid enough to let his head be turned by anyone who says nice things to him.  In fact, Donnie will tell you that.  He'll tell you how wonderful someone is, because they told him how wonderful he is.  If this sounds to you like mutual masturbation, it sounds like that to me, too.

But the point is that the Ukraine's enemy is Vladimir Putin, who is a typical Communist dictator and, as Donnie would put it, if it wasn't about his boyfriend, Vlad, a "thug."  Vlad is doing precisely what the original Soviets did: he's invading and destroying other countries to make them part of his empire.

If there's anyone on earth who should be reliable to challenge that, it's American Republicans.  They should be able to do this in their sleep.  This is a Soviet dictator, once again trying to build himself an empire.  But they can't now.  They have two problems.  Maybe three.  One is that Democrats want to support the Ukraine, and Republicans today are incapable of doing anything in concert with Democrats, no matter how much they would otherwise be inclined to do it.  The second is that the Republican Party is broken and in such shambles that it can't really decide to do much of anything.  Certainly nothing adaptive.  The possible third problem is that Donnie just loves his boyfriend, whom he acknowledges trusting more than anyone, and it's extremely possible he has let his Republican stooges know not to get in his boyfriend's way.  One of Donnie's other psychotic fantasies, assuming he believes it, or cares, is that he will be elected president again, and having retaken the office (oops, sorry, Donnie, I forgot you were arguing that POTUS is not an office.  Well, it is to the rest of us.), he will ask lover boy Vlad to knock it off, which, he would tell himself, Vlad would, because Donnie always believes this nonsense about other dictators falling all over themselves to please him.

It's hard -- impossible, really -- to fathom how today's American Republicans aren't painfully aware of the comically ridiculous, and antithetical to everything they normally believe, corner into which they have painted themselves.  It's as if they no longer even know who they are.

Or, To Look At It In a Different Way, We Can Consider Placebos.

You Know It’s a Placebo. So Why Does It Still Work? | WIRED

It's certainly noteworthy that this article is about both the medical use of placebo, and about politics.  As, frankly, it should be.

Let's start out talking about placebo.  The article mentions that this intervention is ancient.  It mentions that the vast, vast majority of doctors use it (for various reasons, under various circumstances, and with various styles).  I have.  Placebos have a number of kinds of meanings, including becoming what we call "transitional objects."  The article talks about one reportedly very imperfect study that showed placebo benefit in most of the patients in that very imperfect study.  The fact is that in much more careful, rigorous, and proper study conditions, placebo is reliably effective about 1/3 of the time.  I count that as impressively effective.  Interestingly, it turns out not to matter whether the prescriber does or doesn't admit the prescribed substance is a placebo.  When I was in high school, and I worked for a pharmacist, we used to dispense something called "Cebo-Caps."  My uncle, who was an internist, used to prescribe Obecalp (placebo spelled backwards).  In my internship, I did an emergency room evaluation of a man who had what we used to call "cardiac neurosis."  He reported constant chest pain, was nonfunctional, and always thought he was at death's door.  During the history, I asked him about his medications.  There was a very long list.  At some point, he said he was taking "placebo."  I asked him the dose, and he told me.  He didn't seem to recognize that placebo was an inert add-on, so the doctor could give him yet something else without causing drug interactions or exposing him to more side effects.  And setting aside the purely intentional prescribing of placebo, there's the prescribing of various things (medications, surgery, psychotherapy) that the doctor thinks have clinical value, but they don't.  (I just read an article about 18th or 19th C Americans who "reasoned" that tuberculosis was caused by vampires, so they exhumed the bodies of people who died of TB -- and were therefore vampires -- and removed their hearts and burned them, so they wouldn't come out of their graves and give others TB.   Sometimes, it's even proven that the interventions don't have clinical value, but the doctor institutes them anyway, either to be able to offer something, instead of nothing, or to create a basis to charge a fee.

But you don't need me to tell you any of the secrets of medical practice.  If you read the linked article, some of them aren't so secret any more anyway.  This is about more than that. 

If, for example, you look at the "Fortunately" paragraph, you will see that a doctor might prescribe an antibiotic for a condition that is not treatable with antibiotics, or vitamins when there is no deficiency.  The doctor knows s/he is not doing anything active.  But s/he 1) has been consulted, and does not want to feel like a useless disappointment who can't improve the patient's situation, and 2) the doctor has been consulted by a patient who commonly wants something done.  The patient neither knows nor cares that what the doctor is doing isn't going to affect/improve the patient's health.  The patient just has symptoms, and wants something done.  And the doctor gets to pretend to be useful, and gets to charge for the intervention.  So it's really a collusion.

"In a deepfake world where AIs masquerade as people, where marketing calls itself wellness...there's probably nothing so refreshing as a tiny step in the opposite direction: prescribing a pill of nothing, and calling it out as such."  It's a nervy thing to do -- openly admitting you're not doing anything -- and many doctors can't bring themselves to do it.  But as I said, it doesn't change the (1/3 positive) outcome if you do.

"The resulting study" paragraph illustrates how improbably doctors can get away with open label placebo prescribing.  They have the patients to help them, by the patients' in effect inventing their own excuses why something that can't chemically work works.  It turns out to be essential that the patient provides a good deal of the fantasy that inert materials are somehow effective.  In a related setting, voodoo curses "work," because the cursed person believes they work.

"The researcher's bedside manner is crucial...Maybe we start to feel better when someone listens to us, shows respect for our views, and makes common cause with us."  Or even pretends to.  I left off "against our ailments" because it's unclear what the ailments are, or if there have to be any.

