The Emperor's "No" Clothes

“I know more about the big bills. … Than any president that’s ever been in office. Whether it’s health care and taxes. Especially taxes. And if I didn’t, I couldn’t have persuaded a hundred. … You ask Mark Meadows [inaudible]. … I couldn’t have persuaded a hundred congressmen to go along with the bill. The first bill, you know, that was ultimately, shockingly rejected ... I know the details of taxes better than anybody. Better than the greatest C.P.A. I know the details of health care better than most, better than most. And if I didn’t, I couldn’t have talked all these people into doing ultimately only to be rejected.”

This long and winding road to nowhere is directly quoted from Trump’s recent unplanned NYT interview which embarrassed most White House personnel, probably including the maintenance staff. Trump rambles along in monstrous self-aggrandizement, sounding like what he is – that being the Emperor who is yet unaware of the fact that he’s naked.

In psychology, there’s an idea known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. It refers to research by David Dunning and Justin Kruger that found the least competent people often believe they are the most competent because they “lack the very expertise needed to recognize how badly they’re doing.” This dynamic helps explain comments like the one Trump makes here. 

Suggested New Year's Resolutions for Others.

         Proposed new year’s resolutions for others, since I’m just fine as I am (right!)

   1.   Stop using the words “crazy” and “insane” to describe thing which would better be described as simply “unusual,” “new,” or just “different.”

This is especially annoying when it shows up on those goddam “sidebar ads” as is “Crazy new …(whatever) ” takes 20 years off (insert your town here) woman’s face” Closely related to this is the use of the word “trick” or “hack” to describe the subject.

   2.   What the hell does “Hella” mean? I know the answer, but it’s still really annoying. Just stop it. This especially means you, Buzzfeed.  If an individual is a “Hell of a cook” just say so. Was using the word “of” so onerous that it just screamed for a Duck Dynasty sounding, semi-literate contraction? And Buzzfeed, while you’re regaining some sense of language, cut back about 97 per cent on the use of “as F**k” when applying superlatives.

   3.    Resolved: for 2018 and for eternity, for that matter, anything any person named Jenner or Kardashian does is simply irrelevant to the lives of real people. While you’re at it toss in Kanye West and Rush Limbaugh, too.

   4.    White House staffers get a one time dispensation for breaking the current Occupant’s thumbs in the interest of cleaning up the Twittersphere.

   5.    For 2018, and beyond, only facts are “facts.” They aren’t subjectively “inventable,” and no individual, no matter how highly placed in the hierarchy of mankind, is entitled to his or her own facts, just their own opinions.

    6.   As a nation, let’s all agree that, while veterans are to be commended for serving and thanked for their service, that in no conceivable way makes their opinions any more valid than anyone else’s. The fact that someone was in the military confers absolutely no cachet of foreign policy or science expertise.  Citing someone as “a vet” when recounting his tale of alien rectal probes at Area 51 makes you both seem bat shit crazy.

   7.   In the coming year, let’s be frank about the Religious Right, which is neither truly “religious” or “right”, as in correct. The mean-spirited belittling of those among us with social, emotional and physical differences by the afore mentioned Pharisees cripples our society and weakens our standing among the nations of the world. What is so troubling about this is that while these morons have strayed away from their putative leader’s (Jesus) precepts, they have become more like the radical Islamists they profess to detest. 

Just Another Sugar Whore

Story of a Sugar Whore

         Sooo......Marco Rubio, after voting for the Trump tax plan has had a belated attack of "conscience" ( this is probably an unwarranted assertion) regarding its favoritism of corporations? How odd it is that Florida's poster boy for "bend over and spread for Big Sugar" even pretends to really care about this issue.

         There just isn't, and cannot be, a rational or  economically valid defense of the sugar subsidy program, rabidly advocated by Rubio, which every year provides sweetheart deal loans to sugar processors at a guaranteed price-per-pound. If the market price is below the guarantee when they want to sell, the processors simply dump the crop on the U.S. Department of Agriculture as the loan repayment. To avoid that outcome, the USDA holds sugar prices artificially high by imposing tariffs on imports above an annual quota. As a result, as previously discussed, we Americans pay about twice what the rest of the world pays for sugar.

        The Coalition for Sugar Reform, which includes businesses that use sugar, says that for every U.S. sugar-growing job saved from high U.S. sugar prices, about three American manufacturing jobs are lost! You might want to read that again.  The U.S. candy industry has been hollowed out as companies have fled to places like Guatemala and Thailand where they can remain competitive by buying sugar at world-market prices.

Marco Rubio, on the other hand (the one that isn’t held out to take the donations from various “Big Sugar donors, most notably the Fanjul clan) explains his support with the last bankrupt refuge of protectionist scoundrels—"national security." Yep, we might have a "sugar gap" and then God only know what those sugar countries might do!  If the U.S. opens the market for sugar, according to Marco Rubio, “other countries will capture the market share, our agricultural capacity will be developed into real estate,” and “then we lose the capacity to produce our own food, at which point we’re at the mercy of a foreign country for food security.”

        Really, Senator?  And this man has a college degree? So, let's see; taking this to its logical conclusion....... If Americans don’t pay double the world price for sugar, Alfy and Pepe Fanjul (Alfy, by the way, actually a Spanish citizen) will sell their sugar acreage to home builders, who will pave over Florida and put us at risk of extortion from . . . Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic?  This national security line doesn’t even hold up for rare-earth minerals from China used for national defense, much less a basic farm commodity. This, of course, also fails as a reason, since Florida will own the land and the Fanjuls can go back to Cuba and be the Cuban sugar kings again.

       Since 2010, as before, we will continue to sit watching helplessly as nitrate rich crud from various sources, not the least of which is sugar fertilizer regurgitated back into Okeechobee, continues puking its way into the St Lucie Canal, the Kissimmee watershed remains a narrow, straight channel, and the River of Grass continues thirsty and under watered with clean water. Lake pollution continues threatening the South Florida water supply and who gives a shit?

 Apparently, it’s not the Senator or the Governor who is supposed to represent their interests.  Florida voters went to the polls in the 1990’s and agreed that Big Sugar must be held primarily responsible for cleaning up its pollution. It just hasn’t happened. Voters went to the polls in 2014 to pass a constitutional amendment — approved by more than 75 percent of Floridians — to buy environmentally important lands like those owned by US Sugar and the Fanjuls. it likewise, hasn’t happened.

       How odd would it be if finally the bitching of rich folks about the thick, green pus in the canal where their 60 footer is moored causes someone to do something re: big sugar other than put a hand out, drop trou and say "Thank you sir, may I have another?"  It would be even sweeter to see the voters of Florida reject both Rubio and morally bankrupt co-conspirator, Rick Scott. 

He Shoulda Slud!

He shoulda slud!

       The origin of the above semi intelligible phrase, as well as far too many others is the world of sport. It is actually a comment made by the late Dizzy Dean, Baseball Hall of Famer, turned broadcast “color man,” referring to what action a baserunner attempting to steal second base should have done. Dean is a good place to start because he was always good for a bad example. Perhaps it can be traced back to an incident which happened while Dean was still pitching (and winning) for the Saint Louis Cardinals. He had reached first base and when the next batter hit an infield ground ball, he ran to second base (and not sliding) trying to “break up” the double play. The throw from the infielder hit Ol’ Diz in the forehead, and he dropped to the ground. The trainer had to go out with a stretcher and as Diz was being carried off the field, his younger brother, Paul, sometimes called “Daffy,” was at his side. Following the game, a reporter asked Paul if his brother had been conscious while being carried off. Paul answered that he had been talking the whole time. When asked what he was saying, Paul responded “Nothin’, he was just talkin’”. Unfortunately, this is far from unrepresentative of both oral and written reportage from this area.

