Cruelty

This morning Donnie Trump tweeted that he was kicking transgender people out of the armed forces. Flabby-Ass did this for political reasons, trying to change the focus from his mysterious problems with Russia--my guess is that Trump has been laundering money for the Russian Oligarchs/Mafia.  

This move by Trump is so cruel and backward that many Republicans--Orin Hatch!--immediately spoke against it.

Under Obama transgender people in the military were accepted and encouraged to come forward. Now they can't retreat into privacy. Some have put in 15 years or 19 years and fought in war zones. They may lose their 20-year-pensions, because we somehow selected a malignant narcissist to be commander-in-chief.

The Working Class

THE WORKING CLASS

If you are up early enough and in the right place, maybe along a wooded bike trail, you might see the homeless getting up and putting on their good clothes, doing their makeup and so on. About half the homeless in Sonoma country have jobs to go to.

Level Three

My wife and I live on the first or ground level in an apartment complex in Santa Rosa. I’ve been told that level one is undesirable, because people can look in your windows and so on. We chose level one because climbing stairs is no longer one of our hobbies.

We know several couples, friends, who enjoy Level Three in San Francisco. That's a higher level, of course— I am writing about a specific village above the  city in downtown SF, near the Ferry Building, where we will soon be dog-sitting for friends of the family who are going to Europe for a month.

Level Three has existed for many years. It is (I’m guessing) about ten acres of high rises that have a large outdoor platform at the third-storey level that extends over the congested city streets below with pedestrian bridges. If you look up, you can see the bridges. The weather is good up there: breezes off the water, sunlight, flowers, grass, deck chairs. Level Three people walk their dogs around the elevated space, crossing bridges, strolling trom park to park, passing a movie theater, restaurants, whatever. There are no homeless people at that height, but rats come out at night from the shrubbery and trees. 

Disgrace

I suppose I am stating the obvious. Our system of government produced a President who is a malignant narcissist. That is our disgrace. It isn't Trump's--he's a mad dog. You don't hate a mad dog, but you have to deal with it. 

Of course, we aren't the first democracy to elevate a nutter. But the deeper shame is that Trump still has the backing of most of the Republican party. Many of them know better. They aren't nuts. Backing Trump is beyond disgraceful. Decent Republicans need a new party to express their views. 

Rapid Response Network

A Rapid Response Network is forming in Sonoma County, which is a challenge. These networks exist now in major cities, where it is relatively easy to respond quickly, but Sonoma sprawls from hamlet to farm, and not everyone is nearby.

The purpose of a network is to provide witnesses when a mother is being jerked away from her children and sent to Central America or a Moslem or gay person or person of color is being attacked by a Trump voter or the authorities. Defense attorneys need people at the scene filming with smart phones, taking notes, etc. That kind of thing, which we see on TV, doesn’t always happen by chance.

We need to form a network that can flash to the scene (peacefully) and witness what happens. 

People confronted with ICE raids at three in the morning need to know their rights, which a network phone center will tell them. For example, ICE cannot force you to open your door unless they have a warrant. ICE almost never has a legal warrant, although they do print fake warrants no judge has issued.

MEETINGS

Petaluma: meet at 6:30 at the Cavanaugh Center, 426 8th street, on Thursday, July 20.

Healdsburg: meet at 6:00 on Tuesday, August 8, at the Healdsburg Community Center, 1557 Healdsburg Avenue. 

Sonoma has a meeting scheduled, but I don’t have the time. Saturday, July 22, at La Luz,  17560 Greger Street, Sonoma.

For information contact “sshaw@northbayop.org" or 707 481 2970.

French Bread!

Somewhat below the radar, a French couple and their child have opened a bread bakery in Santa Rosa. It's at 59 Montgomery Drive, near Rosso's. That's just east of Brookwood Avenue.

The bread, experts say, is authentically French. The owners brought sourdough starter from France, they greet you in French (lucky for me they also speak English), and each loaf is likely the best in Sonoma County. The prices are reasonable, and they can tell you which bread goes with what.  

They open for business at 1:30 P.M. and close around 6:00. They sometimes sell out. This is a bread place, no pastries. They remain closed on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, and you can order on line. They have a website you can google (Goguette Bread in Santa Rosa). They don't deliver.  

