Saturday, March 16, 2024

St. Patrick

My father's family was Orange Irish. My grandfather pulled on an orange shirt on St. Patrick's Day and went to bars in San Francisco seeking trouble. 

In America and Canada another name for his ethnicity was Scotch-Irish. This Anglo tribe was thought of as trash when they reached Canada and English America; they soon began producing Presidents from Jackson to Clinton. 

The Scotch-Irish were from Ireland, and my father called himself Irish. 

My mother was Catholic Irish. The Catholic part didn't stick--her  mother had been excommunicated-- but her favorite relative was her pipe-smoking grandmother, Mary Berry, who had come over on the boat. The Catholic Irish Presidents have been Kennedy and Biden.

My father's mother arrived in California driving a covered wagon. My own mother arrived in California when she was six. Her mother had driven an automobile on dirt roads from Des Moines to Compton.

So when people ask what my ethnic background is, I tell them I'm Californian.  And I once accidentally stepped on Audrey Hepburn's foot.



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Thursday, March 14, 2024

What we should do

Consider two questions. What is going on? What should I do?

We find out what is going on by studying music, physics,  anthropology, language, astronomy, history, art, etc.  

What we should do (the second question) is do the right thing.  That can be obvious. For example, do not kill 15,000 children. 


also on FB



Monday, March 11, 2024

How to Win

hope the Democrats don't make Orange Man the main focus of the next election. They should call him dangerous scum and move on to the main thing, how they can make our lives better. 

They can restore Roe through legislation. They can restore aid for poor families and pay off loans for students. They can stand up to Fascism here and abroad. They can work on sexism and racism.  

We need a positive future. 

Saturday, March 9, 2024

Trump and Socrates

Trump's political success illustrates why Socrates preached that democracy can't work. Socrates argued that ordinary people are too ignorant to elect competent leaders. 

For teaching authoritarianism to young people, Socrates was put on trial in Athens, a democracy. He faced a jury of 500 citizens. In the end he lost his case by a narrow margin. The verdict was that he could leave town or he could kill himself. 

So, in support of authoritarianism,  Socrates bumped himself off. By now you might be wondering how wise he really was. 

History describes worse forms of government than democracy. 

To be fair, I suspect Socrates lacked access to the big picture. He hadn't read much about the Bronze Age, other than one or two long poems about the Hittites and their allies. To him Troy was ancient history. 

Friday, March 8, 2024

Wang

 If you like classical piano, look up Yuja Wang on YouTube. 

Boy, have I had a bad cold.

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

The Case Against Fani Willis

The Republican argument against D. A. Fani Willis goes like this. She indicted Donald Trump, once president of the USA, to create a cushy job for her lover, so he could afford to take her on fancy vacations.  

To me that sounds unlikely. 

But I am not a Republican. If I were, the motivation they ascribe to Wilson would seem normal, the usual moronic greed that dominates sinners.  

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Monday, February 26, 2024

Ethnic Studies and Multiculturalism

"Ethnic studies is not a descriptive curriculum that speaks to various ethnic and racial groups' experiences. That is a bland form of multiculturalism. Instead the discipline is a critical analysis of the way power works in society," according to one educator, who argued that the Palestinian cause should be taught in American high schools.

I am unsure what the teacher meant by the Palestinian cause. He might have been taking the position of Hamas, which calls for an ethnic cleansing of Jews from the river to the sea. I did see one poll (?) that reported 51% of American students want Hamas to win the war against Israel. 

Some historians say that the world's first superpower was Assyria, which conquered most of the Middle East and Egypt. 

Assyria's last great leader, Ashurbanipal, compiled the world's first great library. When Assyria fell to the Medes (Iran), the library was covered with rubble. Thousands of years later it was dug up, giving us an ancient history of the area.  

What is happening now is what happened in the time of the Assyrians. Atrocities. War crimes. The same rhetoric. The same tactics again and again for thousands of years. Deliberate wanton murder of civilians. Forced migrations. Entire cities erased (see Ukraine).  We repeat and repeat. It is what we do. 


Sunday, February 25, 2024

Press

Trump dresses like a corpse in a coffin. 

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Mr. Embryo

In Alabama judges have declared that frozen embryos are children, giving embryos the same legal status as corporations. We can expect that in Alabama masturbation will soon mean life in prison and people convicted of using contraception will face the death penalty. 

Meanwhile, a friend of mine is planning to create ten embryos to use as tax deductions and two more to keep in the glove box of her Ford, making her eligible to drive the HOV lanes on Alabama highways.