We can celebrate birthdays any day of the year. They don’t have to be on the actual birth date. Suppose instead of celebrating MLK’s birthday in January we had made election day the holiday. That would have honored King’s legacy by providing voters a work free day to get to the polls.
Is it too late to change it? I am starting a campaign to do just that.
You would think that a program that has benefited hundreds of millions of retirees over the last 82 years (the first monthly payments began in 1940) would be safe. I remember that my mother and father were so happy when in 1954, during the Eisenhower administration, independent farmers were brought into the program.
Earlier this week, in a closed door session, the Republican leadership had as its first goal, balancing the federal budget in ten years. Republicans also want to cut the I.R.S. budget drastically, ensuring that tax cheats like Trump and other rich bastards can cheat with impunity, resulting in less revenue. All of this will mean deep cuts in Social Security and Medicare.
Why do these people win elections?
People would be content
with their simple, everyday lives,
in harmony, and free of desire.
When there is no desire,
all things are at peace.
Tao Te Ching, 400 B.C.E.
It is the true believer’s ability to “‘shut his eyes and stop his ears” to facts that do not deserve to be either seen or heard which is the source of his unequaled fortitude and constancy. He cannot be frightened by danger, nor disheartened by obstacle, nor baffled by contradictions, because he denies their existence.
Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (New York: Harper, 1951), p. 83.
In a survey published by the Open Society Institute based in Sofia, Bulgaria, Finland ranked number 1 of 41 European countries on resilience against misinformation. Norway, Denmark, Estonia, Ireland, and Sweden also ranked high. In Finland 76 % of the population considers print and digital newspapers to be reliable. College is free. There’s a high trust in government. School kids are taught from early grades how to spot misinformation. Now the government is also using libraries to help older people spot lies and conspiracy theories on the internet.
Countries where misinformation was most frequently believed included Georgia, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia, and Albania.
I wonder where the U.S. would rank. Probably between Bosnia and Albania.
Info for this post is from Jenny Gross, “How Finland Teaches Even Youngest Pupils To Spot Misinformation,” New York Times, (Jan. 11, 2023), P. A10.
According to the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, the median sales prices of valid residential property sales by county, 2021-2022, showed the lowest ($50,000) was in McKean County in the northern tier. In fact, the whole northern tier was below $150,000 except for Wayne County, which is next to New Jersey and New York.
The entire row of counties that abutted New Jersey were in the $200,000+ range. Centre, where Penn State is located, had a median price of $291,061. The highest was Chester, coming in at $390,000.
In Carbon, where I live, the median price as $165,000. Next door, in Schuylkill, the median was $80,000. Sometime, when I’m feeling really ambitious, I will see if the lower the median home price, the higher the Trump vote. I have a feeling that may be the case.
Finally. This problem has been going on for months, and finally the Administration is taking steps to alleviate the mess. The choice is not between Trump’s policy and doing nothing. Obviously the steps now taken won’t solve the issue, but they will alleviate it somewhat.
Sometimes I think Biden is tone deaf.
