The Ken Burns series on the American Revolution

I’ve been watching it on and off all week.  Unfortunately these specials aren’t as important as they once were.  When “Roots” was shown in 1977, it ran for eight consecutive evenings, and everybody watched it.  You’d watch an episode and then discuss it the next day.  

I was thinking that the series on the Revolution might inspire some patriotism, some understanding of what this country went through to gain its independence.  The series does not flinch from the issue of slavery in a war for “liberty” in which all men are created equal, nor does it turn away from discussing the irony of a population that wanted independence in part so the Indians would no longer be protected by British soldiers.  

The series also emphasizes that this new government really was a new thing.  Nothing like it had been tried.  It was truly an experiment.  Could we pull this off?  How long would it last?  Would freedoms and participation and citizenship be extended to all inhabitants?  Can a people retain the ability to govern themselves?

I must tell you–the main emotion I am left with after watching the series is overwhelming sadness.

Merch for Sale in the West Wing

A small study off the Oval Office in the White House was once used by Presidents as an actual study.  President Reagan was pictured working on his 1985 inaugural address there.  George Bush directed the invasion of Panama from there.  The study has now been reconfigured.

You can buy tumblers, water bottles, towels, and a gold tray, all with Trump’s name on them.  You can also buy hats that say “Trump 2028” and “4 More Years.”

And that’s not all!  

We have mugs with the presidential seal, books about Trump, a keepsake gold “presidential bill,” and matchbooks with the president’s signature.  You can even buy Trump fragrances.  

You might want to forego that last item. 

See Doug Mills and Ashley Wu, “West Wing Witness to History Now Has Whiff of a Gift Shop,”  New York Times, (Nov. 21, 2025), p. A14.   

Protests in Charlotte

My friend Bill sent me a photo of students protesting ICE raids in Charlotte.  Those ICE guys are so cute.  They called their raids “Charlotte’s Web.”  

The important point here is that an estimated 30,000 people, most of them students from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School system (along with many of their parents) filled athletic fields and public areas with signs denouncing ICE raids and activities.  The resistance grows.

85% of wetlands

That is the amount of wetlands that will be stripped of protection once the new Trump EPA policies take effect.

I do not remember any of the MAGA people at Trump rallies last fall complaining about wetlands protection.  I know that some developers think the rules on what constitutes a wetland are too extensive, but most developers have learned to live with the rules.  I don’t see a mass movement of thousands of people pushing for withdrawing protection for wetlands.

So why now?  Why this?

Unfortunately, even if a president with some sense of the importance of wetlands to the climate, to aquifers, to endangered species, to the health of the nation is elected in 2028, it will be too late for the wetlands that have been drained, degraded, or starved of their water supply.

I don’t get this.  It is the mentality of a small boy throwing rocks at a bird’s nest.

Information for this post is from Maxine Joselow, “E.P.A. Rule Would Strip Protections for Wetlands,” New York Times, (Nov. 18., 2025), p. A15.

83rd birthday

Yeah, I’m old.  I have two thoughts about it.  Our daughter sent me a card that shows a guy standing on his hands with two guys holding him up.  The caption is:  “Don’t worry about getting older.  You’re still going to do dumb stuff, only slower.”  She knows me well.

My second thought is about something Studs Terkel said when somebody asked him who would want to live to be 80.  Terkel replied, “Everybody I know who is 79.”

At least one student in the class was uncomfortable...

Jessica Adams, a professor at Indiana University, showed a graphic that labeled the slogan “Make America Great Again” as covert racism.  A student in the class then wrote to U.S. Senator Jim Banks, a MAGA supporter, to tell the Senator that Professor Adams made him “uncomfortable.”  

Sen. Banks then complained to the college administration, which then removed Adams from teaching the course.

Really.  Uncomfortable?  Remember when “trigger warnings” and “snowflakes” were a thing?  Evidently those terms can now describe Trump-supporting college students.  Poor babies.