       I don’t know for sure, but it almost seems that the lowest of the low hanging fruit from Journalism/English lit classes gravitate to the world of sports reporting. Before I offend anyone, there are and have been, to be sure, some glaring and shining stars in the field. The late Grantland Rice, Rick Reilly, Bryant Gumbel, David Halberstam, and Michael Wilbon were, or are still, very good at what they do. In like fashion, conservative pundit George Will has written several brilliant baseball books. 

       Excepting the true literati of the genre, and at the local newspaper and TV level, as well as in the “color man” seat, this rapidly disintegrates into drivel and mangled syntax. What tripped my trigger this morning was a headline in the local rag which was actually an AP newsfeed. It was, I realized, so far removed from intelligible commentary that many would have no clue what was being reported in the body of the article based on the following: “Cowboys lasso Hokies!”

       Now of course, sports savant that I claim to be, I instantly knew that, far from being a rodeo article, the headline was attempting to convey that Oklahoma State University had defeated Virginia Tech in a football game.

      “Lassos?... Really?” I then realized that we have been reading similar words for “beat, defeat or win” for ages. They include, “edge, squeak, nip.” “Slaughter” is of course a perennial favorite, as are “massacre and annihilate.” Australians sometimes use “stoush” (sufficiently macho for some Australians to label World War One as the Big Stoush). We also see general war references such as “blast, blitz and blown away.” And if your team played badly, it was all a “shambles”, another word that refers to butchery, since before it became generally used as a synonym for mess, it originally meant an abattoir.

       More examples are from terms which otherwise are used to mean "hit". “Banjax, banjo, cane, clobber, knock out, thrash, lam, lash, lick, scupper, smear, thump, tonk, wallop, whomp and whop and whup.” From the domestic chore side, we mustn’t forget metaphors such as “clean out or clean up, roast, stuff, straighten, mop up, chew up, have for breakfast, take to the cleaners and wipe the floor with.” Workshop examples add “flatten, crush, mallet, nail, hammer, thump, shellac, screw and shaft.” This is by no means a comprehensive list.

       Equally annoying are the metaphors for the strategies and results of same which have crept into the jargon of sport. Examples include: “Win some lose some.” Really, no shit? Unless you’re the 1972 Miami Dolphins, that pretty much sums up the entire NFL experience, now doesn’t it?

       “Fumble the ball” is just one of a slew of gratuitous and unnecessary “add-ons” which the color men use. Of course, it was the ball, what else was he carrying?

       A subset of these are the really, really, stupid statements made in the booth and unfortunately not on tape delay. Here are several of the worst, some from the booth, some in response to questions from the booth:

      Joe Theismann, ESPN Announcer and Former NFL Quarterback: "Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein." (and his brother Albert is even smarter!)

       Lee Corso, College Football Analyst: "Hawaii doesn't win many games in the United States." So where do they play, Coach, – China?

       Alan Minter, Boxer: “Sure there have been injuries and deaths in boxing—but none of them serious.” I always considered death as serious, if not fatal.

       Jason Kidd, NBA Basketball Player: "We're going to turn this team around 360 degrees." So, basically that would be a full circle and you would be back to where you started?

       Leon Wood, Basketball Player to Announcer Steve Albert: "Are you any relation to your brother Marv?" There are no words for this stupid.

       Greg Norman, golfer: “I owe a lot to my parents, especially my mother and father.” Who better?

       Charles Shackleford, NBA player: “I can go right, I can go left, I’m amphibious.” Wow! And he can do it under water!

       Bob Varsha, Formula One commentator: “The drivers have one foot on the brake, one on the clutch and one on the throttle.” Now that I’d like to see. He could probably win the three-legged race at the company picnic by himself, too.

       Brian Kerr, Irish football (Soccer) analyst on David Beckham: “In his interviews, [David] Beckham manages to sit on the fence very well and keeps both ears on the ground.” I’ve seen the man, great looking, guy, but with normal ears!

      NBA analyst (and apparent Nobel Laureate mathematician) Doug Collins: “Anytime Detroit scores more than 100 points and holds the other team below 100 points, they almost always win.” So, what has to happen for them to lose?

      And finally, from former MLB player, Carl Everett: “God created the sun, the stars, the heavens and the earth, and made Adam and Eve. The Bible never says anything about dinosaurs. You can’t say there were dinosaurs when you never saw them. Someone actually saw Adam and Eve. No one ever saw a Tyrannosaurus Rex.” It makes my head hurt trying to grasp the sheer stupidity implicit in the statement.

       Finally, there are the statements full of words, yet signifying nothing because they are so cliché that they’ve lost real significance. These are frequently captured by the sideline reporter who has just asked a truly dumb question right after a game.

       “I couldn’t have done it without the Lord above/God/ my faith in Jesus (pick one) because I’m just one man/one player/one component in a team game/concept.” Ever notice that losers seldom, if ever, say anything about God or Jesus after a loss? Is losing strictly a secular endeavor? Doesn’t the Heavenly Father also interfere when you throw interceptions?

       “We just need to make some plays/play at our tempo/go out there and execute/get better.” Yes? And…. would you care to be specific on how you plan to do that, Captain Obvious?

       “At the end of the day” ……” it is what it is.” Well…. yeah, I suppose it is. Or maybe it is what it isn’t, or it is what it once was, but is no more. Who really knows?

       “He’s good at making plays (or moves, or throws) in space.” I think I saw this one with Sigourney Weaver, right?

       "Play Michigan football/Villanova basketball/ The Oriole Way/The Patriot Way" (etc., ad nauseum” Just once wouldn’t you love to see the Chicago Bear’s Coach (currently winless) tell the sideline pest that “we need to get off this losing bullshit and play football the Patriots’ way?”


       This is just a sampling of such tripe, I hope “I played within myself, kept my game, and brought to the table” and, at the end of the day, wrote something which made you smile.

Gun control

This resulted from a post in today’s Villages Daily Sun. What follows is my (limited to 300 words) response. I will then append a bit more

“A recent letter attempted to deflect attention from the real issues of the “gun control” debate. The writer maintained that “An NRA instructor neutralized the shooter with a gun.”  The sentence immediately following begins with “Democrats……. spewed nonsense without knowing the details.” This isn’t a partisan issue. The details are: First, the shooter was discharged under behavioral and mental conditions which required the Air Force to notify federal and local law enforcement, which it failed to do. Second, Texas has no law requiring firearms dealers to initiate background checks prior to transferring a firearm if the buyer is licensed to carry or even a felon if five years gave elapsed since conviction. There is federal law, but not state law. Private sellers have no obligation to perform checks. Third, the weapon was an assault rifle which, off the shelf, can   hold up to 30 rounds of ammunition. 91 percent of Democrats, along with 76 percent of independents and 70 percent of Republicans, said they are for banning such assault-style weapons. Finally, the shooter was actually “neutralized” when he shot himself in the head.

