Here are this week's topics: a futuristic "walk;" CO's economy; an astronomer extraordinaire; looking far-far-far out; one city's economic livelihood. 

An electrifying walk. I had seen an earlier reference to France's solar road in Tourouvre, (northwestern France). The roadway was scheduled to be dedicated last Thursday. Who knows what the future holds. Link here. Look closely at the picture, though, and you have to wonder why the workers are wearing respirators!

CO and the new economy. Even though things in the Mile High state are not so very dark, there is good and bad news: growth, development, and earnings. Though, like other areas/states, not everyone is prospering. Continuing education is increasingly important.

Working for $2.35/hour. In this story, Nic Smith relates what it is like to work in a fast food restaurant for low wages, relying on tips to scrape by. His town is 98% white, but he says that when he joined the "Fight for $15" movement, he discovered other allies. "White, black, brown —we’re all in this together — fighting for a better life for our families."

Carl Sagan. Science writer Joel Achenbach wrote  an op-ed rememering one of America's most well known astronomers, who passed away December 20, 1996. In an era when science denial is an oft mentioned topic, Sagan's ability to explain complex idea/phenomena to the average reader is much missed. Amen.

He had many strong beliefs, none greater than his conviction that science was a candle in the dark. There’s a lot of darkness these days — science denialism [sic] in its various forms. It’s certainly not a novel development, but it’s a bigger problem than ever given the scale of our scientific and technological challenges...The list of scientifically mediated, politically divisive issues is a long one, and Sagan would have been a busy man these last 20 years...The world still needs people who can explain stuff — and so it misses Carl Sagan.

Truly, Far Out stuff. This story appeared several times last week: a dispute between native Hawai‘ians and the astronomical community over the installation of yet another telescope atop 13,803 Mauna (Mona) Kea. Not only is Mona Kea the highest point in the state, it is above 40% of the earth's atmosphere and thought to be the perfect place for a new mammoth thirty meter telescope (TMT) which will "look" further than ever before "back" in time.  The summit site, Maunakea, now has thirteen independent observatories.
    Enough is enough, though, say native activists. This linked article, from no less than Scientific American, notes that other of earth's high points are similarly in the news: Mount Graham and Kitt Peak (both in AZ) and Cerro Paranal (in Chile's Atacama desert) are only three examples. The authors note....

The very qualities that make many sites valuable to science—remote locations far from city lights, summits soaring above a good chunk of the atmosphere and clear views that sweep from horizon to horizon—often also draw native worshipers who value mountains as spiritual homes of the gods as well as environmentalists aiming to protect the vulnerable ecosystems of pristine regions.

Truly explosive economic news. The fireworks market in San Pablito, Mexico, was totally destroyed by the most recent explosion. Even though this is the third time the market has exploded in flames, residents want it rebuilt. Why? To paraphrase and emphasize a recent tagline, "It [the fireworks industry] is the [town's] economy, stupid."
     “This was an accident, like many others, an oversight,” said Señior Cervantes, a 44-year veteran of the industry who fled to safety..." That is to say, bad stuff just happens.

During the high season [in San Pablito], which runs from August to the end of the year, vendors at San Pablito will sell close to 100 tons of fireworks. During those five months they can earn up to 150,000 pesos, or nearly $8,000, the equivalent of a full year’s salary for a college-educated employee and more than 17 times the minimum wage.
 
Indeed, "bad stuff' is something to ponder as America's aging infrastructure continues to deteriorate and available local revenue dries up. Does Flint, Michigan, and mercury-poisoned drinking water ring a bell?

Thank you for reading. A Happy New Year to one and all.

Here are this week's items: the "new" Russia; the looming ethics struggle; jobs; ballots; finally, the happiest Christmastime TV ad.

Putin's Russia, 2016. Anthony J. Bilken, Assistant Secretary of State, writes about a new America, one with much less power.  The postwar order that America built now is facing acute challenges, including from old competitors. Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, is no Stalin and Russia is no Soviet Union. But Mr. Putin does seek to recreate a Russian sphere of influence while picking apart the liberal international order that prevailed in the Cold War. Nevertheless, might it not be that this analogy rings true?   Trump : Make America Great Again  ::  Putin : Make Russia Great Again

     Spheres of influence, a modern-day resurrection of  Secretary of State Monroe's diplomatic past? How quaint. The president-elect has "argued that the United States should get out of the business of 'defending the world'. " Clearly Trump does not realize how much of his current globe-spanning wealth has been made possible by our post-WW II defense posture.


Trump : Make American Great Again


The "new ethics."  In a recent column, right-leaning columnist Jennifer Rubin looks at the potential ethics concerns involving the in-coming Trump administration. In the more distant past such potential conflicts were largely hidden; they popped up later. (e.g., Tea Pot Dome). Not so in today's interconnected, instantaneous world. Most definitely, "unplowed ground" lies ahead.

Jobs. The loss of jobs was a important topic reiterated over and over by candidate Trump -- and too much ignored by candidate Clinton. The title of an article by Ted Mellnik and Chris Alcantara noted a most important point -- and asked the requisite question: "Manufacturing jobs are returning to some places. But these jobs are different. The United States has lost millions of factory jobs, but in the last few years, some have come back. Can more return?" There is no doubt that education and re-training will be key to what follows.

With new, advanced manufacturing jobs arising in pocket areas nationwide, a new kind of manufacturing worker, one with a college degree as well as advanced technical skills, is needed.

Communities that have landed these jobs often credit local job training programs, in partnership with community colleges and other schools, with helping build worker skills.

Peter Morici, a University of Maryland business professor, economist and conservative commentator, has said. “Workers don’t have a right to these jobs. They have to train themselves. They have to earn these jobs by being productive.”

Ballots. Third-party candidate, Jill Stein, has demanded a recount in three closely contested states, MI, PA, and WI. Needless to say, all without any effect on the ultimate outcome. What has been highlighted, though, is the fragility, the vulnerability of our federally dictated electoral system.

Two very appropriate holiday TV ads . So voted by the Abell household. Here's the YouTube link to the happiest (who does not like at least one Hershey holiday kiss?) and the link to one about sharing (the priest and the imam).

Thank you for reading.  A Joyous Christmas to one and all!

Dec 13 Here are this week's thoughts: a presidential reading list; One China (?):Trump and Carrier; Rosa Parks : US :: Viola Desmond : _?_; Islam, religion or political movement; the death of Old Nashville, aka "Music City;" finally, John Glenn and David Grinspoon.

President-elect Trump's "should read" list. Conservative columnist Michael Gerson recommends these three: Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” Second, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms.” Last, George Washington’s “Letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island.”

One China? Columnist Marc A. Thiessen writes the contrarian response to Mr. Trump's call to the President of Taiwan. The call was roundly condemned, especially in the establishment foreign policy community. But, Thiessen writes, 

The phone call with President Tsai Ing-wen was reportedly carefully planned, and Trump was fully briefed before the call, according to The Post. It’s not that Trump was unfamiliar with the “Three Communiques” or unaware of the fiction that there is “One China.” Trump knew precisely what he was doing in taking the call. He was serving notice on Beijing that it is dealing with a different kind of president — an outsider who will not be encumbered by the same Lilliputian diplomatic threads that tied down previous administrations. The message, as John Bolton correctly put it, was that “the president of the United States [will] talk to whomever he wants if he thinks it’s in the interest of the United States, and nobody in Beijing gets to dictate who we talk to.”  

The President-elect's Sunday morning tweets seemed to leave little doubt about his seriousness, that the phone call was well thought out, not an "off-the-cuff" incident.

President-elect Trump and Carrier. George Will takes a dim view of Trump's first foray to "undo" a company's move to Mexico. The end result: some jobs saved, some lost to Mexico, and a significant tax break from Vice President-elect Pence's home state. Will writes,
     "This represents the dawn of bipartisanship: The Republican Party now shares one of progressivism’s defining aspirations — government industrial policy, with the political class picking winners and losers within, and between, economic sectors. This always involves the essence of socialism — capital allocation..."

