Reserve Noon on The Day After Inauguration Day

On the day after inauguration day, January 21st, at noon, in Sonoma County, relatively decent people will assemble at Santa Rosa City Hall to protest on behalf of democracy. We live in a nation ruled by minority Presidents who finished in second place. Our welfare programs have been repealed and shredded. We lack fundamental equality when it comes to race, gender, education, health care, life expectancy and income. I intend to protest.

Lest We Forget

"In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, obliterating six decades of federal social welfare policy “as we know it,” ending federal cash payments to the nation’s poor, and consigning millions of female heads of household and their children to poverty, where many still dwell 20 years later. Today, nearly half a century after Nixon trashed national child care, even privileged women, torn between their underpaid work and their kids, are overwhelmed."

----Ann Jones

Trump's Red Face

Mike McGuire, state senator from Healdsburg, California, is going to introduce a bill that will require a Presidential candidate to disclose his or her tax returns before getting a place on the state's ballot.

I don't know who came up with the idea, but what if it catches on in other states?

You can see how unfair this will be to con men like the tiny-handed Minority President-Elect Trump. He has to hide his financial past. When he runs for re-election in four years, he might have to skip California entirely. No matter. He lost California in 2016 by four million votes. But think of the drag that will be on the down-ballot California Republicans who will have no candidate for the top office.  It's like the Republican party will be slowly disappearing from the West Coast, self-erasing many faces red with shame. 

Me and Bobby McGee

I remembered when one of my aunts looked at me in surprise and said, “You like our music?”

Country music is looked down on. It originated at a time when enslaved blacks and indentured whites worked side by side and invented blue grass (blues plus ballads). It’s rural and not urban and not civilized. It’s the simple music of the poor. Even worse, it’s the music of unlettered white people. It’s very white, and I need say no more. It’s not elite or educated or diverse. It’s didactic, expressing in songs the social rules of the Scotch-Irish (as we called them until recently) or Scots-Irish or Orange Irish or Ulster Irish. It is, some say, Southern and quick to anger, the sounds of frontier folk, armed to the remaining teeth. At its best, I say, it is a direct and moving expression of things we experience. 

Irish Boston Guys

Have you ever seen ten movies about drunken Boston Irish guys who err and then feel guilt and lead useless lives of self-punishment, hoping for death? Maybe the first such film was THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE, starring Robert Mitchum. The latest is MANCHESTER BY THE SEA, recent hit and one more pointless Boston bummer, two hours of despair I will never get back. Yes, the acting is strong, so strong you may want to suck the tailpipe of your car when you get home.

The best acting, by the way, is not by the guy but by his wife. 

I’m mostly Irish myself. I want to say, look, Boston guys, the examined life is not worth living, so forget about examining and punishing yourselves and try to have fun. Move to New Mexico or something. Meet new people. Eat new food. Eat a mushroom. Pound sand! What’ve you got to lose? 

The Electoral College Succeeds

Has the Electoral College begun to fail in its purpose?  

The Electoral College has one purpose, which is to prevent ordinary people from electing a progressive President. Back in the 1800s, the rich feared that the untrustworthy, uneducated majority might elect a progressive who would come and take their money, disrupting the young capitalist economy. They set up a system to thwart that possibility.

The Electoral College failed when FDR was overwhelmingly elected four times, but it has worked perfectly in the Bush-Gore and the Trump-Clinton elections. I’m not claiming that Gore and Clinton are dyed-in-the-wool progressives, but they are more progressive than the minority winners. The Founding Fathers would understand.

ARRIVAL

My wife and I did not go to see ARRIVAL because of my interest in Amy Adams but because of my interest in three basic matters. The first was the translation of nonhuman languages into English. Wittgenstein famously wrote that if a lion could speak (in a full blown lion language), we would not understand him. Wittgenstein’s reasoning was that languages develop from forms of life. I believe that that is true. Humans can translate from English to Spanish easily because we are biologically and socially similar (the same form of life), and so are our languages. I can point to an orange and name it. A Mexican can do the same in Spanish. Translation (somewhat imperfect) is accomplished.

Could we translate an imaginary but sophisticated lion language into English? Lions don’t point to things. Do we understand some of the current primitive language of cats and dogs? Yes. They even understand one another in some ways. If the cat hisses, the dog backs off. We have in common with cats and dogs the need for food and drink, sleep, procreation, etc. We can get angry, and so can they. So, yes, we could, over time, find enough in common to begin to put together a lion vocabulary list. (We’ve seen claims that we have mastered the language of bees.)

ARRIVAL presents an attempt to learn the language of total aliens from outer space, and I thought the process shown was plausible.

