"Twisters" does not mention global warming

This past weekend I saw the movie “Twisters.”  The people who made the movie deliberately did not mention global warming.  They were afraid that many people who think global warming is a hoax would be angry and would boycott the film.

There is are words for people who think global warming and climate change are not real.  Idiot and whack job come to mind.  I sometimes wonder if these people never go outside, never read the paper, never listen to anything other than social media clowns.  

1.  On my trip across the U.S. earlier this month, I spent a night in Chico, CA.  A few days before I got there the temperature in Chico hit 119 degrees.  The house where I stayed is less than a mile from the evac zone for the Park Fire, which has now burned hundreds of thousands of acres.

2.  The New York Times today ran an article in the Science section on chiggers.  These are tiny mites that cause red bumps and incredible itching.  When I was a kid I read about them.  They were a southern U.S. problem.  In the past two weeks I’ve suffered from chigger bites.  They are here, in Pennsylvania.  

If you don’t “believe” in global warming, you really need to get off your goddam computer and go outside.  And please walk through some tall grass while wearing shorts.

Another Supreme Court reform

I am so pleased that President Biden has proposed a number of Supreme Court reforms, including a term limit.  Here is another that wouldn’t take a Constitutional amendment or even a law.  Start appointing men and women who are not attorneys.

By the time a case reaches the Supreme Court, it is no longer a legal question.  Should abortion be allowed?  Should the president have immunity for crimes committed?  Does the Second Amendment apply to machine guns?  Those are not legal questions.  While Justices like to cite precedents, they have an army of law clerks to find past examples of cases backing their opinions.

The Senate is 51% attorneys.  The House is approximately 30% attorneys.  The current President is an attorney.  The whole government is skewed to the legal profession.  That profession is taught to think in terms of winners and losers, guilty or not guilty.  In our daily life we usually don’t think that way and neither should the Court.

Historically we have had justices who were not lawyers, but not in recent years.  Why not a philosophy professor, or a teachers’ union president, or a business leader, or a physician?

(I might add that most of the justices hail from elite law schools.  Harvard and Yale are way over-represented.  Also not a good idea.)

Good News for Little Brown Bats

Every year I count bats for the Pennsylvania Game Commission.  My dad and I started to do this in the 1990s.  One year we had over 400 living in our attic and in the out buildings.  Then a disease called “white nose syndrome” hit, killing hundreds of thousands of bats across the northeast.  

A few years ago I counted only 15.  (They live in our shed and in a bat house we put up for them.)  Last year I was up to 40; this year 46.  They are not back to their previous numbers, but many of them seem to have acquired an immunity to the disease.  We don’t often get good news from the natural world, but this is good news.  

The 1924 Democratic Convention

The Democratic Party had been a coalition party since the Civil War.  After the War, it consisted mainly of Northern Irish and other immigrant groups, including lots of Catholics and Jews, along with Southern Whites.  Of the approximately 3000 delegates attending the 1924 convention, only one was black, and he was an alternate.

In 1924 the prohibitionists were strong, and the Ku Klux Klan had a resurgence, affecting northern politics in states like Indiana.  The Republican Convention a few weeks earlier had rejected a resolution denouncing the Klan.  The Democrats came up with a resolution that would have said Democrats opposed “...any effort on the part of the Ku Klux Klan or any organization to interfere with the religious liberty or political freedom of any citizen, or to limit the civic rights of any citizen or body of citizens because of religion, birthplace or racial origin.”  That resolution failed by one vote.

The Democrats then passed one that said “We insist at all times upon obedience to the orderly processes of the law and deplore and condemn any effort to arouse religious or racial dissension.”  Definitely watered down, but I wonder if either resolution would have passed the recent Republican convention.  

The big fight was between William McAdoo Jr., a temperance supporter opposed to political machines.  The son-in-law of Woodrow Wilson, he enforced Wilson’s policy of segregating federal agencies.  His opponent was Al Smith, the Irish Catholic governor of New York who said his ancestors didn’t arrive on the Mayflower, but they got here as soon as they could.

The battle lasted weeks.  Every vote, and there were 103 of them, was in alphabetical order.  The first-time radio audience heard, “Alabama casts 24 votes for Oscar W.Underwood” so often it became a catch phrase.

In the meantime the Klan was celebrating at an estate in Long Branch, New Jersey, where on the 4th of July an American flag-waving Klansman on a horse led a parade of thousands of Klan members in robes.  One float featured a boy scout with a sign “We Want The Holy Bible In Our Schools.”

The delegates were tired, hot (no air conditioning), and deadlocked.  They finally came up with a colorless compromise candidate, John W. Davis of West Virginia, who lost overwhelmingly to Calvin Coolidge that November.

In 1928 the Democrats nominated Smith, but he was defeated by Herbert Hoover of the Great Depression fame.

Information for this article came in part from Dan Barry, “Divisions From a Century Ago Resonate Today,” New York Times, (July 6, 2024), pp. A 1, A 17. 