"Perhaps OLPs [open label placebos] are a sort of meta-placebo, a testament to how much we believe in our power of belief...A patient may find relief from an open label placebo, the sugar pill that we know is a sugar pill gives us something that its deceptive counterpart doesn't[!!].  It tells us we aren't dupes who can be fooled by lab-coated experts[!!]."  You really have to give those statements careful consideration.  Belief is as good as education, training, and knowledge.  It may be better.  And it allows us not to feel somehow inferior to people who have more education, training, and knowledge than we do.  The table is entirely turned.  The "lab-coated experts" aren't the experts.  The believers are the experts.

"When you venture outside the scientific literature into the world of contemporary consumer marketing, most of the placebos you'll find are still the deceptive kind...Placebos also haunt what the political scientist Murray Edelman famously termed the 'symbolic uses of politics.'  In voters' 'anxious search for direction,'  --[an 'anxious search for direction;' that tells you something you should keep in mind] -- Edelman argued, they might be drawn to leaders who can dramatize confidence 'in a world many of them find alien' -- regardless of whether that performance achieves anything for the voter.  'In place of impersonal threatening forces, followers are reassured by a dramaturgy of personal coping,' Edelman wrote.  That was in the 1960s, but it could just as well have been describing any number of modern politicians."  Or snake oil salesmen.  (If you just became incontinent of urine, you're paying attention, and you get the point.)

"Increasingly, though, cultural (as opposed to clinical) placebos are becoming open label, too."  If you've ever watched Jordan Klepper talk to Trump supporters, and point out their inconsistencies, and the entirely invented, and not remotely true, positions they take, because the "doctor" told them what was the problem, and what was the cure, and they either can't continue the conversation, or they just keep riding the same inane position, you see how the placebo has completely taken hold.  You see how the belief trumps (excuse the pun) all evidence of reality, and how the fact of adhering to a belief is somehow treated as an adequate reason to disqualify experts.  The ability to form, or adopt, an opinion is more compelling than careful and lengthy education.

"So why, when we know the sham treatment is a sham, does it work?  My best bet is that whether we're in a medical setting or casting a vote, we want to feel like someone's taking care of us."  If that sounds like the description of a helpless child, dismissing it that way fails to take into account animal behavior, which is reflected in human nature.  Many animals, including human ones, rely on a pack mentality and social structure.  And it's well known that some non-human animals, and human ones, have a kind of "personal" nature that leads them to lead, and most have a nature that leads them to follow.  Ideally, "leaders" who are doctors are interested in their patients' well-being, as Hypocrates suggested they should be.  The same cannot remotely be said of people who lead politically, or in business.

There are various kinds of toxic "placebos" foisted on people.  Some "leaders" order their followers to take poison, or bully, harm or kill someone else.  Others tell their followers that there are barbarians at the gate, and that gate is, for example, the southern border of this country, which vile, greedy, rapacious, criminals want to breech.

It's tragic that they don't just give out sugar pills instead.

We Came in Second? To California?

America’s Most Racist States in 2024 (RANKED) (msn.com)

This article is someone's way of ranking the racism of states in this wonderful country of ours.  They used two indicators: the number of registered hate groups (hate groups register themselves?), and the number of racist post-election tweets.  It's not made clear how they count racist post-election tweets.  Most commonly, the number of racist post-election tweets is listed as a fraction.  I don't know what 1.4 racist post-election tweets means, unless it's 1.4 per thousand or per hundred thousand or something.  But they don't tell you.

It's a curious thing that Alaska is the least racist state, according to the indicators chosen.  They're said to have one registered hate group, and no racist post-election tweets.  Interestingly, there's been some noise lately about Alaska's wanting to secede from the Union.  It appears they don't think they belong in this group of racist people/Americans.

If you're interested, you can look for yourselves at this list. 

Massachusetts (#32), for example, was much higher than I would have thought.  They were a good deal more racist than Oklahoma (#21), and not nearly as racist as Texas (#49).  Texas and Oklahoma abut each other.  I thought they were the same in terms of racism.  Someone just released a movie about greed and racism in Oklahoma.  Well, maybe Oklahomans are less angry because someone else made a musical about them (it's not particularly great, but at least it's a musical), and Texans are more angry because they're saddled (sorry for the pun) with Greg Abbott, "Lyin'" Ted Cruz (that's what Donnie Trump calls him when he's insulting Ted, Ted's wife, and Ted's father, and Ted is, um, how can put this, performing fellatio on Donnie), and Ken Paxton.

We in "sunny" Florida were the second most racist state.  Apparently, we have 53 registered hate groups and 1.3 racist post-election tweets.

Yeah, OK, California has way more people than we do here, but how do they have 65 registered hate groups, and 0.5 racist post-election tweets?  It's as if Californians were angry enough to have a lot of hate groups, but not angry enough to send out racist post-election tweets.  Californians are so mellow that they're racist, but they can't be bothered to do much about it.

If you're wondering how California and Florida were more racist than Texas, and Texas was #49, it's because they also included DC.  So there were 51 entries, not 50.

Who's Your Daddy? (Who Are Your Daddies?)

Yet again, Donnie Trump is getting donations to pay his lawyers (whom he isn't going to pay).  Now, the tits he's sucking are on "megadonors," not just the small contributors.

Donnie started his life this way.  His biological daddy, Fred Sr, had amassed an impressive (depressing, if you were one of his tenants) portfolio of real estate, and he didn't want to leave it to Fred Jr, Donnie's older brother, who reportedly had a drinking problem.  (Are we, in Donnie and Rep/con fashion, to write off Germans as rigid and unempathic, even about their own offspring?)  So, Fred Sr left his wealth to Donnie, who began squandering and mismanaging it.  I don't know anything about Fred Sr and his wife, but apart from one daughter who became a judge, they seem to have spawned troubled boys.

