The Stella awards are given for the year's most interesting verdicts in lawsuits.
SEVENTH PLACE
Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The store owners were understandably surprised by the verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son.
We have a major problem with police beating civilians to death. There is a simple way to stop all that. Instead of hiring tough guys to be police, hire people who do not want to beat or shoot others. New Zealand did that, and police brutality came to a quick end.
Do not hire brutal people to police us.
Jack de Selby noted that our newly elected leadership in the House of Representatives maintains that life begins at conception. In that case, when you were born, you were roughly 9 months old. I am a year older than I thought.
But the Constitution, as amended, states that people become citizens at birth. For roughly nine months Kevon McCarthy was an illegal immigrant in Bakersfield without papers. Later he sold sandwiches in the back of a yoghurt shop owned by a relative.
The Supreme Court justices recently had themselves investigated by an employee. The Court wanted not to find out that Samuel Alito had leaked his balmy decision to cancel Roe. As you know, the investigation succeeded.
If I am suspected of a crime, I would like to be investigated by my employee. I don't have an employee at the moment, but I will hire one if needed.
I saw Assemblyman Vince Fong of Bakersfield on TV. He said that under Democrats, "everything is going wrong." And that's how I'd feel if I lived in Bakersfield.
I once found myself standing about twenty feet from Martin Luther King, Jr. He was talking to a small group of UCLA students, and I joined them. At other times--I was an unremarkable working class student--I shook hands with JFK and voted for Robert Kennedy in the California primary. The murders of these three leaders changed the direction of the decades that followed, the years of Reagan, Clinton, Bush and tRump.
Two women have stepped up to run for Dianne Feinstein's senate seat in two years. Barbara Lee of Berkeley has been a strong progressive leader. Katie Porter, a representative from Orange County, is used to tough races. They will likely have competition, perhaps from Adam Schiff and Ro Khanna, two excellent choices, it seems to me.
To run for senate in California, a candidate will need to raise around 20 million dollars or more.
Any of the four will make a first-rate senator. People will wait to hear what they have to say. My first reaction is that Katie Porter works at the next level. She's more than competent. My guess is that two Democrats will make it through the jungle primary and then face off in the general election.
a
The Missouri Republican super-majority leaders, rural stakeholders and morons, seem intent on clarifying the dress code for women elected to the state legislature. Basically they want female representatives to cover their arms "to show respect." For what is worse in Missouri than a disrespectful woman?
When it comes to specific coverings, Repubs are willing to compromise and call cardigan sweaters "jackets," as long as they hide the skin.
Cardigans are not jackets--that is a lie.
Respect is something one earns by telling the truth and so on. You don't get respect by putting on thicker clothing. That's why I suspect a hidden motive, probably the likelihood that if male Missouri Repubs glimpse a woman's bare arm, they will fly into a form of madness much like that of rutting elks. They will butt heads, pee on each other, kick out, etc.
Also women's ankles remain a major danger. Rumors of a new requirement that women wear knee boots or waterproof leg gaiters with crampons and mesh stockings have reached the press.
The Missouri ban on covid masks remains in effect.
Elie Mystal has suggested that Attorney General Garland appoint a special counsel to run the Department of Justice--Garland himself is fair but useless. I remember when Attorneys General did things, and Mystal is right. Garland functions as a superfluous, neutral appendix to the department.
Like Comey of the FBI, Garland seems determined to act out how unbiased he is. Bends over backwards. If he had to choose between Grant and Lee, Garland would appoint Jefferson Davis as special counsel, so no one could think him unfair.
on FB
On YouTube I follow a Russian journalist who roams the nation doing man-in-the-street interviews, then posts them on the Internet.
At times he will interview young adults. It will go something like this.
Reporter: Hello, I'm a journalist. Can you tell me what you think of Putin today?
Answer: Putin? I don't follow politics.
R: But you have an opinion about Putin?
A: Politics is for older people. I'm 19. Later I will take an interest.
R: What about the war?
A: My friends all hate the war, but I haven't paid attention. Goodbye.
__________________________
Or the reporter might go to a mud-road village and interview old people. They seem suspicious of him and drunk at times and angry. He might ask an old woman which foreign country she likes.
Woman: Russia.
Reporter: No, a different foreign country.
