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.