And what is wrong with Senator Banks?  And what is wrong with the Indiana University administrators?  How did we get here?

Info for this post is from Stephanie Saul, “Professor Barred From Teaching a Class,” New York Times (10 Nov. 2025), p. 19. 

In the dark

 Evidently the high winds knocked down some wires, and we had no electricity for about two hours.  No computer, no heat, no water pump, no heat pump, no Eagles game, no email, no refrigerator or freezer. 

We have some emergency lights, but all they do is make you realize how much you miss the electric lights.  

I was about to go to bed when the power was restored about 8:45.  It would be interesting if a giant solar storm knocked out the grid.  I wonder how long it would take to descend into total chaos.  I’m guessing about 24 hours.

Teaching American government today

I taught a variety of classes at San José State–Introduction to American Government, Parties and Elections, Public Opinion, U.S. Environmental Policy, Controversial Legal Issues, Political Philosophy, American Studies, even a course in Political Film.  My favorite course was the Intro to American Government.  Most of the students were not political science majors, and I believed it was so important to give them a good grounding in both the Constitutional order and the need for responsible citizenship.

I would not enjoy teaching today.  Laws and policies that I thought were enshrined and accepted are going by the boards.  I don’t know how you’d begin to discuss what Trump is doing.

For example, Congress has the “power of the purse.”  Of the three branches, Congress is mentioned first in the Constitution, and its powers and responsibilities are spelled out in detail.  The President is not allowed to allocate funds.  The President has no “item veto.”  He cannot decide to not spend money that Congress has allocated.  Nor can he spend money that Congress has not allocated.  He can’t launch attacks on foreign citizens.  He must faithfully execute the laws.

And yet Trump has spent money never allocated by Congress.  He has refused to spend money that Congress has allocated.  He has killed foreign nationals with no declaration of war and bragged about it.  He has ignored rights spelled out in the Bill of Rights.  I could go on, but every reader of this blog knows that the America Constitution is no longer revered by the Congress, the President, the Supreme Court, nor the members of the Cabinet and heads of Executive agencies.  

How do political science professors even begin to deal with that? 

Pam Bondi–idiot or moron? You decide.

The Justice Department sued to block the new congressional districts approved by CA voters last week.

In an email Bondi said, “California’s redistricting scheme is a brazen power grab that tramples on civil rights and mocks the democratic process.  Governor Newsom’s attempt to entrench one-party rule and silence millions of Californians will not stand.”

The email said nothing about the earlier gerrymander in Texas.

Saying goodbye to the penny

The last pennies were minted yesterday in Philadelphia.  I understand the rationale.  I know about the cost of making them vs. the value of the coin.  Nonetheless, I feel sad.  All those sayings:  “A penny saved is a penny earned,” “A penny for your thoughts,”  “Find a penny, pick it up....”  

Pennies are part of our culture.  “Every time it rains, it rains pennies from heaven.”  There was penny candy, penny loafers, “penny dreadfuls.”  Things cost a pretty penny, and people were penny pinchers.

I know, I know.  I’m old.  I dislike change.  Unless it is in pennies.

Sending Iranians to their deaths

The right of political asylum is in the Declaration of Human Rights and other international treaties.  If you are fleeing for your life from your country because of your political beliefs or your religion, you are guaranteed the right to asylum.

Under Trump’s deportation proceedings, the  U.S. is now sending Iranian refugees who fled Iran to escape persecution back to Iran and certain imprisonment and probably death.  I am so angry and so ashamed of my country right now.

And why is this bone spur chicken shit giving speeches on Veterans’ Day?  Just shut up for one damn day, please.

The fall of nearly everything

Revolutions in technology don’t necessarily lead to better lives for the people involved.  For example, it is well accepted that the shift from hunter-gatherers to agriculture led to shorter lives, social hierarchy, armies, and taxation.