W: I only like Russia.
R: What about Poland?
W: I hate Poland. They are Fascists. I only like Russia.
R: What do you think of Ukraine?
W: Ukraine is traitors. The first to be traitors. Why did they attack us? We will crush them like the Germans. Ukraine was stupid to attack us. How could they be so stupid?
R: The Americans?
W: We will step on them like snails.
R: Which country has the most liberty?
W: Russia. Then China. People are free in China.
R: In China do people have to be careful what they say?
W: Yes, people should be careful. That is liberty. No nonsense. But things were better here in the Communist time. More food. I did not have to stand on the corner for the car with bread to come. We had a clubhouse down the road. It got torn down.
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The young and old have different sources of information, of course. The Internet vs. television.
How big is Russia? Below are some figures I've read recently.
Russia has the largest landmass of any nation, more than twice the size of Canada, which comes second.
Russia has a population of about 145 million people; it's smaller than Nigeria but slightly larger than Mexico. The ethnic Russians in Russia are not replacing themselves (low birth rate).
Russia's GNP (1.7 trillion) is larger than that of Brazil but smaller than that of places beginning with the letter C: Canada (1.8 trillion), California (3.3 trillion) and China (16.8 trillion).
Russia leads the world in weapons of mass destruction, if they work. I suppose NATO, grouped together, is bigger.
Bakersfield
National comics mock New Jersey as a kind of smog-stinking cultural wasteland. My sense of Jersey (driving through) was that it contained different areas. They included the pine barrens, where the Mafia hid bodies. And compared to Bakersfield, New Jersey is Ancient Athens at its peak.
California's Central Valley, home to half my ancestors, is the nation's food basket. The southern half, with Fresno and Bakersfield, consists of water wars, massive corporate farms, abused workers, a horrible climate, giant prisons, tule fog, level desolation as far as the eye can see and one asset, country music.
Bakersfield, political base of Kevin McCarthy, is flat and dismal. Imagine a small, nothing town in the middle of absolute nowhere, boiling in summer, damply frigid in winter, with one cafe. It serves what it calls "meat sandwiches." No signs of intelligent life. Then magnify it one thousand times, and you have Bakersfield. The city motto is, "Worse than Fresno."
on FB
The current Republican Party does not trust election counts. Or vaccinations or masks. Repubs do not trust gun safety laws. They don't trust the FBI, the intelligence agencies or climate science. They don't trust science. Or women. Because Republican leaders lie, they expect everyone to lie. Republicans don't trust Republicans.
Without trust, there is no way to negotiate, reach agreements or govern in our system.
Luftmench McCarthy positioned himself at the front of a parade of lunatics and pretended to be their leader. Will that work out?
Is tRump a tragic figure? Was Nixon tragic? Michael Dobbs thinks so. His latest book is KING RICHARD AND WATERGATE--AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY. (Dobbs has admitted he's not good at titles.)
I was young when Nixon fell, and I did not experience a catharsis. I felt joy. It was a great time to be alive and hopeful.
You get tragedy when a good man comes to a bad end. (We all come to a bad end.)
tRump is not a good man. He is a bad man coming to a bad end. HAMLET is a tragedy. MACBETH is a melodrama, a great gangster tale like SCARFACE.
I plan to enjoy tRump's last year.
w
The Extreme Court is an example of what I mean. Women make good judges. They tend to have emotional intelligence. Our legal system would be more reasonable, I think, if about 75% of our judges were women. We should set 75% as a goal. Right now about 61% of federal judges are men.
The same thing applies to police officers. If 75% of our officers were women, fewer citizens would be shot in the back for disobedience and running away.
Also presidents, senators, etc.
This time of year we see lists of famous people who departed recently. I noted a few who should not be overlooked.
Mark Shields, for a long time, was the voice of reason on the center-right PBS news program.
Sonny Barger was a leader in the Hell's Angels, and maybe he came to stand for the whole club phenomenon.
Bill Russell of Oakland won 11 NBA championships, 9 or 10 as a player. At USF he won two NCAA titles, the last year undefeated. I attended the last college game he lost (to UCLA and Wooden). He (and K. C. Jones) changed the game on defense as we sat there and watched.
Barbara Ehrenreich, author and myth busting lefty, always interesting.