Why Fred Sr underwrote his loser son, Donnie, is a mystery to me.  But he did, and Donnie lost money hand over fist.  Fred Sr kept underwriting Donnie and his losses.  Maybe Fred Sr was just a superficial and meaningless person, and as long as he could see the Drumpf/Trump name in lights, he was satisfied.  The result, though, is that Donnie's adulthood, failure that it was (bankruptcies, chronic marital failures, etc) was enabled by Fred Sr, because Donnie couldn't do anything except fuck up.  (Except at least he wasn't an alcoholic, like Fred Jr, and he held on to daddy's leg, and made fun of Fred Jr.  That was his big accomplishment.  And it led him to realize that phony images are everything, so creating them became his specialty.)

Fred Sr was Donnie's daddy.  But Fred Sr is dead now, so Donnie has found a collection of other daddies.  He predictably gets himself in various kinds of trouble, and he either stiffs the people he "hires" to bail him out of it, or he gets other suckers to give him their money, so he can...  You know, I don't know what he does with the money.  I don't know if he pays the people he "hires," or he just uses it to support his phony upkeep.  Why should you pay overpriced lawyers to get you out of the trouble you make for yourself, if you can stiff them, like you stiff everyone else, and buy a gold toilet for your 30K sq ft (or is it 11K sq ft?) apartment instead?  And that apartment is worth... Oh, that's right, I read yesterday that anything burdened with the Trump name (anything that hasn't gone out of business already) is dropping in value.

But still, those donors keep coughing up their money.  Why?  Assuming they think Donnie will pull a victory out of his ass (well, our asses), The Guardian says this: "while many donor concerns remain -- not least following Trump's comments about abandoning NATO members -- for some donors they appear subordinate to their support of policies including low taxes and environmental deregulation."  Although The Guardian adds that tech billionaire Peter Thiel and Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman won't donate again.  It wasn't explained why people with way more money than they can possible figure out what to do with would turn away from someone who will advocate to give them more, and allow them to finish trashing the planet.  Maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe there really is a religion to get.  (Although to be fair to myself, I never said there wasn't religion.  I just said it's based on fairy tales.)  But the point is that although Donnie doesn't approve of addiction to alcohol, he does approve of addiction to money, and he doesn't care how much damage is done in the pursuit of it.  And the same is true of the vast majority of the suckers who donate their money to him.  It's a curious thing that someone with so many daddies has so many people whose uncle he is.

So, we'll see.  Some perseverative idiot who calls himself "Anonymous" always, regardless of the topic of the posts in this blog, enters comments about Trump's winning this year.  I have not the slightest doubt s/he will do it again under this post.  I wonder if s/he is one of Trump's mindless donors, too.  Likely so.

"Secession?" I Think That's the Wrong Word.

So, 36% of Alaskans want to secede from the Union.  Alaska was the last or next to last state to be admitted, and now, they want out.  Alaska Secession Calls Grow as More Than a Third Want State to Leave US (msn.com)  And a proportion of Alaskans is only the largest proportion from any state.  The national average of state residents who want their states to secede is 23%.  Call it a quarter.  Twenty-nine percent of Republicans have given up, and 21% of Democrats are done.

Thirty-one percent of Texans, 29% of Californians, and 28% of New Yorkers and Oklahomans have had enough.  "Just" 13% of Minnesotans, and 14% of Ohioans, Massachusettsites, and Rhode Islanders don't want to do this any more.

New Hampshire is interesting here.  The linked article says New Hampshire citizens are put off by the size of the deficit, but Carla Gericke, "acting president of the Foundation for New Hampshire Independence, 'described secession from the United States as 'an idea whose time has come and a reflection of the frustration everyone on the political spectrum [emphasis mine] is feeling.'"

Earlier this morning, I was reading an article that I can't find again, and it listed someone's view of the 10 worst presidents.  On the list was Calvin Coolidge, who was dramatically hands off of many things, and who shifted fiscal burdens away from the rich, badly aggravating the wealth disparity.  And a couple of them were reportedly personally opposed to slavery, but they did nothing to inhibit it.  Just those two things sound like indicators of the kinds of things that might lead to frustration among today's Americans.  Warren Harding, who made the list I saw, was too busy playing golf and carrying on with his mistresses.

But in my opinion, none of those things are most likely to lead to the level of pessimism and defeat felt by so many Americans, even in the original Commonwealth of Massachusetts and States of New York and Rhode Island.  The biggest problem we have now is that the public are irrelevant.  People are in office because they run for office, and running for office costs more money than the vast majority of people have, and candidates get the money it takes from donors.  It is those donors, not the public/voters, who are the electeds' constituents.  And if government is not in the public's/voters' interest, but rather at their expense, because they have to follow rules and pay taxes, and the rich/donors don't, then why would the public want to be part of the USA any more?  Because we develop and make things here?  They develop things everywhere, and they make them cheaper in other places.

And we've been sold another bill of goods, too.  The First Amendment to the Constitution promises/guarantees us that the Union will not impose a state religion, but many of the states do just that.  There are Americans who insist this is a Christian country, even though the First Amendment says it isn't, and they demand that everyone follow their interpretation of what they think Christian rules are.

Likewise, the "Second Amendment" (I put it in quotes because there is no "Second Amendment."  It has been indirectly repealed.) is about militias.  Many Americans insist it's about guns.  It's not at all.

The 13th Amendment freed the slaves.  This included that they -- African Americans -- had rights equal to everyone else's.  Tell that to African Americans.  Be prepared for an earful in return.

