Keep on Truckin'

Politics is the slow boring through thick boards.  I don’t know who said that first, but I try to remember that when I get discouraged, and lately I’m discouraged much of the time.  The climate change, the creep toward authoritarianism, the loss of community, the violence, the stupidity–it gets to you.

In our American studies classes at SJSU, we always pointed out that even in the worst of times voices were raised in protest.  Abolitionists, labor organizers, feminists, civil rights workers, Henry David Thoreau, Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, Eugene Debs, Fred Korematsu, Cesar Chavez, Wilma Mankiller, Linda Carol Brown–always voices speaking up.  

We are not in that rarified company, but all of us need to keep speaking up against bigotry, cruelty, selfishness, and just plain meanness.  Make that your resolution for 2019.

"Pro-life"

Another immigrant kid has died in captivity.  These kids are kept in conditions that rival our worst prisons.  

Here is what Thomas Friedman said about being “pro-life.”  

In my world, you don’t get to call yourself”pro-life” and be against common-sense gun control....  You don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and want to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency....  You don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and oppose programs like Head Start that provide basic education, health, and nutrition for the most disadvantaged children....  The term”pro-life” should be a shorthand for respect for the sanctity of life.  But I will not let that label apply to people for whom sanctity for life begins at conception and ends at birth.

I agree with Friedman.  I am tired of people who call themselves “pro-life” yet are willing to rip refugee children from their parents and hold them in for-profit prisons, supporting a president who has no empathy, no goal except to fan the flames of hatred for political advantage.  It is sickening.

Where we fight

The film director Frank Capra made a movie during World War II entitled “Why We Fight.”  It was a propaganda film for a good cause.

The latest issue of the Smithsonian Magazine includes a map with the title  “Where We Fight.”  It lists the countries that have U.S. military bases, training and assistance operations, U.S. military exercises, countries where U.S, has combat involvement, and countries where the U.S. has carried out air or drone strikes.  

The map is amazing.  For example, in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia is listed, but so are Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Oman, Djibouti, Syria (thought maybe not much longer), and Iraq.

We live in a so-called democracy, but I doubt if most Americans could find those nations on a map.  The number of countries in which U.S. service members were involved or took direct action on the ground against militants is impressive, including such places as Mauritania, Mali, Niger, the Central African Republic, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, and more.  

The Constitution gives Congress the right to declare war.  It has not done so in any of these countries.

The Reading Museum

Today we visited the Reading Museum to see an exhibition of “kinetic dinosaurs.”  They are made of metal, and you can move them with joy sticks or pulleys, and kids were loving it.  The dinosaurs, although made of scrap metal pieces, were representative of actual skeletons of real dinosaurs.  It was accurately billed a combination of art and science.

The Reading Museum also had quite a collection of European art, a good sample of Pennsylvania impressionists, and a nice display of native American artifacts.  Plus, the gift shop had earrings in the shape of small pretzels, so fitting for Berks County.

One section was devoted to Pennsylvania Dutch art and artifacts, but we skipped that one.  We see enough of that stuff at home.

To my Green Party friends

Today the New York Times ran a 12-page special section entitled “This is our reality now.”  It detailed the increases in air pollution and water pollution.  It looked at the weakening of rules on methane releases, on endangered species, on pesticides and chemical emissions.  On the last page it printed a list of 47 environmental rollbacks completed and 31 in process.

Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate for President, received more votes in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin than the margin by which Clinton lost to Trump.  Green Party voters thought Clinton wasn’t enough of an environmentalist.  

I am asking you:  How many of those rollbacks do you think would be happening if Clinton were President?  

Jill Stein was a spoiler.  Remember that she met with Russian officials before the election.  Do you think the Russians thought she would win?  She was a dupe who lent her name and her party to defeating Hillary Clinton, and now we, our children, and the planet are suffering the consequences. 

