John Lewis

Which one of these sentences did John Lewis write?

1. Stand up for what you truly believe.

2.  Vote for the lesser of two evils.

3.  Support the candidate you think others will like. 

4. A penny saved is a penny earned.  

Doubt Hats

In a column for the NY Times, Ross Douthat wrote that the abortion rate among African Americans is five times that among whites. He raised the possibility that Planned Parenthood, one of many abortion providers, is guilty of structural racism. It is reducing the number of black voters, diminishing what Douthat sees as black voting power. 

When abortion was illegal, I knew a young woman whose life became badly marred by an illegal abortion that permanently damaged her health. 

There is something disturbing about the fact that black woman are more apt to abort than white women, but I would argue that the structural racism is in the situations that black women and men can find themselves in. Raising a child in poverty is difficult. Many people of color don't get solid educational or employment opportunities. Changing that will be hard. Shutting down Planned Parenthood is easy but not the answer. Denying choice would revive unsafe abortions. 

Vacation!

Pandemics are learning experiences. For example, I have learned how to extend a pandemic in America so it lasts a year or more. All you have to do is close everything down, then open it, close it, open it, close it, etc. Repeat until you get a new idea. You can supercharge this process by letting each state do its own thing. 

Also, experts at the CDC have taught me how deeply children suffer when schools close. How could anyone have forgotten that? 

We can all recall how we used to suffer when summer came and the auditorium doors closed. Especially that dreaded last day sitting at your desk in early June, surrounded by weeping students suddenly barred from chemistry class, except for the few shiftless scholars (like me) allowed to repeat chemistry in summer school.

Army Service

A friend loaned me the dairy of one of his ancestors, Sergeant Budworth of the Union Army, who fought at Vicksburg, perhaps the central battle of the Civil War.  Much later Budworth wrote: "Came off guard this morning. I drew a canteen and blouse and pair of socks. The blouse is 2 small."

Of course, it was too small. Why did he get a blouse? Was he a woman? 

He wrote: "Orders this morning to be ready for inspection at 9 A.M. We were inspected by a lieut. Colonel of a negro regt. He got through about noon. We then get orders to turn over all the old shelter tents. They had to be condemned. We tore down our tent then they were not condemned. We had to put them up again."

That's the same army I served in. 

Japan

This morning Japan announced that they have lost a total of 1,000 lives to the coronavirus pandemic. The population of the USA is about five times that of Japan, so if we had been losing people at the same rate as Japan, we would have had about 5,000 deaths by now. Instead we have lost 141,000 lives (with no end in sight).

I'm not sure why we are so different, but one possible reason is that many of our citizens refuse to take the precautions urged on us by scientists. The Japanese are more medically compliant. Another possible reason is our system produced a President who is sociopathic and a political party too morally bankrupt to resist the President's indifference to the suffering and death of others. 

(also on Facebook)

Atonement

Frank Bruni brought up a topic that has interested me for some time: atonement by the Never Trumpers. I enjoy seeing the best of the GOP hitmen slapping the makeup off of tRump's flabby jowls, but I haven't forgotten how tRump got to the top.

I remember when Republicans called Adlai Stevenson a pinko. And Ike got named a "fellow traveler" of Stalinism. Joe McCarthy frightened my parents, and his boy, Roy Cohn, went on to mentor our current President. William Buckley minced in to put a high Yale shine on the turds of racism. 

That may be too ancient a history, but the current Lincoln Project guys attacking tRump are the same guys who found and promoted the bucket-headed Sarah Palin. She was the primer  that set off the tRump explosion. 

If the Never Trumpers are atoning for their roles in a long slide down a ramp into Hell, okay. But say so out loud. 

Diversity

Two of the functions of the University of California system have been to give young people from working-class families like mine a chance to attend a good school. And to provide students with the experience of diversity. 

My roommates at UCLA included a former pilot in the Japanese air force during World War Two (Makoto Kawasugi) and the black tailback on UCLA's undefeated football team (Sam "First Down" Brown).  

Berkeley is currently rated among the top ten universities in the nation, and UCLA is ranked second to Berkeley among all American public universities.  (Back in the Dark Ages I graduated from UCLA when tuition was free and student fees came to less than $40 a semester.)

I read in the newspaper yesterday morning that this spring the UC system admitted almost 120,000 new students, plus about 28,000 transfers from community colleges like Santa Rosa J. C.  36% of the new students will be Hispanics, 35% will be Asians, 21% will be white and 5% will be black (black people make up 6% of the population of the California). 