Donnie Trump rejects the popular vote and the Electoral College vote, declaring himself the winner, no matter how badly he lost.  He doesn't believe in democracy or a representative Republic.  And as of the last presidential election, he had a lot of support.  Tens of millions of voters favored him, and after he -- I'm sorry to say this, Donnie -- lost, he still had a significant contingent of Americans who agreed that he didn't.  He just couldn't have.  They attacked the seat of government, and sent all the legislators scurrying.  If many of them were unclear why they were scurrying, Mike Pence was clear: his life was directly threatened, by members of his own party, because he followed the law.

Donnie also rejects Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which says that anyone guilty of insurrection cannot hold "any" federal or state office, civil or military.  And again, he appears to have some support for his position, although frankly, that support seems to be waning.  Colorado has found him guilty and will not put him on the ballot.  Maine seems to be following suit.   Constitutional expert Lawrence Tribe interprets that Donnie knows he is disqualified, and is relying on the SCOTUS to say that Colorado and Maine are wrong (based on who knows what, apart from the far right leanings of the majority of SCOTUS Justices), and this is why Donnie wants a wider ranging decision, and the trials he hasn't lost yet postponed until after the election.  He thinks he can still win it, in spite of all his disabilities.  By the way, if you watch Donnie ramble more or less incoherently, you see Donnie, and you see the sign-holders behind him.  What you do not see is the audience, which, by all other inferences, is most likely minimal.  Yes, I know about the polls, but poll results are a matter of how many people are polled, who those people are, and how many people who are asked for their opinions choose to give one.  I'm setting aside whether or not the opinions expressed are true representations of what respondents think.  If you're a fan of Jordan Klepper, and you watch enough of his videos, you'll catch one in NYC on a day Donnie was called into court, and he let it be known this was a time for support.  Almost no one was there.  We're talking about Manhattan, and Donnie couldn't stimulate tens of thousands of people, or a thousand people, or a hundred people, or more than maybe 5-10 people.

No, the word is not "secession.  It's dissolution.  It was Benjamin Franklin who said the Founding Fathers were giving us a democracy/Republic, "if [we could] keep it."  It appears we couldn't.  Or we didn't want to.  We exchanged it for a plutocracy.  And we rely for our choice of representatives on a collection of breathtaking dimwits, most of whom are voters who are mostly influenced by how much exposure candidates buy with money they got from their donors/constituents, and some of whom are the electeds themselves, who have no idea what they're doing, and seem delighted to spout nonsense.

Of course, maybe it doesn't matter if we dissolve or destroy this "experiment in democracy."  If our money-hungry and single-minded focus on continuing to burn fossil fuels finishes destroying the planet, then it's not a further loss if we destroy each country on it, either.

A Case in Point

Two days ago, I was coming home from downtown Miami.  I take I-95 north to 103rd St, come north on 6th Ave, and turn right on 119th St.

As I was approaching the intersection of 6th Avenue and 119th St, I could very clearly see an accident that occurred in the southbound lane of 6th Ave at 119th St.  BP police were there by then, and I couldn't tell if anyone was hurt.  There was obvious damage to two cars, though.

The lackadaisical habit BP police have of being on their shifts is either staying in the Administration Building, two cruisers facing in opposite directions so the officers can yack with each other in Griffing Park, a cruiser facing north in the break in the median at 116th St, or, as was true today, a cruiser sitting in the 119th St median at the intersection with 9th Ave.

The closest any of these come to considering in any way speeding on 6th Ave, which has always been our problem street, is the north-facing cruiser in the median at 116th St.  But the possible problematic driving that might have caused the accident I saw at 119th St already happened, and those two cars were never going to get to 116th St.

This is not "your father's BP."  No one makes a serious attempt to patrol our streets -- certainly not our most problematic one -- and, for what it's worth, as many times as I have raised the issue, the "Don't Even Think About Speeding" signs never re-appeared.  You could argue that's just as well, because apart from the signs, we don't give anyone reason to think we're serious.

As I said, 6th Ave has always been our worst street, in terms of speeding.  Sixth Ave is owned by the state, which has made clear they weren't going to allow us to lower the speed limit (although what difference would it make if we did, since we make no meaningful attempt to enforce whatever limit there is), and they're not going to install yet another traffic light after 125th and 123rd, and before the one at the bridge.

The fact that our police don't seem to care, which is a direct or indirect reflection of the fact that our recent succession of "managers" don't care, has cost an increasing number of drivers their vehicles, their health, and in one case, his life.  (I'm not including the recent road rage incident that was almost assuredly unstoppable by anyone.)

We have a problem.  It's a big problem, and it's increasing.  Anyone who lives on the north part of 6th Ave in the Park will tell you about this problem.  Most directly, our problem is a police chief who's uninterested.  Less directly, it's "managers" who are uninterested.  But ultimately -- the place where the buck stops -- it's Commissions that are uninterested.  They need to get a better manager, and make sure everyone knows which end is up.  This, as I said, would require them to care -- about this! -- and I have no evidence that they do.

They don't care about bad driving on 6th Ave, or enforcement, or accidents, or the medians.  So about what do they care?  "McMansions?"  Not impressive.  I don't care if someone lives in a larger, newer, nicer house than mine.  And I don't care what genre of architecture it is.  But I do care if the streets I and the rest of us have to drive are safe, and I care very much that no one runs into me or anyone else.  We need active patrolling, especially up and down 6th Ave, and we need those signs back.

I Wonder What Darwin Would Think of the Modern Connotation of the Word "Darwinian."