The second problem is that the film contains a lot of sci-fi stuff like time travel, based on moving faster than the speed of light. That’s currently considered difficult. Here’s a curious thought. I’ve always believed that the speed of light is a constant. I suppose I was taught that in high school a hundred years ago. Recently I learned that a woman working in the science of very cold things sent light through a space that was inconceivably cold, and the light slowed down to a crawl. We need a movie exploring that.

The third is the question of what aliens might look like. On this planet there is another intelligent creature whose form of life is utterly alien: the octopus, whose development of intelligence took a path so foreign to our form of life that we can’t even imagine it. 

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The Defecarchy Begins

Minority President Trump's cabinet is shaping up as the most feculent in American history, composed mostly of sociopathic tycoons and loony generals plus certain political idiots. It's what a large minority of voters wanted and deserve. They demanded that someone defecate on their heads.

Let's call this form of government a defecarchy.

In many cases what Trump has done is eliminate the middleman. Instead of a Secretary of State who works hard to please Exxon, just make Exxon the Secretary of State.

This is going to be fascinating to witness but not much fun for young people who will have to work for decades to repair the damage the defecarchy hopes to do.

Life Is Harder If You're Stupid

“Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by the use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless.“  —Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Bonhoeffer was pointing out that you can't prevent or cure stupidity. As Hillary Clinton learned ("basket of deplorables") it's dangerous to bring up the matter. Half the population is below average in its use of reason in the decision-making process. If you bring this up, you'll be labeled an elitist. Stupidity is almost impossible to discuss in public. 

Cognitive science might be telling us that even people who reason well make their complicated decisions based on emotion, not much influenced by rational thought. (I'm still trying to find out what cognitive science is doing.)

There is no humane way to convince stupid people of anything. They don't grasp or care about their own self interest. Or they define self-interest as doing something that feels good at the moment. They smoke cigarettes or vote for Donald Trump. Then they suffer the consequences.

“Life is hard. It’s even harder if you’re stupid.” --John Wayne

How To Think Badly

Bad thinking doesn’t change. If you recall, at the start of the second war against Iraq, we were told that Iraq was amassing weapons of mass destruction. The fact that we couldn’t find any weapons was presented as proof that such weapons existed and were well hidden.

The UN had inspected Iraq and found no such weapons, according to my newspaper, so there was no rationale to attack Iraq (if you could read). Nevertheless, the Republican and Democratic establishments supported bad reasoning and a new and idiotic war.

Jumping back to the start of World War Two, we imprisoned Americans of Japanese descent in California (but not in Hawaii) on the grounds that they might be saboteurs. As one general wrote at the time, “The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken.”

In short, the lack of evidence that something is going on is proof that something is going on.

Why Trump Will Be My President

Garrison Keillor has stated that Trump will never be his President because Trump doesn't read books and so on. I wish I could say that. Unfortunately, Trump will be my President, because I'm not lucky or wise. 

Here's the deal. I don't vote in Presidential elections because my vote matters. It has never mattered in the least. Presidents are chosen by electors. In this last election, the person I voted for won by about three million votes and came in second. The vote that matters is cast by electors in an imaginary Electoral College, which was designed by our founding fathers to prevent people like me, unlucky and unwise, from electing Presidents.

Many of our elections are democratic. For example the governor of my state is elected by a vote of the people, unwise as many of us are. That's a poor system but one I can support (barely).

Voting in a Presidential election serves only one purpose, which is to say, "I participate in this system and thereby accept its outcome." I voted in the system, so Trump will be my President. I committed myself to the system that produced him. (I'm wondering if I should make that mistake again.)

The Cursive Wars

Listening to the car radio, I found out why cursive matters. As you may know, cursive had been phased out of many schools. Children are taught to keyboard instead. That’s a mistake.

Experiments have demonstrated that students in class taking notes in cursive do significantly better on tests than students typing notes onto a computer. The reason seems obvious. Writing down notes in cursive is much slower than typing notes into a computer. As I recall the cursive process from my days as a note taker, I had to process what I was hearing, leave out what wasn’t vital and shorten everything in order to keep up. I was engaged with the material. Fast typers can get a lecture down word for word. But they aren’t evaluating. A second edge develops when the student goes back to study her notes. The cursive student studies the significant parts (the rest being omitted). 

Students typing notes on a computer have been asked to slow down and process, but so far they seem unable to do it. 

Riddle Me This, Children

Here are two riddles I'm promoting.

1. For whom is the town of Morgan Hill named?

If you haven't been there, the town is flatter than a blue corn pancake. It's named for Mr. Hill.

2.  Who invented German chocolate cake?

All of you pastry chefs know about Mr. Sam German. 

And so on.  These are useful if you want to annoy your children. 

