Earlier this evening I heard a whippoorwill call. It is the first time in many years. In the Fifties I would hear them every night; a wonderful sound and one of the few birds I could imitate fairly well.
According to the Cornell Ornithology Lab, whippoorwills are in steep decline, dropping 69% between 1966 and 2010. Scientists don’t know why. You can hear their sound on YouTube. In a few years that may be the only place you can hear them.
I support the Israeli people.
Netanyahu is a terrorist.
I support the Palestinians.
Hamas is a terrorist organization.
See how easy that was.
My friend Bill sent me that meme a few days ago. I think it sums up exactly how I feel. Hamas is a terrible organization. It has never cared for the Palestinian people, nor has it done anything to better their lives. Netanyahu is currently under criticism from his own military for having no idea what to do with Gaza once Hamas is defeated. He is only interested in maintaining power.
You can support the right of the Palestinians to have their own state without calling for the end of Israel. You can see Hamas for what it is without supporting the attack on Rafah. You can be an adult.
Soon after I moved to California, I drove to the town of Walnut Creek to see this bank festooned with a huge peace sign. The bank was under the direction of Pete McCloskey. McCloskey, a Congressman, had earlier beaten Shirley Temple Black in a race for Congress, a campaign detailed in the book The Sinking of the Lollipop. In 1971 he launched a campaign against Richard Nixon. McCloskey, a Marine who won the Navy Cross, two Purple Hearts, and a Silver Star in the Korean War, had visited Vietnam three times and was horrified by the napalm attacks and the use of cluster bombs.
Of course he lost to Nixon, but he kept fighting for good causes. One of his bills was the Endangered Species Act of 1973.
In 1987 he was sued for libel for $35 million by Pat Robertson, the “Christian” evangelical who was then running for President. Robertson claimed he was a combat Marine in the Korean War; McCloskey said it was a lie. When many other Marine officers said they were willing to testify that Robertson had avoided combat, Robertson then said he didn’t have time to both sue and run for President. He dropped the suit and paid the court costs.
In 2006 McCloskey said that the Republican Party was hostile to progressive causes, and he became a registered Democrat. He died a few days ago at age 96. He was a true patriot.
Some of the information for this post was taken from McCloskey’s obituary written by Robert D. McFadden in the New York Times, (May 10, 2024), p. A 21.
Sometimes people will say to me “I’ll text you.” Then I explain that I don’t have a smart phone, and they find this hard to comprehend. Doesn’t everybody have one?
When Katrina hit New Orleans the evacuation order detailed the routes for cars to leave the city. What the authorities didn’t realize was that thousands of residents of New Orleans did not own cars.
Lansford Borough Council has decided that the Borough will not accept cash for payments for sewage transmission fees and other charges. You can pay be credit cards or by check. Unfortunately, many residents of Lansford have neither bank accounts nor credit cards. Believe me, they don’t.
When asked how they could pay, a Councilwoman said, “They can get a money order.” Really? Then they have to go the the Post Office. And money orders also have a fee. This is typical of authorities who can’t imagine how some people live. They assume that since they have a checking account or a credit card, doesn’t everyone? No, some of us don’t. This discriminatory rule should be rescinded.
My review: Caesar, the one-time Ape leader, preached “ape not kill ape,” and believed that apes and humans could live in harmony. But that was a long time ago, and Caesar’s teaching have been perverted by Proximus Caesar, who uses force to remain in power and greets his subjects in a ranting daily speech that opens by claiming that it is a wonderful day.
His followers hang on every word, saluting him and cheering him on, hoping to Make Apes Great Again, although they don’t wear the hats. In the end some human/ape cooperation manages to overthrow Proximus, although the relationship between the peaceful apes and the human (who has a pistol and knows how to use it) is left ambiguous, no doubt a setup for the sequel.
Perhaps for the first time ever the Northern Lights were supposed to be visible in northeast Pennsylvania. A major electrical disturbance meant we might be able to see this phenomenon.
Unfortunately it was cloudy both last night and tonight. Nonetheless we gave it a shot, driving up to Penn Forest Township, then heading toward Hickory Run State Park. We found a wide-open farm field (Getz’s farm) with a good view to the north and very little ambient light.
Also, no northern lights. Darn.
At one point in my life I was seeing approximately a movie a week. I loved movies, perhaps because I saw so few growing up. I audited a film class in grad school, and I helped to develop and taught a course in “political films” at San José State.
Now I must drive at least 25 miles to see a movie. As I probably complained before, Carbon County, PA, does not have a single movie theater, although Palmerton once had three, Lehighton two, and Nesquehoning and Lansford at least one each.
Today we drove to Stroudsburg to see “The Fall Guy” with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt. It’s a romantic comedy, partly about making movies. (Hollywood loves movies about making movies.) It had its moments, but like so many movies today, it was about 40 minutes too long. The saddest thing was that there was only one other person in the theater. No wonder movie theaters are disappearing.
Yesterday I took the Florida legislature and Gov. DeSantis to task for passing a bill that says lab grown meat is illegal in Florida. Sometimes the state actually does the right thing. The legislature just passed and DeSantis will most likely sign a bill making it illegal for balloons to be released into the air.