Fallows on November 2016. The Atlantic's seasoned reporter, correspondent, and columnist, James Fallows, has written a thoughtful piece on the whys and wherefores that led to President-elect Trump's victory. Fallows and his have spent most of the last 5 years moving around America's small towns. He talks of the hope and determination he and his wife saw in Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Wyoming, Kansas, Minnesota, California, and others. He notes a recent study and the prophetic words of Walter Lippman. 

PEW study in 2014 found that only 25 percent of respondents were satisfied with the direction of national policy, but 60 percent were satisfied with events in their own communities. According to a Heartland Monitor report in 2016, two in three Americans said that good ideas for dealing with national social and economic challenges were coming from their towns. Fewer than one in three felt that good ideas were coming from national institutions." One variation of Tip O'Neill's famous dictum: "All politics is local" ....Nearly a century ago, Walter Lippmann wrote that the challenge for democracies is that citizens necessarily base decisions on the “pictures in our heads,” the images of reality we construct for ourselves. The American public has just made a decision of the gravest consequence, largely based on distorted, frightening, and bigoted caricatures of reality that we all would recognize as caricature if applied to our own communities.

Rosa Parks' counterpart. Viola Desmond, "a black woman often described as Canada’s Rosa Parks for her 1946 decision to sit in a whites-only section of a Nova Scotia movie theater will be the first Canadian woman to be celebrated on the face of a Canadian [$CN 10.00] bank note." WOMAN TO APPEAR ON CANADIAN BILL

"Tweets and theater entertain, but Congress is main event." Columnist Charles Krauthammer is correct. The Constitution's separation of powers was meant to insure that no one branch could go too far. President Obama's many uses of executive orders/actions was meant as an end run around a Republican-controlled Congress. Once in office President-elect Trump may undo those with which he does not agree, maybe even issue a few of his own. However, as Krauthammer points out, all roads to legislation lead through Congress. Then, as Tip O'Neill famously said, "All politics is local." Between the Senate and House, that's 535 kinds of local.

The real Islam? General Michael Flynn is President-elect Trump's choice as his National Security Adviser, an appointment not requiring Senate approval. Jackson Diehl, deputy editorial page editor for the Washington Post writes, "Flynn has said [Islam] is a cancer, a political movement masquerading as a religion and the product of an inferior culture. 'I don’t believe that all cultures are morally equivalent, and I think the West, and especially America, is far more civilized, far more ethical and moral,' he argued in a book published this year."
    Does the President-elect agree with Flynn's view? If so, what does this portend for Muslims in America? Suspect, second class citizenship? Worse? Internationally? Civilizational war? Strengthened backing for Middle Eastern dictators?

Music City, here today gone tomorrow. It's developers vs preservation, money vs history. In Nashville, are the "House of David," and similar well known, long time music studios n the way out? Jeffrey Brown's PBS segment reviews the continual tension between past, present, and future in Nashville. Designation as a "National Historical Landmark" can save a site -- or be condemned as an impediment to development.

On this earth, the last of the "Mercury 7" and David Grinspoon. The passing of John Glen was duly noted in multiple venues. Glen was 95 and could rightfully claim to have seen earth, big and small. First, about Glen and the view of Earth from above.
     Most readers, my self included, were unaware of Ms. Glen's problems with a severe stuttering problem. Once as the press crowded around him, Glen watched his wife, who was among the handicapped in the audience, and commented, “That’s what you should be covering."
     On 11 December, CBS's Sunday Morning program had a segment that noted the largely unknown cooperation during WW II between Glen, a Marine fighter pilot, and Charles Lindbergh. "Lucky Lindey" had gone from American darling to pariah because of his opposition to our entry into WW II. Lindbergh was, in short, then portrayed as pro-Nazi; no military branch would accept him. Glen's and Lindbergh's volunteer unit devised, tested, and used the latter's system for early in-flight refueling on  long range bombing missions.
     Now, about Earth from another point of view. In a recent essay, astrobiologist David Grinspoon notes with wonder,  

We suddenly find ourselves sort of running a planet — a role we never anticipated or sought — without knowing how it should be done.We’re at the controls on planet Earth, but we’re not in control....A planet with brains? Fancy that. Not only brains, but limbs with which to build and manipulate tools. We are just beginning to come to grips with this strange new development. Like an infant staring at its hands, we are becoming aware of our powers but have not yet gained control over them.

"Running a planet." A heavy responsibility and as flyer and astronaut Glen might have said in an earlier era, "It's time for someone to grab the stick."

Thank you for reading. Enjoy the week ahead.

Here are this week's thoughts: 7 December 1941; Goldwater revisited; tragedy and sportsmanship; Keillor on Trump; US election mess; one party government?; the end of US dominance; Prime Minister Theresa May (UK); Dakota Access Pipeline; the "post-truth" world; a post-nature world. I close with the Kingston Trio's "Merry Minuet."

A notable memoir. In All the Gallant Men, Donald Stratton writes about being on the battleship Arizona when it exploded and sank at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. Stratton's is the first-ever memoir by a survivor from the Arizona. His entire extended family (great grandchildren included) are visiting the memorial on the upcoming 75th anniversary.
     Note: The WW II veterans of Tom Brokaw's "Greatest Generation" are fading rapidly, an average of 600 pass away each day.

Barry Goldwater, 1964. Inigo Thomas writes from across the pond about how improbable Goldwater looked in November 1963 as the probable Republican candidate. (21 November London Review of Books) Interesting, now that November 2016 has produced an equally (?) improbable, but successful, Republican (?) president-elect. 
     Eerily, Thomas writes that 1963, "No one thought he [Goldwater] had a chance of winning, but he appealed to large numbers of white voters opposed to the Civil Rights Movement." How very much like Trump's 2016 appeal to voters who thought their economic plight had been too-long ignored by the political elites, left and right. An interesting read, especially Thomas' remembrance of  noted historian Richard Hofstadter’s 1962 lecture, ‘The Paranoid Style in American Politics’ (published in Harper’s a year later).
      It seems appropriate to note, "Ye reap what ye sow." (Galatians 6:7)

Sportsmanship in South America. Last week all but six members of a Brazilian soccer team were killed in a plane crash in Colombia. Their opponents have offered to concede the game and have asked that South American soccer officials insure that the Brazilian team be made eligible for the next three years as it rebuilds.

Keillor on Trump. Sit back and enjoy the tongue in cheek report from the Minnesota cornfields about Garrison's reaction to his recent columns.

US elections. In her op-ed, Katrina vanden Heuvel says that it was not Putin's Russia and any other foreign power that messed up our election. We did it through a series of laws and decisions that changed our election system for the worse. Her argument is simple: if you are a legal citizen of the United States, the state in which you reside should make it easy for you to register and then vote. That, she say, it not what has been happening around the country. Some states have consciously been making it harder to vote. Fellow columnist Dana Milbank agrees.

GOP dominance. Unintended consequences. At the national level the GOP now controls the presidency and Congress, plus governorships and state legislatures to a degree not seen since the 1920s. Governorships: 31 Republican, 18 Democrat, 1 Independent. Legislatures: 25 Republican, 16 Democrat, 8 split, and Nebraska's bipartisan unicameral. As usual and most importantly, the 2018 elections will determine which party will have the dominant role at the state level in re-drawing the nation's 435 congressional districts.

America and the post-Cold War world. Columnist Charles Krauthammer thinks the less fearful world that we hoped for with the demise of the USSR and the end of the Cold War is no longer possible. In effect, he maintains that the world needs to always be steered and we have abdicated our role at the helm. 

