The Nashville Raids

It seems to me there are three kinds of people.  Some people, a minority probably, would hide Anne Frank.  Some people, one also hopes a minority, would call the Gestapo.  And a third group, probably a majority, would do their best not to get involved.  

ICE and the Tennessee Highway Patrol began pulling people over in the Latin section of Nashville on May 3.  In Nashville people and groups are fighting back.  

The Tennessee Immigrants and Refugee Rights Coalition is posting rights of immigrants on social media and how to respond when taken by ICE.

The American Muslim Advisory Council and the Tennessee Justice for Our Neighbors offered a rights workshop for immigrants planning to travel.

The Southern Christian Coalition provides bystander training for how people can help when they see ICE taking people away.

The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee has established the Belonging Fund to support agencies that give emergency assistance to families who are affected by ICE arrests.

One organizer said the immigrants who taken are the most visible.  They grow and process the food, stock the stores, wash the dishes in the restaurants where we eat.  They are the guys who pour the concrete, put up the drywall, lay down the roof shingles, clean the office buildings.

These are also the people about whom Trump said “No, they’re not humans.  They’re animals.”

Now some of you will argue “Well, we aren’t killing them.”  Do you know what happens to them?  What if they are put in a prison in El Salvador?  In many cases we don’t know what happens to them after the thugs in masks and unmarked vans speed off with them.  Perhaps you’d like to ask the ICE agents.

Some information for this post is from Margaret Renkl, “The Profound Inhumanity of the ICE Raids, New York Times, (May 23, 2025), p. A20.

Reading books

According to an article in the most recent issue of The Atlantic, a National Endowment for the Arts survey found that fewer than half of American adults read more than a a single book book in 2022.  Is the National Endowment for the Arts still a thing after DOGE?

Are schools still teaching reading?  Is the problem charter schools and home schooling?  This may be “old man syndrome,” but I think the population of this country is getting dumber and dumber.  You want proof?  Look who got a majority of the vote for President in 2024.

The reason we will go to war against Iran

Maybe we won’t go to war against Iran, but if we do it won’t be for strategic reasons, or because of a well thought-out strategy, or some grand plan to bolster American power.  Notice that I’m writing about it.  I could have written about other things–the crappy military parade, the diplomatic disaster in Canada, the proposed sale of U.S. public land, the troops in CA, the tariff debacle–but I’m writing about the possible war.

And that is the point.  This would be the first American war in history that was launched by a president who wanted a distraction from his declining poll numbers.  He is determined to appear strong, decisive, in charge.  In wars Americans tend to rally around the flag, at least initially.  

Would Trump actually launch a war to build his ego and distract us?  You don’t need to ask that question.  You already know the answer, don’t you?  Even the MAGA dupes know the answer to that one.

BTW, the Constitution says Congress shall declare war.  Let’s get back to that, and soon. 

The Tuesday Science Section

Every Tuesday the New York Times has a science section.  The news in this section is always fascinating, at least to me.  Today, for example, I learned that there are huge portions of the ocean where the water is warming to the point where marine life is adversely affected.  I’m fairly sure it will also have an effect on the severity of hurricanes.  In the meantime, we have an administration that is doing its best to increase global warming by cutting back on green energy production, burning more coal and oil, and pushing bitcoin mining with its attendant energy suck.

Another article noted that North America had extensive farming in prehistoric times.  Aerial imaging has found all kinds of agricultural activity in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the ancestral home of the Menominee tribe.  Unfortunately, archaeological research is one of the fields that has been deeply cut by the Trump administration.

Finally, data shows that old people not only believe in the efficacy of vaccines, but will wait in line for flu and Covid shots.  Some studies have shown that the vaccine for shingles also may lessen the onset of dementia.  Robert F. Kennedy can discourage vaccines, but old people didn’t get old by being stupid.  And yes, I’ve got my shingles shot and I’m up-to-date on my Covid and flu shots.  I want to make to 83 at least.  (It will be in November.)

Camping out at Manzanar

One of Trump’s endless and bizarre Executive Orders mandated that National Parks and National Monuments say only positive things about the American past.  Trump believes in sugarcoating (or should I say “whitewashing”) any bad things in our history.  Somehow I guess he thinks that will make us more “patriotic.”  It just makes us ridiculous.

Our daughter was speculating on how the Manzanar internment camp for Japanese-Americans would handle this requirement.  We have visited Manzanar, and it is a bleak place in a dry area of California, hot and miserable in the summer; cold and miserable in the winter.  It will be a challenge, but here what she suggested Trump might use for interpretive material.

“Camping out in the desert”

“Fun times in the Sierras”

“Stay rent free in cabins”

I don’t know how they will handle Little Bighorn, or the Trail of Tears, or the war against the Modocs.  Who voted for this idiot?  

Did we reach 3.5%?

According to a recent study by two political scientists who looked at opposition to autocrats in a large number of countries, when the protests reach 3.5% of the population, that is the tipping point to ending the autocracy.

I know we didn’t reach that in Carbon County, PA.  We had about 250, but 3.5% of the population would be about 2100.

One problem is that Jim Thorpe is a tourist town, and parking is very difficult.  We would not have had room for even 1% of the population around the Courthouse where the rally took place.  We need a bigger venue.  (And maybe a food truck and a porta potty.)

The good news is that even with a cold rain, we had more people at the “No Kings” rally than at the “Hands off” rally.  

I don’t know how many people we had nation-wide, but given the size of the crowds in some of the bigger cities and given the fact that we had well over 2000 protests, we had to be close to the 3.5%.  And we will only grow.

I know one thing for damn sure.  The turnout at the Washington parade was abysmal.  Trump had to be disappointed.  He looked disappointed.  And all those tanks.  What a loser.

"No Kings" demonstration in Jim Thorpe

It rained.  It was cold.  Didn’t matter.  Over 200 people came out to let the world know that U.S. is not the place for kings or for presidents who want to act like kings.  We had well over 200 people (we counted), most of them with posters they made.  We had people in chicken costumes with chicken tacos, people in Trump masks, people in clown suits, old and young, and (I loved this), tourists who were visiting Jim Thorpe joining in the protest.  

Approximately fifty percent of passing motorists approved of the protest, honking their horns or giving us a thumbs up.  Approximately 40 percent did nothing.  Maybe 10% yelled nasty words or gave us a thumbs down.  Not bad for a deep red county.