Dr. Luke Kemp, aka “Dr. Doom,” has just published a book entitled “Goliath’s Curse:  The History and Future of Societal Collapse.”  Kemp says, “We live in a uniquely dangerous time.”  To quote a review of the book, (which I have not read and am not sure I want to), we are in “...an age of pandemics, global heating, inequality, the rise of authoritarianism, the development of potentially dangerous artificial intelligence technologies and the ever-present nuclear sword of Damocles.”  

Dr. Kemp says, “The future of collapse looks far grimmer than the past.”

Don't get your knickers in a twist

Let’s abandon all this talk about “We’ll get you in the primary,” or “those eight Dems were traitors,” or “we were winning, and they caved.”

How many people went hungry tonight because they couldn’t get their food stamps?  How many people couldn’t fly home to see a dying relative because their flight was cancelled?  How many people faced eviction because they couldn’t pay the rent?

When elephants fight, it is the grass that gets trampled.  Yes, the Dems were winning the public relations battle, but is that the kind of battle the Dems want to win.  If the Republicans refuse to extend the medical payments, people will suffer, but at least then we will know who caused the suffering, and the voters can punish them, which they will.  

Those eight Democrats, I’m sure, did not take that step lightly.  I’m know they agonized over what they did and came to the conclusion that their vote was the right thing to do.

OK, maybe not Fetterman.

The Not So Great Gatsby

My American Studies students really liked F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, but that may have been because it was relatively short compared to Uncle Tom’s Cabin or The Grapes of Wrath, which we also read.  

I’m fairly certain Trump never took American Studies and never read The Great Gatsby, although he may have seen the movie.  The tone-deaf Trump threw a lavish Halloween “Gatsby” party, rumored to have cost over $3 million in taxpayer funds.  

The book was published 100 years ago in 1925 during the “Jazz Age.”  Wall Street was jumping.  Morals were in flux.  Jay Gatsby made some of his fortune working with the gambler who fixed the “Black Sox” World Series.  

Just today I heard that two major league pitchers have been accused of fixing games.  Gambling is rampant.  Morals are in decline.  We are in repeat mode.  As Karl Marx wrote:  “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”  We are in the farce stage.

Let me end the way the book ends.  Gatsby’s friend Nick Carraway, after finding Gatsby dead and floating in his pool, states:  “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy–they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

Aliens could vote!

Here is an except from a chapter entitled "The Making of Americans" from an old textbook:

Persons of foreign birth who have not been naturalized are known as aliens.  There are several millions of aliens residing in our country.  They enjoy almost, although not quite, all the privileges of citizens.  They are entitled to full protection of their lives and property by our government; they may move freely about the country and engage in business; they are entitled to all the privileges of the state courts and to some privileges of the national courts; they have freedom of religious belief.  In some states there are restrictions against the holding of real estate by aliens ; but many states allow it and by the Homestead Act Congress has given millions of acres to them.  In some states aliens may even vote for state and national officers after having declared their intention of becoming citizens.

from Arthur William Dunn, The Community and the Citizen, rev. and enlarged.  Boston:  D. C. Heath & Co., 1914.   According to the stamp on the inside front cover it was used as a textbook in the Palmerton School District.

Into the election result weeds

The Pennsylvania election last Tuesday was an “off-year election.”  That means no members of congress or state legislative candidates were on the ballot.  We did have a statewide election for a Commonwealth Court Judge and a Superior Court judge and five “retention elections” for sitting justices at the state level.  

We also voted for school board members and borough and township officials and someCounty officials like the treasurer.

Off-year elections generally have a low turnout.  Only the 3rd Ward in Jim Thorpe had a turnout over 50%; it clocked in at 50.76%.  That is a bit misleading, however.  A group of volunteers had sent letters with mail-in ballot requests to Democrats in assisted living homes and housing for the aged.  We mailed to over 300 people, and approximately 30 were returned by the Post Office.  They would be counted as non-voters in the turnout figures.