       There is no real argument re: background checks. There is bipartisan agreement on the issue.  90 percent of Democrat and 81 percent of Republican gun owners support of mandatory federal data base background checks. Additionally, 72 percent of NRA members support them. The writer is in a small minority even within her own organization!

  

      In a final burst of whimsy, the writer styles herself and other gun owners as the “sheepdogs” protecting the rest of us from “the wolves.” No thank you, ma’am. As a 26-year, military retired, handgun certified, E-9 who wouldn’t have one in the house, don’t help me. It‘s the armed self-styled  “sheepdogs” who, in recent years, have shot fathers in front of their children in movie houses, threatened another’s dog in The Villages at a dog park, shot teenagers over loud car radios or  stalked and shot them in their apartment complexes,  and that’s just  in Florida.”

        There;  300 words on the nose!   Now for the “rest of the story” as the late Paul Harvey (yet another right-wing sycophant) used to say.

        The Texas shooter had a list of abuse and mental issues which were frightening, including fracturing his infant son’s skull while still on active duty. The Air Force, doing what the services generally do, gave him a military court martial with some less than vigorous punishment and then shoved him out and onto the laps of local law enforcement, except they forgot to tell local and federal authorities that they were saddling them with a violent abusive offender with serious mental status issues.

       Texas “allows” for voluntary background checks at point of sale of firearms, but has no state law requiring it. I cannot wrap my head around such a concept. If the prospective buyer lies on the local form, as the TX shooter, (intentionally not using his name) did, tough, who are you gonna check with anyway? Any claim to responsible gun sales in Texas is specious at best.  

        The other issues which ring increasingly hollow as we read of accidental shootings of innocents by well intentioned, but mistaken, gun owners are that much of the NRA argument (not over background checks as the statistics show, but from on high in the organization’s  leadership) is really two-fold. The first, more common among rank and file is the assumption that “We morally superior people are responsible and should have guns because of that superiority.”

 Naturally,  this assumption of the moral high ground is human nature. Our nation has nuclear weapons, but we lose our minds over that thought that another country which we don’t like might also develop them. Why? Well, because  we are a moral people (just ask us) who would never use such destructive force unless it was justified (insert: “in our national interest” here) but “they”…..?  In like fashion, the afore mentioned writer essentially brags about this fact on behalf of herself and her husband. Of course, the inference is that they are incapable of making fatal mistakes or losing their temper and shooting someone in the heat of the moment. When a gun is present in a situation of domestic violence, it increases the risk the woman will be killed fivefold.

Sadly, unlike the military or uniformed civilian services who are armed and trained by law, these persons never receive any meaningful training or definitive instruction in the use of deadly force and when it is authorized. This was a key part of watch stander training, even on submarines, where such a threat is relatively low. Here, in The Villages, there has been at least one verified instance of a handgun brandished at a dog park. A friend also reported a woman in her eighties with her handgun loaded on the seat of the golf cart beside her when going to get the mail at the lighted post office box kiosk. Ageism aside, who the hell knows what she might construe as a threat and who or what might get shot? Similarly, a retired policeman in Wesley Chapel shot a man to death in a movie theater as his wife and child watched. The victim was unarmed save for a bag of popcorn.

The other issue is the question of where the money comes from. While it is true that major corporations within the industry donate a lot (hundreds of millions over the years) this money cannot by law be used for the NRA’s Political Action Committee. That said, it can be used for the sort of propaganda which spurs private donations, by pandering to the scare tactic motivation that “freedoms” are in danger. The actual nature of such concerns is shadowy and irrelevant to the majority of NRA members, yet they donate. A call for assault rifle bans is morphed by the NRA spin machine as an agenda to take all guns, which no significant public figure has even suggested. Similarly, a call for mandatory federal criminal data base checks prior to allowing a purchaser to take possession of a gun is decried as some shadowy plot to “keep tabs” on the citizenry. Here’s your wake up call – “they” can already do that if desired, but having such checks mandated by every state might stop any number of mass shooters from accumulating the wherewithal to commit their crimes.

So what to do? According to a study by the Department of Justice, between 1994 and 2014, federal, state, and local agencies conducted background checks on more than 180 million firearm applications and denied 2.82 million gun sales to prohibited purchasers. To date, the background check system has blocked over 3 million firearm sales to prohibited purchasers… but not in Texas. Additionally, these checks are waived for gun “shows,” which translates as unregulated sales to God knows who for God knows what usage. As long as states can under -regulate firearms sales, the carnage can continue.

On a strictly personal note, The concept of doctor patient privilege serves a real purpose, however, when such confidentiality   endangers the rest of the population, I feel there should be a standard of the common good which allows a therapist or other mental health care professional to alert law enforcement in an attempt to remove the possibility that said unbalanced individual may obtain a weapon or weapons which threatens the welfare of innocents. Events in Colorado, Texas, Charleston and Virginia Tech might have been significantly altered if such a provision was in place.

No legitimate hunter, or target shooter’s access to weapons appropriately obtained, is, or has ever been, at risk or under threat, except in the fever dreams of the NRA hierarchy, which plays its members like a Stradivarius, Sadly, handguns are a different story, as they are involved more frequently in a spectrum of shootings, accidental , intentional and suicidal. The perpetrators and victims of accidental and negligent handgun discharges may be of any age. Accidental injuries are most common in homes where guns are kept for self-defense, and are self-inflicted in half of the cases. (So much for handgun safety training?)  Firearms are the most popular method of suicide due to the lethality of the weapon. 90% of all suicides attempted using a firearm result in a fatality, as opposed to less than 3% of suicide attempts involving cutting or drug-use.  The risk of someone attempting suicide is about five times greater if they are exposed to a firearm on a regular basis.  

Simply as a statistic worthy of note, The number of gun murders per capita in the US in 2012 - the most recent year for comparable statistics - was nearly 30 times that in the UK, at 2.9 per 100,000 compared with just 0.1 per thousand in the UK. If guns stopped crime, this would be of no matter, but they don’t. Weapons which the owners classify, usually loudly and proudly as for self-defense, rarely ever serve that purpose, and frequently involve the owner themselves getting shot. 

Sports Thoughts

Sometimes sports figures, even those with higher education who ought to know better, say things for public consumption which make one pause and say, “Huh?”  

Florida’s head basketball coach summed it all up this way in a recent media tidbit. “We aren’t very good on defense, we aren’t rebounding well, and we aren’t scoring.” in justifying his team’s recent loss string of three games in a row. Really, oh savant? Thanks for straightening that out for all of us who read the sports page and understand absolutely nothing about basketball.

Why is it that an American professional baseball player can be from almost anywhere in the country, have a good mind and yet when interviewed what we get is “I think I can he’p this ball club; it’s a good ball club, and I think I can he’p it!” All this, of course, drawled in a trashy mush mouth accent reminiscent of the love child of an Alabama sharecropper and Randy Macho Man Savage, even if the interviewee is from Minnesota. These guys then, off camera, revert to standard English. This a generalization, I admit, but far too common to reflect geographical distribution alone. I think it’s a side effect of pine tar, which may explain why American League pitchers seem less affected.

In much the same fashion, every person involved with the sport of football seems unable to just say “ball” or “team” or “game.” This is especially true of the ‘color guys” in the booth, who seem obligated to remind us every time the use of the word “game” is appropriate, that what we’ve been watching for the last 90 minutes has been a “football game.”  Or when the Quarterback is sacked, and a fumble occurred, we’re reminded that he didn’t protect the “foot” ball, as if we might assume he was protecting other ball(s?) Then of course we’re reminded that what we’re watching is a football game, as if we might think it was a tennis match gone strangely awry. As noted before, baseball players can apparently remember that the “ball” club they play for is a baseball team, but footballers seem determined to remind us that it’s a “good ‘football’ team”, so we don’t think it’s roller derby or something else other than football.