I want to begin this discussion with a seemingly unrelated aside.  In medicine, there is a diagnosis called "fibromyalgia."  "Fibromyalgia" isn't a real condition.  It's just a diagnosis.  It was invented in the 1970s to account for some of Frederick Wolfe's patients, who complained of pain, but had no objective findings.  Of interest, Dr Wolfe years later recanted his invention of this diagnosis, because it quickly enough got out of control.  "Fibromyalgia" is essentially self-diagnosed on the exclusive basis of subjective complaints.  Objective findings disqualify the diagnosis.  There is no treatment.  It's just a word, and it has no meaning.

"Fibromyalgia" is not the only medical diagnosis that was invented, has no real meaning, and for which there is no meaningful intervention.  The history of medicine contains a number of such fanciful diagnoses.  But a proportion of the public (patients) and providers have latched onto this one.  Dr Wolfe's reason for having recanted about the diagnosis was that increasing numbers of people with decreasingly consistent "symptoms" were being given the diagnosis.  (And, for what it's worth, increasing numbers of willing doctors were playing this game with their "patients," and getting paid for it.  They institute treatments that are not approved and that are going to cause more harm than good.  Dr Wolfe had wanted to find a medical-sounding way to sympathize with his patients' unhappiness, but he realized he created a monster.)

So, back to Darwin.  I am currently reading his The Descent of Man.  Darwin was talking about evolution, and many humans would probably like to think of their evolution, if they believe in it, as an ascent, not a descent, and Darwin does talk about descent from "lower forms."  But Darwin used whatever term he wanted.  He clearly recognizes the superior characteristics of humans from those animals from which they descended.

Much of this book is about anatomy, although he devotes a good deal of his elaboration to sexuality, and how individuals choose each other for reproduction.

But I was particularly struck by an almost passing comment on page 37 of my copy.  "Man in the rudest [it's not clear what Darwin meant by 'rudest'] state in which he now exists is the most dominant animal that has ever appeared on this earth.  He has spread more widely than any other highly organized form: and all others have yielded before him.  He manifestly owes this immense superiority to his intellectual faculties, to his social habits, WHICH LEAD HIM TO AID AND DEFEND HIS FELLOWS [emphasis mine], and to his corporeal structure [anatomical advantages]."  Other parts of this discussion, especially on my page 41, talk about functional anatomical advantages, particularly of the upper extremities and hands, in terms of killing prey to eat them, or even for self-defense.

We commonly use the word "Darwinian" as if it referenced an ongoing competition, or fight, among members of a species, or among humans, for dominance.  But it is Darwin himself who tells us that's not at all what he meant.  We just invented a meaning for Darwin's concept of evolution.  He very clearly understood that many kinds of animals have social structures and social needs, and he tells us clearly that an important advantage among humans, more than among other animals, he says, is their reflex to "aid and defend [their] fellows."

According to Darwin, anyone who thinks "the winner takes the spoils," or other ways of putting it, represents the superior value of human nature is wrong.  Combative, or perhaps even competitive (except competition for a mate*), humans are not the adaptive part of this great species, as Darwin considered it to be.  They are anomalies.  Their victories are their losses.

To come back to medicine, Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin developed the polio vaccine.  They sold the rights to it for $1, so everyone would have unrestricted access.  Alexander Fleming developed penicillin.  He gave the rights away for free, for the same reason Salk and Sabin charged $1.  Humans who divide, and take advantage, are not winners.  They're failures and losers.  Or so says Charles Darwin.  (There's been talk recently about one medication -- I don't remember what it is -- that costs $13 to make and is sold for $1300.)

Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged was a very intriguing book.  But it relied on the idea that some people are meant to lead, succeed, and conquer, and others are meant to toil at low levels (for the benefit of those "above" them).  It encouraged the idea that no one should complain about or criticize this class/caste system.  Modern-day capitalists rely on Rand as their permission to dominate and even mistreat those "below" them.  It's possible to say that Darwin had his way of understanding things, and Rand had hers.  But Darwin would not agree with her. 

*I heard on the radio yesterday a story about an Indian/South Asian woman who lived in this country, and wanted to marry an Indian/South Asian man.  So she advertised on applicable dating sites, and made very specifically clear what she required (tax returns, etc).  She got surprisingly very many responses, and didn't accept any of them.  No one was "good" enough.  But one response came from an Indian/South Asian man who lived in Switzerland, did computer work, was cruising around on these dating sites in his spare time (mostly, it seemed, out of boredom), and saw this frankly ridiculous set of requirements.  He responded to the woman, not with any of the documentation she demanded, but to ask her if this was a joke.  She responded to him that it was not.  They continued to communicate, he continued, in effect, to make fun of her, and they finally decided to meet, out of weird curiosity.  She had lived in the midwest, but had just gotten a job in NYC, and he agreed to come there to meet her, her having said she was available only to meet him at the airport, before her 2:00 "date" and her 4:00 "date."  He had no other reason to be in the US, and he told her he had no place to stay.  She eventually grudgingly said he could stay at the apartment she shared with others, and she continued looking for "Mr Right."  And he continued to make fun of her process.  These two eventually "found" each other, and they've been married for about 30 years, I think she said.  She said her favorite activity in the world is arguing with him, about anything, and she treasures his intellect.  So much for competing for a mate.  Or knowing what you're really looking for.  (I tell people all the time that if you ask anyone why they chose someone else for a spouse or a boy/girlfriend, they'll tell you something.  S/he is smart, has a good sense of humor, is caring, is good-looking, or something.  But they'll never tell you the real reason, because it's unconscious, and they don't know it.  In the case of this Indian/South Asian couple, she's very scrappy, which appealed to him for who knows what reason, and he gets the joke and has fun with it, thereby imposing rational boundaries on her quirkiness, which she presumably unconsciously realizes.  If everyone knew everything they have to know, the divorce rate in this country would not be 50%, and I'd be performing surgery, waiting tables, selling shoes, or cutting grass.)

