Brown Eyes Don't Vary

A few months back, my wife of 54 years remarked, with surprise, that I had very blue eyes. I did not know what to make of this belated discovery.

It turns out that people with blue eyes have little melanin in the front layer of their irises. This creates some sort of light-scattering effect that seems blue to the onlooker (there is nothing actually blue in the eye). 

Because lighting and mood changes can alter the size of the pupil, how blue the eyes seems to the observer actually changes from time to time. Somehow my wife had noticed this. Her brown eyes don't vary.

Rapinoe of Northern California

Megan Rapinoe has accepted Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's invitation to tour the House of Representatives in Washington after World Cup. Some time back Rapinoe--who has scored the last four goals for America's women's soccer team at the World Cup--had announced she would not be visiting  tRump in the White House.

Rapinoe, who grew up in Northern California, is the captain of our national team, a lesbian, a force for social justice and the quarterback (so to speak) of a group of skilled and vastly underpaid women who are great fun to watch on television. 

Cilantro Tastes Like Soap

How cilantro tastes to you depends on your genes. Scientists have pinned down most cilantro haters as people with olfactory-receptor genes called OR6A2,  which pick up the smell of aldehyde chemicals. Aldehyde chemicals are found in both cilantro and soap. 

If you dislike cilantro, you could not be more right.  

Biden's Politics

When Joe Biden was serving his first term in the Senate, he somehow earned the support of the chair of the Judiciary Committee, James Eastland, a man who often said that black people were "an inferior race."   Biden wrote:

"Dear Mr. Chairman. I want you to know that I very much appreciate your help during this week's committee meeting in attempting to bring my anti-busing legislation to a vote."

I believe that what Biden was doing at the time was solidifying his support among racist workingclass white males in his state. Today he claims that he didn't oppose busing, just federal court-ordered busing. He found an in-between kind of position that would please Eastland but be deniable when faced with black voters.

Kamela Harris was too kind when she said that Biden isn't racist. Many of us have racist tendencies, but some of us understand that and oppose racist behavior. Biden half-way catered to racism in the old days. Today he will look for intermediate positions again. That's why he has become the favorite candidate of the decent folk who left the Republican Party over the last two years. He is centrist, Republican-lite, a bumbler and worse. If he gets the nomination--God forbid--I will vote for him.

Never Vote Republican

Two Points:

1. After the first Democratic debate, the Anti-Trump Republicans and Corporate Democrats on TV are shouting their disapproval of the more progressive Democratic candidates. They want the Democrats to nominate someone Republican-lite, a shambling old Joe Biden or one of those bland Midwestern centrists. They seem surprised that the audience applauded Warren. They are already frantic. 

2. The Supreme Court, a hard-core, partisan Republican enclave of soulless sons-of-bitches, today ruled that gerrymandering is okay even in absurd cases. This is part of an ongoing, systematic plan to thwart majority rule in the United States, fueled by major think tanks funded by billionaires who don't care for women, children or people of color. 

Never vote Republican.    

The President of the USA Rapes A Woman

The President, who is mentally ill, has again explained that he only rapes women who are "my type." Many women can now relax. 

Women of color are not his type. He's too racist to grab at them. Young girls are his type but not women his own age. Seniors can feel safe in his presence. This might seem like a scandal--the President of the USA has been accused of rape!--but my newspaper hasn't given it much notice. It isn't news. He's raped about two dozen women. Readers long ago lost interest. Let's accept rape and do nothing about it. That's where we are todayy.

28%

About 28% of black Democrats call themselves liberals, half the percentage of white Democrats.  

I'm not sure how to read this. It may be that voters of color consider liberalism a luxury only white people can afford. It may be that voters of color try to be pragmatic. 

Attempts to predict which candidate is best placed to win embody what I call "the Pelosi fallacy."  Will it be someone who attracts young people? Or enthuses black women? Or someone liked by old MAGA dudes? 

How did we end up nominating Gore, Kerry and Hillary? 

We will not know in advance which candidate will be strongest against tRump. Who will generate enthusiasm and turnout?

Joshua Fit the Battle

Once or twice a year, the Chaucer Boys, a bicycle club I belong to, drives to Clear Lake and pedals by the site of the Bloody Island massacre. In 1850 a genocidal cavalry militia group murdered up to 100 helpless Amerindians there: men, women and babies. I learned about this by reading a roadside sign. Genocide had not been part of my public school education when I was growing up in California. 

The first US governor of California, Peter Burnett, went on record supporting the extermination of the Amerindians. He put a bounty on them. California today contains over 700,000 Amerindians, the most of any state, no thanks to the racist killers humans have often celebrated. 

It's likely that on any given day in the last 7,000 years at least one culture somewhere was committing genocide. The earliest recorded example is the celebrated fall of Jericho.  The walls came tumbling down. No one was spared. 

tRump's Odd Strategy

Many observers have commented that tRump has made no effort to woo swing voters. He's devoted his political attention to invigorating his base of around 40%. The day after his election, he began a re-election campaign based on his original issues: the wall, jailing Hillary, reinforcing white male supremacy, demeaning women, etc. 

There's a math problem in this. In 2018 he won 3 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton. Three years later,  his focus group, old white bigots, has begun to die out. Young women have registered in greater numbers. tRump's malevolent incompetence and failing mind have become more evident. The Democrats are likely to unite against him once they have a candidate.

tRump is unable to be more than what he is, a stupid, malevolent narcissist.  He'll double down on that. He'll jerk about like a marionette. But polls showing him losing big may be inaccurate. Some of the voters who love him are ashamed to admit it.  