Rules for success

According to a Brookings Institution study, there are three rules you should follow to be successful in life, at least if “successful” is staying out of poverty.  The study found that if you follow all three, you have only a 3% chance of living in poverty.  If you don’t, the percentages are very high, approaching 50%.  

Here are the rules:

1.  graduate from high school.  It will be even better if you attend community college or college, but the important thing is to get a high school diploma.

2.  get a job.  It doesn’t have to be much of a job to begin with, but people who have jobs (and do them) will find it much easier to get better jobs and even better jobs after that.

3.  get married before you have children.  Do not do it the other way around.  It won’t work.  If you had only one variable to predict poverty, it wouldn’t be religion, or parents, or educational level, or race, or ethnicity.  It would be single parent family.  

There you have it.  I learned about this study in a book entitled Them by Sen. Ben Sasse, a Republican Senator from Nebraska.  I’m about half way through, but I recommend it highly.

Spaceship Earth

It’s been fifty years since three American astronauts took pictures of an “earthrise” as they circled the moon to check out landing sites.  The earth looked lovely, blue and white with swirling clouds.  The idea of “spaceship earth” became a reality.  We were living on such a small ball in such a large universe.

When I taught environmental studies, I discussed these photos as one of the turning points in the environmental movement.  Finally we would realize the fragility of the planet.  Finally we would understand the need to care for it.

I was so hopeful, so optimistic, and so so naive.  

Luke 2, Verse 7

This evening a United Church of Christ minister said we were reading that verse wrong.  The emphasis should be on the word “them.”  Like this:  ...”there was no room for them in the inn.”  It sounds much more contemporary if you read it like that.

Still no room in the inn

Let me see if I got this.  Tomorrow night Christians around the world will be celebrating the birth of a child whose parents then fled their homeland because they feared the child would come to harm if they stayed.  Many of those same Christians in places like Hungary, Poland, Denmark, United States, France, Italy, Greece, Austria, and more are forming anti-immigrant parties, insulting and degrading refugees, and calling for the building of high walls.

Climate crisis solved

It is amazing what the Trump administration can do.  The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has merged its Climate and Health Program into a division that studies asthma.  When it did that, it expunged the word “climate” from the name of the new division.

This follows an earlier move by the Trump administration to eliminate the phrase “climate change” from the White House website.

Problem solved.  Case closed.

Info for this post was taken from Lisa Friedman and Sheila Kaplan, “C.D.C. Climate Team Drops the ‘Climate,’” New York Times, (Dec. 21, 2018), p. A 14.

Gratuitous meanness

I always thought of Denmark as a tolerant country.  I admire the way they managed to save almost every Danish Jew before the Nazis invaded Denmark, and I always thought they treated refugees well.

Now, in what seems to be a worldwide trend of creeping Trumpism, the Danes have passed a law requiring new citizens to shake hands.  Since some Muslim (and Jewish) groups discourage or even forbid their followers from touching people of the opposite sex who are not family members, this will mean those people cannot become Danish citizens.

While this new law probably won’t stop many people from achieving citizenship, it does send a message that Danes can be as assholish as anyone else.

Leaving Syria

The way it was done:  When a president makes a foreign policy decision with possible major ramifications, that president ordinarily consults with Congressional leaders, advisors in the White House, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and our allies.  Decisions like that are not made off the cuff.

Our allies:  If you were an ally of the U.S., would you continue to trust it?  One of our most steadfast allies has been the Kurds, a major factor in fighting ISIS.  The Kurds will now be left to twist in the wind.

Our opponents:  Putin has already praised Trump’s decision to pull out.  That should tell you something.

The international mix:  Any diplomatic issue involving the Middle East includes a variety of players and participants, in this case, to name a few, Turkey, Assad, ISIS, Israel, the Palestinians, the Iraqis, the Iranians, the Russians, the Kurds, the anti-Assad forces, Britain, France, and probably more that I am missing here.  This is complicated.  As Linda said to me today, “The world is playing chess, and Trump is playing checkers.”