New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, after receiving a one game suspension for the mother of all cheap shots, “justified” it thus in his apology, “It was frustration and that’s what happened.”  The hit was blatant, late, deliberate and avoidable had Gronkowski even thought of not doing it. What has been very little mentioned in all this is that Gronkowski plays for the same team as the late Darryl Stingly, whose neck and career were shattered by a late hit. Jack Tatum’s hit on Stingley was, believe it or not, far less blatant than the lick Gronk laid on Tre’Davious White. One can almost see a domestic violence perpetrator telling the judge that, “Well, it was just frustration and that’s what happened, your honor.”

The Faux Hat

Ok, Ok, I guess I'd better get these little irritations and natterings off my chest as they come up, otherwise I'll probably just break out in terminal hives.

        I don't even remember who it was, but I finally saw one too many faux cowboys with the  mandatory straw hat singing with that nasal twang about how his best friend stole his dog, had sex with his truck, and took the tires off his wife (or something like that).

        Wearing "the hat" if you're actually baling hay in the sun or rounding up cattle makes sense. Wearing it to a dinner dance while dressed in a tux is simply grotesque and screams "poseur!"
       
        Not talking Woody Guthrie or Jimmy Rodgers, or Carter family  here, (real country folk with legit roots who lived the life) but rather calling out the degree holding, non-farm working (ever),  dudes who want the unwashed to think they're "good ole boys." Who, you ask, fits this category? Here are some names of frat boy college grads who "took up the hat", apparently to augment their skills. Jason Aldean, Tim McGraw (PKE  UL Monroe), Garth Brooks( BA Advertising), Brad Paisley (BA  Business admin), Kenny Chesney (BA advertising , LCA frat).

          The notable exception in the above  is Garth Brooks, who has legit vocal chops, can sing without the whiny nasal shit kicker twang, and has sold more certified platinum solo artist albums than any other American male singer, including one, a respectable rock effort,  in his alter ego as Chris Gaines. Of course the 29X platinum country- rock (minus the twang/straw hats) Eagles Greatest Hits, album eclipses any two Brooks albums in sales.

         This is, I freely admit,  an acquired distaste on my part for the  vast majority of country music, since I was raised in western Maryland in Hagerstown, a town right across the Potomac River from West, by God, Virginia,  where there were two radio stations, one of which played what we then called "hillbilly" music, the other which played the most bland mix of syrupy pap available, and neither of which was about to play rock and roll in the later 1950s. Like the BBC until, believe it or not, 1964 ,  many US mainstream stations cared not a fig for what the listening public wanted  to hear, choosing instead to air what they thought listeners "should" like and, would grow to like if it was all that was available. (this was actually stated as policy by BBC bigwigs!)  This phenomenon continued in the UK to the extent that many BBC listeners were forced to change to Radio Luxembourg ("Pirate" Rock and Roll radio from ships) to hear  "the New Music" which American kids were gradually being allowed to hear on prime time local radio.

        WARK,  aka the  "hillbilly" station (AM/FM in a time when few listened to FM anyway,  shamelessly broadcast the twangy, nasal, crap most of the day, with an occasional listenable flare of Patsy Cline, who today would be Adele, or Eddy Arnold, who had a likeable enough, plain vanilla, baritone.  But at night, I discovered, like so many teenagers trapped in similar situations did,  the phenomenon  known as ionospheric bounce. It was life changing.

         For the uninformed (or younger, lol)  FM radio transmission range is roughly "line of sight", like TV and, like TV, have about the same range. At night, they don't change much, but shorter (lower frequency) AM radio waves undergo skywave bounce under most nighttime atmospheric conditions and can extend far beyond the transmitter's usual range.

       For a youngster hungry for better listening fare in a sea of shit kicker and schlock, this meant that some pioneering Rock stations like WLAC in Nashville and WKBW in Buffalo, both 50,000 watters, were actually listenable at night. So, Listening to "John R & the Hoss Man" in Nashville I was introduced to Rhythm and Blues of a sort which would have occasioned cross burnings in Hagerstown, Md. Tom Shannon on WKBW in Buffalo played early White artist efforts. Had I known of its existence I could also have heard Alan Freed's  WJM (Cleveland, OH)  "Moondog Rock 'n Roll House Party" It was Freed who began calling "Rythm and Blues," which carried the race connotation,  "Rock and Roll."

        My parents, both trained musicians, may not have cared for the genre, but they, bless their hearts, appreciated that there were different styles and tastes and,  never once even attempted to negatively influence my choices.  Although the first record I actually bought myself (45 rpm) was Rosemary Clooney's (you remember, George's aunt?) "C'mon a My House," a decidedly  bland mainstream disc, the second was "Earth Angel" by the Penguins, a Black R & B quartet, heard late at night from Buffalo.

         Meanwhile, in Nashville, late night jocks, John Richbourg ("John R") and Bill  "The Hossman," Allen, apparently  left to their own devices to sell  late night airtime, sold some to "race record labels" and Gene Nobles, another WLAC jock, began playing records brought to him by black students hungry to hear dance music they liked on the radio. This was a time when most Black owned or focused labels/artists did a lot of business via mail order because mainstream record stores simply didn't (or wouldn't) carry them. James Brown was quoted as saying "WLAC was all we ever listened to."

        To the young kid listening to late night radio in bed it was an introduction to music which wouldn't be played locally on air for another 4 or 5 years. Ruth Brown, Faye Adams, and others were a revelation, but it was Little Richard, whose "Tutti Frutti" was riveting to me. The lyrics were nonsense, but the beat was inescapably catching. That was followed up by "Long Tall Sally" which I actually bought. (Interestingly enough I would eventually own covers of both by Elvis Presley, a White singer who didn't sound like it.)  At the same time Ray Charles, Bo Diddley and Fats Domino were forcing their way into the airwaves.

        By 1956,  White crossovers were penetrating and making the R & B category somewhat  more homogenous with market penetrations by  Elvis, and Carl Perkins, while Chuck Berry's reworking  of a song called "Ida Red" into "Maybelline" rose off the R&B charts into the white dominated Pop charts. In the UK, the only way anyone could hear any these was the aforementioned Radio Luxembourg pirate broadcasts or the increasing number  of  records smuggled by travelers.

        The common thread in all this music was authenticity, which I find lacking to a shameless degree in much of what is currently called "Country" music.  Flatt and Scruggs played country music, The Carter family and Hank Williams did country. While there are some genuine talents in the field, many of these artists are seemingly at their best when they do more mainstream pop.  Carrie Underwood would be a star in any genre and Taylor Swift has landed far, far from her original style, while singers like Darius Rucker, whose monotone drone made Hootie and the Blowfish so execrable and forgettable, has gone to country to maintain a career. On  a final bright note, genius picker Vince Gill, he of the great six string  skills and nice tenor voice  (and never, never with the faux cowboy hat) has crossed into the light with The Eagles.

        If you have read this far and disagree, I don't care. This was an opinion piece with a history lesson in the middle.

              

  

Someone's Gettin' Screwed.