Oh, Please.

Today was the day when the SCOTUS heard arguments, and asked questions about them, regarding whether or not Colorado can disqualify Trump from running for office.

The background is that a Judge Wallace in Colorado found Trump guilty of insurrection, but decided that the penalty for insurrection did not apply to the office of president.  But the Colorado Supreme Court overruled Judge Wallace, and said Trump was, in fact, disqualified.  Trump, of course, appealed the disqualification, and that's what today's SCOTUS hearing was about.

The basis for declaring Trump disqualified is the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, and in particular, Section 3.

I heard snippets on the radio, but it appears that someone thinks most of the Justices, including the ones appointed by Democrat presidents, will be disinclined to agree that Trump is disqualified.  And the seeming reasons are worth noting.

One reason, raised some time ago, is that the president of the US is not an "officer."  Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson resurrected that argument today.  Justice Jackson noted that some "offices" were specified, but the "office" of president was not.  Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution reads as follows: "No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, OR HOLD ANY OFFICE, CIVIL OR MILITARY, UNDER THE UNITED STATES OR UNDER ANY STATE [emphasis mine, but quoted directly], who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.  But Congress may by a vote of two thirds of each House, remove such disability."

Note the word "any."  I have never known nor heard of a candidate for anything who did not say he or she was running for "office."  Trump's website repeats the phrase "Donald J Trump for President 2024."  It sure sounds like Trump thinks he's running for office.

Someone, possibly also Justice Jackson, suggested that "offices" are occupied by people who were appointed, not by people who were elected.  It is entirely unclear how or why Justice Jackson invented this semantic and illogical suggestion.  Section 3 of the 14th Amendment specifies "offices" that are very clearly elected (Senator, Representative, etc), so the concept that electeds don't hold "office" was cut from whole cloth.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh said he thought it was unfair, or not right, to deprive the public of the chance to vote for their preferred candidate.  But we already have that limitation.  If someone wants to be president, but they're 27, and they were born in some country other than this one, they can't run, no matter how many people want to see them as president.  They'll eventually reach age 35, but they can still never run if they weren't born in this country.

Elena Kagan's concern had to do with the thought experiment problem of disqualifying a candidate because one state's judge said he was guilty.  (Not to mention that state's Supreme Court, which said he couldn't run.)  Section 3 of the 14th Amendment doesn't say that the guilty determination has to be federal, and it doesn't say how many states have to agree.  The fact is that although Trump was only convicted in Colorado, Maine agreed he should not be on the ballot.  Because he was disqualified by Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.  Imagine someone who is convicted of a crime, and incarcerated in some state.  Can the convict request to be set free in some other state, as long as s/he doesn't return to the state where s/he was convicted and sentenced?  What if the crime was related to sexual abuse?  Is the convict only required to register as a sex offender in the state where the conviction happened?  What about when you die?  Are you only dead in the state where you died?  I have no idea why Justice Kagan was tentative, but her concern didn't make any sense.

The far right wing Justices are going to conclude that Trump can run, and he can occupy the..."office"...of president, if he wins.  They'll conclude that because they're far right.  It's unclear why the Justices who are not far right are reluctant to conclude what Section 3 of the 14th Amendment says they have to conclude.  This country is irreparably broken if the Justices' concerns are for their safety if they agree to disqualify Trump.  And interestingly, Trump's appeal is not that he was not guilty of violating Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.  It's that he thinks he should be able to run anyway.  We can add this to the list of examples of Trump's disregard for the Constitution and its Amendments.  It's not a short list.

What the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania Got Wrong.

Pennsylvania had a decades old law barring the use of Medicaid funds to pay for abortions.  The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ruled yesterday that that law was of questionable validity (unconstitutional), because it discriminated against women.  In fact, the original law did not discriminate against women, because it provided for exceptions in cases of rape, incest, or if the pregnant female's health was in danger.  So, in circumstances where the female was at a disadvantage, and she was pregnant, she could use Medicaid benefits to get an abortion.

Frankly, I would venture to say, this being unknowable, that most abortions occur when the pregnancy did not result from rape or incest, and the female's health was not in danger.  Most abortions occur when the partners in a married couple, or boyfriend and girlfriend, or dating at a lower level, but who want to have sex, experience unwanted pregnancy that they tried to prevent, and they don't want a child.  They didn't from the start of that sexual encounter.  And there is no law that says people must reproduce, or how many times.  This is entirely personal, and no one else's business.

The basis of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's ruling was that a ban on abortion (using Medicaid to pay for it) disadvantages, or discriminates against, women, because it is only women who can become pregnant.  That's true, and anyone who has a problem with that fact can take it up with "god."  But unless the impregnated woman was too promiscuous, or unconscious, to know who fathered the pregnancy, an abortion affects two "people," and is commonly agreed to by both of them.  (The movie "Juno" contains a common example.)  If it's only decided by one (the pregnant woman), and the male never finds out there even was a pregnancy, and possibly would not want "his" fetus aborted, then it is the male who is discriminated against.  The flip side of that coin is a sexual encounter that results in a pregnancy about which the male is never informed (and didn't intend or want), and the male is made to take financial responsibility for a pregnancy about which he didn't know, and he didn't want, and which he had no reason to expect.

