The Republican argument against D. A. Fani Willis goes like this. She indicted Donald Trump, once president of the USA, to create a cushy job for her lover, so he could afford to take her on fancy vacations.
To me that sounds unlikely.
But I am not a Republican. If I were, the motivation they ascribe to Wilson would seem normal, the usual moronic greed that dominates sinners.
s
"Ethnic studies is not a descriptive curriculum that speaks to various ethnic and racial groups' experiences. That is a bland form of multiculturalism. Instead the discipline is a critical analysis of the way power works in society," according to one educator, who argued that the Palestinian cause should be taught in American high schools.
I am unsure what the teacher meant by the Palestinian cause. He might have been taking the position of Hamas, which calls for an ethnic cleansing of Jews from the river to the sea. I did see one poll (?) that reported 51% of American students want Hamas to win the war against Israel.
Some historians say that the world's first superpower was Assyria, which conquered most of the Middle East and Egypt.
Assyria's last great leader, Ashurbanipal, compiled the world's first great library. When Assyria fell to the Medes (Iran), the library was covered with rubble. Thousands of years later it was dug up, giving us an ancient history of the area.
What is happening now is what happened in the time of the Assyrians. Atrocities. War crimes. The same rhetoric. The same tactics again and again for thousands of years. Deliberate wanton murder of civilians. Forced migrations. Entire cities erased (see Ukraine). We repeat and repeat. It is what we do.
In Alabama judges have declared that frozen embryos are children, giving embryos the same legal status as corporations. We can expect that in Alabama masturbation will soon mean life in prison and people convicted of using contraception will face the death penalty.
Meanwhile, a friend of mine is planning to create ten embryos to use as tax deductions and two more to keep in the glove box of her Ford, making her eligible to drive the HOV lanes on Alabama highways.
About 65 years ago, I played chess; so I drove into Santa Monica to see a mighty chess match between Bobby Fischer, perhaps the greatest ever, and Sammy Reshevsky. It took place in the ballroom of a giant hotel (I think), and during a break I headed for the men's room. When I entered it, I found myself alone with Bobby Fischer, who was using one of the ten urinals. He looked young, pale, slight, wearing a nice, loose suit.
I waited until he finished, then went to the same urinal and peed on top of his, making my mark.
LIFE AT 89
I decided to look for Bob. I hadn't seen him for 40 years. I wanted to talk with him, but I didn't have his address.
Bob was a truly good man, an intelligent, trusted old friend, but we'd parted ways one day in Buffalo when our wives had gotten into a discussion of different approaches to child rearing, and my wife had told his to fuck off.
On the 'net I discovered that Bob had sold his house twenty years ago. Then that he had died three years ago.
At my age searching for lost friends has been unrewarding.
gary1234goss@aol.com
Last week the Supreme Court, the customary collection of dimwits, crooks and weeping boofers, took up the question of whether a lunatic in the pay of Russia should be allowed to run for president and maybe win. Justice Elena Kagan, one of the better thinkers, asked if a single state, Colorado, should get to decide which man will be the next leader of the West. (Colorado has barred Donald Trump.)
Kagan was sitting in a room with Justice Clarence Thomas. A few years back, Thomas, a richly paid hireling of our big business oligarchy, had been part of a five to four court decision that had made George W. Bush president, although Bush had finished second in the voting, which proved close enough.
Without Thomas, Bush would not have won. So, in a sense, Thomas--one man--got to decide who would be president. That's what I call real power. And now Thomas may get to pick again.
It is my unfounded opinion that Agent Orange will not be elected president again. I expect him to be found guilty of ugly crimes and to be out on appeal next November.
But suppose Trump wins.
Batja sent me an article by Asli Aydintasbas, written for Politico. In it the author discusses how long it usually takes for an elected leader to grab total control of a nation's media, judiciary, city mayors, state leaders and related institutions. That is the process that installs a dictator in a democracy.
Aydintasbas measures how much time it took recent aspiring dictators to get that sort of thing done, and he concludes it usually takes a lot more than four years.
Orange's proposed attempts to make himself El Supremo of the world will encounter stonewall resistance from the mayor of Chicago, The NY Times, the governor of California, the courts, the nurses' union, the small town librarians, etc.
Remember, Orange is a fading fool, who tends to surround himself with incompetents.
Life with President Orange will be awful. He will do immense harm to billions of people. But he probably won't be able to make a dictatorship stick. He's too stupid, too confused, too disconnected from Western civ.
According to The NY Times, librarians in America's heartland are being threatened with violence by armed Christian hate groups because the libraries carry books about gays.
About new 150 bills in 35 states set punishments for librarians who don't remove books that the hate groups dislike.
The most banned book is GENDER QUEER, which I mention because I once met the book's author, a really nice young person and an expert setter of type.
All modern nations are hierarchical. One of the divisions is between males and females, with males privileged as the more intelligent and wiser caste. When something like that is universal, it almost has to be based on something tangible. It can't be just made up. But there is no convincing evidence that males are smarter than females.
The most thoughtful and fair male thinkers appear baffled by how men came to be privileged. I believe there is an easy way for us to find out why modern society is controlled by elite males. Ask a woman.
q
Bob Elliot and Ray Goulding (Bob and Ray) were satirists for five decades. Mostly they did absurd interviews of one another in a deadpan manner. For a while they focused on an imaginary rival of the then-new International House of Pancakes.
Bob and Ray called their rival business the House of Toast. It was franchised widely over the state, ready to serve all varieties of breads, including pumpernickel, toasted lightly or darkly, well buttered, along with special prune-flavored shakes.
Bob and Ray's satire came to mind this morning when my wife forced me to enter a small breakfast place called the House of Bagels. Basically the same idea. The problem was that I did not want a bagel.
I do eat about 75 bagels a year. The best come from Grossman's in the Old Italian Section. But I was not in the mood. I had a cup of hot chocolate as my meal, and I thought about Bob and Ray.