        So, Emily had an all morning rehearsal and has another tonight, so we went to Sonny's for a late lunch. My digestion was considerably impacted by the fact that while behind the bar,  as usual, one of the wide screens was showing the Faux News channel (already bad enough!), far more disturbing was the content on the other  which was airing the "Superchannel."  For the uninformed or, mercifully, unexposed the Superchannel airs some extremely grotesque religious programming (isn't that a redundancy) and what to my wondering eyes should appear but our (and Bubba's) old friend, Jim Bakker. Since his clown passed, he has surrounded himself with various other sycophants of  a similar bent, although without the 4 inch fake lashes.  

        Ol' Jim was selling something which was hard to actually evaluate from where we sat. which was out of hearing, but the scrolling script billed it as "1345 meals for $670 dollars." Bakker pled earnestly, hyping the free shipping  and periodically cutting away to a shot of stacks of canned goods containing something or other. Godly groceries? Who knows? The scroll did contain an endorsement, allegedly from a satisfied customer, extolling the savor of the Beef Stroganoff (canned, of course).

        I was torn between disgust and curiosity as to the possible end objective (other than fleecing the suckers) of the spiel which accompanied this 5 or 6 minute sales pitch. One has to wonder what Bakker intends  to build with the profits. I  can almost envision the  good works possible at the Bankok Christian Hooker Revitalization  Intervention Shelter Temple ("Bankok CHRIST")  center, where I'm sure Jim will periodically do some intensive one on one counseling? Now for the tacky close:

       Bakker is billed on screen as "Pastor Bakker."  The word "pastor" derives from the Latin noun "pastor" which means "shepherd" and relates to the Latin verb pascere – "to lead to pasture, set to grazing, cause to eat." As we know modern shamans have hijacked it as alternative to Priest, which is apparently too Catholic?  The symbolism being conveyed is that of the moral shepherd, leading his human flock. On the other hand, when I see this fraudulent felon, rehabilitated only in the eyes of the ignorant, and think of him with a "flock," I only see a sheep needing a rape kit. 

Another Example of Stossel Stupidity

        

          In another installment what has become a seemingly endless string of poorly researched and written op-ed pieces, John Stossel joins his frequent cohabitant of the local paper's op-ed page, the equally clueless Michelle Malkin, in pandering to the consumers of lies and half truths on the Far Right.

       Today's screed purports to be a celebration of "private property," which seems right in Stossel's usual wheelhouse, but then he goes completely off the rails by stating almost categorically that Bernie Sanders supports collective farming. One of Sander's difficulties in reaching the American electorate, that is, of course, in addition to his apparent inability to use an "inside voice," vice shouting every single sentence, lies in the tag "Socialism" which has been gleefully applied by the Far Right. In truth, he has provided the glue to affix that label by using the term " Democratic Socialism" to describe his beliefs.

       To many of the unwashed and, sadly, to many who, had they paid attention in school, would know better, the word "Socialism" is synonymous with Communism. It is not. Stossell would have us believe, or at the very least allows the ignorant to conclude, that Sanders proposes the end of private property and the commencement of collective farming, a la 1930's Soviet Russia. This is simply a lie of the right. Sanders' focus, vis a vis "Socialism" is in the areas of services (health care, for example) where all citizens have a stake. He has never even hinted at collectivization of anything such as land, business, etc, and would be laughed out of town if he did.

       What truly caught my attention, however, is that in the area of land use and agriculture, which Stossel uses as his example, we (the USA ), in what is at best perplexing and at worst sinister, far from being Socialist, are now in many cases hovering simultaneously both ends of the political spectrum, depending upon where in the production process we look. Processing and distribution is markedly  monopolistic and cartel like in operation, while planting and production is, in many cases, almost at the public (Government's) breast.

       In the area of seed production, and agricultural chemical production, just three US firms (Dow, Monsanto, and DuPont) dominate the entire industry and by extension the market. As sinister or (probably even more so, depending on one's economic savvy is the following:  Just four companies control 60 percent of terminal grain facilities, and Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, and Zen Noh control 81 percent of U.S. corn exports and 65 percent of soybean exports. Cargill has the largest global terminal capacity, handling significant grain exports in Canada, the United States, Brazil, and Argentina. It owns and operates a worldwide transportation network of ships, trucks, barges, railcars, and grain elevators for storage. Cargill is also among the top three beef producers in the United States and plays an important role in poultry production.

       Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill now control the vast majority (over 85%) of US corn production, and continue to control more and more of America's farmland. While there are still around 2 million small farmers in America, most of their output is done under contracts to sell to these large agribusinesses, which by virtue of said contracts, hold absolute control over the land. So Stossel is right in one sense, private property is great for these businesses, and as long as they are compliant, those small farmers, but the control of their fortunes now lies , not in, on, or of the land, but in boardrooms far away. 

       We are slaves to corn in America and produce 84% of the world's supply. (for much more and more detail of corn, agribusiness  and it's grip on us all, read  the superbly written "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by  Michael Pollan.) If this were small farmers, in control of their own destinies and family farms dealing directly with consumers, what a wonderful thing that would be. Unfortunately that's not the way it is. And, while Stossel will never admit the "inconvenient truth", much of this corn production while profitable for the major consolidators and processors, is subsidized and crops insured by.....you guessed it - the US government, as in our taxes.

       No other industry sector in America profits as much per capita from public charity as do those who draw farm subsidies. In fact the entire system of price supports for things such as sugar, corn, milk, etc, alone tops $20 billion annually. Added to that, federally funded crop insurance and credit adds another $36 billion annually. To put some perspective in play, that figure is about half of the total amount Medicare paid for drugs in 2016. Of course, all who benefit from Medicare paid into that system, while all of those who paid into Medicare also paid for farm subsidies, etc, but very few were beneficiaries of that largesse.

       In summary, Bernie Sanders has never once advocated for government takeover of the means of production of anything. He has decried the growth of monopoly and cartels and the leverage they exert in the political and social sphere in the United States. He has also advocated for a level playing field in one area critical to all Americans - health care. He, and others,  have also frequently maintained that government regulation "In the public interest" is appropriate and serves to protect the flock of citizens from the wolves of Wall Street. This point of view in that arena is congruent with the tenets of Theodore Roosevelt, that most non-Republican Republican.

       Stossel, meanwhile holding up US agriculture and private land ownership as an icon of private grit, determination and capitalist triumph, has yet again displayed his abysmal ignorance. In the aforementioned op-ed piece he has chosen and glorified as "capitalism personified" the one economic sector in America which is actually the most "Socialist" in concept, that being government funded crop insurance, guaranteed prices for output, and government guaranteed loans based on assumed production. There is no sector in the US more "protected" from failure than US commodity farmers, and by extension, those to whom they are forced to sell their products, while the agribusiness processors and distributors are at the other end of the spectrum, verging on monopoly and market control.

       I can appreciate well expressed alternate opinions, whether or not I concur with conclusions, but sheer ignorance such as regularly displayed by John Stossel is a waste of paper and ink.

Smoke Screen

      

      Let's make several general assumptions about our devout Far Right devotees regarding truth, reality and critical thinking. I believe that their grasps of these concepts are, in the same order, "Fake", manufactured and beyond their grasp.