Ms. Prime Minister, after Brexit..... What comes next? Anne Applebaum, seasoned European watcher, is not sure the new PM really knows, and "that's dangerous....Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does government. If no one knows what to do, if there is chaos and indecision, then the person with the clearest vision — for good or for ill — wins the argument. That’s the lesson of the Russian Revolution, of Weimar Germany, and, without meaning to overdramatize [sic] — we are not talking about events on that scale — that’s also the lesson of Brexit Britain.
     With his paucity of experience in foreign affairs, it is probably a safe bet that President-elect Trump has no clue either.

The twisted economics of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The High Country News story headline continues, "It’s not about energy independence or even climate change. It’s all about profit." (estimated cost of one barrel: $8 by pipline, $15 by rail)
     As a former USAF colleague used to say, "It seems intuitively obvious to the most casual observer" that oil from the tar sands will be produced and processed -- the questions are "where" and "how will it be transported?" The two alternatives are by pipeline or railroad and both have their drawbacks and problems. A visit to the NTSB website finds more than a few railroad derailments involving crude oil trains. There are also accident reports involving pipelines.
     Leaving aside the questions about more air pollution, the location of this pipeline, which crosses Native American sacred lands and water sources adds a further layer to this controversy.

Post-truth world. Columnist Ruth Marcos wonders what are we to make of the news that "Oxford Dictionaries last month selected post-truth — “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief” — as the international word of the year." Even Alice in her wonderland might be doing some head scratching.

A post-nature world -- man, science, and the Great Spirit? In his High Country News article, "Hope in a post-nature society," Peter Friederici notes the difference between the past nature-driven disasters (e.g. the1890s droughts) and the current drought that has so drained Lake Powell. Here, he says, "[W]e have to wrestle with the knowledge that we are not only in a tough spot where practical action is needed, but that we have to understand our own complicity....[T]his mess is our new terrain. This is our new task." Indeed!
    Friederici notes that the Hopi have another, more spiritual, view. "Yes, they have heard what the scientists say about fossil fuel emissions and the greenhouse effect. But the real reason for climate change? It begins, not ends, with human behavior. The climate is changing, according to some Hopi people, because of a failure of prayer, of humility. That is the ultimate reason for the physical changes."

"The Merry Minuet." Unfortunately, as I ready today's world news, this 1959 Kingston Trio ditty about world affairs keeps running through my head. The situations changed, but the overall message remains one of uncertainty and chaos in a very troubled world.

They're rioting in Africa
They're starving in Spain
There's hurricanes in Florida
And Texas needs rain
The whole world is festering with unhappy souls
The French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles
Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch
And I don't like anybody very much!!

But we can be tranquil and thankful and proud
For man's been endowed with a mushroom-shaped cloud
And we know for certain that some lovely day
Someone will set the spark off
And we will all be blown away!!

They're rioting in Africa
There's strife in Iran
What nature doesn't so to us
Will be done by our fellow man     

Songwriter: Sheldon Harnick 

Thank you for reading. Tomorrow remember those who died 75 year ago tomorrow, that "day that will live in infamy."

Here are this week's topic: retreat to a good book; from across the pond; cosmic thanksgiving; refugees; your new weatherman; strict construction and the Electoral College; 5 myths about the alt-right; the President-elect meets reality.

Reading, non-fiction. Let the Trumpians and anti-s do their thing. I am retreating to the printed word, reading Lassoing the Sun: A Year in America's National Park. The author, Mark Woods, was the metro columnist at the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville. On a whim, having received two unsolicited emails, he submitted an entry for the Eugene C. Pullman Fellowship for Editorial Writing to be awarded to "enable mid-career editorial writer or columnist to break away from daily responsibilities to 'broaden his  or her horizons'."
     He was pleasantly surprised when he was awarded the year-long fellowship and decided to use the year to explore the National Park system. Rather than a "mass numbers assault," he decided to visit one NPS site each month. Appropriately, he elected to begin the journey in Acadia NP on January 1, 2015, at the summit of Maine's Cadillac Mountain, nominally held to be the site of the earliest sun rise in the continental US. Read on.

David Runciman: "Is this how democracy ends?" From the London Review of Books. Runciman's curious point: "[Those who voted for Trump] wanted change but they also had confidence in the basic durability and decency of America’s political institutions to protect them from the worst effects of that change. They wanted Trump to shake up a system that they also expected to shield them from the recklessness of a man like Trump. How else to explain that many people who reported themselves alarmed by the idea of a Trump presidency also voted for him?"

Home alone?  To turn the headline into a question: Is humanity cosmically special? Cosmologist and astrophysicist Howard A. Smith wonders, especially as modern technology expands our view into the visible universe . What has conspired/happened to put we humans on this earthly sphere? Are we alone? Are we alone in just one parallel universe? The present most probable conclusion, Jodi Foster and Contact notwithstanding: you and I will pass away long before these questions are answered.

Refugees. If you are wondering how many Americans are on either side of this topic, rest assured that 6-year-old Alex Myteberi of Scarsdale, NY, has no problem with helping others. Amy Wang wrote a piece about Alex's letter to President Obama. Alex simply asked the president to get the badly injured 5-year-old Omran Daqneesh to the US so he could become part of Alex's family. Obama read a portion of Alex's letter at the recent UN summit on refugees, saying

The humanity that a young child can display, who hasn’t learned to be cynical, or suspicious, or fearful of other people, because of where they’re from, or how they look, or how they pray. We can all learn from Alex.”

     Alex, who had wanted to visit the White House, met President Obama where the young man''s  attitude was applauded by one and all. Perhaps the president should leave a copy of Alex's letter on the Oval Office desk for president-elect Trump.

The new weatherman. Wondering what tomorrow's weather will be like?  This past week the US launched the world's most sophisticated weather satellite. You -- and your friends on the other side of the globe -- will also benefit from the gizmos on-board "Goes-R," the first in a series of weather satellites to operated by NOAA, NASA and the Department of Defense. There is a long, largely unmentioned, agreement among nations to share whatever weather data they amass.

The Electoral College decision. Here is Harvard law school's Lawrence Lessig's view of the possible, but very improbable outcome of the vote this coming December 19th. Link here to the EC timeline for the 2016 election.
     In closing, Professor Lessig leaves no doubt what he thinks should happen: "But the question today is which precedent should govern today — Tammany Hall [1881] and Bush v. Gore [2000], or one person, one vote? The framers left the electors free to choose. They should exercise that choice by leaving the election as the people decided it: in Clinton’s favor.

Alt-Right. You might want to use this 5-myth list as you read about the alt-right:

1. ...is different from regular neo-Nazism;
2. ...is a bunch of juvenile pranksters;
3. ...is rapidly gaining power and numbers;
4. ...is just an extension of European nationalist movements.
5. Trump does not agree with what the alt-right stands for.

Reality: TV and Washington. If you were among the Trump-supporters who really believed he would.................. Welcome to the world of political reality. To Michael Gerson's way of thinking. "Trump’s hypocrisy is [actually] good for America." Luminaries of the right like Limbaugh and Gingrich have admitted many of the candidate's pronouncements were simply good campaign hyperbole. Gerson writes, "Every time the Trump agenda is reshaped or refined to better fit reality, even Trump’s most dedicated critics have reason to applaud."
     Do you ever wonder/That to win, somebody's got to lose... And the Beat Goes On (the Whisperers, 1979)

Thank you for reading. Enjoy the week ahead.

Here are this week's topics: the new unknown; the missing votes; CO's voter turnout; CO's Rhodes Scholar; distrust; past lessons; Thomas Friedman and change; social media; competing voices; oil, gas, energy policy; "The Crossing;" kids on their president; trusted news; the Puritans and Thanksgiving; the Hamilton brouhaha.

The new Unknown. In 1789, we embarked on our maiden voyage as a republic under a new Constitution. It was all so new, there was so much we did not know, no contemporary examples to follow. Now we are about to embark on another maiden voyage of sorts: a government led by a man who has never before stood for, let alone won, an election, never served in public office, nor in the military.