New Jersey pipeline protest

Today we drove to Pennington, New Jersey, to participate in a protest against PennEast/UGI Pipeline.  We heard from a New Jersey state legislator, a U.S. Congress member, and a number of local officials who were worried about the destruction of water supplies, preserved farmland, and sensitive environmental areas.  The safety of hundreds of people who will be in the blast zone was also a concern.

I thought of how different it is here in Carbon, where our state legislator, Doyle Heffley, is in the cheering section for the pipeline.  I don’t know what our new U.S. Representative, millionaire Dan Meusser thinks about it, but I have a hunch.

The demonstration was at a woman’s house that will be bisected by the pipeline.  About 75 people attended the demonstration.  We were the only two from Carbon County.

short post on Michael Flynn

Lock him up!

Secretary Zinke (Lock him up)

Not only are many Trump appointees unqualified for the job, unable to perform their duties, or opposed to their responsibilities, but it also turns out they are crooks as well.  Secretary of the Interior Zinke, who rode a horse through Washington on his first day on the job, did not fulfill his responsibilities to protect our environment.  He also engineered a real estate deal to benefit his family in conjunction with David J. Lesar, Chair of Halliburton.  

He could face up to five years in prison if he is convicted of using his governmental position to benefit himself.  It’s called “conflict of interest.”

I just hope he and the horse he rode in on get their comeuppance.

On another topic, in a recent post I was very critical of some New Jersey Democratic legislators for proposing a law that would have almost guaranteed Democratic dominance for decades.  I am pleased to report that that proposal has been withdrawn.

Fred Greenstein, 88, and Nancy Wilson, 81, A goodbye

This is probably the only place you will ever read those two names together, but both were important to me, so indulge me.

Fred Greenstein was a political scientist who, in the Fifties, studied the attitudes of New Haven school children toward political authority.  He found that kids in the lower grades sometimes confused the President with god.  While they soon outgrew this, the idea that the President was more than mortal stayed with them.  When Kennedy was assassinated, people couldn’t sleep, felt bereft, were disoriented in a way that would not be the case if a U.S. Senator had died.

Greenstein, who wrote about the “benevolent leader,” was later criticized by political scientists who said he had only studied white middle-class students, and Latino and black students had a totally different view of authority, which they called the “malevolent leader.”  That doesn’t change his findings.

Greenstein later chaired the Political Science Department at Princeton.   His research compared presidential leadership, and his study of Eisenhower raised Ike’s standing among presidents, a conclusion I agree with.  Eisenhower was somewhat plodding, careful, and dull.  Kennedy was dashing and impulsive.  It was the difference between the D-Day invasion and the Bay of Pigs.

Now Nancy Wilson.  She was a “jazz singer,” but so much more.  I think I have every album she ever recorded.  I bought or was given–I can’t remember– a poster of her that I got at a record store in Lehighton [yes, there was a time when Lehighton had a record store] that I had above my bed when I was in grad school at Penn State.  I loved Nancy Wilson.

Linda and I saw her at a concert at Lehigh University.  She had lost much of the richness of her voice at that point, but she was still wonderful.  I continue to play her albums.  A part of who I am is gone.  

Making Wishes Come True

For the last nine years the Republicans have been trying to kill the Affordable Care Act.  In the last two years the Republican Senate has approved two U.S. Supreme Court justices who are “conservative.”

Now they get their wish.  A federal district court judge in Texas has declared the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional.  The case, of course, will be appealed.  The last time the Supreme Court ruled on this law, the vote was 5-4 to uphold the Act.  Justice Roberts, one of the five, approved it on the basis of the right to tax.  That “tax” provision, if I read the law correctly, has been taken away by the Republican Congress.  

That means that the rationale advanced by Roberts would no longer hold.  That means the five justices, including Trump appointees Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, will be voting to overturn the law.  That, in turn, means that millions of people will lose their health insurance and thousands will die.