Castro

In the weeks that followed Fidel Castro’s successful revolution in Cuba, I saw, for the first time, real people being executed on television. Castro had, I as I recall, about 400 to 500 of his prisoners shot. I remember one black prisoner, an impressive young officer, who looked his firing squad in the eyes with defiance. He’d been bound tightly to a post and slumped when killed. 

By then I’d read Albert Camus and opposed the death penalty, but that alone would not have turned me against Castro. I supported the very few American governors who commuted all death sentences, but politicians like that have been rare. I voted at times for candidates lacking balls who reluctantly “followed the law” and sent prisoners to their deaths. I wasn’t a one issue voter. But I was a democrat, and Castro was a dictator. I didn't support him (or his assassination).  

Castro wasn’t always wrong. Democracies aren’t always right—in my life I’ve seen Presidents elected who were paranoid or senile. We just elected a minority President who is a narcissistic sociopath. But he can’t be a dictator, much to his and his voters disappointment. 

Identity Politics vs. Class Struggle

The Left is arguing quite nastily about whether to pursue identity politics or class politics. If you bring up the working class, you will be attacked for abandoning African-Americans in favor of white workers. I’ve been screamed at that “class struggle” is code for racist views. What may be most absurd is that class politics is actually a form of identity politics—but for some it seems too inclusive. 

The term “identity politics” originated back in the 1960s among feminists. Then, as now, there formed black identity groups that excluded or expelled white members. The basic idea was that an oppressed people should band together as a group with a shared identity and work to change society. To oversimplify, you get together with people like yourself and set out to succeed in our godforsaken country.

The argument against identity politics has been that it divides people, excludes people, and sets one group to fighting against another. In the recent primary elections, for example, lesbians tended to unite for Hillary (because she is a woman),while socialists supported Bernie. Lesbian socialists had a tough decision. 

Another argument against identity groups is that black lesbians (for example) are not identical. Differences get lost. And so on, the arguments go back and forth. It might be that identity politics is unavoidable. George Lakoff is telling us that we need to make connections to people at the level of basic values that transcend class and identity issues. That’s what works, he says. People engaged in politics don’t listen to him, but he’s probably right. 

The Wooden Stick

As the official (but not sole) scrubber of dishes in the family, one of my tasks is to keep track of which kitchen tools my wife is using most. That item has turned out to be a wooden stick that she insists not be put in the dishwasher, which I use as a rinser. This stick is shaped vaguely like a giant spoon. I typically wash by hand, then rinse in the machine. My wife insists that her wooden stick would be damaged if rinsed in hot water. I have to set it aside and eventually rinse the stick by hand in hot water. (I keep remembering when we were living and working on Long Island, where we had a fireplace.)

Extortion

I heard a thoughtful conservative (not someone from the radical right or a Nazi) say that the core problem with the Groping Grifter (our President-Elect) is his extortion of foreign governments. According to the speaker, it has already begun.

President-Elect Grifter has investments in many nations, and as President he has some of those nations under his tiny thumb. Expect to see them visit, hat in hand, and begin booking rooms in Trump hotels. The Grifter is already squeezing out concessions and special deals for his companies. That is hard for a President to do in this country--there are laws against it--but few foreign countries are prepared to deal with an American extortionist. And business is business.

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The Grabbing Grifter

President Obama has asked us to give the Grabbing Grifter a chance. Is there an option? Haven’t we already given the Grifter and his family a four-year opportunity to loot around the world?

Meanwhile, as someone has pointed out, the Grabbing Grifter will not be paying much attention to what anyone has to say, except for those who live in NYC. That’s his home town. He actually wants to be liked and respected in NYC, which is why he reacted so quickly when the audience at “Hamilton” booed Mike Pence. They were really booing the Grifter. He wants to be honored in New York, but it’s not apt to happen. 

Corruption and Treason

Trump won’t be the first crooked President in my lifetime. Niixon was so crooked he had to be pardoned by Ford to stay out of prison. But Nixon’s crimes were committed to gain power, not wealth. We understand that. Politicians cross that line from time to time, Trump is different. He’s a grifter. He’s spent his life cheating people for money, and the Trump administration is going to enrich his family and accomplices in ways new to American Presidential history. That history has seen administration scandal before—Teapot Dome, for example—but this time, for the first time, the head grifter will be seated at Lincoln’s desk in the White House. 

Trump has already brought in a lobbyist for foreign governments to serve as his chief defense advisor. The probability of corruption there is built in. His daughter and son-in-law, the Ivanka Kushners, are going to get security clearances. They will also be in charge of Trump’s many foreign investments--with Trump whispering in their ears. Ivanka is already peddling hideous jewelry on television. That’s just a sideline, but why miss an opportunity? 

