News alert

 Check out the latest voter information spot from the Carbon County Pandemic Players.

https://youtu.be/Q4SJnYp7o60

Polite word for Trump and other observations

 One of our volunteers today called Trump a “rectum.”  He said he was trying to use polite language.  

Earlier this week I put up a sign that said “ironic sign ahead” about 200 yards before a big sign that said “Trump–no more bullshit.”  My sign was up for two days.  I figure the guy with the Trump sign had to look up “ironic.”

Somebody else has been making homemade signs.  Near the turnpike entrance someone put up “Democracy is fragile.”  Next to the “Trump #1” where we briefly added a sign “in covid deaths,” someone else put up sign calling for clean air.  That one has lasted over two days.

I’ll be a poll watcher on Tuesday.  Linda has recruited 17 official poll watchers.  We will see that nothing untoward is going on, like threats or Trumpists standing within ten feet of the entrance to the polling locations.  I’ll be wearing a coat and tie.  I don’t even wear a coat and tie to funerals, but I have learned that a coat and tie is actually more intimidating than an AK-47.

We’ve been telling people to get their mail-in ballots into the 76 Susquehanna St. drop box in Jim Thorpe.  Why don’t we have a drop boxes in Tresckow, or Weatherly, or Palmerton?  I will be asking the County Commissioners this after the election.  I will also be presenting them with a packet of information that Nevada County, California, provides to its voters.  All the rules are spelled out, all the drop boxes listed, all the information a voter needs is there.  Why can’t Pennsylvania get its act together?

Diane DiPrima

 It seems as though I am posting more and more about obits.  I’m not sure why–maybe a function age.  In any case, tonight’s post is in honor of the poet Diane DiPrima, who recently died at age 86.  Instead of going into her life, I’ll just reprint one of her poems from her book Revolutionary Letters.

Can you

own land, can you

own house, own rights to other’s labor, (stocks, or factories

or money, loaned at interest)

what about

the yield of same, crops, autos

airplanes dropping bombs, can you 

own real estate, so others 

pay you rent?  to whom

does the water belong, to whom

will the air belong, as it get rarer?

the american indians say that a man

can own no more than he can carry away 

on his horse.

The Death of Robert Murray

 Murray was the head of Murray Energy, America’s largest privately owned coal producer.  At one time it had 8000 employees in six states and Columbia.  Last year it went bankrupt.

Murray fought government regulations that protected miners and those that addressed climate change.  He opposed the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan and called it “a political power grab of America’s power grid to change our country in a diabolical, if not evil, way.”

He was a big Trump supporter and praised Trump’s efforts to preserve coal jobs.  He sued the New York Times for what he considered bad coverage.  He sued John Oliver who called him “a geriatric Dr. Evil.”  Neither suit was successful.

The current E.P.A. administrator, Andrew Wheeler, had been a lobbyist for Mr. Murray.

Ironically, in an industry that gave so many miners lung problems, Murray himself died of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.  Right now I’m feeling just a teeny bit of schadenfreude.

Info on Murray is from John Schwartz, “Robert Murray, 80, Powerful Coal Baron, Regulation Fighter and Trump Supporter,” New York Times (Oct. 28, 2020), p. B10.  The schadenfreude is all mine.

The Sinking Demographic Ship

 In 2016 the group that gave Trump just enough votes to win the election consisted of white people with no college degrees.  The number of voting-age white Americans without college degrees has dropped by more than five million voters in the past four years.  The number of minority voters and college-educated white voters has collectively increased by more than 13 million in the past four years.

While white voters without college degrees are enthusiastic for Trump in 2020, Trump has not expanded this base.  Instead he has inadvertently mobilized and energized minority voters and college-educated white voters.  What this means is that he will have a harder time next Tuesday to win the election.  

In Carbon County, where white non-college educated voters are the clear majority, he should do well. From my experience, however, Trump has also managed to create determination among many people who sat back in 2016, thinking he had no chance.  This year they are definitely voting.

Info on the demographic shift is from Ford Fessenden and Lazaro Gamio, “Trump Fighting to Defy a ‘Sinking Demographic Ship,’” New York Times, (Oct. 23, 2020), p. A14.

20% off Trump gear

Today René and I replaced three large “This is Biden Country” signs, one on Mahoning Drive, one between Nesquehoning and Lansford, and one on the way into Summit Hill.  We use metal stakes and plastic ties, but people have been taking both the signs and the stakes, except in cases where they leave the stakes bent and destroyed.