CO's Voting turnout. According to a Denver Post story, CO ranked third in the nation with a 71.3% voter turnout. At this point it is uncertain what effect our mail-ballot system had; every registered CO voter received a ballot in the mail. There was also an online system for tracking your ballot's trip from the your county registrar to you and back.

CO's Rhodes Scholar. Hannah Carrese, a former high school student from Colorado Springs and Yale graduate, is the recipient of a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. She wants to study the political and social effects of today's mass migrations resulting from turmoil. If well done, her resulting dissertation could be very illuminating. While in high school, she worked with refugees from Bhutan and later went to Mexico to work with those fleeing violence in Central America.

Missing Votes. Or, why did HRC lose? An article in "The Hill," November 15, provides some answers, beyond the obvious. Few grasped the dispaire that was afoot among the low and middle class and their willingness to cast aside their past allegiances in the search for something better. Even more than 2008, 2016-elections were about change, something too few recognized. The PE's (President-Elect) headlight was so bright that the looming train was unseen.

Deep distrust. The anti-Trump rallies and disturbances are the natural result of the fear now being felt by those who feel threatened by a Trump presidency. Facts: (1) The global world is not going away. (2) America will continue to grow, inevitably becoming more diverse. (3) For those whites who fell threatened, left behind, there is little they can do without getting the education needed to cope with an ever changing world. Do

A lesson from the past. It was in the 1980s as the steel mills in the Pittsburgh area were slowly being shuttered. A nursing supervisor, whose husband was soon to be unemployed, looked at the growing pool of unemployed males and the very few male nurses in her hospital, wondered....... The immediate problems, of course, were social, psychological and educational. How to convince manly former steel workers to go back to school, to be nurses???? There were, after all, two traditionally feminine dominated occupations: teaching and nursing.
     Facing no income and no job prospects, she convinced her husband and a few others to make a leap of faith. It is took a while, but the pool slowly grew and, besides, these "new" nurses were filling a community need and sustaining both their families and egos. Big burly men could be both helpful and gentle. The Pittsburgh example spread. One wonders about present day coal miners and other former wrench-turners.

Thomas Friedman. From his latest book, Thank You for Being Late, "The three largest forces on the planet  -- technology, globalization, and  climate change  -- are all accelerating at once...The greatest inflection point since Gutenberg." I would agree with Secretary of State, John Kerry and I that climate change offers no "do-overs."

Facebook, et. al. It is nice to know about your friends, but then there is the other reality: social media has been easily co-opted by the "dark side" and used to advance evil. Combined with modern search techniques, it dispenses falsehoods and places social critics in jeopardy, often life threatening.

Trump's Ear. A Washington Post story by Philip Rucker and Robert Costa said DT was choosing an array of advisers, not all of whom would agree. A dispertate group is good; dispertate AND knowledgeable is better. Lord knows DT's knowledge is limited in so many areas that he needs knowledgeable people. His intimates, the Washington operators, and Vice President-elect Pense. The nation will greatly benefit if he surprises us.

The Senate's role. Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute wrote,  "The hopes for governance hewing closer to the center, and respecting all those living in the United States, rests with the Senate, and with the behavior and outlook of senators in both parties....For Senate Republicans, this is a critical moment to heed a call their colleague Lindsey Graham (S.C.) made earlier in the campaign — there is a time to put country ahead of party."

Energy policy. In HIGH COUNTRY NEWS, Jonathan Thompson notes that however much his supporters wish, President- Elect Trump can do very little to increase the demand for coal energy. However much he may "dig coal," cheap natural gas will be more attractive to energy producers and investors. A PBS Newshour segment  (11-17-2016) amplified this point.

The Crossing. Crossing comes to mind with many different contexts, most frequently, I would imagine, in "coming to America." This human interest story from this past Sunday's Washington Post's "Optimist" section has a very different story line: a county medical examiner in Laredo, TX, who is seeking to identify bodies found in the desert, anonymous souls who died trying to reach what they undoubtedly saw as their promised land. Migrants whom, had they been successful, harbored the hope of a new life in America.

Laredo was where [Corinne] Stern had arrived a decade before to become the county’s medical examiner, and where her offices were located at the end of a dusty, unmarked road. Once a month, she gathered her staff for a meeting to discuss the issue that took up more than a third of their time: identifying the people who died trying to cross the border into the United States and sending their remains home. It was her belief that burial was the way to honor that a person had existed. “That he had walked on this Earth,” she sometimes said. Burial was the acknowledgment of universal human dignity, she believed, and the physical location of a family’s grief.

"Kids say the darnedest things." Back in the day, this was a favorite segment of Art Linkletter's TV program and it was amazing what kids did say! Amy Wang wrote a piece about one Seattle mother's attempt "[to] have children write letters to President-elect Donald Trump “about the importance of being kind to other people, even if they’re different than you are.." Lord knows, Mr. Trump does see himself as somewhat unique, so he might profit from reading his mail.

Two notable passings.

     Gwen Ifill, Condolences were heard from around the globe at the death of PBS's pioneering correspondent and news anchor. Her level-headed determination to seek the truth will be missed.

     Ruth Gruber. She was an American foreign correspondent who became a part of US/world history when she was sent by the FDR administration to accompany 1,000 Holocaust survivors as they sailed from Europe to the US on the ship Henry Gibbons. That trip became the basis for Leon Uris's book Exodus, the fictional classic about the founding of Israel. As she began the trip, Ms. Gruber correctly foresaw that henceforth her life would be all about survivors and freedom. A few years later, she was the first female correspondent to travel to the Soviet Arctic and report on the Siberian Gulags, another story of human determination and survival.

Unity. The town of Kent, OH, home of Kent State University, certainly knows a thing or two about the effects of controversy. Before this season's opening game, a senior on the basketball team, Deon Edwin, proposed to his coach that each team member go into the stands and invite a fan of a different race to join him on the floor for the singing of the national anthem. A school spokesman said, "It was cool because I don’t think anyone in the crowd knew what was going on. None of the fans knew about it beforehand.” Kudos for Deon and the team.

Reliable media? Columnist Kathleen Parker worries about a public which seems to increasingly distrust usual news sources. It is a new world, one with thousands of media sources, far right to far left, well informed to clueless, real to fake. She writes, "[D]istrust of legitimate journalism is no joking matter. What happens to democracy when an uninformed, misinformed or disinformed populace tries to make sound decisions? The simple and terrible answer is, democracy fails."
     She might have also mentioned that Americans generally have little ability or inclination to look at their world and then critically "read between the lines. During the Cold War, it was often noted that over the years Soviet citizens in the now defunct USSR had learned to "read between Prava's lines," to discern what was and was very probably not true. Incidentally, Russians wryly appreciated that pravda is Russian for truth.

Puritan myths. It is that time of the year and in a Washington Post op-ed, Lori Stokes writes of the five myths about the Puritans. That they....

1. Established a theocracy
2. Had a special hatred of American Indians
3. Hated sex
4. Came to America to establish religious freedom
5. Were relentless witch hunters

To learn more about Ms. Stokes' research, follow the link.

Alexander Hamilton. Consider how AH might have viewed the brouhaha that has ensured after this past Friday evening's performance. In a prescient column, Marc A. Thiessen wrote 
 
The Democratic Party’s alienation from the rest of America was on full display at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Friday night. And the left seems completely oblivious to how ridiculous it looks to the rest of the United States....People in the American heartland see all this, and they shake their heads in disgust. Today’s Democrats have become a party of coastal elites completely disconnected from the rest of America. Doubt it? Take a look at a county-by-county map of the 2016 presidential election...As a result [of the election], Republicans now control the House, the Senate, the White House, and (after President Trump picks a new justice to replace Antonin Scalia) there will be a restored conservative majority on the Supreme Court.