Females cannot get pregnant all by themselves (well, one allegedly did, sort of), and the decision to end a pregnancy should not be theirs alone.  We don't have a caste system in this country (not a formal and admitted one), and Medicaid is simply health insurance.  It's just that it's only available to people with little money.  But the fact that Medicaid is used to pay for health care should in no way determine what that health care is.  (If someone objects to using publicly pooled money -- taxes -- to pay for abortion, because that person objects to abortion, does he or she take the same approach to having Aetna pay for abortions, if that person has Aetna, and pays an insurance premium?  And anyway, how did this get to be that person's business?)  We have more than enough problems with American "health care" as it is without adding the further burden of shutting people out of actual required health care simply on the basis of what is their insurance.  And if we allow people to get abortions, and pay with Medicaid, if they got raped, or were victims of incest, or their health is in danger, but we claim they shouldn't be able to use Medicaid for abortions if they just want to have sex (which everyone does) and gets unwantedly pregnant, then we're not even consistent, and we're just making up our theory as we go along.

The exceptions to the proscription against using Medicaid for abortions in Pennsylvania, then, protect females from being discriminated against.  What's left is the potential problem of discrimination against males.  The best answer to this problem is that any abortion, or even any birth, should be approved by both parties.

Of separate note, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision was 3-2.  The former Democratic Chief Justice had died in October, 2022, and a Democrat won election for his seat, on the strength of a pro-choice position, with 53% of the vote, over an anti-abortion Republican.  So, the presumption is that decisions like these are so partisan as to be deflating.  It's not different from the SCOTUS, but it's a shame judges and Justices can't just pay attention to the law.  No one is interested in their personal opinions, especially if those personal opinions spring from their personal religious beliefs.

So, That's What "God" Wants. You Don't Know It If You Get Distracted By the NT.

Over 64k rape survivors became pregnant across 14 US states after Roe Vs Wade overturned, study finds | The Independent

This is one of two stories I came across today.  The other was on the radio.

So, "god" wants women who were raped (or 10 year old girls in Alabama who were raped) to get pregnant, and to be saddled with children they didn't want, maybe couldn't care for, and about whom they have very mixed feelings, to say the least.

Of course, if we focus on the "be fruitful, and multiply" bit, we might further assume that "god" wants females to be impregnated, whether or not they want to.  That is to say, "god" presumably wants females to be raped, unless they happen to be consenting.  But if they're not, then some male, or a group of them, get to make the decision for the female.

And if the female doesn't want to get pregnant, or not by the person who impregnated her, or will be harmed by a pregnancy, or is not in a position to provide adequately for a child, well, that's just not "god's" problem.

The other story was from...oh, also Alabama.  It was about Kenneth Smith, a guy who, with the aid of another guy, killed a pastor's wife, because the pastor paid them to kill her.  This was in 1988.  The pastor later killed himself.  Smith's confederate was executed by Alabama in 2010.  Smith was to be executed by lethal injection, but prison staff couldn't find a vein, after working on Smith for two hours.  So, Alabama, which I'm sure promotes itself as "pro-life" (at least when it comes to 10 year old girls who were raped and impregnated), had to figure out some other method.  Alabama Prepares to Carry Out the First Nitrogen Gas Execution (theintercept.com)

For some reason, they didn't shoot Smith, or hang him, or electrocute him.  They wanted something different.  So they settled on a method that had never been attempted before, and about which no one really knew anything.

"God" likes live babies, no matter how messy and unworkable the circumstances, and s/he likes dead adults.  The OT "god" was notorious for liking people killed.  The NT "god" is often imagined to be more loving and forgiving, but it is that "god's" followers who advocate more or less fiercely for as much misery, disadvantage, and death as they can engineer.  But as far as I know, the OT "god" and the NT "god," and the Qur'an "god," are all the same "god," so it's unclear why his or her moods were so different.  Maybe parenthood instilled a kinder disposition, but that "god's" followers seem to prefer misery.  If there was such a thing as "god," I'd ask what s/he really wants.

I've asked Orthodox Jewish people why they don't believe in Jesus as the messiah, since the NT is a scripture, just like the OT, but they say the OT was written by "god" (as if anyone could know that), and the NT was only written by people (decades after Jesus' reported death), so they disqualify the NT, and only have faith in the OT.  So, if there was such a thing as "god," and if the Jews were right about why the OT counts, and the NT doesn't, then we would have to assume that "god" is the angry and punitive one of the OT.  Even the alleged NT adherents seem more comfortable with a "god" who rages and harms than one who loves and forgives, so maybe, if there was such a thing as "god," that's what "god" is really like, and what "god" really wants.

I don't think I'm missing out on anything.  Smith was in fact executed today.  No court would reverse the sentence, and the governor of Alabama refused to commute his sentence, as she has refused to commute any death sentence (13 of them) that came her way.  I wonder if she's a NT adherent.  She sure sounds OT to me.

Recent Traffic Fatalities, or Don't You Just Love It When We Make National News?

 

Like any reasonable human being, I was shocked and saddened by the recent traffic fatalities on my street over the holiday weekend. In typical fashion, I was nose-down in a home maintenance project with my earbuds blasting rock'n'roll for motivation, so even though this was all happening three blocks away, I had no idea until my wife and child came home and gave me the news.

We still don't know everything that happened that day, and all of the factors that led up to the incident, but in typical Biscayne Park fashion, we will likely now demand some change to try and prevent it from happening again.  I recall about 16 years ago, I was one of the first people on the scene of that horrific accident where a child was dragged four blocks by a drunk driver and barely escaped with his life. I will never forget seeing the father's reaction when he first laid eyes on his bleeding/dying child. After this accident, we lowered the speed limit from 30 to 25 on most streets in the park, but as some people very astutely pointed out later, this accident was not caused by speed, but rather by a non-resident cutting through our village while drunk. And that leads me to the point of this post.