Proud to be an American

The United States is riven with conflict.  Half the population seems to have no respect for democratic values.  The Supreme Court undermines women’s rights.  The internet is filled with lies and insults.  The Republican candidate for the Presidency ignores the Constitution he has never read.  You wonder if the nation will survive.

And then you watch the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics and you see America’s team–men and women, all races and creeds, waving our flag, enjoying each other’s company, representing the best of us, and once again you have hope for the future.  We can do this.   

Money can buy you love

Trump has been railing against electric cars for years.  Then, according to Trump, Elon Musk promised to give theTrump campaign $45 million a month from now until the election in November.  

At a recent rally Trump said he likes electric cars.  He finds them quite interesting.

Trumpists are so bewildered

Today the Times News had a cartoon and two columns bemoaning the Democrats’ lack of democracy in picking a presidential nominee and not following the rules.  I heard Mike Johnson complaining that the Democrats were being undemocratic.  These are the people who tried to overturn the results of a free and fair election.  These are the people who committed the worst violence against the government since the Civil War.

And, by the way, the primary voters do not nominate the presidential candidates.  Caucus voters do not nominate the president.  They pick delegates to a national convention.  Delegates at the presidential conventions nominate the president.  If a Trump supporter complains to you, explain it like you would to a 3rd grader. 

The Convention

The political science part of me wants a wild and brokered convention, with multiple ballots, hurried conversations at the back of the hall, deals made, favorite sons and daughters, three or four roll call ballots, hearing “the state of Pennsylvania casts ___ ballots for,” and the final victory of a candidate to represent the party in the November election.

The Democratic part of me wants this over and done, with Kamala Harris sweeping to victory on the first ballot, with the party rank and file unified and excited and ready to march to such an overwhelming victory that any claims of voter fraud and rigged elections will look as dumb as they really are.

The Democratic Party part of me has completely overpowered the political science part of me.   

Women everywhere

We will now finally have a woman president.  India, Germany, Mexico, New Zealand, and so many other countries have had women executives, and after next January we will also, finally, join the crowd.

It is hard to imagine now, but the Olympics were once limited to men.  Women were first admitted in 1900, but only in five sports, including golf.  Pierre de Coubertin, the leader of the modern Olympics, said in 1912 that having female athletes competing in the Olympics “...is impractical, uninteresting, ungainly, and I do not hesitate to add, improper.”  You might think about that while you are watching the Paris games next week.

And you might think about how tired you are of a doddering 78-year-old white male candidate.

Hey MAGA fans–time for new signs

Those clowns in our area who were driving around in pickup trucks with big “Fuck Biden” flags or were wearing “Let’s Go Brandon” tee shirts will now have to buy all new gear.  

On the other hand, I still occasionally see “Trump-Pence” signs, so it may be that Trump fans don’t watch the news very often.  

In any case, I’m feeling pretty optimistic.  I was worried that Trump would give a reasonable speech at the convention, talking about unifying the country and acting conciliatory.  That would have been really smart, but he just couldn’t do it.  Now he will have an opponent who will flummox him and beat him like a rented mule.

Thank you President Biden for taking the patriotic, selfless, and very difficult step you took.

Lou Dobbs dies

He probably choked on his own bile.  

It’s times like these that I wish I wasn’t an atheist and believed in hell.

Parties in the UK

In the recent election the following parties won seats in the British Parliament:

Labour

Conservative

Scottish National Party

Liberal Democrat

Reform

Green

Plaid Cymru

TUV

and Independent.

Wouldn’t it be sweet if we had something like that in the U.S.?

MAGA Republican

Traditional Republican

Libertarian

Green

Democratic

Progressive Democratic

Socialist

Texas Independence

and Independent.

Politics would be a lot more fun.

God moves in mysterious ways

According to a headline in today’s New York Times, many Trump supporters think that God miraculously protected Trump last Sunday.

I guess God didn’t like the innocent bystander who was killed  Even more strange, what did God have against the Uvalde and Sandy Hook and Columbine kids who were shot to death.

Colonizing Mars

Earth has water, air, plants, animals.  Humans could once live on the planet quite comfortably.  Earth is our home.  Now we are befouling our home in many ways.  Global warming is certainly a threat to the human race, but so is nuclear war, and there are others.

So what is Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, doing to try to right the wrongs we are doing to our planet?  He is planning to colonize Mars, a planet that has no atmosphere we can breathe, no water, no plants or animals. 

And if he is successful in his colonization, who do you think will get to live on the new colony?  And how long do you think that new colony will last, given the type of people who would be chosen to live there?

This is the same Elon Musk who has pledged to give Trump $45 million every month from now until the election. 

By the way, the Republican platform is calling for the expansion of the use of coal and oil.  

Sen. Mitt Romney on J. D. Vance

What a brilliant move by Trump.  Picking J. D. Vance as his vice president actually makes me hope that if he is elected president, Trump won’t die.  

