How hot is it?

Old joke.  It was so hot I saw a dog chasing a cat, and they were both walking.

New joke.  The five warmest years in the 140 years of record keeping have been the last five years, and the President of the United States pushes coal, opposes renewable energy, and thinks global warming is false news.  He really is a joke.

Likable women

Remember when Hillary Clinton was not considered “likable.”  Katha Pollitt recently wrote in “The End of Likability” that the days of “likable women” candidates are over.  What is a “likable” woman?  One who doesn’t talk too much.  Who isn’t too loud.   Who isn’t too sexy.  Who isn’t too dowdy.  Who isn’t “shrill.”  Who doesn’t make too many waves.

Remember when Rashida Tlaib said of Trump, “We’re going to impeach the motherfucker.”  Republicans had a fit.  In 2004 when Dick Cheney on the Senate floor told Sen. Pat Leahy to go fuck himself, Cheney later said it was the proudest moment of his life.  Nobody had a fit.

I suppose I should decry the coarsening of American politics and note that just because Cheney has a potty mouth doesn’t mean Rep. Tlaib should speak like that.  But I won’t.  I agree with Katha Pollitt.  I don’t see why women should “play nice” while we have a misogynist pussy-grabbing president.  Fuck that.

Not Watching Trump

The Washington Post reported that after he became president, Trump watched a recording of a U.S. strike during which a drone operator waited to fire until the target was away from his family.  When the video as over, Trump asked, “Why did you wait?”

To me that is grounds enough for impeachment. 

The drone incident was reported in “The Long Shadow of 9/11” by Robert Malley and Join Finer, Foreign Affairs, (July-August, 2018), p. 68.

Illegal voting in Pennsylvania?

Daryl Metcalfe and Garth Everett, two Pennsylvania Republican legislators, recently issued a statement saying that they had confirmation that 11,198 foreign nationals had registered to vote in Pennsylvania.  

This figure came from the Pennsylvania Department of State, which reported last July that it had identified that number with some indication that they might not be citizens. 

The Department of State then reached out to the people on the list to find out what the facts were.  1,915 responded that they were eligible to vote.  About 300 canceled their registration.  The rest were forwarded to county officials to check.  About 2,550 were in the process of being removed because they hadn’t voted or did not respond to efforts to contact them.  

County officials are still working on the list.  In the meantime it is possible that non-citizens, who, by the way are paying taxes, may have cast a few hundred ballots out of 93 million votes over the past 18 years.

Metcalfe is one of the main architects of Pennsylvania’s gerrymandered districts and an opponent of making absentee voting easier.  He does not believe in government by the people.

The statistics are from an article by Mark Levy in the Pocono Record, Feb. 3, 2019,. pp. 1, 2.

The Israeli occupation

In May 1988 columnist Anthony Lewis wrote how the Israeli occupation was causing a coarsening of Israeli society and the lowering of legal and moral standards.  He pointed out that the voices of Israelis who opposed the government’s tactics in the occupied territories were drowned out by the settlers, the religious zealots, and other right-wing elements.

Today the Times reported that a gang of a dozen or so armed Jewish settlers recently attacked a Palestinian village while soldiers either stood by or clashed with the villagers themselves.  In the melee Hamdy Naasan, 38, father of four was shot and killed.  

Netanyahu wants the settler vote, so the government stays silent.  A left-wing candidate wrote:  “Silence.  Everyone sees the election on the horizon, and the settler lobby is stronger than any moral standard.”  

This is not the Israel of Theodor Herzl or Golda Meir or Menachem Begin.  It is not the Israel the United States should be supporting.

Should Governor Northam step down?

The Governor of Virginia was in a yearbook in a racist photograph, and a large number of people, including Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, and Julian Castro, have called for his resignation.

He may have already stepped down, but I don’t think he should.

Mr. Northam has been a good governor.  He has done nothing remotely racist, and, in fact, has been a force for comity and tolerance.  We have to recognize the power of redemption, of people’s ability to grow.

I’ve heard people say that he wasn’t a kid.  That he should have known better.  I would ask anyone older than 26, are you the same person you were when you were 26?  Have you always make wise decisions?  Heck, I’m not the same person I was last year.

George Wallace was one of the worst segregationists in history, but he changed.  He gave a speech at the University of Alabama (the school where he once stood in the door to keep a black student from enrolling) in which he said blacks and whites were “all God’s children, and all God’s children are equal.”  The last time Wallace ran for governor of Alabama, he would have lost his election if only white people had voted.  Black people gave him his majority.  

People change.  Can we please think about forgiveness?

Green Book

In the Forties, Fifties, and Sixties, African-American tourists had a tough time finding hotels that would accept them as guests, not only in the South, but across the country.  The Green Book was a compendium of hotels and motels that catered to, or at least accepted, black customers.

The movie “Green Book,” starring Mahershala Ali and Vigo Mortensen, is about a virtuoso African-American piano player traveling across the country on a concert tour along with his white driver at a time when the Green Book was a necessity.  

The movie has been controversial.  I’m not sure why.  I saw it tonight, and I thought it the kind of film we all should see.  Plus the actors are wonderful.  

Last night I saw the Kevin Hart film, “The Upside,” which is also about a black guy and a white guy who bond.  This movie is also controversial (?), and I liked it.  So did the group of black and white teenagers who were in the theater.

It seems that every film that involves blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians, or any other racial, ethnic, or gender group is controversial.  Don’t let that stop you from going to the movies.  See everything.  

OK, maybe not “Serenity.”