Concentrating

I believe that concentration camps have been located near the southern border of our country. As far as I can tell, none exist near my home.  If there were one nearby, I'd go and look at it. I've been aware of concentration camps for about 75 years but never seen one except on film.

This is who we are now, which means that this is who we have been (in part).  Of course.

Immigration Driven by Global Warming

Years back, some experts concluded that what started the civil war in Syria was global warming. The crops failed. The farmers sought help. The government did not respond, and the war began. The experts predicted that global warming would soon trigger huge, worldwide migrations and social unrest.

Now we've had crop failures in Central America, and the people there have started walking north, in the direction of food. 

As global warming worsens, more of the South will start moving north, crossing lines on maps in Europe and in North America. 
We can make ourselves useful by accepting immigrants and by funding Central Americans to find new ways to grow food crops. This would be in the best interest of everyone. 

The Art of the Deal

The American President, Agent Orange, knows how to tamp down a crisis. Elie Mystal clarified how the President manages to do this. His explanation went something like this:

1. The President announces to the media that he intends to shoot himself in the foot in four days. He buys a shotgun. The crisis begins to build. He loads the shotgun while on Fox TV.

2. On the third day, the President announces that discussions have been fruitful, and he has agreed not to shoot off his foot.

3. On the fourth day the President congratulates himself on his mastery of the art of the deal.

Bonespurs celebrates D Day

I had not given the walking speed of Queen Elizabeth much thought until yesterday, when President Bonespurs, celebrating D Day, told us on TV that the Queen walked at the same rate he did. (That was his notion of a gentlemanly analysis, in which he granted the Queen one of his own characteristics.)

He wasn't telling the truth. I've seen them both walk. 

As you know, walking consists of falling forward, catching yourself on one foot, then falling again and catching yourself with the other foot. And so on. Bonespurs--often filmed strolling across the tarmac in an airport--adds a flourish to the process. He goose-steps, keeping his flabby rotundity straight up while kicking out his long legs rotationally. He lunges along. He walks like Hitler.

Walking is partly a function of height, and Bonespurs claims to be six-three. He's actually more like five-eleven. Even so the Queen is half his height and bent like a paperclip. She would have to take four steps to each of Bonespurs' long goose-struts. The Queen doesn't have a quick turnover. There's no way she could keep up with him if, say, the two of them were running from a bear in Buckingham Palace. No one can run away as fast as Bonespurs. 

Trump's War

George Lakoff wrote the following:

Trump rules by crisis. He created a border crisis, changing U.S. immigration policy to create chaos. He created economic crises, launching trade wars, shutting down the government and tumbling markets. He created a constitutional crisis, bucking Congress’ authority and defying the law. The list goes on.

Now he’s stoking crisis with Iran. Here are three strategies to help prevent him from pursuing war as a political strategy:

• Call it out. This war will only happen because Trump wants to start one. Say it. A war against Iran will be a trumped-up war manufactured to burnish the president’s power and popularity. He would put American troops in harm’s way to save his own political bacon. “He needs an out,” said Ben-Ghiat. “War is an easy way to make himself seem indispensable at a moment of crisis.”
• Don’t buy the lies. Trump’s war would likely begin with murky accusations against Iran. He would invoke war as the only way to protect the nation. We’ve been through this before. The George W. Bush administration used false intelligence and lies used to justify the Iraq invasion. Trump, who lies in even the smallest of matters, would certainly do the same. Citizens, political leaders and journalists must actively challenge his propaganda and assume every word is untrue. 
• We must never again allow our nation to be pulled into “elective war” based on lies. The press must avoid repeating the grave errors of the Iraq War.
• Hit the streets. Protest works. Americans must prepare for a massive show of democratic force. Trump’s war must be viewed as a deadly plot to amass political power. Get ready to march – and keep marching until his strategy becomes untenable.

The Editorial Board

I seldom read the editorials in my daily paper, the
Corporate Democrat. They are seldom written by people expert in the topic under discussion. I read today’s very long, tedious editorial because it was about the need for Presidential candidates to take up reforming our education system. 

This was quite a long editorial that attacked the Democrats for lacking a vibrant reform plan. It demanded accountability and strong principals. It frowned on increasing teacher pay and unions, and it contained not a single sentence on education theories. 

There are many respectable theories of education. Some go back to Socrates and some depend on recent advances in psychology and the variety of ways different people learn things. An editorial on the reform of education without a discussion of how people actually learn things is unrewarding. And I would tell this to the newspaper pundits, but they don’t respond to anything I write. 

Crafty Dodging

Right now America is looking for a sane, strong, decisive leader and a strong, decisive party. Unfortunately the Democrats are currently led by Nancy Pelosi. She was an admirable figure in her era, which she devoted to crafty dodging of the blows of the Reagan Republicans, a dominant majority at the time. This is not that time. 

Like the senile Reagan, tRump is mentally ill--but in more dangerous way. Reagan surrounded himself with competent capitalists. tRump has surrounded himself with con-men, racists, women haters, crooks, nutters and fanatics who might get our children killed before the Earth bakes dry. 

We need an opposing leader who leads instead of following the polls. We need cleansing fire. Voters tend to scorn the timid and respond to strength (as the Democratic voters keep yelling at Nancy Pelosi).