Mitt Romney read Vance’s book Hillbilly Elegy and was so impressed he met with Vance in person.  Romney thought Vance was bright and thoughtful and would have insights into how to attract working class voters to the Republican Party.

In 2021, when Vance decided to run for the Senate, his reinvention was immediate and total, becoming a Trump sycophant overnight.  Vance actually accused Biden of manufacturing the opioid crisis “to punish people who didn’t vote for him.”

In an interview published in The Atlantic Romney said of Vance, “I don’t know that I can disrespect someone more than J. D. Vance.”  If you are aware of some of the characters serving in the U.S. Senate, that is a sobering statement.  

I'm baaack!

Nothing like a cross-country road trip, spending hours driving across North Dakota and Wyoming and the Salt Flats and Nevada and eastern Colorado and Kansas and the farmlands of Missouri and Ohio and the woodlands of PA to cause one to re-evaluate one’s life.

I'm stepping back from politics.  Oh, I’ll still vote and still work the Ukrainian Festival and donate some money, but I’ve decided to spend more time on my poetry and my garden.  Trump is a total asshole who deserves to be in jail, and Biden is an egotistical jerk who puts himself before his country.  RFK is certifiable. 

I’m 81.  Two days older than Biden.  I’ve pretty much had it.  Four years ago I thought I had seen my last Olympics.  And here I am.  I need to do some stuff that I enjoy.

While I plan to continue to post for some time, my messages may be all over the map.  I’ve also decided not to hold back.  I’m not going to be polite.  Perhaps not even reasonable. 

Banana Republic?

The only reason we cannot be called one is because we do not grow bananas.

The Iron Curtain

 We are in Fulton, Missouri, where Winston Churchill gave a speech at Westminster College and talked about an iron curtain descending upon Europe.  It was the first time that phrase was used.  President Truman had invited Churchill to visit Missouri. 

We earlier had stopped for lunch in Lawrence, Kansas, one of the few blue spots on the Kansas map. Every state we have gone through is now either a Trump state or leaning Trump except CA.  Nevada has moved into the Trump column since the infamous debate.  Even Colorado is now a toss up.  November will be a Trump blowout, and it wouldn’t surprise me if we also lost Congress.  But Biden can say he gave it his best shot.  That should make us all feel better.

I stand with George Clooney

 According to recent polls a number of states have moved from toss up to leaning Trump, including Arizona and Nevada.  This is like watching a FAST moving train wreck.

Today I left a message for the president asking him to step aside for the good of our county.  I think once he hears from George and me, he will drop out.

The loneliest road

One of the best roads in America is Highway 50 through Nevada.  This is “basin and range” country with vistas that are truly amazing.  I’ve made this trip at least ten times, and I’m still awestruck.

Dope smokin’

I’m in Grass Valley,  CA, tonight.  I just learned the difference between indica and sativa weed.  The indica has a lot more “couch glue.”

Send a message to Biden

 I am sending a message to Biden telling him to  step aside.  If he is our candidate we lose.  If he is this way now, what will he be like in four years?  You can call the White House  on Tuesday to Thursday,  11 to 3 Eastern time at 202.456.1111.

“Pro life” billboards

All across the west you constantly see billboards with cute little babies.  They imply that abortions involve actual babies. 

We also need answering billboards.  Why can’t we put up billboards that emphasize that women are dying because religious fundamentalists are imposing their warped ideology on the rest of us.

Pronghorns and coal

 We drove through Wyoming from the northeast corner to Casper to Rawlings to Evanston and across Utah to Wendover.  At one of the rest stops Wyoming had put up a display touting the wonderful qualities of coal.  This was only a few miles from the largest open pit coal mine in the world.  

North Dakota

 I have been to quite a few museums with dinosaur exhibits, but none of them were as good as the North Dakota State Museum in Bismarck.  It actually had a dinosaur with fossilized skin.  It also had the largest prehistoric turtle I have ever seen.  And a T-Rex.  And a Sabre-toothed tiger.  And many more.

At the Theodore Roosevelt National Park I drove right by seven buffalo. I did not try to pet them.   

I have not read a paper or heard the news for three days.  Did Biden drop out of the race yet?

Birchbark Books

 Today we drove into Minneapolis to visit the bookstore owned by Louise Erdrich, the Native American author whose latest novel The Sentence featured the store, almost as a character.  I bought an autographed copy.  I am so pleased.  

We are now in Jamestown, North Dakota.  Tomorrow it is off to Bismarck.

Winona, Minn.

 What a wonderful town.  You can walk down to the Mississippi, which is now running high, at Levee Park, and the town has beautiful brick buildings, a working movie theater, and an impressive courthouse.

And not a single Trump sign.  

Tomorrow we are off to Louise Erdrich’s bookstore in Minneapolis.

Magna Carta overturned

1215 precedent overturned!

King is above the law!

Constitution trashed by small cabal of supporters of dictatorial rule.