This is what the Republicans wished for.  Santa Claus has come early for them, and I hope they are happy with the gift.

Power really does corrupt, at least in New Jersey

You’ve probably been reading about the Republican attempts to alter gubernatorial powers in Wisconsin and Michigan before the newly elected Democratic governors take office.  It is disgusting, unfair, and violates rules that we should have learned in kindergarten.

Now I read in the Times that in New Jersey Democratic legislators are trying to make the Republican Party a permanent minority by writing a Democratic gerrymander into to the state’s constitution.

There is a practical reason and an ethical reason why this is wrong.  The practical reason is that it allows Republicans in Michigan and Wisconsin (and North Carolina and Georgia) to say, “See, they do it.  Why shouldn’t we?”

The ethical reason is that it is undemocratic.  It is simply wrong.  I hate it when my side does things that I have to be ashamed of.  This is one of those things.  I hope that enough Democratic legislators in New Jersey will have the courage and the morals to say no to this power grab.

The full story can be found in Nick Corasaniti, “Democrats, Flush With Power, Try to Grab More,” New York Times, (Dec. 14, 2018), p. A1, A27.

Bad "News"

The U.S. has a network of broadcast services started during the Cold War that were supposed to broadcast “truth” to countries under Communist control.  Voice of America was one.  Radio Marti, which broadcast to Cuba, was another. 

Like the BBC during World War II, these were stations that broadcast real news that listeners could depend upon.  They were generally straight-forward, even discussing problems within the U.S.

No more.  Under Trump these broadcast services have become increasingly pure propaganda. They are moving from news organizations to propaganda outlets, sort of like Fox “News.”  It won’t take listeners long to figure out that the broadcasts can’t be trusted as news and to discount whatever comes over the airwaves.

There are times this Administration is so stupid, so wrong-headed, so goddam dumb it makes my head hurt.

Info for this post is from Elizabeth Williamson, “Troubled Vessel For U.S. Ideals Faces New Tilt, New York Times, (Dec. 13, 2018), pp. A1, A10.

Ricky Santorum says no

Ricky Santorum, former Senator from Pennsylvania and the man who told Florida students to learn CPR rather than try to change gun laws, has said he will not serve as Trump’s Chief of Staff.  

I thought Ricky was not very smart, but maybe is isn’t as dumb as I thought he was.  He mumbled something about being with his family, always a fall-back excuse.

We are not alone

At the UN Climate Talks, a resolution endorsing the recent UN report on climate change was derailed by a coalition of four countries:  Kuwait, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S.  

Your Tax Dollars Help Starve Children

That was the headline in yesterday’s Sunday Review of the Times for an article by Nicholas Kristof about the war in Yemen.  In the last three years, approximately 85,000 kids have died.  85,000.  That three-year-old war is mainly the responsibility of Saudi Arabia.  Which nation is the number one backer of Saudi Arabia?  Which nation supplies it with most of its weaponry?

I think you know.

And that is the problem with living in a “democracy.”  The government acts in our name.  If we lived in the Philippines, or in Turkey, or in Pakistan, we could sleep at night, knowing that our government did not represent us, and the evils it did were beyond our control.  Unless we wanted to make a public statement and then get arrested and jailed, and perhaps killed, government policy was unaffected by what we did.

But we live in a “democracy.”  Government acts in our name.  When kids are taken from their parents at the border, that is on us.  When Saudi Arabia fights with American weapons, that is on us.  When the U.S. pulls out of the Paris Climate agreement, the government is acting on our behalf.  

That is the trouble with living in a “democracy.”  We don’t really get to make the policy, but supposedly we do, and the government is acting in our name.  

So in the last three years 85,000 children have died in our name.  And I don’t have the slightest idea what to do about it.  Maybe go to the mall and buy something and watch Fox News and congratulate ourselves that we live in the best country on the planet.