This is getting old, but here is the fun part.  The Trump store on the outskirts of Lehighton is now advertising 20% off on all Trump items–flags, bumper stickers, and signs.  The push is on to get rid of this junk before the bottom falls out completely.  Come next Tuesday evening, perhaps they can have a huge bonfire.  

In other good news of a very personal nature, today I saw my first evening grosbeaks.  There were at least six, male and female, at our feeder.  I don’t think they are particularly rare, but I had never seen one.  They are just beautiful.   

Do not be intimidated

 In some states early voting sites have been scenes of Trumpists waving flags, doing their best to look like tough guys, and yelling at voters.  They may even take your picture.  If that sort of thing happens in your voting precinct, do not engage them.  Do not argue with them.  Ignore them, go inside, cast your vote, and leave.  

If you are physically threatened, call the police.  Intimidation of voters is a federal crime.  

Report from the front lines in PA

 Last night someone came half-way up our yard and stole our 3 by 4 foot sign that said “This is Biden Country.”  It has now been replaced with 15 Biden/Harris yard signs.  

When René and I were installing another “This is Biden Country” sign at a house down the road, a Trumpist drove by and yelled “Racist, Fascist.”  It seemed to me we should have been yelling that at him, provided we were that kind of jerks who yelled insults at political opponents.

In the afternoon we completed our final turf in Lansford.  Only one house on our list had a Trump sign.  (We skipped it–if they haven’t learned anything in the last four years, we won’t convince them).  A guy stopped and asked for a yard sign, we got positive responses from the few people who talked to us (in a lit drop, you don’t usually talk to people, but some people came to the door when we were on the porch), and another woman called me “hon” for the second day in a row.  All in all, a good day.  

Lit drop in Lansford, PA

 Our team was sent to Lansford, Pennsylvania, to distribute literature for Biden/Harris to Democrats who vote sporadically.  60 years ago Lansford was a prosperous town; my mom sometimes drove there to shop.  Now Lansford, although I don’t have documentation, probably has the lowest per capita income of any borough in the County.  Drugs are problem and the poverty is visible.

Trump signs are everywhere.  At one of our stops a Latino told us in no uncertain terms that he was voting for Trump.  Another woman, when she found out who we were backing, was positively insulting.  

While we did get supportive responses (one young woman called me “hon” and one of our contacts had been making phone calls for Biden), Lansford is a town full of people in despair.  We saw kids who will be attending school in a district in Carbon County that performs near the bottom in state tests.  The property tax rate is high, but the schools are underfunded since property values are depressed.

I think people who have little to lose are most often the Trumpists.  They’ve lost faith in America, they don’t care about the slide toward dictatorship, they could care less about global warming, foreign policy doesn’t compute, and they feel a combination of hopelessness and despair.  Trump’s bluster and lies make them feel good.  They aren’t “deplorable,” but they are poor, alienated, and not part of the American dream.  Their main attitude is resentment.

Squeeze Me

 That is the title of Carl Hiaasen’s latest book, set in Palm Beach and the Everglades.  Hiaasen is one of our best satirists, and in this book he takes on Trump and Melania, the Secret Service, and Burmese pythons.  Trump and Melania are given fictional names, of course, but the material on Trump is dead on–his vanity, his short attention span, his hatred of immigrants, even his weight get skewered.  Interestingly, the Melania stand-in is rather likable, and you find it persuasive that she would loath her husband.

The book is published by Alfred A. Knopf.  Ask your local library to purchase a copy. 

Incidentally, I watched five minutes of the debate last night.  Biden won.

F--- your feelings

 Trump supporters are making the same mistake Trump makes.  Instead of a warm welcome to people who may be on the fence, they seem to want to drive people away.  Jennifer Weiner, a New York Times columnist who lives in Philadelphia, mentioned today a truck in the school pick up line emblazoned with Trump signs and the slogan “Fuck your feelings.”  I doubt if that will sit well with the suburban mothers in Limerick, Pennsylvania, who saw that truck.

Today I saw a car on Second Street in Lehighton with the same slogan on a bumper sticker.  I can tell you that it didn’t sit well with me either.  

"reckless disregard for human life"

 Kamela Harris used that phrase to describe Trump’s attitude at his rallies.  Ms. Harris, as you probably know, was a prosecutor in California.  Evidently that phrase is the CA definition of the charge of manslaughter.

It certainly fits our President.  

And now I’m going to ask you to look deep into your heart.  Admit that you hope those people at the rallies come down with severe Covid-19 cases.  You are a terrible person and need to go to confession.

Minks dying of Covid-19

 Thousands of minks have died from Covid-19 infections, all of them in Utah.  Between 7000 and 8000 adult minks have died.  Utah is the largest U.S. producer of mink hides.  Denmark, which produces 40% of the world mink pelts, is also seeing its minks dying of Covid-19.  