Many Hispanics are white, black or Asian, of course.

I learned that in California about 43% of the residents speak a language other than English in their homes. 

tRump and the White Whale

The backstory of MOBY DICK is that Captain Ahab had once attacked a great white whale, which had then snapped off one of Arab's legs and gone on about its business. Ahab spends the rest of his life searching for the white whale to kill it. 

Meanwhile the white whale swims along. It can't care less about Ahab. When Ahab finally finds the whale and attacks it, the huge, natural being kills him and nearly everyone in the vicinity and then swims on, unchanged.

Critics have argued about what the whale represents. Maybe the whale represents Mother Nature (indifferent to our fate) or it represents God, equally indifferent. 

Just keep out of the way.

The coronavirus is, to a small, partial degree,  tRump's white whale. The virus may be tiny but it is indifferent to the powerful President and his crew and unmoved by incoherent bullshit. Lies about a virus have no impact on it. The President's strength--misrepresenting reality--is irrelevant.  As with global warming, white-wingers pretending the whale doesn't matter will not change the outcome. 

Just keep out of the way.

tRump's Empathy

Remember back when tRump snatched small, brown children away from their parents at the border? And he put the children in cages? And then forgot to keep track of them so that a thousand children could not be returned? And we said--unfairly--that the President of the United States was a racist? 

Now we see our President insisting that "we open our schools" so that white children can gather for five hours a day in groups and catch the coronavirus. 

tRump isn't a racist. He hates all children. But don't make the mistake of saying tRump lacks empathy--he's grieving in front of cameras right now over damage to statues of Bobby Lee.

Sheriffs vs. Science

I noticed some time ago that cities of Sonoma County do not elect their chiefs of police. They are hired. A chief has power. He or she can arrest the mayor. The chief runs a small armed force, often with military discipline. But if that power goes to the chief's head, the city council can fire her. 

I think it's safer if the ultimate power belongs to a large elected group rather than to one armed authoritarian. 

Nevertheless, the sheriff of Sonoma County is elected,  not hired, making him partly independent from the board of supervisors. There are consequences. 

In the newspaper I read that our current sheriff handled the start of the pandemic by announcing he would not enforce some of the edicts issued by the scientists in our county health department. He said that he found the scientists unconvincing. The board of supervisors and most intelligent people reacted negatively to the sheriff's nonsense, and after a few days he buckled, but as an elected official in his own right, he didn't have to.

Around California a number of elected white-winged sheriffs have decided they will enforce only the science edicts they personally like. Now the coronavirus is surging. 

Sheriffs could be appointed, hired and fired. Or maybe Sonoma County should contract the work out to more accountable city police departments.

tRump University

Pres. Donald tRump has taught me something. He's given me a little taste of what it's like for a person living in Puerto Rico after a hurricane. What it's like to be confined at the border. Or go broke borrowing money to attend tRump's fake university. 

What I mean is:

Trump's out-of-control pandemic has many privileged people like me confined to our homes, in danger of dying on a ventilator--or maybe their lives ruined. We can't hug our children, eat out or go to the movies. With months or years of our sentence left, there's not a damned thing we can do about it except serve the time and hope to survive.

$11

People have criticized the President for not coming up 

with a strong response to Putin's offer of a bounty of $100,000 for killing one of our soldiers. I served as a noncom, so this caught my attention.

Critics of the President have not offered specific suggestions, 

which is unfair to tRump. I would never do that.

We want this bounty stuff to end, which is why I am suggesting that tRump offer a bounty on Russian soldiers of  $11 for a pair.

Where to get a mask

If you don't know where to get a handsome pandemic mask in Sonoma County, try an art supply store. The one in Montgomery Plaza has about 50 different designs, shapes, colors, etc. 

Loser

Always present in politics is the candidate who seeks ways to lose. You often don't remember their names, because they lost. But what happens when a loser accidentally wins?

This second time around tRump is taking no chances. He put Hispanic children in cages. Turning toward black people, he endorsed white supremacy and Confederate symbols. Asians got to hear him call the coronavirus "kung flu." His contempt for women  is legendary. For evangelicals he held an unopened Bible in he air like a shot-put. For young people he offered more college debt and an attempt to kick out the dreamers. For the sick he attempted to repeal Obamacare. When he learned that old people are most apt to die from coronavirus, he ordered federal testing stations closed. When told that Putin had put a bounty on American noncoms, he shrugged it off. 

tRump wants to lose; yet he also wants to win; he hates to lose; he wants to lose; he wants to win, and he does want to lose. His one-horsepower engine has seized up.