Access to national intelligence can mean billions, depending on your business model. Influence peddling in the oval office can generate more billions. With our elected President as grifter-in-charge, we are in for some fascinating tales of treason and corruption. (But I'm the guy who thought most white women would defend their dignity by voting against Trump, and I could not have been more mistaken.) 

Who Wants to Lead the Democratic Party?

For some reason, I can only type in caps today.  (i am not shouting.)

There are three candidates to head the Democratic National committee, which is currently led by Donna Brazile, known mostly for moral lapses during the presidential campaigns.  Until recently she worked for CNN, but they had to fire her.

the first candidate is Keith ellison, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the first Muslim-American ever elected to congress. He's the lefty.

next there is Howard dean, once a governor of Vermont and a party rebel. Today he and newt Gingrich work for Dentons, a gigantic lobbying firm that supports the drug industry. Dean argues that Medicare should not be able to negotiate for lower drug prices.

And we have a third candidate,  a registered lobbyist who has worked for Wal-mart. I am trying to forget his name. I have succeeded. 

Andy Borowitz explains the election to his young daughter without scaring her

When my daughter came home, I sat her down at the kitchen table, gave her a Kit Kat from her hoard of Halloween candy, and offered this explanation of the election: “Imagine the stupidest thing you could ever do, like peeing on a stack of pancakes. Now, imagine that the United States is a stack of pancakes. Millions of grownups just peed on it.”

She started giggling. This explanation made sense to her. As she ran off to play, I was relieved, and grateful for the alacrity with which children laugh at their elders. But I am still waiting for someone to explain the election to me.

The Moron

Batja Cates sent me the following:  

H.L. Mencken (born 1880 - died 1956) was a journalist, satirist, critic, cynic and Democrat.  He wrote this editorial while working for the Baltimore Evening Sun, which appeared in the July 26, 1920 edition.

 "As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and complete moron."

The Young Messiah

Today I watched nearly one-third of a 2016 movie called "The Young Messiah." It's not nearly as funny as "Young Frankenstein," and why did they cast Sean Bean as Jesus?  Bean is a fine actor, but he's too old to play an eight-year-old Boy. 

In its favor the film has suspense. Will the little Jesus, his parents and cousins make it back to wherever from Egypt? How many birds will He bring back to life? How will it all end? Who knows? I didn't see the conclusion.  Even if I had, I wouldn't give anything away. I hate it when reviewers do that. 

Walking Old Red

Last night I joined my first demonstration against Trumpismo.  A small group of people of all ages, with half from the junior college, walked along the Old Redwood Highway chanting and holding up signs. 

I started, 60 years ago, with informational picketing. I did a little of that back when the NAACP was the cutting edge. During the Vietnam Era, I joined gigantic marches. In the army I'd gotten tear gas training--that proved useful. Before and during the loony Iraq War Two, I joined the Healdsburg Peace Project vigil. I protest when nothing else is working. It's not clear that protesting works, either, but a demonstration shows that there's fight left in us. We fail again and again. We keep going.

Who Saw It Coming?

Why didn’t we see it coming?  At the time the polls began to close, the supporters of Clinton and Trump believed Clinton would win. They were wrong. Most of us were wrong. We got to watch the truth dawn on our TV commentators and the political establishment. Hillary’s win vanished like a stone thrown in a pond. 

The American people elected—to lead the nation and the world—a snorting, vulgar, mental anti-Christ. 

We didn’t see it coming because the East Coast political establishments (both parties), their organizers, their expert pundits and their funders, all drink filtered water from the same pool. They attended the same prep schools and universities, studied the same profound texts and ended up repeating identical insights to one another. They lack intellectual diversity.

In the process they lost touch with how mere voters feel about things. A few outsiders warned them. Michael Moore tried to warn them. But who was he compared to the standard elite thinkers they had consulted over the last 40 years? Had he studied the great minds at Princeton, Harvard or Yale?  Or even Williams or Tufts? 

(Moore dropped out of the University of Michigan-Flint, if you must know. This campus has yet to field even one varsity intercollegiate basketball team. What could Moore possibly know?)

Greetings from California

Greetings from California. Given who has been chosen to lead America and the world, I have adopted the strategy of being a Californian. I'll have to find a Bear Flag store.

Meanwhile some of my well-intended friends are saying that we must learn to understand the Trump voters and meet their needs and so on. I'm still processing what they did, not ready yet to meet racists, misogynists, Islamaphobes and all-purpose sociopaths half-way--while seeking compromise.

Redecorating the White House

A friend recently asked how Mrs. Trump would be redecorating the White House. We know that she’s named Newt Gingrich to head the committee, and he’s reported that she wants the front porch enlarged. “What sticks out in front is what people admire,” she told him. “I learned that when I came to America. The front needs to be much bigger and higher and painted turquoise blue the way Donald likes them.”