It appears that the minks caught the virus from infected workers, although in Denmark authorities believe that the minks themselves can infect humans.

But not to worry.  The dead minks’ pelts can still be used after they are processed to remove any traces of the virus.

I am often annoyed by the antics of PETA, but in the case of minks, I am sympathetic to that organization.  Do we really need to raise minks for their fur?  

Netherlands has decided we don’t.  That country is phasing out all mink farms by 2021.

Information for this post is from JoNel Aleccia, “Thousands of Minks Dead in Covid-19 Outbreaks on Farms,” Lancaster Farming, (Oct. 17, 2020), p. B-8.

The Mooch Speaks Out

The number of Trump appointees and insiders who are now critical of him keeps growing.  When people like Mattis, Tillerson, and Kelly are critical, I’m not really all that surprised, since I believe those people had some scruples and either quit in disgust or were dismissed.  

What surprises me is that even the people who had very few misgivings about Trump in the beginning came to realize that he was below the standards that even they could tolerate.  Thus we have Anthony Scaramucci (“the Mooch”), Paul Manafort, and John Bolton, none of whom are paragons of virtue, now telling the American people just what a low-life Trump is. 

Door-to-door for Biden

 We went out in teams of two in perfect weather, hitting every Democrat on Lehigh and Franklin Avenues and most of Lafayette and Columbia Avenues, and those are among four of the biggest streets in Palmerton.  We also had a team out in Lehighton covering Democrats who are sporadic voters.  Tomorrow we will finish two of the three Palmerton precincts.  

We noticed some Trump door hangers on some of the homes we visited.  The Biden/Harris lit is upbeat, with info on what Biden hopes to accomplish.  The Trump lit features AOC and Bernie and claims the Democrats are radical leftists who will destroy the progress Trump has made.  I’m serious.

The national Biden campaign uses phones and an app for which you enter data as you are walking (or driving, in more spread-out areas).  Since many of our volunteers are seniors, some of whom don’t even have cell phones (I’m raising my hand), we are providing paper copies of the turfs to some of our more “old school” volunteers.

My partner and I had no problems, but when you are just distributing literature, you don’t anticipate problems.  We did encounter two people outside their houses who said they had already voted for Biden by mail.  I received my ballot today, and on Monday I will drop it off at the Registrar in person.  Another one in the bag.

Lit Drop

 Usually by this time in a campaign we would be going door-to-door in the towns in Carbon County campaigning for the Democratic presidential candidate.  “We” would be those volunteers willing to encounter dogs, hills in Nesquehoning, the up and down steps in the west end of Palmerton, the difficulty of finding people in apartment buildings, broken sidewalks, inoperable doorbells, and very occasionally, a really rude person.  

We can’t do that this year.  We can’t ask volunteers to visit people while Covid-19 cases are again rising in Pennsylvania.  We can’t ask residents to open their doors to strangers on their porches.  

What we can do is a literature drop.  We are visiting Democratic households, dropping off a Biden/Harris piece that includes a small American flag and a number to call if people need a ride or want a yard sign.  It is not as effective as a front porch pitch, but it is something.  If we can garner one out of a hundred votes, that’s one percent.  Clinton lost Pennsylvania in 2016 by less than one percent.

Two more reasons to vote for Biden

First reason:  The U.S. has invited Prabowo Subianto, an Indonesian general, to visit the U.S.  Mr. Prabowo, son-in-law of the dictator Suharto, was blamed for atrocities committed by his troops.  Amnesty International and other human rights groups urged the Trump administration to cancel the visit.  Nope.

Second reason:  Criminal prosecutions for environmental crimes have “plummeted” during the Trump administration.  This does not mean that the crimes have plummeted, just the prosecutions.  The findings were the result of a study by the Environmental Crimes Project of the University of Michigan. 

Dakota Access Pipeline

 I frequently wonder what Trumpists think about certain issues.  

The Standing Rock Sioux challenged the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) four years ago.  In July a federal judge ordered the pipeline be closed pending a review of the project’s environmental impact.  

The company that is building the pipeline has appealed, of course, but the environmental review process is unlikely to be completed before the election.  That means if Biden wins, DAPL will surely be dead.

I know I am biased on pipeline issues, since the PennEast pipeline is slated to cross our farm.  I am also predisposed to regard Indian Tribes as sovereign entities with their own rights that should be respected.  Finally, to build a pipeline to transport fracked materials is not the way to go on a planet that gets warmer each year.