Thank you for reading. Have a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Here are the topics for this first post-election blog: America, in a new place; anti-Trump protests; two peas in a pod?; changing times; Max Weber; Brexit; alt-right, et. al.;

"A prayer for America." That was the headline for Ruth Marcus's post-election op-ed column in the Washington Post. The nation is surely entering a new place and, as she notes, the prayer recited every Saturday in her Jewish synagogue now seems terribly appropriate.

     Our God and God of our ancestors: We ask Your blessings for our country — for its government, for its leaders and advisers, and for all who exercise just and rightful authority. Teach then insights from Your Torah that they may administer all affairs of state fairly, that peace and security, happiness and prosperity, justice and freedom may forever abide in our midst.
     Creator of all flesh, bless all the inhabitants of our country with Your spirit. May citizens of all races and creeds forge a common bond in true harmony, to banish hatred and bigotry and to safeguard the ideals and free institutions that are the pride and glory of our country. 
     May this land, under Your providence be an influence for good throughout the world, uniting all people in peace and freedom — helping them to fulfill the vision of Your prophet: “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they experience war any more.”

Anti-Trump protests. Just as the pundits were beginning to explain why they had not foreseen Hillary's loss and Donald's victory, protesters took to the streets in many cities (including Denver) to express their outrage. Streets, interstate highways, and bridges were shut down. 
     Not surprisingly, students often led off by taking to the streets before school on Wednesday morning. These protests are just one more indication of the depth of disrepair felt all across the social divide.

Trump and Putin.  From this morning's brief in Foreign Policy: "In his victory speech, Trump said that he would be willing to work with any country willing to work with the United States. “America,” he said, “will no longer settle for anything less than the best … We must reclaim our country’s destiny.” This last phrase essentially captures the thrust of Putin's continuing foreign and domestic policies. Both leaders feel their country unfairly wounded.

Changing times. The title of a Thursday column by David Marinass, perhaps says it best. "The Clintons were  undone by the middle-American voters they once knew so well." How ironic that their forgetfulness, this misreading of the public would put a non-politician and billionaire in the White House.

Max Weber. In his Thursday column, Charles Lane examines the way President-elect Trump won and finds an apt application of Max Weber's thoughts on "charismatic authority." Weber is not often remembered or quoted, even by the Post's eminent wordsmith, George Will.
     Mixing 19th century and more modern lexicon, Lane writes, "[A]s Max Weber famously defined it, “charismatic authority” stems from a kind of political mojo 'resting on devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him.'....Anyone who has witnessed a Trump rally, and the energy generated by the mutually reinforcing rule-breaking carried out by both candidate and crowd, can confirm that Weber’s concept applies.

London Review of Books. It is unclear how much of a debt, acknowledged or not, that Trump owes to the British public's Brexit example. Neal Ascherson's piece is titled, "Britain prepares to leave the world." Two nations striking out on very unfamiliar courses. Mutual best wishes may well be in order. Are both Ms. May and Mr. Trump sailing off through a " black cloud of unknowing" hoping to build a "better yesterday" as they seek the solace of the Wizard? 

Aschrson: I never thought I would see this opera again. ‘Rule Britannia!’ peals, the curtain parts, and there is a mad queen poling her island raft away into the Atlantic. Her shrieks grow slowly fainter, as the mainland falls behind. The first performance was in the 1980s. Who could forget Margaret Thatcher’s ear-splitting arias? But she never took the raft to the horizon, and never finally cast off the cross-Channel hawser mooring her to Europe. This revival is different. Theresa May says she’s bound for the ocean, and she means it.

Alt-right. Now President-Elect (PE) Trump reacts as his boisterous, demanding public dsemands action, action that has to take place within our system of checks and balances. They will find out that the wheels of democracy grind slowly, deliberately. Hopefullythe  PE's desire to be well remembered, which seems to be a fundamental character trait, will lead him to reasonable decisions that further American interests. His "Britebart" may be his conduit to his more radical followers, who want what is clearly not possible.
     This is where Mssrs. Connell, Ryan, et. al. may serve the nation well. Hope springs eternal!

Thank you for reading.

This "Election Day" post was delayed until Wednesday morning, November 9th. No self-respecting, retired teacher of US history, government, and international relations could write without the latest post-election news. Other than the obvious, these are this week's topics: student views; real Americans; last minute election machinations; early voting; an economist's fitting summation; earworms; traffic nightmares; lost something important?; late snow.

The People have spoken. Obviously, the pundits and general public did not grasp the depth to which so many Americans were disgusted with what was NOT being accomplished by their national government. How else to you explain the election results: victory of a much disliked non-politician, who will govern with a Republican-controlled Congress?
     Personally, the impending situation calls to mind a phrase from the Catholic liturgy: "Lord, have mercy."

The students' views. After the ballots have been counted, you might want to consider this link to CBS's Monday morning program about how one teacher's 7th grade students viewed the election campaign. It should be required viewing for each of our so-called pundits who were part of Tuesday's post-election parade. Charade?

The real America.  Fred Hiatt, the Washington Post's editorial page editor, writes eloquently about "The America that Donald Trump doesn't get." It's worth a read because we all know and deeply appreciate these kinds of Americans.

Down to the wire. As the clock ticked down, the news stories abounded about last minute campaign  machinations and celebrity-studded appearances in the so called battle-ground, must-win states. For election coverage, I guess "pick your poison" is the best admonition. With two such unpopular candidates, it seems outrageous to say, "may the best person win."

Vote early? I, for one, will be watching the analyses that focus on the probable effect(s) of early voting. The first presidential contest I followed was 1952, Eisenhower vx. Stevenson,  even though I was far too young to vote. In that bygone era, voters gathered at the polls where voting was a community, as well as a political, event. Pleasantries and family/community news were exchanged; no doubt there was also a modicum of quiet, illegal electioneering.
     Now, on November 8, 2016, an astoundingly high percentage of those eligible have already voted. In some states well over 50% of those eligible have already voted. Here in CO, every registered voter received a mail-in ballot; if you want to vote in person, you have to take your mail-in ballot to have it appropriately cancelled before you can vote. In some areas, more than 50% have voted. Many votes were cast before FBI Director Comey issued his latest (final ?) pronouncement on HRC's email controversy.  

An economist's overall summation. The headline for Washington Post economic columnist, Robert Samuelson,  perhaps said it best: "The real national embarrassment." Samuelson opened, However this election turns out, the 2016 campaign for the White House will undoubtedly be remembered for its vulgarity, mean-spiritedness and mendacity. It has been a national embarrassment. But a parallel failing is less noticed: the unwillingness of both candidates — Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump — to come to grips with national problems that are staring them in the face but involve unpopular political choices. I refer, of course, to an aging society and immigration.
     His election-day column continues the same theme. No one wants to confront these twin problems, nor talk about where will all of the required money come from? As for a national embarrassment, the students perhaps said it best.

Earworms. These peaky things are not from the ground, but from the air! You know that song that keeps going through your mind, over-and-over. If you have ever wondered, read  this article about research from Durham University music psychologist Kelly Jakubowski and her colleagues. "After conducting a statistical analysis of thousands of earworm submissions from an online survey, [they] found that songs that are up-tempo, with a familiar melody set apart by a catchy, unique interval pattern, are especially persistent."

Traffic, the south FL and NJ approaches. A novel, mostly unspoken approach. One that could "catch on" elsewhere? An official in Miami, "One way to ease traffic: Let it get so bad that motorists give up." Think about the next time you are sitting, steaming in traffic.
     In a Monday morning interview with Charlie Rose, NJ Governor Chris Christie vehemently denied any involvement in, or knowledge of, the so-called bridge-gate events. Like Hillary's numb skull decision to use a private email server, it appears the Governor's hirelings were simply poorly chosen or suffered some sort of political breakdown.