       The latest manifestation of these disabilities is the entire fecal hurricane of "mis" and "dis" information surrounding the 2010 sale of partial interest in a Canadian uranium mining corporation by Canadians to Russians. The crux of the disinformation campaign is the allegation that, then SecState, Hillary Clinton 1) had some influence over the sale. and 2) benefited from it. Reread that last part and understand what the Breitbart and Faux News meat puppets would like to you disregard, that being, that the issue revolves around two independent nations, neither of which is the United States, consummating a commercial transaction.

Several absolute truths are incontestably involved here.

First:

       Uranium One, which holds mining contracts in several western states is a Canadian corporation, which also mines in Canada. The chronology of said mining operations concessions are difficult to trace chronologically, but predate the Obama administration. In fact, Uranium One is South African in origin and merged, during the Bush 43 administration, with Canadian held UrAsia energy, out of Vancouver B.C. A Russian corporation, Rosatom, made, and had accepted, several offers over time which eventually resulted by 2010, in Rosatom owning Uranium One as a subsidiary.

       Rosatom, sells uranium to civilian power reactors in the United States, according to the Energy Information Administration. But then, U.S. owners and operators of commercial nuclear reactors purchase, and historically have purchased, the majority of their uranium from foreign sources. Only 11 percent of the 50.6 million pounds purchased in 2016 came from U.S. domestic producers.

       Although Uranium One once held 20 percent of licensed uranium in-situ (in the ground) recovery production capacity in the U.S., that’s no longer the case. It is broken out as "in situ" because an alternative source of fuel is, or should be, reprocessed fissionable material from "spent" reactor fuel. recovered and reprocessed from expended cores. Unfortunately, although the UK has been doing this for 50 years successfully, and France for 35, the US lags for a number of reasons better explained in another essay.

       There were only four in-situ recovery facilities licensed by the NRC in 2010. Currently, there are 10 such facilities, so Uranium One’s mining operations now account for only an estimated 10 percent of in-situ recovery production capacity in the U.S.

       This is analogous to US Oil companies producing oil in other nations and selling it, which happened for most of the 20th century, and with which most Americans had no issue.

       As for production, Uranium One was responsible for only about 11 percent of U.S. uranium production in 2014, according to 2015 Congressional testimony by a Department of Energy contractor. More recently, Uranium One has been responsible for less than 6 percent of domestic production, according to a September 2017 report by the U.S. International Trade Commission. So in brief summary, all this is about less than 6% of the current US domestic Uranium production.

Second:

       The Senate Committee on Foreign Investment in the USA, established 42 years ago by President Ford, has zero ability to nix such a sale. In a very strange context, they can "bless" such a transaction, but are powerless to stop it, as one would expect when both parties to said sale are other nations. It is rather like a couple eloping and asking for parental blessing, but leaving in any case. The Committee can only recommend that the President stop such a transaction. In considerations such as this, the "blessing" (a mere courtesy, not permission, mind you, since none is required) involves the Committee and several cabinet posts giving a cheery wave to the process or weighing in with their disapproval if any. Remember, it doesn't matter, because the two parties can still do the deal, regardless, unless POTUS halts it. The Cabinet level weigh ins are generally not even brought to the level of the department head, since there is no negative action which can ensue as a result. It is important to remember that, since the allegations of a Clinton quid pro quo for her blessing would have been of no consequence. Historically, from 2005 to 2015, only one such Presidential "veto" was issued, that in 2012 by President Obama and, like most reviews, revolved around technology transfer concerns.

Third:

       Even if the Committee's decision (to "bless" or not to bless") mattered, and it wasn't contentious,  Clinton as SecState was one of the lesser voices which would have had influence, since the Committee by statute is chaired by the Treasury Secretary and the slate of Cabinet heads includes, Homeland Security, Justice, Defense, Commerce, Energy, Treasury. Of the above persons, all except SecDef Gates (a Bush 43 appointee) were confirmed by majorities of the Republican controlled Senate, most of them overwhelmingly, including Energy Secretary Steven Chu whose confirmation was unanimous. I mention this because of all the above, Chu was the most directly involved with the issue. Even so, the Committee gave their assent to the concept of the sale as did every single Executive Branch department involved! It is noteworthy that Reagan actually refused to quash a merger when strenuously urged to do so by both Treasury and Defense department heads, making him the only President to refuse such advice.

Fourth:

       If one understands the implications of all the above, the alleged quid pro quo (cash to the Clinton Global Initiative foundation for a Clinton approval), seems like a fool's bargain for Rosatom, especially since, even if Clinton had screamed "no" and held her breath, it just didn't matter. As it turns out it wasn't actually discussed with her, but was, as was customary in such instances, signed off on, after review, by a subordinate.

Fifth and finally:

       As much as the far rightists would love to besmirch the Clinton Foundation, the reality is that, markedly unlike the Trump Foundation, their books are, and have been, open for 15 years, and every charity rating organization in America gives, and has consistently given, them top marks for transparency, utilization of funds, and the percentage of income allocated to administration (very low, by comparison with similar others) and the efficacy of program dollars applied to the relevant causes. In all this is buried the fact that as much as the Right media have tried to do so, there is zero evidence that either Clinton has ever personally benefited from Foundation contributions. I believe this to be particularly disturbing to the talking heads of the Right because the Trump Foundation and its record of Trump spending other people's money on himself look positively shitty and venal by comparison.

       So why all the uproar now? It's simple, really. In light of an increasing stream of real hard data linking Trump, his son, his son in law, his chief of staff and himself to Russian interests, it's a smoke screen to deflect  observers from the truth, that truth being the utter moral and ethical bankruptcy of the current administration. Period.

Culturally Obtuse.

      Someone in our community once again, in a letter to the editor,  raised an issue which seems to permeate the far right, washed and unwashed; that being general cultural illiteracy. In this case it was a defense of the fact that Donald Trump, apparently with forethought, chose not to bow when introduced to the Emperor of Japan.

      The writer vociferously defended the Cheetoh in Chief, apparently because in their mind, addled as it is, courtesy and subservience are one and the same. It is truly sad to consider that for some of our fellow citizens, even the rudiments of diplomacy and protocol are signs of weakness, vice respect for cultural norms. The writer ends with the statement that, "No American president should bow to anyone other than 'The God of Abraham!"

      What I find at once appalling and ironic is that I'm pretty sure the latter personage has very little of Trump's respect, since his ego locker has little space for any other than Trump, himself.

      Several years ago, around the beginning of the campaign season in 2012, ex-Seal, now Interior secretary, Ryan Zinke scathingly denounced then President Obama's bow when greeting the Emperor of Japan. The venom fairly dripped from the page, in the following "This president is shaping America to be one of the followers, to relinquish our role as a world leader. I didn’t fight 23 years as a Navy SEAL to watch America bow to anybody.” Taken at face value, it would seem that Zinke believes that no other US head of State has ever bowed to any other foreign leader.

      Of course, it is of interest to realize that Zinke himself retired because his own judgment was questioned in a final fitness report as follows: The fitness report, signed by retired Vice Adm. Albert M. Calland III, who was the commander of the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, better known as SEAL Team 6, cited Mr. Zinke's "lapses in judgment" for his declining performance. Such language in these reports regularly prevents servicemen and women from rising to the highest officer ranks, ergo retirement is common while one still can before being required to. Oddly enough, this is not inconsistent with a general SEAL tendency to retire early, frequently to enter into civilian contracts doing much the same thing as their military assignments, killing people on command. Zinke, in his new job as Interior Secretary of course, has continued his mission of undoing what the Obama administration did with regard to national monuments.