New School Lunch Rules

More salt will be permitted.  Flavored sugared milk is ok.  Whole grain rich foods are cut back.  These are some of the new rules announced by Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue.  The changes were backed by the “School Nutrition Association,” a lobbying group that includes many of the country’s largest food companies.

Why was this done?  Because the standards that were replaced had been advocated by Michelle Obama.  If the Obama administration did something, the Trump administration will do its utmost to overturn it.  They really do hate Obama.

See Julia Jacobs, “Administration Rolling Back Rules for School Lunches,” New York Times (Dec. 9, 2018), p. 19.

Letter to our daughter in Chico

Dear Rachael,

     It must be incredibly depressing to know so many friends, co-workers, and clients who lost everything in the fire.  You obviously can’t help them all, but I know you would like to.

     I probably told you this, but just in case I didn’t…I read that a fire is in some ways worse than a death in the family.  After a death you grieve, but then you move on.  After a fire you lose your whole sense of who you are.  People always say, “Well, we’re alive.  Thank god for that.”  And that’s a good point.  You certainly would be worse off if your parents or your children had died.  Nonetheless, you have lost all those little things that made you who you are–your diaries, your poetry, your school records, your pictures, the records of your trips to Costa Rica and Spain, your address book, your stamp collection–and on and on.  These are things not only important to you, but they are also possessions you wanted to pass down to your kids.  I cannot imagine how hard it must be to lose all of that.

     I thought that the people of Chico might be getting tired of the disruption in their lives.  School closures, over-crowding, people living in tents, battles between long-term homeless and fire victims, and no end in sight.  You mentioned that people at work were behaving inappropriately.  I don’t know in what way, but I can believe that everyone is stressed out, nobody knows what the next few weeks, or months, or years will bring, and then the TV is constantly showing happy people doing holiday things.  

     I could write cliches, like take it one day at a time, or in a few months it will be better, but none of that helps.  I remember going with you and Mark and Gavin to that Christmas tree place you mentioned, and I assume it is all gone, trees, stand, house, and livelihood.  I wish there was some words I could say that would help, but I can’t think of anything.

     Love,

     Father

CCC Camp in Nesquehoning

The Pennsylvania Lumber Museum in Potter County has a fairly extensive display devoted to the New Deal Civilian Conservation Corps, one of the most successful programs launched during the Depression.  CCC members built picnic grounds, developed trails, planted trees, erected cabins, and so much more.  The sidewalks on 10th Street next to San Jose State were put there by a CCC company.

I asked one of the docents at the museum if she had any information on CCC camps in Carbon County, and she gave me the contact information for the leading CCC historian in the state.  I finally sent him an email earlier this week and received a reply yesterday.  Carbon County had two camps.  One was at Hickory Run State Park; I had known about that one. 

I did not know about a “colored” CCC camp located in Nesquehoning where the fire company building is located.  I now have the Roster of Company 3308 and a picture of the men.  It never had occurred to me that the CCC was segregated, but in retrospect, of course it would have been.  

Women who voted for Trump

When is the last time you changed someone’s mind about a political issue?  Think hard.  Perhaps your uncle at Thanksgiving?  Maybe a guy ahead of you in line at the market?  A discussion at a meeting?  I’ll bet you can’t come up with a single example.

In the December 7 issue of the Nation, Katha Pollitt addressed the idea of showing women who voted for Trump the error of their ways.  She writes:  “You may think their beliefs are bigoted and ill-informed and illogical–which they are.  You may marvel that women who think the polite and scandal-free Barack Obama is the Antichrist can believe that foul-mouthed, abusive Donald Trump is God’s instrument, like King David.  What you are not going to do is make them see it differently by reminding them that at least 15 women have accused Trump of a range of sexual offenses.”

Pollitt says, and I agree with her, that you will not change their minds, will not make them see the light, will not convert them into feminist liberals.  

She does point out that nearly 40% of eligible voters–many of them young, many of them rural, many of them blacks and Latinos–did not vote in 2016.  Those are the people we ought to be targeting. 