I would also note is that Carbon County Democrats did much better than in the recent past.  The Democratic Party urged voters to retain the judges; the Republicans ran a well-funded campaign urging a no vote.  Last year Kamala Harris received a Carbon vote in the mid-thirties.  The vote to retain the judges was over 48%.  That was more than a 10% improvement.  

Back to bad news

Headline in today’s New York Times:  “U.N. Sees Slight Progress on Climate Action Partly Offset by the U.S.”

Aren’t you proud?

Let’s quickly build more data centers, burn more coal, discourage solar and wind, and make things even worse.  That, at any rate, seems to be the plan.

We were the windshield

A former student, now a professor of political science in Minnesota, occasionally sends me articles to keep me in the loop.  Today he sent me results I hadn’t heard before.  For example, I didn’t know that all five of the judges on the ballot (not just the top three) won retention.  Nor did I know that the Dems won the elections for the Superior and Commonwealth courts.  

I was so tired of seeing signs for Maria Bautista.  She lost.

Amazing results in PA.  For example, Lancaster County, a Republican stronghold, voted for retention.  As the article noted, sometimes in elections you are the bug, sometimes the windshield.  This time the Dems were the windshield.

Feeling good

Let’s review.  The New Jersey Governor’s face–D.  The Virginia Governor’s race–D.  The New York Mayor’s race–D.  The PA Supreme Court retention race–Yes.  

A.O.C. gave a great speech at the Mamdani victory party.  She said it wasn’t about Progressive or Liberal, it was about working together to oppose the threat to democracy.  I think that is the important thing to remember.  The Democratic Party doesn’t have to move to the left or to the right.  It has to move together in a unified front and represent the people of America.

We need a Front Populaire.  We need to join together.  This is no time to worry about petty differences.  If we stick together, we can turn this around.  You know the drill.  Big tent.  Solidarity.  Unity.  Brother and Sisterhood.  Remember the first cartoon by Ben Franklin?  The snake all cut up?  Remember the caption?  “Join or die.”

But tonight, let’s just celebrate.

Signs at polling places

Tonight Linda and I went around to 18 polling places to put up “Vote Yes on Judicial Retention” signs.  We covered the Palmerton and Lehighton areas.  Tomorrow night I will drive around and pick them up.  

Does this do any good?  The old cliche in campaign lore is: “1/2 of the money in any campaign is wasted.  The problem is–you don’t know which half.”  I think most people who come to the polling places to cast their votes already know how they plan to vote and ignore the signs.  On the other hand, this is a low information election.  Suppose you influence one out of a hundred voters.  In a close election, one percent can be the difference between victory and defeat.  So we put the signs up.

Terrorist plot in Michigan?

Yesterday FBI director Kash Patel announced that a terrorist plot had been thwarted in Michigan.  Five people were arrested.

The problem with having an idiot in charge of the FBI is that one questions everything he says.  A terrorist plot?  Really?  The attorney for one of the people arrested said there was no plot, no terrorism.  

If it is a choice of believing some attorney or Kash Patel, I’m going with the attorney.   

"Ridiculousness" cancelled

As readers know, I cultivate an aura of wisdom and probity, and I am now going to blow all that by admitting that I watch “Ridiculousness” on MTV.  The show has been cancelled, although it will be in reruns for some time.  For those of you who have never seen the show, the host, Ron Dyrdek, introduces videos of people doing really stupid and often painful stunts.  

Dyrdek usually had two sidekicks, Steelo Brim and Chanel West Coast, who make comments and laugh at the people in the videos.  Chanel West Coast is known for her laugh, and she is cute as she can be.  It is really a low class show for low class people in a low class era. 

On a completely different subject, today is Dia de los Muertos.  Do not mention it if ICE is in your neighborhood.  If they hear you speaking Spanish, these idiots will deport your ass.