No, the lakes are not frozen over. We haven’t even had our first frost of the season. Same for Portland, but my friend Bill sent me a photo of Portlanders with fishing poles. On the ends of the lines are donuts which are dangled in front of the goons arresting immigrants (ands some dark-skinned American citizens).
It’s called “ICE fishing.” Portlanders are very creative.
He was one of the last of that group. He was from Philly and had never even driven a car when he began his training. I know that the current government (I love saying “current government,” because it won’t last much longer) doesn’t like to discuss unpleasant things, but here is a quote from a recent obit for Lt. Col. Hardy in which he talks about white and black airmen:
“When we got back to the base we would get together and drink. They really appreciated us. But once we got back to the States, we were reminded that things hadn’t changed. When we walked down the gangway of the boat as it docked there was a sign: whites to the right, coloreds to the left. After all we had been through, it really didn’t feel too good.”
For a democracy to work, the people out of power have to believe that they may have a chance to return to power. The people in power have to believe that at some future date they might lose power. Otherwise, the people in power can prosecute and ignore those out of power, and the people out of power can’t see a way that they will ever win a future election.
What we are witnessing is the potential end of democracy. The Supreme Court allows any amount of money to be spent on campaigns, permitting billionaires to buy elections. Deep fakes and media ownership allow people who control the media to slant the news and lie with impunity. Gerrymandering and election rule changes predetermine election outcomes. Prosecution of “enemies” eliminates future opponents. A culture of fair play collapses and procedural safeguards are eliminated.
It is not looking good.
People frequently ask me why I am not on Facebook. Well, maybe not frequently. OK, one person asked me in 2024.
But I am not. One of Facebook’s lucrative revenue raisers, according to Tech Transparency Project, a nonprofit organization that keeps tabs on large technology companies, is deceptive political ads. Some of these are deceptive; others downright fraudulent.
Frauds are social media platforms exceed those using text messages or phone calls. AI is exacerbating the problem.
My answer to this problem is simple: don’t even sign up for Facebook, or META, or any of those time sucks. Except this blog, of course.
A sliver of material for this post was from Steven Lee Myers, “Deceitful Political Ads Infest and Help Enrich Facebook, Analysis Finds,” New York Times, (Oct. 2, 2025), pp. B-1, B4.
That was a headline in the Oct. 1 New York Times. The article, by Christina Caron, features a student at the University of Central Florida who started what he called the “Reconnect Movement.” Students agree to put their phones aside for a set period of time. They may take a hike together, or work on art projects, or just sit around and talk.
Students reported feeling uncomfortable at the start of a phone-free period. One student said when she and her peers feel uneasy, they scroll, but now their phones have been collected by a “phone valet,” and they have to “converse.”
The article ended by describing an encounter with a young woman who approached a phone-free group to find out what they were dong. When group members offered to “valet” her phone, she pulled back. “I thought you just didn’t use it–I didn’t know you took it away. I think I’m just going to go.”
In their book Why Civil Resistance Works, published in 2011, Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephen point out that people can participate in non-violent protests in many ways. They can boycott, or use humor, or paint signs, or demonstrate, or write letters, or give money. Violent resistance, however, takes some skills. You have to know how to shoot, or make bombs, or throw Molotov cocktails.
Nonviolent resistance can be done in ways that you won’t get caught, or are hard to stop, or are funny. Violent resistance can result in arrest, or torture, or death. More people are usually willing to participate in non-violent resistance.
In my classes I used the example of Martin Luther King. Suppose instead of the Montgomery Bus boycott, King had gone into the hills of central Alabama with about 20 armed men and launched attacks. Do you think that would have succeeded? Do you think we would be celebrating Martin Luther King day? Nonviolence is strategically the smart way to go.
Today I had lunch with two of my classmates from the Palmerton High School Class of 60. Another classmate of ours sent us his most up-to-date list of our fellow students, including those who have died. He has the addresses, phones, and emails of those remaining, but about 30 have no emails, and about six have no phones.
He asked the three of us to contact the ones who don’t have emails to see if they are still alive. The ones who don’t have phones we can write to. If the phone numbers are no longer valid, we can check obituaries.
We speculated what to say if a spouse answers the phone. Do we say,”Is Henry dead?” We came up with better phrasing, but the point is that in 20 years probably everyone on that list will have died. We know it, and we accept it. I thought about that on the way home. When you hit your eighties, you are aware that you don’t have a whole lot of time left. It doesn’t seem all that big a deal.