Found: the lost nuc, you have never heard about. Now the Canadian navy is searching for what a diver says he has found: a long lost US nuclear bomb. While stationed in West Germany in 1966, I played a very small role in arranging support for the search off the Spanish coast for a nuc that had been lost when a B-52 and its refueling plane collided.

Snow anyone? At 6:15am, election-day morning, the TV banner announced that Independence Pass and Trail Ridge Road remain open and will not be closed until the first snowfall. Independence Pass (12,095-feet) is the highest paved through-road in CO, one of the highest in the nation. Trail Ridge Road is the highest continuous through-road in the nation. Traditionally, Independence Pass, Trail Ridge Road, and the Mt. Evans and Pike's Peak highways are closed on/about November 1st. However, this year's lack of snow means that only Mt. Evans and Pike's Peak are inaccessible. The front range ski areas are most definitely already lacking. Snow dances are in order!

Nov 1 This week's topics: the International Criminal Court (ICC); democracy, Hong Kong style; World series and Nov 8th; undermining/overturning empires; Malheur and Standing Rock; last thoughts on Election 2016; Halloween, 2016.

The ICC. Gambia, Africa's smallest mainland nation, has joined Burundi and South Africa in beginning the process of leaving the ICC. Gambia's Information Minister accused the Hague-based tribunal of "persecution and humiliation of people of colour, especially Africans...while ignoring crimes committed by the West." Though western nations may dispute this claim, objective evidence of ostensible war crimes have not been taken under consideration. " 'There are many Western countries, at least 30, that have committed heinous war crimes against independent sovereign states and their citizens since the creation of the ICC and not a single Western war criminal has been indicted,' [Information Minister] Bojang said."

Hong Kong democracy. Officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, is an autonomous territory on the Pearl River Delta in South China. More than 100,000 pro-Beijing demonstrators gathered outside the Hong Kong parliament to protest against the swearing-in of pro-democracy legislators. The extent of democratic measures and candidates in this enclave has been at issue ever since the former British territory was returned to the mainland's control in 1997.

Baseball and politics. Thomas Boswell, writing in the Washington Post on the world series and November 8th: "Perhaps I am not alone in feeling that America deserves the temporary balm of this particular World Series, one which is preordained by the nature of its protagonists to have a fabulous, satisfying ending, and a loser deserving of praise, just as clearly as we don’t deserve an election that feels like a personal humiliation and a national embarrassment." The entire column is worth reading. 
      Also among the "good news" stories in this World Series, there is the business owner, a long-time Cleveland Indians fan, who gave up his seat on a red-eye Los Angeles to Cleveland flight so that Kenny Lofton, a former Indians star, could get to Cleveland to throw out the ceremonial first pitch in Game 1. A capitalist with a heart.
      Go Cubs!

Undermining an empire. In his latest book, The Price of Posterity, author Todd Buchholtz lays out what empires -- ancient and modern -- do to undermine themselves. Though today's globally connected world is different, the American empire appears to be no exception. We seem to be on Buchholtz's track to follow history's earlier examples. It is uncertain if ancint Rome or 20th century Britain are the more likely models.

Malheur and Standing Rock. Many (most?) readers may not be familiar with the take-over of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in OR by Ammon and Ryan Bundy and their followers; you may, however, have seen recent TV coverage of the demonstrations at Standing Rock, ND, by Native Americans protesting the construction of the pipeline between the ND oil shale fields and southern IL.
     In OR, after a fall-long trial the Bundys were found not guilty. In ND, many Native Americans and their supports were roughly corralled and then arrested for trespass. One significant difference in the authority's reactions may have to do with the fact that in OR, even though the charges were more serioud, the protesters were white; in ND they were mostly Native American.  ¿Quien sabe?

Election 2016. Like hundreds of thousands of my fellow Americans, I will be voting early via a mail-in ballot. Going to the public polls should be, among other things, a joyous occasion, a community celebration of democracy. However, this November my options for president are far from joyful. There are two pathetic major party choices and, here in CO, a myriad of minor, no-chance, third party candidates. The Republican choice is a misogynist, racist, blowhard, who gives new substance to the 1840s Know-Nothing party. The Democratic candidate has a penchant for admitted major screw ups, shady deals, and secrecy that make her more than eligible for a legal middle name change to Milhous.  

Halloween, 2016. It was blessedly clear and mild for the neighborhood goblins. While it is often clear here in Denver, it can be cold and a costume just looses something when it is under a ski parka.

Thank you for reading. Enjoy the week ahead.

The sole topic for this week's blog is Paris.

The Voyage. My wife and I took a 7-day round trip cruise from Paris to Normandy along the Seine River with Viking River Cruises. We were accompanied by my nice and her husband who live in Longwood, FL (near Orlando). It was my niece's first trip to Europe. The good ship, Rolf, is one of Viking's new, so called "Longships." Like all modern cruising vessels, these Longships are a wonder of compact engineering.
     If you would care to take a look at the Rolf, here is a link. Ours was a modest cabin with a French balcony, a sliding glass door opening to a protective railing. Spaciousness is limited and movement for two often required mindful orchestration. Having previously traveled on Viking's older, shorter ships, as well as its venerable ships in Russia and Ukraine, we found the Rolf a step up. 

The City. We rented a Paris apartment for two days prior to the cruise, giving us a total of 5 days in the City of Light. We always leave something undone, something to see/do when we return. In this case, we took the "kids" to dinner on the second level of the Eiffel tower. The drizzly evening gave us an entirely new view of Paris. Sure enough, the following morning dawned clear and bright.

The Seine. The passing scene along the banks of the Seine is a microcosm of river banks everywhere. Verdant country side, villages, towns, and cities. Industrial complexes, large developments, open air markets and touristy locations. Modest tract homes and multi-story apartment towers interspersed among wealthier small estates with ample green space. You do not see many truly slum buildings from the Seine. 
     My niece was amazed at the European penchant for daily grocery shopping. She kept saying, "so fresh, green, and yummy."
     "I never saw the good side of a city, until I hitched a ride on a river boat queen." Credence Clearwater, "Proud Mary."

Animal life. Myriads of birds; occasional fish jumping, eagerly sought by local fishermen; farms, large and small, with animals of all sorts, some recognizable, others unknown, obviously indigenous to France.

Monet's garden was one of the highlights of the trip, the one my wife, the gardener, was most anxious to visit. Despite the late fall date, there were many flowers still in bloom. The usual fall "flaming" bushes and vines were vivid. The intricate design of the gardens was especially noteworthy. The docent related that Monet was troubled by the road dust that dulled the vibrant colors of his roses, so he simply had the offending road paved.

Normandy. The day spent along the various landing beaches, the local museum, and the cemeteries was sobering, to say the least. It was a cloudy, blustery day, just the kind that the landing invasion forces did not want. Each member of our group was given a rose to place on a grave of their choosing. The film at the Omaha Beach museum told the story of the temporary harbor constructed to provide a landing site for the thousands of men and hundreds of tons of supplies that had to be landed while the Allies moved on to capture the nearby French, Belgian, and Dutch ports.
     My wife had been to Normandy previously, on one of those rare days when it had snowed. We both agreed that the cemeteries are more moving when the grass is green.
     On my previous visit, I had a moving encounter with a young French woman. I was an obvious American visitor and this young mademoiselle came up, took my hands, and tearfully thanked " 'us' for coming to save 'them' ." She echoed those famous words of General John J. Pershing. When the men of the Allied Expeditionary Forces marched into Paris in 1918, Pershing, who was a man of few words and abhorred public speaking, was expected to make some remarks. Paying tribute to a Frenchman who had helped win the American Revolution, Pershing simply said, "Lafayette, we have returned."