      But enough about Zinke. Is he correct that American Presidents don't or shouldn't bow to foreign figures or that President Obama's bows were aberrant? The question is akin to "Should common courtesy and diplomacy apply in foreign relations?"

      As it happens, the "Bower in Chief" was George W. Bush, who has bowed to numerous persons with whom Zinke, I'm pretty sure would have issues. These include several Saudi princes and their king on several occasions, even kissing one on the mouth! Bush 43 was also positively obsequious in his bow and assumed reverence for former Hitler youth member, Pope Benedict.

      

Nothing says "I'm your Bitch" quite like a kiss on the lips!

Liz gets a bow!

And one for the former Nazi

      Richard Nixon demonstrated deep bows to both the Emperor of Japan and Chairman Mao. (you remember, that Chinese Communist guy, whose troops killed US servicemen in Korea?

   

"Hi. Too bad we won the war, huh?"

   Bush 41 also demonstrated proper grasp of protocol when bowing deeply before the casket of the WWII Japanese Emperor, Hirohito, whose forces had shot him from the sky in the Pacific! George H.W. Bush cited the deep bow as "respect," a concept with which secretary Zinke is perhaps unfamiliar, as we are certain Trump is. Of course, George H.W. also had the sense of balance to later vomit on a head of state.

      Earlier, Dwight Eisenhower actually bowed to Charles de Gaulle as well as Queen Elizabeth, a Pope, and even the head of the Greek Orthodox church. 

"Hi ya Chuck, 'sup? We won the war for ya!"

So you guys are sort of like Catholics, right?

       In summary, American Presidents displaying the courtesy traditional in such situations is the norm, not the exception. Trump's inexcusable behavior is the exception and is simply one more marker of his boorishness and general lack of either class or cultural intelligence. Hell, after blowing off the emperor he probably asked for ketchup with the sushi.

Not a Gun Problem?

"Truly heartbreaking news in #Sutherland Springs. Please say a prayer for First Baptist congregation, first responders & the community there"

         This is Texas senator John Coryn's (R-TX) response tweet to the horrible shootings yesterday. "heartbreaking news?" - absolutely, but if Coryn really cared about his constituents' safety from lunatics such as Devin Kelly, he'd push for a firearms sales waiting period in his state (there is none) and support federal background checks (there is no requirement) in TX.

       I hate (sort of, anyway)  to pander to the obvious, but if prayers really had value, one would at least have to consider  that there might have been far fewer deaths in the first place. I get the same reflexive response every time I hear either the "Why do bad things happen to Good people?" sermon or the parson's exhortations to pray  "Because God answers prayers for people of faith." Why? Because 6 million "people of faith" died in the Holocaust. Either they didn't pray hard enough or the sky magus was too busy hurling fireballs around the cosmos  to give a shit. )Or maybe he was watching Tim Tebow  trying to be a pro football player and laughing his arse off.

        All the prayers in the universe apparently  wouldn't be as effective as if someone with a shred of concern and/or common sense  had  looked  at this asshole's Facebook page featuring his auto-loading Ruger AR-566 in the profile photo, compared that fact with his Bad Conduct Discharge (which was for disciplinary and/or emotional issues)  and  said, "Hey! Just maybe  this guy shouldn't be allowed to have a firearm of any sort, never mind an automatic assault weapon"

        Of course the Great Cheetoh immediately pronounced this "not a gun issue,"  as he essentially also did in the recent horrific Las Vegas massacre. If this guy (the shooter) had been even a third generation legal immigrant or a Muslim, instead of a white, native born lunatic, it would have been branded an act of  terrorism, but instead, the Whore of Washington rolled over and assumed the submissive position to the NRA immediately. He called it a "mental illness"  issue.

         So? So any responsible system of background checks would have revealed the shooters' distinctly checkered past and raised the question of his suitability to own  a "banana clip ready" (you know, in case the deer and his closest friends are also armed?)  automatic assault weapon or, in this psychotic's case, even a slingshot. The vast majority of Americans, in poll after poll, favor background checks, not as a way to limit firearms access to responsible gun owners, but as a means to keep assault weapons from seriously disturbed persons such as  the late Devin Kelly.
       

        How did he get the gun? He openly purchased it over the counter at a sporting goods store in Texas, falsely (and unnecessarily)  claiming Colorado residency. Of course,  he lied about having no criminal record, and in the absence of a federal database, waiting period, or federal background check, the merchant, ever eager to sell, did so. No one knew any different. In fact, Kelly had been incarcerated, while in the Air Force, for one year, then awarded a Bad Conduct Discharge (BCD) for assaulting both his wife and child ! As an aside, he was also tried for cruelty to animals, a huge red flag re: impaired mental status.

         Unfortunately, a BCD isn't considered a felony unless incarceration is for more than 1 year. Additionally, the Air Force (not atypically of all the uniformed services) did not render any mental assessment, (although in retrospect.....!) choosing instead to discharge him and put the civilian populace at his mercy. Oddly and disturbingly enough, he could have purchased the firearm in Texas even with a felony conviction if five years had elapsed since the act. Meanwhile the Grand Cheetoh plays golf and eats sushi, undoubtedly with ketchup.

Nothing new about it!

So, I'm at the local font of theology, listening as the shaman proclaims that Jesus was the originator of all the stories and parables attributed to him by those who made up much of the Jesus narrative about a hundred years after his death. It amazed me that a man with (allegedly) a master's degree in a Social Science field could elide right over The Buddah, Confucius, Aesop, Socrates and Plato, Ashoka and Lao Tsu (to name just a few) most of whom told stories akin to most of the parables hundreds of years earlier.

In the case of the "Prodigal Son" fable, It is attributed to the Buddha around 500 years earlier, with a far more humanistic message. He (the poohbah in charge) mentioned that Jesus tried to "get people to think and was punished for it" as if that had never happened to anyone previously. I stopped myself from asking him later if he'd ever heard of Socrates or the Socratic method, which is precisely the way Jesus is alleged to have posed questions to his followers, or Socrates' death because of his willingness to ask difficult moral questions and question authority. As a semi-literate Galilean, Yeshua Bar Joseph probably was unaware of Socrates and his followers, or that most of the moral issues he posed had already been visited multiple times.

Ashoka's Rock Edicts, scattered throughout his Indian realm during the third century BCE, could also easily have been inspiration for many of those things modern Christians are sure Jesus innovated. 
Try this one for example:
"'When an unconquered country is conquered, people are killed... . That the beloved of the Gods finds very pitiful and grievous. ... If anyone does him wrong, it will be forgiven as far as it can be forgiven... . The beloved of the Gods considers that the greatest of all victories is the victory of righteousness."

Or this: "Whoever praises his own religion, due to excessive devotion, and condemns others with the thought "Let me glorify my own religion," only harms his own religion. Therefore contact (between religions) is good. One should listen to and respect the doctrines professed by others"

Or: "Every religion has the wholesome core of love, compassion and good will. The outer shell differs, but give importance to the inner essence and there will be no quarrel. Don't condemn anything, give importance to the essence of every religion and there will be real peace and harmony."

Or attributed to The Buddha (as well as the original Prodigal Son narrative): "He who gives away shall have real gain. He who subdues himself shall be free; he shall cease to be a slave of passions. The righteous man casts off evil, and by rooting out lust, bitterness, and illusion do we reach Nirvana."