“I believe the place is more than thirty-five years old and wrinkled-looking,” she added. “The back end is starting to droop a little. Donald can prop that up. We have chemicals to stiffen the exterior, and cranes can pull the rest of the white paint job smooth again and freeze it in place.  We plan to visit there, you know, and I should have the house camera ready within the first hundred days."

The Next Move

I'm wavering between despair and rage, neither of which is a solution. I suggest everyone take a look at The Intercept. Google it. I don't agree with The Intercept half the time, but the people there make sense. See what they say about our next move. Michael Moore isn't bad, either.

We Lose

Congratulations to @DebFudge, one candle burning in the darkness. 

My best to Sonoma's corporate ruling class and its newspaper--they have retained control of the county board of supervisors by backing yet another fake Democrat.

On the national level we have elected a sociopathic, racist, illiterate, misogynistic confidence man to lead our country and the world. This admirer of dictators owns the nuclear arsenal. Our first lady has her boobs on display on the internet. The voters prevailed. We're set for the next four years.

I could not have been more wrong in predicting the election results. (We were warned by Michael Moore and the single national poll that got it right, the one by the LA Times that had the Trump ahead from start to finish.) 

In my lifetime our political system has survived a crooked President (Nixon), a senile President (Reagan) and a doltish and murderous President (George W. Bush). Now, we will be ruled by a brainless brute. You'll pardon me if I start to back away. 

Mom Vs. Dad

George Lakoff came up with the idea that the way your original family was constructed often has an impact on how you vote. In our family my mother was the most intelligent, loving, empathic and strongest among us, and my father was a bigot. For me the choice between mom and dad in the current election was easy. 

Of course, many people rebel against their early family structure. 

I loved my parents. Living with my mother was not always easy for the rest of us, and it had some negative implications. My father’s bigotry seldom resulted in overt behavior. He was a solid man we could depend on. It would not make sense to compare him to an orange pig with tiny hands, for instance.

What strikes me most about the current election is Donald Trump’s  sociopathic racism. Nothing could be more obvious; yet more than 40% of the country is going to vote for him. You can’t vote for an obvious racist without being a racist, no matter who you are. You are a person who votes for racism. This is daunting--as ancient as I am, after a lifetime of opposing racism, I remain ignorant. Until this election I had no idea how powerfully racist this country still is, although that is what people of color have kept saying. 

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The Enthusiasm Gap

The news on my TV has a crawl (day after day) that claims that there is, among black voters, an "enthusiasm gap."  Yet if you look at who is going to the polls these days, a higher percentage of African-Americans vote than white people vote. If you divide people by race, African-Americans are the group most likely to vote. So where is the "enthusiasm gap"? 

Ignoring the Damsels

Our Santa Rosa newspaper, the Corporate Democrat, seldom prints an intelligent letter. It prefers to publish propaganda from the hirelings of the rich or downright idiocy from the alt.right. One letter today caught my interest. It was from a male who believed that we could limit abortions if we appointed a committee composed of 50 grandmothers, 50 mothers and 50 maidens to settle the issues involved. 

For me this begged a question, what do 50 losing race horses (of either sex) have to do with medical ethics?

My wife claimed that the letter writer was talking about women, not horses of either sex, and that he was probably 600 years old and spoke Proto German. For him “maiden” meant something like “servant” or “unmarried person.” She pointed to the traditions of archaic masculinity. I retorted that I doubted if he was a day over 90, and that if we are going to raise a committee “to significantly reduce the pregnancies terminated in the United States,” it should be diverse. If the proposed committee was to have 50 maidens, why leave out the colleens, the damsels, the bimbos and doxies? I’m just saying. 

Landslide?

I'm a great believer in averaging polls, the kind of thing Nate Silver does. I have no interest in the single polls so many TV hosts dwell on in trembling excitement. But this is a strange year. I look at the averaged polls and wonder why the women of America haven't decided to vote against Trump in bigger numbers.

Some of you may have seen Lawrence O'Donnell last night discussing a special poll. An outfit managed to poll voters in Florida who have already cast their ballots. What that poll showed was that 28% of Republicans had voted for Clinton. If accurate that would indicate a Clinton landslide, no doubt driven by women. But no one seems to buy that outcome. Or are the polls missing something?

Instead the experts talk about enthusiasm among the voters, finding Trumplettes to be the most enthusiastic. The claim must be that if you vote enthusiastically, the vote counts double, but isn't this election sure to have the most unenthusiastic votes cast in modern history?

Trump Sandwich

a friend found this in NYC--

Don't Be Too Trusting

What do the following groups have in common?

the Harvey Milk Democratic Club 

the Small Business Action Committee 

the COPS voter guide 

the Coalition for Literacy 

the American Legion of California 

the NAACP of California

Big Pharma has paid each of them—or their leadership—sums of money ranging downward from $210,000 to endorse a NO vote on Proposition 61, the initiative to lower drug prices by allowing state agencies to negotiate in the same way the VA does. 