The Louvre. One never tires of visiting great museums, though spending an undue amount of time "at one sitting" there can take its toll. I had not been to the Louvre since the famed glass pyramids had been added. As the docent said, like changes everywhere to national landmarks, the new entrance was both hated and admired. We used Rick Steeves' audio tour. We enjoy his concise directions and tongue-in-cheek commentaries.

A trip to London calls out, to explore yet other places and visit with my wife's nephew, stationed nearby with the USAF.

Thank you for reading.

Topics for this posting: Columnist George Will on Vladimir Putin; presidential debate #2; reactionary politics; George Will and Michael Gerson on Donald Trump.

Putin. George Will writes, "Undermining the West’s confident sense of itself is important to Putin’s implementation of his ideology of Eurasianism. It holds that Russia’s security and greatness depend on what [British journalist and author] Ben Judah calls a 'geographically ordained empire' that 'looks east to Tashkent, not west to Paris.' " Interestingly, Tashkent is the capital of Uzbekistan, one of the various eastern "-stans," peopled by non-Russians, people held in low esteem in the old USSR.
     Eurasianism, a new -ism to add to your 21st century vocabulary. Owen Matthews writes in The Spectator about Putin's new Russian exceptionalism and its war on western decadence, where Putin’s Russia is fast becoming a very puritan place, a moral fortress against western excesses.
     Owens notes, "The influence of the Russian Orthodox church on public life is growing fast, thanks to Kremlin patronage. In the very dark days of the Great Patriotic War (WW II), Stalin, too, called upon the church for its still ancient ties for the Russian people. The church’s preferred instrument of control is a draconian law criminalising [sic] offending the feeling of religious believers’." Puritans in the Kremlin? Who would have guessed.

Presidential Debate #2. For me, long-time CBS newsman and presidential debate monitor, Bob Schieffer, said it best: "How have we come to this?" Indeed! For those who follow the news, the evening was an amazing display of incredibly poor public behavior and uninformative, to boot.

Old, unworkable solutions. Columnist Robert Samuelson writes, "A reactionary is someone who wishes to return, usually unrealistically, to an earlier and more appealing era. We have two reactionaries running for president. Both peddle agendas that promise to re-create a reassuring past. We are being fed different varieties of nostalgia. Neither will work."
     Both candidates are trying to appeal to their diminishing constituent-pool, while ignoring today's economic and demographic realities. Could the problem be that both candidates are simply elderly, too tied to a bygone era? Is American democracy too mired in the past? Burdened with an aging population demanding more and more from a government that is willing to face its rapidly mounting public debt? Was there no JFK to whom to pass the torch?
     Lawrence Summers follows with an op-ed, "The global economy has entered unexplored, dangerous territory." He notes, "The specter of secular stagnation and inadequate economic growth on the one hand, and ascendant populism and global disintegration on the other, has caused widespread apprehension.

Trump. In their Tuesday columns,  Will and Gerson look at Trump as the "just desserts" for a failing Republican party.

Those Cubs. My dearly departed mother-in-law was born near Wrigley Field, roller skated on the ramps of the yet unfinished field, played with the daughter of the field's grounds keeper as the real life bear cub romped around in the outfield on away-days. Her spirit reminds me to end with "GO CUBS!" Hope springs eternal!

Thank you for reading. Take comfort, there are only 28 more days of this ongoing political non-sense. Vote your conscience, but do vote!

The topics for this tardy pose: Wells Fargo; no dollars for Zika; playing the media; Nov 8th: an important date for the world; the non-extant no call lists; reading, non-fiction re the Wright Brothers and Marco Polo.

Wells Fargo. In his Wednesday Washington Post column, Dana Milbank discusses the testimony ( and profuse non-explanations) of the Wells Fargo CEO, John Stumpf, before the Senate Banking Committee. Stumpf provided a perfect example of what the mythical "little guy" [hereafter, MLG] sees as wrong with his America. Milbank: "A [v]enerable Wells Fargo has engaged in behavior that would have made a robber baron blush." Which is saying something, looking back at those 0.1% in America's early Industrial Age.

Zika. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has sadly related how "[Health and Human Services] Secretary [Sylvia Mathews] Burwell had to do something she really did not want to do. She had to take money using her transfer authority from cancer, diabetes, heart disease and mental health and give it to us to be able to continue to prepare the sites for the [Zika] vaccine trials that we will be performing.” 
     If you are the MLG living in a mosquito-prone, potentially Zika infested area, you may well view Fauci's revelations as just more proof that Congress "just doesn't know, doesn't care."

Trump and the media. Donald Trump is a confirmed capitalist and, naturally, figured out precisely how to get the free publicity to feed his campaign! It might be noted, though, that he will gratefully accept any/all financial advantages made possible by the current tax code -- even insure more helpful provisions are added.




Importance of November 8th. E.J. Dionne's column (September 22nd) stresses the importance of this vote for the world. "This sounds like melodrama. It isn’t. And while it may ring familiar — citizens of other countries always tell us how important our electoral verdicts are to them — [but] Donald Trump requires us to make a judgment more monumental than any we have faced in our lifetimes."

No Call List??? Irving Berlin wrote, "All alone / By the telephone / Waiting for a ring" Alas, that was in the days before robo-calls ringing from heaven knows where. The public demanded a national " no call" list for their landlines and then demanded it be expanded to include their cell phone numbers. Congress, of course, caved in and exempted charities, political organizations, et. al.
     I have one friend whose family pressed him to finally get a cell phone -- largely for emergency purposes, since he likes to take long, solo walks in the woods. Only four people in his immediate family have that cell phone number, but he is already getting unwanted solicitation calls from all sorts of people/organizations.
     Time for another disgruntled letter to my US representative and both senators.

Reading, non-fiction. I just finished The Wright Brothers, by the eminent historian, David McCullough. First, a note: because I travel so much, I tend to read Kindle editions.
     Hopefully everyone is familiar with the general story of Orville and Wilbur Wright. The more detailed story McCullough tells will be enlightening. Most readers may be unfamiliar with the brothers' early struggles, their initial limited successes, and their relationships with other well- and lesser-known pioneers of flight, especially the early French aeronauts. I suspect few are aware of the years they spent abroad -- again, largely in France -- and the deep adoration of the French for them and their achievements. Their sister, Katherine, spent much time with them in France, learning the language, ever the adored intermediary.
     The patent law suits and the wealth amassed by the Wright brothers may also be an eye opener. Their diligent perseverance to flight is an integral part of the world we now have. Theirs was a  slower-paced world; indeed, they had more time to ponder and appreciate what their heavier-than-air machine was bringing to the world. Orville was the longer-lived (1871-1948), living to see the massive air power of WW II and rocketry. He deeply lamentied the mass destruction that air power made possible.
   I have now delved into Marco Polo (by Milton Rugoff), another well-known travel tale. Like McCullough, I am certain Rugoff will add much to my knowledge of Marco's 20+ year overland journey to/from Asia. Does not a trip a slow, multi-year treck seem unreal in today's fast-paced world?

Thank you for reading. My next post will be after the upcoming visit from my family.

This week's topics: parallel political universes; pneumonia and worse; lethal low poll numbers; your former chess champion; George Will on Putin and Orwell; an Everly Brothers tribute; North Korea's nucs; urban parks; the Washington Post Optimist; Dakota Access pipeline; telemedicine in the west; the end of White Christian America; finally, a Sunday serenade.

Parallel conservative universes. The picture of "who's in charge" is conflicted, to say the least. In "Reconciling the Right's Parallel Universes,"  Michael Needham examines how various groups see the answer to that question and their very different views. "There are two parallel universes in conservative politics, each with its own tribes and conflicts, its own narratives and debates. These universes are isolated from each other, just as the tribes within them are divided." Indeed.