So my question is, do the people stopping in at the Trump store in Lehighton to buy those big flags ever consider environmental issues?  Are they aware of the Dakota pipeline?  Do they care about American Indians?  And if the answer is no to those questions, then what are they thinking about?  What is moving them to vote this way?  No wonder I can’t sleep at night.

When is a farm too small to be a farm?

New Britain Township, located in Lancaster County, has a zoning regulation that says to be defined as a farm you need at least 20 acres.  We would just qualify; ours is 23, but some of that is house and lawn and the Kibler School grounds, so we’d be close.  I know of the “Fourteen Acre Farm” near Jim Thorpe, well-known for its produce, and I also know of a farm in Mahoning Township that is less than 20 acres that, through careful management, raises all kinds of specialty crops.  

Dr. Judith Shoemaker, who owns the farm in New Britain Township that is only 16.4 acres, has gone to court to overturn the Township regs that limit her operation.  She raises Angora goats.  I hope she wins.  According to the USDA, half the farms in Pennsylvania are under 50 acres.

See “Too Little to Be a Farm?, Lancaster Farming, (Oct. 10, 2020), p. A1, A11-A12. 

Wolverines

 I know, I know.  I keep harping on stuff like this when I ought to be posting screeds on the nominee for the Supreme Court.  I keep bringing up issues that never makes it to CNN or MSNBC, let alone Fox News.

Nonetheless, here I go again.  Wolverines give birth in snow dens.  Their feet are large and act as snow shoes.  Most of them live in Canada, but the U.S. had quite a few before they were poisoned and killed for their pelts.  Now only about 300 wolverines live in the lower 48.  

Last week the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the population of wolverines was stable, and the worries about global warming could be dismissed.  It denied wolverines federal protection.  

Jumpers and drivers

 Ten teams of Biden/Harris volunteers fanned out across Carbon County today putting signs along the highways.  Each team had a driver and a jumper.  The driver pulls off the highway, and the jumper grabs a sign and sticks it in the ground.  Each team had a map marked with the route to cover, and the routes included all the major highways in the County.

Four years ago we couldn’t even get Clinton signs.  A volunteer came down from New York and probably did permanent damage to his lungs while spray painting about 300 homemade signs in our shed.  Then we had trouble finding volunteers to put them out.  This election is so different.

Incidentally, in other sign news, the Trumpists have a large sign as you leave Lehighton that says “Trump #1.  Some brave soul put up a sign next to it that says “IN COVID DEATHS.”  I have a feeling the Trumpists will take that one down as soon as they see it.  They are truly snowflakes.

Clinton...really?

Today we delivered some Biden/Harris signs in Tresckow, Pennsylvania, a small town near Hazleton.  We saw a yard sign with Bill and Hillary Clinton’s picture and something sarcastic about “family values,” and I thought, wow, this guy is trying to relive the 2016 campaign. 

Then I read that Trump was pressuring Secretary of State Pompeo to release all of Hillary Clinton’s emails.  This is pathetic.  I’m waiting for Trump to tell us how he is going to get Mexico to pay for a wall.

What we are seeing is the beginning of a total collapse.  I’ll be surprised if this goofball wins Texas. 

Indicting Obama and Biden

 When you think it can’t get any worse, it gets worse.  Trump told Attorney General Barr there was plenty of evidence to indict Obama and Biden. This threat echoes dictators like Putin who not only attempt to defeat their political opponents, but jail or even poison them.  

If Trump were an ordinary person, I would say he is deranged from the steroids he is taking.  I’ll just say he is deranged.

I am awaiting a chorus of Republican Senators and House members to denounce this type of threat to our deepest democratic values, but if the past is any guide, I’ll have a long wait.

Robert Bechtle, 1932-2020

 A few years ago Linda and I heard about an exhibition of some of Robert Bechtle’s works at the Gladstone Gallery in Manhattan.  Since we both liked Bechtle’s works very much, we drove up, found the gallery closed, waited by the door until a guy came by, and were allowed inside.  

Bechtle painted lots of cars, mostly on sunny California streets, sometimes with people, sometimes just the cars.  The sunlight on the cars is amazing.  The style is sometimes called “photorealism,” but you know it is a painting.  

None of the paintings had prices listed, but we decided we might buy the smallest one.  We asked the woman in charge about the price.  I think if we had sold half of the farm, we might have been able to swing it.

Google “Works of Robert Bechtle” if you want to see images of some of the paintings.

On another sad note, Eddie Van Halen 1955-2020) has died of cancer.  I think we should all do something in his honor.  Play “Jump.”  You’ll feel good.

New Zealand cases

 New Zealand has not had any new Covid 19 cases for the past ten days.  We have had more than that just in the White House.