That’s just a sampling of the folks who need Big Pharma’s help in meeting their budgets. You can find more info at The Intercept.    

Grabbing at Sex

When the famous Ms Kelly of Fox News seemed interested in the physical assaults the hulking Don Trump has mounted against young women, Newt Gingrich took offense. "You are fascinated with sex," he told Kelly. 

Gingrich conflated sex and violence. Kelly was objecting to unwanted violence. Men like Trump have no idea what "consent" means in male/female relationships. These grabbers grab at money, grab at food, grab at sex.

(also on Facebook)

The Republican Rapture

We give him no credit, but we should be applauding Donald Trump for helping the GOP face itself. Trump has shown them who they are. They’re so mean that most Republican women can ignore sexual assault. Many Republicans believe that Mother Nature made white skins superior to darker skins. Nature made men larger than women and better than women. To Republicans all of that is inescapably natural. Add that white culture builds the most comfortable cars, the slickest handguns, the richest ruling class. Didn’t Jesus, God’s only Son, come from Heaven to tell us our goal should be to grub for money?

Trump has not destroyed the Republican Party. He is the Republican Party. When the Party looks in the mirror, it sees Donald Trump. It sees his hair—to covert a bald spot, he hired a surgeon to split his scalp and then sew it back together in a new and more feathery way. That’s a thing millionaires do. The downside is that your features get pulled around a little and your  mouth may resemble a cat’s anus.

Thanks to Trump, who the Republicans have become is now obvious to the Republicans. 

Small wonder decent people have begun to shrink away from brutality. George Will has left the party. Is the Rapture happening in an unexpected arena? Who gets left behind? Is the Republican Party looking at End Times?

Trump's Fortune

Long ago Donald Trump had $200,000,000. If he had invested it in an index fund, today he would today have about 15 billion dollars, according to experts. Instead he has about 3 billion dollars. This is the dude who claimed that he would self-fund his presidential campaign. Instead he’s all over the internet begging for money.

You may know the classic story:  How do you make a small fortune? You inherit a large fortune and mismanage it. 

Wikileaks at War

When Wikileaks began, it was a site that published government whistle blowers. People who worked for governments sent in government secrets that sometimes helped us understand the ruling class.

Today, according to some, Wikileaks has added a second mission. It publishes material taken from private rather than government sources. Intelligence agencies claim that much of this new material comes from teams of hackers hired by governments to do mischief in other nations.  As Glenn Greenwald has said, Wikileaks does nothing to protect the privacy of the innocent. It disseminates private email--hacked by government spies--without verification or consideration. Greenwald doesn't argue that private, personal emails should be sacred, just that which ones to publish requires careful judgment. 

Greenwald is a journalist and he makes judgment calls on the material he uncovers. I'm not a journalist, so my concern is different. If, to invent an example, the government of France hires hackers to hack into the private files of Australian winemakers and then sends the files to Wikileaks, can we be sure the files are genuine? If we find in the files an email boasting that the way to make Australian wine is to buy wine from Chile and add water, how do we know if France has not thrown a forged email into the pile? We can't verify Wikileaks, and Wikileaks checks nothing.

Hugh Laurie

Last night Colbert asked Hugh Laurie what medical intervention might help Donald Trump with his many hangups and problems. Laurie, who often plays doctors on TV, ad libbed, "Breast feeding--it might be too late."

A Nasty Woman

Some commentators this morning seem deeply concerned because, at last night's debate, Donald Trump did not agree to accept the results of an American Presidential election. Who cares? I don't give a damn if Trump accepts one thing or another. I just don't want to see that deranged, shiftless, orange face again. (For Trump to make this notion the focus of the next week's TV discussion indicates that he has no hope left of winning. He's finished.)

Why can't Melania give him some make-up tips? Who uses an orange blusher? Why can't she slip him some of her botox?--anything to keep his features from that constant crawling. 

What Trump did say that was outrageous was that his opponent is a "nasty woman." Like many men, I would likely have missed the deeper import of that comment. Fortunately I was sitting with women when he made it, and they got it instantly. It was another of Trump's slightly indirect references to the contemptible odors and tastes that emanate from the female half of our life form (in his view). Trump really dislikes women. They understand, and now they have him targeted.

Hillary

Our ballots are about to arrive. it’s time to get serious.

I’m a veteran voter, having cast ballots for New Dealers like JFK and LBJ and then for Democrats who betrayed the New Deal: Bill Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry. (I exempt Obama because he integrated gays and passed the Affordable Care Act.) 