Bush, Flynn, and the EPA

If you are a blogger, the rule is never post about more than one item.  I generally follow that rule, but I have three topics today, so bear with me.

Bush:  Almost no one who lives a long life is all good or all bad.  I have done embarrassing, cruel, and illegal things in my life.  (I am not about to spell them out.)  I just hope I have offset them.  We do have a tendency when a person dies to ignore the bad things and speak only of the good. That seems to have been the case with George Bush today.  

On the other hand, there are people on the left end of the political spectrum who refuse to recognize good things Bush has done.  When Iraq invaded Kuwait, that was the first time since World War II that a country invaded and seized another independent state.  Bush put together the coalition to roll that back and then had the good sense not to invade Iraq.  

It is interesting to think about Trump.  If he died today, I cannot think of a single good thing to say about him.

Flynn:  He said if he had done one/tenth of what Hillary Clinton did, he would be in jail.  He led chants at Trump rallies: “LOCK HER UP.”  Since Hillary Clinton was not found guilty of any crimes and Flynn was, I feel like doing a one-person protest, standing in downtown Jim Thorpe with a sign “LOCK HIM UP.”  

On the other hand, he seems to have provided major information on the illegalities of the Trump administration and that, in turn, encouraged others to testify.  I understand the need for “flipping” witnesses.  I just hope this bastard has learned some humility.

EPA:  But here is the big news for today, in case you missed it.  It is far more important for the globe than either Bush or Flynn.  The EPA is rolling back climate change regulations on coal-fired plants, making it easier to build new power plants..  This not only affects the U.S., but it will encourage other countries to proceed with coal burning plants.  

You probably did miss it.  It was on page B-3 of the New York Times.

Puritan tiger beetles

The Puritan tiger beetle now only exists in small numbers in three spots–two in Connecticut along the Connecticut River and one in the Chesapeake Bay area.  The beetle is New England’s most endangered species.  The beetles are part of a healthy river; if the beetles disappear, the river is not healthy.  

A group of entomologists have been growing beetle larva in a lab.  They placed 436 of the immature beetles in trenches along the Connecticut River in October.  If everything goes right, they will emerge as adults sometime next summer.  

They aren’t as cute as pandas or as visible as polar bears, but they are part of the web of life on our planet.  I am glad that someone cares about them.

For more info, see “A Colony of Puritans” by Karen Weintraub, New York Times, (Dec., 4, 2018), pp. D1, D3.

Women, Saving the Country

This is the change in women’s vote, by party, from 2016 (the Trump election) to the 2018 congressional elections.  The figures are the shift toward Democrats.

All women:   +6%

White unmarried women:   +10%

White women with a college degree:   +13%

White working class women:   +13%

It isn’t all good news.  While white working-class women shifted toward Dems by 13%, they still gave a majority of their votes to Republicans.  On the other hand, Democrats cut the Republicans’ margin in rural areas by 13%, according to an exit poll for CNN and by 7% according to a poll by Catalist.  Yes, Democrats lost rural America, and that hurt them in the Senate, but Democrats did make progress in rural areas.

Info for this post is from Stanley B. Greenberg, “Trump Is Losing His Grip,”  New York Times, (Nov. 18, 2018), p. SR6.

Solving the Christmas decoration problem

People often asked, with kind of an accusatory voice, “So, you don’t decorate for Christmas?  It was especially bad because our two closest neighbors go all out with blow-up holiday figures covering their yards and lights around their houses.

We now put a lighted menorah in the window.  Nobody asks anymore about Christmas decorations.  Problem solved.

Letter to Sen.Scott

I don’t usually praise Republican Senators, but I sent the following letter to Tim Scott:

Dear Sen. Scott:

Thank you for opposing the nomination of Thomas Farr to a federal court position.  I know this could not have been an easy vote for you, but it was the right vote.  I wish more Republican Senators had your courage.