Don't Call The Police

Yesterday Susan and I attended a training session of the Racial Justice Allies. The training was in bystander interventions. That is, if you are a bystander when someone gets attacked (usually verbally) because of her color or religion or sexual orientation, what should you do? What can you do to deescalate the situation and not make it worse?

I am still somewhat uncertain what to do, but one warning about what not to do will stay with me. Don’t call the police (unless the person being harassed asks you to). For many individuals the police may be more dangerous than a civilian cursing them for being Latino or black or Muslim or gay.

I understand that, but of course there are situations where calling the police is right reaction. 

One thing you can do is say, “Does everyone see what is happening here?” In an intervention, you need allies. My idea, which I didn’t have the nerve to voice—among these serious people—was that as a bystander you might start to sing in a really loud lunatic style, disconcerting everyone.  

An Unconvincing Narrative

Colbert made an interesting point last night about Donald Trump, Junior. As you know, Junior has admitted that he took a meeting with a Russian attorney during his father’s Presidential campaign. That was about a year ago.

The meet was set up through a dude who had worked with the President in producing a beauty pageant in Moscow. The pageant had gone surprisingly well—first and second place in Miss Universe had been won by women from Earth. 

Junior next invited two people to join him in the meeting, Jared Kushner (the President’s main advisor) and Paul Manafort, leading the Presidential campaign. Junior says that he did not tell them the purpose of the meeting or who would be present. You have to imagine the following conversation.

“Hello. This is Paul Manafort.”

“Paul? This is Junior. I’m hoping you can drop by a meeting this afternoon.”

“I’m busy, Junior. I’m running your father’s campaign for President of the United States. What’s this meeting about?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, who are you meeting with?”

“I can’t tell you,” Junior said.

“Count me in.”

The GOP and Mental Health

Should we thank Donald Trump for the light he's thrown on mental health issues? When I was young, America stigmatized the mentally ill, but in electing Richard Nixon, we overcame our bias against paranoia. Reagan made senility respectable. Last week America flew a malignant narcissist to Europe to bargain with Putin. We've come a long way.   

No Weigh

Somewhere in Paris, carefully guarded, sits a platinum and iridium cylinder, about the size of a golf ball, called the Grand Kilogram. Scientists made it more than 100 years ago to define the kilogram or kilogramme. All other kilogram weights are measured against it (in a sense). It's our basic unit of mass.

But what does the Grand Kilogam weigh? Let’s suppose that it weighs exactly what the Grand Kilogram weighs. If you compare it to itself, it will weigh, redundantly, exactly one kilogram. That will tell you little.

You can weigh the Grand Kilogram against copies of itself (and scientists do this). The weights will differ. 

The problem is that the Grand Kilogram has lost mass over the last 100 years, perhaps because of decaying impurities in the metal. No one is certain. According to the Corporate Democrat, the loss is “about the weight of an eyelash.” As a consequence, most kilogram measurements around the world have become different in a way that can sometimes have an impact on science and technology. But I got lost somewhere—tell me again how we determine what the Grand Kilogram weighs? 

(With thanks to Ludwig Wittgenstein)  

News From The Future

News from the future: 

A former employee of the National Rifle Association, discharged for petty theft, returned to NRA headquarters in Fairfax this morning and opened fire inside the main building.  The shooter’s motives are unknown. He killed 14 people, including several officers in the organization, before being shot by more than a dozen good guys with guns, small arms experts. Another 27 people, hit by ricochets or wild shots, were taken to hospitals in the area, where five have died and several remain critical. 

The Devolution of the Presidency

How do you get a President trembling on the edge of a psychotic break to focus on his agenda? That’s the question animating talking heads on TV. Maybe if you took away his smart phone and turned off his television sets and made him go to bed at night?  Would that get him back on his agenda? 

Does a lunatic have an agenda? If he does, do we want him to focus on it?

Henry Adams, a historian, the son of a Speaker of the House of Representatives, the grandson of a President and the great-grandson of a President, argued that the Presidency was devolving in the 19th century. After Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, we began to get Beavis and Butthead in the White House. Adams did not live long enough to meet Nixon (paranoid crook and traitor), Reagan (senile), George W. Bush (sap) or Trump (malignant narcissist). 

How low can the President get? Lower than whale poop settling onto the bottom of the Marianas Trench?