I can’t explain why someone who voted for John Kerry should refuse to vote for Hillary Clinton. They are both centrists with a deep commitment to Wall Street and a few progressive ideas. They ran or run against Republicans who believe that God gave us life to grub for money. 

Some of my friends intend to vote for Jill Stein, who has no experience in leading a town or a nation or the world. Unlike Bernie Sanders, she’s not qualified. 

The problem we face, ultimately, is that capitalism constantly drifts toward becoming inhumane. From time to time, the ruling class ends up owning nearly everything. That’s a fact. Eventually people will change that. In the meantime, Hillary Clinton is the viable candidate who will do the poor the least harm. I’m voting for Hillary.

Jim Wood

As you may have noticed, the Press Corporate Democrat does endorse liberal Democrats for election when their election is likely anyway. They have endorsed Jim Wood for Assembly, 2nd district.

Jim, the incumbent, lives in Sonoma County, which he has represented in judiciously progressive ways. He is, unless I'm out of date, the only scientist in the state assembly. The importance of science in this age of information technology, global warming and personality disorders emanating from Donald Trump and the alternate radical-right universe is plain. I will vote for Jim Wood. 

Denial

DENIAL is a current movie, more or less a true story, about a  Holocaust denier who filed a libel suit against a historian who denounced him. The reviews have been so-so, but I found the film moving. Rachel Weisz employs a wicked Queens’ accent. And, no surprise, the movie made me think of Donald Trump.

DENIAL is about confronting human evil. At the moment we are confronting Trump, a global warming denier and so on, but, most telling, he denies his own history as a sexual predator. Right now 12 women have accused him, and soon it will be 120 women. He is on tape boasting of his predation. Yet Trump denies and denies and attacks the truth tellers. He presents raw lewdness in human form for us to see. We watch him cartoonishly writhing like a dying orange fire. His fate is public and loathsome and something ordinary family people like me can marvel at. 

Faking It?

We all saw Don Trump on TV last week bragging that he was a sexual predator. Later we saw him telling us that he'd merely been boasting--he'd never actually groped women and so on. In short, he now told us that he was a fake sexual predator, not a real one. That was good enough for the current Jerry Falwell, president of Liberty College, to endorse Trump.

Trump's new task is to convince us, as he has the pious Falwell, that what this nation needs is a President who confessed on TV to being a fake sexual predator.  

America's Boundaries

Donald Trump stands ready to protect America’s boundaries, especially those of American women. His plan will cost the taxpayer nothing. Simply put, he proposes that each 

American woman build a wall around herself and make Mexico pay for it. Mexicans, in his view, are murderers and rapists and, in the worst cases, gropers who invade women’s private space. 

A Locker Room Conversation with Donald Trump

                  A Locker Room Conversation with Donald Trump

“Wow. Who cut the cheese?” Billy asked.

“He who smelt it, dealt it,” Trump quipped.

“Hah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hah,” Billy agreed. “Have you noticed something?  We must be fifty years older than the other kids in here. We’re too old for this.”

“I know you are, but what am I?” Trump snapped. Then he snorted into his hot microphone and turned orange. “You’re not the boss of me!”

“Good one!”

“And no matter how you shake and dance, the last few drops go down your pants.”

Trump Bleeds Out

My father, a machinist who was a New Deal Democrat until my mother died (he then became a racist), used to say that if the Republicans nominated the pimple on his ass for President, that pimple would get 35% of the vote. In other words, 35% was rock bottom, the absolute minimum percentage a major candidate (Democrat or Republican) could get.

Dumb Donald Trump is now lurching along at pimple strength, at 35%. He should have bled out, but somehow he continues to bleed. I don’t know how he can still bleed —how much blood does it take to animate more than six feet of staggering blubber? Why is Trump constantly snuffling and sniffing on national television?  When is the last time he blew his nose or ate a fresh vegetable?  I give him three months to live. He’s bleeding out and we watch. 

Enough Debates

According to the Press Corporate Democrat, “both Sonoma County Democrats and Republicans said GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump improved his debate performance Sunday 
night. . . ." In fact, Trump blundered onto the stage as balmy as a beer-soaked sociopath. He announced a plan to jail his opponent, dismissed his sex crimes as “locker room talk” and sniffed and snorted throughout like a coke head recently out of supplies. Clinton carefully did not knock the babbling windbag out—what if the Republicans replaced him with someone a little less looney? She wants to keep blubberguts up on his painful feet so she can punish him more. There is no stooge on earth better to run against. Trump’s already cost the Republicans control of the Senate. Can the House be far behind? (This morning Paul Ryan turned the Republican House members loose to run with or without Trump, to do anything they needed to save themselves.)

But someone should call off the third debate, the third debasing. Trump is too despicable for public consumption. Let’s stop now and just vote.