When they eventually land balloons are ingested by animals, including fish and birds. Because of the material, the balloons do not disintegrate for a long time, and animals die. Many states, including Pennsylvania, already ban the release of balloons into the air. It is good legislation.
It’s not yet available for consumers, but if it is eventually commercially viable (no need to kill animals, better for the environment), you won’t be able to buy it in Florida. DeSantis pushed and passed a law to make it illegal to buy lab-grown meat.
This is typical Republican behavior. Favor free enterprise and limited government, but then decide you will tell people what they can eat. I’m surprised they haven’t gone after plant-based milk. About 15% of “milk” sold in the U.S. is now plant-based.
My take on this is that if people want to drink plant-based milk and eat lab-grown meat, it is their choice. But I’m a guy who believes in free enterprise and resents big government making my food choices.
In a recent study of “super-agers,” scientists found out that slightly fewer than 10% of old people have the memory abilities of people 20 to 30 years younger. These super-agers had more volume in areas of the brain important for memory, especially in the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex, whatever they are.
There was little difference between the super-agers and regular old people in terms of diet, exercise, amount of sleep, professional backgrounds, or alcohol consumption.
The only thing that seemed to set them apart was that they had strong social relationships. I’m thinking it may be more a matter of will power. So I’ve decided to be a super-ager. Go ahead, ask me anything except what I did ten minutes ago.
See Dana G. Smith, “Peering Inside the Brains of “Super-Agers,” New York Times, (7 May 2024), p. D6.
Lyndon Johnson gave his speech on the Voting Rights Act in 1965. In this time of division and hatred , it is good to be reminded of that speech. Here is a portion:
There is no constitutional issue here. The command of the Constitution is plain. There is no moral issue. It is wrong–deadly wrong–to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country. There is no issue of states’ rights or national rights. There is only the struggle for human rights....
This time, on this issue, there must be no delays or no hesitation or no compromise with our purpose....
But even if we pass this bill, the battle will not be over. What happened in Selma is part of a far large movement which reaches in every section and state of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life.
Their cause must be our cause too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.
And–we–shall–overcome.
I saw that speech on television with two fellow students in a rooming house at Penn State. We cheered. We had so much hope.
In Pennsylvania you may not hand out political material within ten feet of a polling place. This is barely enforced; I’ve seen polling places where voters must run a gauntlet of partisan activists, sometimes loud and rude, accosting voters. In Palmerton one of the polling places featured a man yelling at voters while holding the leash of a large and fierce-looking dog. At the East Penn polling location a crowd of activists was almost blocking the door. I think one of the reasons more Democrats are voting by mail is that they just don’t want to deal with obnoxious MAGA types acting like bullies.
The latest meeting of the Carbon County Democratic Executive Board passed a resolution asking our state representatives to introduce legislation extending the no solicitation zone to 50 feet. People can still hold up signs and pass out literature, but they must be at least 50 feet from the front door. Since some states have a 100 foot zone, 50 feet seems reasonable.
If the legislature won’t extend the zone by November and you are accosted, remember you can use your outside voice. And call the cops. And register a complaint with election authorities. It is illegal to interfere with voters.
Everyone who lives in the northeast learns the little rhyme, “Leaves be three, let it be.” Poison ivy, which is increasing in potency, is a vine with clusters of three shiny leaves, and if you have ever encountered its effects, you become very wary.
As a public service announcement, I will tell you that it doesn’t need to have leaves to to cause red swellings and incredible itching. If you are cleaning up brush in the spring before the leaves appear, you can get it even if the vines have no leaves.
The good news is that after a steroid shot and something called a Z-Pack of pills, it goes away. Or at least I hope so.
That’s the mantra of Detective Harry Bosch in the crime novels by Michael Connelly. I thought about that when I read about El Fasher, the last city in Darfur in Sudan that is still controlled by the military. The city is surrounded by the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group that is brutal and already responsible for the deaths of thousands.
El Fasher currently has about 1.3 million people, including hundreds of thousands who fled there to escape the violence. A U.S. envoy to the U.N. said the city was on the precipice of a massacre.
I have yet to hear of a campus protest about this. I have yet to hear about this on MSNBC or CNN, although I have heard much about a rather meaningless trial in Manhattan. In fact, I have only read one article about El Fasher, and that was three days ago on page A9 of the New York Times.
I’ll admit I could have missed something. Maybe Truth Social or Fox have been reporting on El Fasher. Maybe there have been posts on Facebook or X.
About a month ago I read a review of a book by Candace Fleming about the young women who helped break the German and Italian military codes during World War II. They worked at Bletchley Park; the most famous of the code breakers was Alan Turing. It sounded like a good book, so I asked the Palmerton Library to order it.
Yesterday they told me it had arrived. They also told me it was a “young adult” book, and did I want to read it anyway. I hadn’t known that, but I thought why not.
I finished it last night. I learned there were far more women than men working on the project, and a majority of the women were 20 and under. They worked in difficult conditions with bad food and sketchy housing, they were forbidden to talk about their work until the 1980s, and they were instrumental in a number of important victories by allied forces. An amazing story.