Or Confucius: "To practice five things under all circumstances constitutes perfect virtue; these five are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness."

Or Socrates: "One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him."

 I also like this one, from Socrates, since it's the "canned" answer offered by clergy when prayers aren't answered "Our prayers should be only for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us."

Plato: "We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise."

Lao Tsu: "Treat those who are good with goodness, and also treat those who are not good with goodness. Thus goodness is attained. Be honest to those who are honest, and be also honest to those who are not honest. Thus honesty is attained."

And all these men arrived at these conclusions and philosophies hundreds of years BCE. Sounds to me like Yeshua bar Josef was a plagiarist!

Ignorant Outrage

        The results of the Bowe Bergdahl trial have ignited a storm of ignorant outrage. I say "ignorant" because the general tone of said protests is in two areas. The First: many are apparently angry that their government won't execute Bergdahl. The Second:  irate assertions that  "back in the day...etc" with a general allegation that there has been a recent (a sidelong barrage at the Obama administration in some cases) change in how desertion has been treated historically in this case.

        Some actually seek to somehow blame President Obama for all of this as if he had influence over military judges who don't work for him. Many angry responses on Facebook, re: my  attempts to shed light on the reasons for some portions of the Bergdahl decision, immediately elicited words like "traitor" (as in Bergdahl was one,  liberal (as in I must be one for pointing out the related facts) , insane, softy (me)...etc.  Let's deal with facts first.

        The US Constitution defines two things clearly and has for over 200 years. The first is "Treason," the second is "War."  John Marshall's strict constructionist  decision in the Aaron Burr case during the Jefferson administration stands today. Bergdahl is not, and cannot be held, guilty of treason per Article 3, section 3. Period.

        Execution for desertion cannot be awarded by a military court unless it is in time of war, per the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (Section 885, art. 85 "desertion")This specifically means that  the President must have asked for, and Congress approved, a formal declaration of war for this (death penalty) to apply.

         The last 76 years have seen numerous military overseas "adventures" but there has been no declaration of war since 1941. Korea ,Viet Nam and The Middle East were and are obviously military conflicts, but not "war" per our governing document. A lot of the unwashed and generally moronic angst revolves around this definition of war. 

      It is apparently useless pointing out that if Bush 43 had wanted to have a declaration of "war" in Iraq, he could have asked Congress for one. He didn't. Lyndon Johnson settled for a fallacious Gulf of Tonkin "resolution", based on an incident which never happened per Admiral Jim Stockdale, the longest POW captive of the "war," after Eisenhower and JFK  simply used "military advisors" and the CIA. Harry Truman was apparently OK with a "United Nations Police Action." in Korea.  See the word "war" there anywhere? Me neither, and the law doesn't either! Yes, many will still scream "war" when referring to these military actions, but there's a reason for laws, and these zealots are a significant portion of these reasons.

        Finally, the Bergdahl decision isn't a "softening" of policy. Of an estimated almost 50,000 deserters in WW II (an actual "war") only one man, Eddie Slovik" was executed. He was, in fact the only US serviceman executed for the crime of desertion since the US Civil War, a span of over 150 years, and he actually deserted five times, before being held terminally accountable. Of more than 4,000 Viet Nam era deserters, most were pardoned, none did hard time.

        More recently, and more significantly, Army Sgt. Charles Jenkins, who abandoned  his post  in 1965,  surrendered to North Korean forces, living there for 19 years, until 2004. Jenkins suffered no physical torture at the hands of his "hosts", no penal imprisonment; in fact at one time he taught English in a North Korean university! His penalty? 30 days confinement, with, amazingly, 6 days off for "good behavior",  reduction to Private and the same Dishonorable Discharge awarded to Bowe Bergdahl. It is noteworthy that, the President at the time of Jenkins' repatriation and trial , George W. Bush, remained mute with regard to his personal opinion on the issue and the trial, considering it a military matter and that his opinion, if voiced might be prejudicial to the process. This was an appropriate, and uncharacteristically wise, Bush decision.

        Interestingly enough, the Uniform Code of Military Justice does address the issue of influencing, or attempting to influence,  a military court in Section 837, Article 37. This is what it says:  "No person subject to this chapter may attempt to coerce or, by any unauthorized means, influence the action of a court-martial or any other military tribunal or any member thereof, in reaching the findings or sentence in any case, or the action of any convening, approving, or reviewing authority with respect to his judicial acts."

        Considering the blatantly prejudicial comments made by the Commander in Chief of all US personnel subject to the UCMJ, it's probably a good thing that he is above the law, or at least considers himself to be. Had this been a civil trial and Trump a Governor or Mayor, it would most likely have been grounds for either a mistrial, change of venue, or jury dismissal.

        This is in no way an apologia for Bowe Bergdahl's actions which I would condemn. I would have had no difficulty with a prison sentence in his case, but regardless of what one thinks (or "tweets") about Bergdahl, his punishment is consistent with over 70 years of history. In fact it has been perhaps more harsh for Bergdahl, held captive and tortured for five years, than for Jenkins, the Korean  deserter who suffered neither, colluded with North Korea, but was more leniently judged. 

Another thing which makes me go "huh?"

       Most of you know that I live in a community of seniors, some 120,000 strong. Some of you may also be aware that this is also a "Repugnican" stronghold. I'm reminded of that every time I see someone wearing the ubiquitous "make America great again" ball cap.

      Now here's the weird part, although now that I reflect a bit, it's  actually more "pathetic" than "weird." Many of the retirees here are living in the life style they have because they are retirees with pension plans, supplemental retirement benefit health care plans and, with Social Security, are (very) comfortably financially able to be part of this community which has a mean household income of more than $57,000 annually. 

       A significant number are retired members of the law enforcement and fire fighter communities. Many others are former employees in  other major industries. I cite these examples only to point out that many who support Trump are beneficiaries of organizations he loathes, and of which he has demonstrated this loathing in his business dealings over the past 25 years.

       Allow me one quick example of what (some) unions have done for members:  The United Auto Workers spends $4 billion annually  solely on health care benefits for its roughly 70 thousand retired members. A quick trip to the calculator shows that the math works out to $57,000  annually per retiree and dependent(s).   I am not justifying or supporting this incredible figure, just pointing it out.

         I cite these examples only to point out that a  significant common denominator of this group is their vociferous support of the current menace to world peace who occupies the White House. The other common factor is that they were/are essentially all (wait for it)  union members. Their retirement , benefits which are, as I pointed out earlier,  extremely generous, especially for those from the Northeast, were negotiated by their labor organizations. The man they support has shown, time and time again, his hostility to, and disdain for, unions such as theirs. He has refused to pay several for work done and has underpaid many more, daring them to spend even more to sue him. 

      Donald Trump is far, far from the supporter of working class Americans he portrays himself to be. Sadly, his flagrant support of the players of the race card resonates with some former unionists because, truth told, the history of labor unions and minorities for most of the 20th century has been one of racism as well.

        Working class white men and women who act surprised and nonplussed when Blacks point out the continuing vestiges of racism in America have their feet firmly in the muck of time, if they were union members even into the 1950s and 60s.  Unions were  the "white privilege" bastions of labor for longer than most want to admit, or sadder yet, than many even know. So in summary, perhaps sadly, Trump's appeal to the worst in their natures is what stimulates their "bite the hand which fed us" response to his shameful treatment of working class Americans.