Forgiveness and Redemption

People speaking for Donald Trump and other perverts are asking us today to forgive Trump for his sexual crimes against young women. He has apologized and, they say, has earned Christian redemption. That is good doctrine, and they can point to past examples. As my Cousin Dan put it, look at how quick Republicans were to forgive Hillary Clinton when she was not caught murdering Vince Foster.

If the Republicans can forgive Hillary for being a woman who wears trousers and forgive President Obama for defeating two white men for the Presidency, surely the rest of us can forgive Dumb Donald for being drawn to beauty like a magnet and then short-fingering the objects he sees on display in front of him.

Trump's Mouth

Today remarks by Trump surfaced, in which he revealed that as a “star” he felt free to grab females by their private parts and so on. Many Republicans have expressed disapproval of his behavior and  comments, but what stood out for me was the need these Republicans felt to explain why they were suddenly defending women, of all people.

If you are a Republican male and you want to denounce Trump’s sex crimes, you must first say, “As the father of five daughters” or “as a husband who loves his wife” or “as the son of a woman.” These exculpatory self-descriptions make legitimate your momentary lapse from the Republican doctrine of male superiority.  Yes, of course, males are generally superior, but many can agree that even a Republican leader like Donald Trump has no right to grab your mother by the pussy.   

MadBum

Bumgarner, Bumgarner, Bumgarner--that was the actor James Garner's real name. If he hadn't changed it, think how famous he'd be.

Madison Bumgarner is a farm boy and baseball player. He's six-five, 250 pounds, wears muddy jeans. At 27 he is already a legend. Legends are players like Stan Musial and Sandy Koufax. And now there's one among us. 

As things stand MadBum of the SF Giants is the greatest post-season pitcher in the  history of baseball. He's pitched in three World Series, he's won every time, he's got the lowest World Series ERA ever, and last night he threw a nine inning shutout in an elimination game that put the Giants back in the hunt. 

Last night we saw him smile for the first time, a brief smile at his coach. MadBum is deadly serious. He pitches his game. Then he relieves himself on the mound and pitches the ninth. He doesn't celebrate. He walks off the field. If he thinks a batter is disrespectful--defined as looking at him too long--watch out.

Two years ago, MadBum (a combination of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox) had won his two starts in that year's World Series, and there was talk of him being brought back as a relief pitcher in the seventh game.  (That did happen, and he threw five scoreless innings.) A reporter asked Bumgarner how many pitches he thought he could throw in the deciding game, given how many innings he had already completed. 

"Two hundred," Bumgarner replied.

Trump Enters Miss Universe!

Suddenly aware that he’s losing, Donald Trump has announced he will run to become the first woman President of the United States. This looks like a powerful strategy.  A person who usually thinks of others first, Trump has finally given herself the same presents she gave her wives: a matching set of plastic boobs, a shorter skirt, a diet plan and our planet's entry form for the Miss Universe contest.   (The Earth has a history of doing remarkably well in the Miss Universe pageant. Trump can almost be guaranteed a top five finish.)   

Borderline Personality

Borderline personality disorders are as common as crows at Canadian customs. Last week I was crossing into Canada from Washington and, as usual, faced questions of incomprehensible value. 

Customs: Why are you visiting Canada?

Me: To visit friends. The husband is someone I’ve known for 65 years.

Customs: Where did you meet this friend?

(They always ask me that. The question seems to be automatic.  Must be in the handbook.)

Me: Well, we grew up on a peninsula near Los Angeles where many people had horses. He was fourteen at the time, riding a Shetland pony. That pony was mean. You had to watch him. He might bite you.

Customs: Do you have any firearms in your van?

Me: No. It’s illegal to take firearms into Canada.

Customs: Has this van ever had firearms in it?

Me: Ever? Well, the van is fifteen years old. I’m sure it’s had firearms in it at some point. It doesn’t have any now—I’m eighty-one and a retired college professor driving to Vancouver Island to visit friends. I wouldn’t attempt to bring firearms across the border.

Shortly I found myself in a gigantic room with about 100 empty chairs. A different customs fellow asked me to empty my pockets on a counter. I was wearing a traveler’s vest with about 15 pockets, pants with five pockets and a shirt with two pockets. I began to empty the pockets. He took my passport, my keys and my Swiss Army Knife. He asked me to pull up my pants so he could check my ancient legs for an ankle holster. Finally I was told to take a seat.

The Canadians searched my van for about 30 minutes, leaving the interior a jumble of things they had thrown about. In the end they gave back my keys, passport and Swiss knife. and I was sent on towards Vancouver. The only thing they confiscated was my firewood, and they said I could pick it up on my way back if I wanted it. I said, No, thanks.