Philip Guston

 Guston was a radical artist who lived from 1913 to 1980.  One of his first works was a mural featuring the Scottsboro Boys, nine young black men falsely accused of rape.  The mural was vandalized by a group known as the Red Squad, associated with the LAPD.  His paintings in the Fifties were abstractions, but after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., he began to paint pictures of hooded figures which he associated with what he called the “bad habits” of America, including racism, violence, and oppression.  

In September a number of museums (the National Gallery of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and the Tate in London decided to postpone (cancel?) a showing of Guston’s paintings.  They were afraid visitors might misinterpret the art work showing the Ku Klux Klan.  

Are you following this?  These museums decided to cancel a show of a man who painted to protest the Klan and racism because they thought visitors might be upset by images of the Klan.  This is nuts.

Ten Doctors

 The front page of the New York Times had a picture of Trump’s medical entourage–I counted a total of ten doctors.  (One is kind of hidden, but you can spot him.)  Ten doctors, publicly funded, for a tax cheat who paid $750 in income tax and wants to end medical care for millions.

Road Trip to Baltimore

Today we made a 375 mile round trip to Baltimore to pick up 1400 Biden/Harris yard signs.  Schuylkill County gets 900; Carbon will use 500.  The wire boxes were really heavy, but our pickup truck held up fine.  

Maryland Democratic officials believed that Northeastern PA needed the signs more than they did, so they provided the signs free of charge.  The house where we picked them up was in an upscale residential neighborhood, but the back yard was loaded with box after box of signs on pallets.  

We went down to Baltimore the usual way, but on the way back we decided to avoid the Turnpike, since we no longer could see out the back window of the truck.  

In Lititz, PA, we ate dinner at an excellent Mexican restaurant.  When this campaign is over, I may write a guidebook to Mexican and Thai restaurants in Pennsylvania Dutch cities and towns, like the Japanese restaurant in Lancaster and the Thai restaurant in Ephrata.  So much better than sauerkraut and mashed potatoes.

On another note, my friend Tom M. sent me a quote from Patrick Martin on Trump’s condition:  “Given his role in downplaying the the virus and disparaging the use of face masks, he is like an arsonist who has inadvertently set himself on fire.” 

Dumbass

 I had a close relative who died of lung cancer after a two-pack a day habit for most of his adult life.  Of course I was sad, but part of me couldn’t help thinking, hey, you knew cigarettes were bad.  Why didn’t you quit?

With Trump I can’t help but feel he had it coming.  As late as the “debate” he was still mocking Joe Biden for wearing a mask.  We all saw his rallies with hundreds of maskless fanatics packed together.  Even when people sickened and died after the Tulsa rally, the rallies persisted and his followers called Covid-19 a hoax.  200,000+ dead, and it was still a hoax.

So call it karma, just desserts, or poetic justice.  I am not sending the “thoughts and prayers” that always seem to be sent to victims of gun violence.  I’m simply experiencing a strong wave of schadenfreude.

I will offer a tip, however.  Try bleach.

Campaigning during a pandemic

 In previous presidential campaigns volunteers would be coming to our headquarters for lists of people to contact door-to-door.  These lists would be in street order, sometimes odd side and even side, and were called “turfs.”  I’ve walked turfs in Weatherly, Jim Thorpe, Summit Hill, Lansford, Nesquehoning, Lehighton, Bowmanstown, and Palmerton.  I’ve even “walked” (one driver, one runner) in Bear Creek Lakes.

That no longer works.  First of all, it is dangerous to the walker.  Secondly, who would open the door to a stranger wearing a mask?

So, what does a presidential campaign do?  You send out letters with individual messages to voters.  Over 3000 so far, written by an army of volunteers.  You urge them to vote and explain why this election is crucial.

Second, you put out signs.  The Trump campaign is better at this, but we are catching up, and we put ours in yards.  They scatter them along the right-of-way, which simply shows they have signs, not supporters.

Third, we register voters and explain that the Trump tax cuts are for the rich.  We have almost two more weeks to get those registrations in.

Fourth, we use door hangers.  You don’t need to talk to the voters; you just put the door hangers on the door knobs.  It’s easy, quick, and again, shows we have an army of volunteers.

Fifth, we organize poll watchers to make sure that the Trumpists don’t intimidate voters.  They may very well try this, using Q-Anon crackpots and white supremacist “Proud Boys” and Klan members.  We will be training poll watchers to make sure that no voter is intimidated.  Interfering with someone’s right to vote is a federal crime and a felony.

We also have a few more tactics up our sleeves, but I don’t want to give everything away.