Presidential disabilities. Hillary Clinton had, but did not immediately disclose her pneumonia problem. She is not the first candidate or president to try and cover up health problems. In an article titled,  "The hidden history of presidential disease, sickness and secrecy," Joel Achenbach and Lillian Cunningham look at the past. Some incidents are more well known than others.
     While Ms. Clinton is certainly not the first to have initially misled the press/public, modern technology and press coverage are making non-disclosure more problematic. FDR's physical condition probably our best kept presidential disability secret. "Frank Lahey, a surgeon who examined Roosevelt, wrote a memo [July 10, 1944] saying FDR would never survive another four-year term [but he soldiered on]. The memo was not disclosed until 2011."
     The 25th Amendment bears reading.

Polling woes. Russia's Vladimir Putin does not like his latest low poll numbers. The authoritarian solution: declare the Levda Center, the polling non-governmental organization, a "foreign agent," effectively shutting it down. Russia's 21st century emperor does not want to hear the bad news; nor does he care to have his party's declining popularity made public, at home or abroad.

Kasparov on Putin. Gary Kasparov, Russia's former world chess champion, knows something about strategic thinking. His thoughts, in a nutshell, “Vladimir Putin is a strong leader in the same way that arsenic is a strong drink. Praising a brutal K.G.B. dictator, especially as preferable to a democratically elected U.S. president, whether you like Obama or hate him, is despicable and dangerous.”

Inconvenient Truths. In Orwell's classic, 1984, inconvenient truths were relegated to the Ministry of Truth's slits to be burned in enormous furnaces. Will relates that a Russian blogger wrote, 'The communists and Germany jointly invaded Poland, sparking off the Second World War.' The [historically accurate] secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact have gone down one of Vladimir Putin’s memory holes.
     The blogger violated the Russian provision against "rehabilitating Nazism." In 2009, Putin denounced the pact, but last year defended it, as have given Stalin time to fend off the impending Nazi invasion. The sentence in Putin's "managed democracy?" Off to the 21st century's gulag.

Everly Brother's Tribute. Two brothers, Dylan and Zachary Zmed, billed as "The Bird Dogs," played this past Thursday at the Soiled Dove Underground, a small cabaret in Denver's Lowry neighborhood. With a good back up group (guitar, bass, and drums), they presented to a rousing show of songs written by and for Phil and Don Everly. A most enjoyable evening in a pleasant small-scale venue.

North Korea and its nuclear weapons/aspirations. In a recent op-ed, retired senator Sam Nunn (D-GA) and retired admiral (and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), Mike Mullen, have called attention of Pyongyang as the greatest danger likely to face the next president. Personally, I feel the two greatest nuclear dangers facing America are an opaque North Korean government and the Republican presidential candidate who has no clue about the intricacies of foreign policy.

Urban Parks. This op-ed piece is by Anthony Williams, former D.C. mayor from 1999 to 2007, chief executive of the Federal City Council and chairman of the Anacostia Waterfront Trust. Mr. Williams calls for the National Park Service to "take parks to the people" and cites Washington's Anacostia area as a perfect example.

The Optimist. Once again I call your attention to the Washington Post's "Optimist" section and its uplifting news items. This week's stories: the black women who helped land a man on the moon; John Lewis's writes about his fight for the Smithsonian's African American Museum; Ken Burns on why that museum belongs to all of us; the last Tuskegee airman to earn his wings; the bar mitzvah of a 113 year-old Auschwitz survivor; female directors hired for TV show "Queen Sugar;" very fast 1,500 meter Paralympic athletes; Manchester United athletes and an end-of-life wish; an opera tackles mental illness; meeting the man who saved her in Baton Rouge.
 
 The African American Museum.  Representative John Lewis (D, GA) recounts the beginning dream....
On May 24, 1916, the National Memorial Association held a meeting in Washington at 19th Street Baptist Church, a nearly 180-year-old congregation still in existence today. Its members discussed the creation of “a beautiful building” they hoped to establish on the Mall. Their goal was “to commemorate the deeds American [N]egroes wrought for the perpetuation and advancement of the Nation,” celebrating their contribution to America in “military service, in art, literature, invention, science, industry” and other areas of life. On this Sept. 24, exactly 100 years and four months later, the National Museum of African American History and Culture will finally open in Washington, D.C.

Producer/Director Ken Burns writes of the importance of the African American Museum: "I pick up [a slave ankle shackle] sometimes. Here is history so many would like to ignore or forget. But we do so at our peril." History is both what we like to remember and what we would like to ignore.
     “There was never a moment,” essayist John Jay Chapman wrote, “when the slavery issue was not a sleeping serpent. Burns' essay is well worth reading.

Dakota Access pipeline. For better or worse, one of the President's legacies will be the Keystone 2.0 pipeline taking oil from the Bakken oil fields in ND to south central IL. Not everyone is happy about this line and strangely the most prominent opposition has coalesced around western Native Americans.
     On another note, the horror stories of the boom-bust housing/business cycles is being played out once again in ND. Not so long ago, high oil prices/demand and relative housing shortages, led to an unrestrained building boom (much shoddy), mortgage scams, etc. Now, with low oil prices, the area is suffering its own "baby" housing and business recession. 

Telemedicine in the West. Two stories in a recent edition of High Country News highlight the twin problems facing a growing number of westerners. It may be hard for some readers to imagine, but in large areas there is simply no nearby hospital. Another story is here.
     However, modern technology and medicine are slowly evolving a workable solution: the expert or doctor or physician assistant-on-the-computer. Sure, your grandmother may have called "ole Doc Jones" on the phone and he would make a house call. It would be nice to shake her/his hand, look them in the eye, but what if they do not make house calls? What if they are not in town, maybe not even close to your town? Even in cities, consulting with an expert in another location through a computer link is becoming more common.
     For an enjoyable evening appreciating the new and the old in medicine, watch "Doc Hollywood," with Micheal J. Fox as the cocky, young, soon-to-be well off Dr. Ben Stone, who is forced to spend time in an out-of-the-way backwater town dealing with and learning from the town's long time, aging, no-nonsense, physician, Doc Hogue.
     Now, just expand your horizons a bit and you can imagine the story playing out in the wide open spaces in the West, where nearest clinic, doctor, and/or hospital may be "just over the horizon -- 'bout 150 miles." 

This is the opening paragraph in part one of Jennifer Rubin's interview with Robert P. Jones, the founder and CEO of the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute. She writes that "Jones is author of the exceptionally timely book “The End of White Christian America,” which chronicles the transition of white, Protestant Americans from majority to minority status." This is, of course, an explosive, but crucial topic for those interested in America's changing scene. The link for part one is here; part two here.
     Jones speaks of how "White southern Christians, at least since the Civil War, have been vulnerable to the siren song of nostalgia." But is that siren song not at least a part of the mind set for most any hither to dominant group? He continues talking about how/why Trump captured so many primary votes from so-called "values voters."
The key, I believe, is that Donald Trump successfully converted these “values voters” into “nostalgia voters” by tapping their anxieties about the massive demographic and cultural changes the country has recently experienced. When he promised to “Make America Great Again,” white evangelical voters heard a familiar refrain about taking back the country and restoring their more prominent place in it.
    
If you think the title of Jones' book dramatically overdrawn, consider Ann Coulter’s recent book title, Adios America: The Left’s Plan to Turn our Country into a Third World Hellhole. 

Both of Rubin's columns deserve close reading. Nor is Jones alone; other observant sociologists have noted and written about the so-called "browning of America" and its consequences.

Sunday music. We end on a more joyous topic: "It's a grand night for singing..." (Rogers and Hammerstein, "State Fair," 1945) On Sunday evening here in Denver, I am on the back deck. As the sun set behind the western mountains and the sky slowly darkened, the night creatures have come alive in fine voice, serenading me as I read and type, with a wonderfully peaty scotch close at hand. One of the joys of Denver is the relative absence of troublesome, unwanted night-time bugs. Later, at bedtime, it will be a joy to leave the screened bedroom door open and fall asleep listening to Jiminy and friends.

Thank you for reading.