Certainly, there's going to be some demand for a reaction at the village government level to this incident.   Some may demand more police, a traffic light or two in the right places, perhaps even the approach that Miami shores took with barriers on certain parts of their border. It’s unlikely that any of those things would have prevented this accident, but something certainly would have helped – SPEED TABLES!  Police can’t be everywhere, all at once, all of the time, but strategically placed speed tables can work 24/7, including holidays.   And we don’t have to pay $10K for a traffic study to tell us where they’re needed – 8^th and 9^th Avenues, 119^th Street (the ONLY street that connects the furthest points in the village from East/West), and Griffing Boulevard.  (Not that the study wouldn’t yield other benefits, but this one is a no-brainer).

It is my sincere hope that our reaction is on point and effective, and not merely symbolic. I have lived here for 20 years, but I have lived in the area for most of my 50 years on this blue dot in space, and not speeding in Biscayne park was practically on the exam to get my driver’s license! It was just something that people in the area knew - you speed in our village, you will pay the price eventually. In recent years I have heard others acknowledge that this reputation is no longer applicable to the village, and that is probably true. Times have changed, the areas around us have grown more populated and new residents/generations continue to use our village as a cut through in order to avoid the intersection of West Dixie / 6^th Avenue / 125^th Street.  And I can’t blame them.

I’m aware that only a handful of people will see this post, so I intend to read it aloud at the next commission meeting, and hopefully spur the conversations around strategically placed speed tables in our village.

Maybe It Would Help to Take a Deep Breath First.

We could start in more recent years and decades.  It was when Ronald Reagan was running against incumbent Jimmy Carter.  Reagan did something unexpected, and possibly even shocking, during one of the debates.  Carter was saying something, and Reagan replied "there you go again."  He made this unbelievably wiseass wisecrack to the president of the United States.  But the public weren't turned off by it.  Reagan bought himself some support for having the nerve to make a wiseass wisecrack like that, to the sitting president.

Over three years ago, Joe Biden, in a debate with the sitting president, called Trump a "clown," twice, and asked "why don't you shut up," once.  Biden, too, bought himself support for being confrontational, and not submissive, that way.  It wouldn't be possible to calculate the effect, but both Reagan and Biden won their elections.

If we go back much further, and consider a fable, there's the public who fawned over the emperor's new clothes, and the boy who pointed out the emperor wasn't wearing any clothes.  In that fable, the rest of the public then felt empowered to admit the emperor was naked, and they laughed at him.  They were freed to laugh at the emperor.  Because a young boy commented on reality.

Tonight, yet again, the Republican presidential hopefuls are having a debate.  And again, Donnie Trump won't be there.  Instead, Fox News is hosting one of his solo "town hall" affairs.  They're afraid of Trump.  Most Republicans are afraid of Trump.  They're afraid of him because they know he has enough of a base to displace them from office, as his Wyoming base did to Liz Cheney.  Trump's base are out of their minds.  They have no idea what the issues are, or what they're doing.  They allowed themselves to forget that Liz Cheney is a rock solid, relatively far right, Republican, and just because of one vote she made, to acknowledge that Trump did something criminal enough to deserve impeachment, they turned on her, and they turned from her.

Carter had done some significantly good and right things.  I didn't vote for him when he ran the first time, but I did the second time.  "There you go again" isn't substantive.  It has no meaning.  It's just a wiseass wisecrack, and it was intended to suggest that no one intimidated Ronald Reagan.

Trump is without question a clown, an inveterate liar, and he's totally (that's 100%, not 99.8%) self-focused.  And he should shut up.  If he's not candidate enough, or man enough, to debate his opponents, then he's answered the question Republicans should be asking.

He shouldn't have the sycophants at Fox News running interference for him, or praising him for his new and magnificent outfit, when he isn't wearing anything.

The majority of voters understood what was wrong with Trump in 2016, and they voted for Clinton.  A larger majority of voters had an even clearer understanding of what was wrong with Trump in 2020, and they voted for Biden.  Perhaps in part because Biden helped them have confidence in what they then knew for a fact, having lived it for four years, when Biden called Trump a clown and told him to shut up.  It's unfortunate that political discourse gets to be that degree of schoolyard, but reality has to be acknowledged.  Unless you're afraid of assumed or imagined consequences, and you play along, and praise the emperor for his magnificent new outfit.

Fox News, and other media, are primarily interested in making money, so they have viewers and advertisers to worry about pleasing, and they haven't all taken a deep breath, and acknowledged reality.  They're further intimidated because such a massive majority of people who fill out surveys of which Republican candidate they want to be president name Trump.  Frankly, I think in the real world (country) of real people, Trump will take a shellacking, if he gets far enough to face Biden.  Biden's got issues, but none like Trump's.

Increasing numbers of right wing pundits have formally or informally fallen away from Trump.  Trump's rallies and other events draw pathetically small "crowds" now.

One thing I very commonly tell people is that it is the job of children, from as soon as they're old enough to start doing their job, to become capable and independent, including independent of their parents.  It is the job of parents to permit, or even encourage, their children to become capable and independent, including independent of them.  I tell them that if they have no other way of thinking about that, they should realize that their offspring are more or less guaranteed to outlive the parents.  If the offspring are not capable and independent, including independent of the parents, when the parents die of old age, and the offspring are in their 40s, 50s, 60s, or maybe even 70s, the offspring are in very deep trouble.

Trump has kept this charade going so far by inventing the idea that he earned more votes than Clinton or Biden, and that the second election was stolen from him.  And the children who are his supporters have clung to that as a basis for continuing to support him.  What are they going to do when this 77 year old man who doesn't exercise, and eats junk food, is gone?