North Korea. It seems increasingly possible that Pyongyang, desperately poor, but nuclear-armed, may present President Trump with his first very real international crisis.
President Donald Trump is a reckless bully with authoritarian leanings and a craving for attention. Kim Jong-un is a reckless bully with dictatorial powers and a craving for attention. Oh yes, and both have fingers on nuclear triggers. That's why so many national security experts of both political parties struggle to think of a scarier pair....Trump has called Kim a "madman," one of the few things he has gotten right about North Korea. Dealing with him, though, requires measured patience and smart diplomacy -- not Trump's forte -- and a reliance on alliances and relationships that he has dismissed.
North Korea 2. On Monday (27th), the Washington Post's Anna Fifield discussed the relative rationality of Kim Jong Un. The online title of the article was "North Korea’s leader is a lot of things — but irrational is not one of them." Senator McCain (R, AZ) and current UN ambassador Nikki Haley lean towards the "unhinged" characterization. Perhaps, but if that is true, then we have an unstable leader with access to nuclear weapons. Talk about scary!
The other side of the coin: “He’s still in power,” said Benjamin Smith, an expert on regime change at the University of Florida. “He and his father and grandfather have stayed in power [since 1948] through a series of American presidents going back to Truman.” (Truman, Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, H.W. Bush, Clinton, W. Bush, and Obama)
Consider: USSR 1917 - 1989 (72 years and done), Communist China 1949 - 2017 (78 years), the Un family 1948 - 2017 (69 years). Author Fifield: "Kim has rid himself of 300-plus officials during his five years at the helm. He notably had his own uncle, Jang Song Thaek, executed [at relatively close range with explosive anti-aircraft shells] for disobeying orders and building his own power base." (emphasis added)
At least last Wednesday's rocket test was blew up on the test stand. Sleep well tonight?
Immigration. While it may seem counter intuitive, it seems that immigrants may fare better in smaller villages or towns, not in major metropolitan areas. At least this seems to be the case of one German study. "WIMBERG, Germany — The village of Wimberg, population 1,800, is on the northeast edge of the Black Forest. In 2015, with great trepidation, it absorbed 300 refugees — one refugee for every six people." Interesting.
As we know, President Trump said Germany was "crazy" to take all those refugees. While the numbers may be thinning, there are still Germans who remember those initial, terrible post-WW II years when refugees flooded into a devastated Germany from Poland and other areas overrun by the Soviet army.
NEA, National Endowment for the Arts. Mike Huckabee, sometime politician, amateur musician, presidential candidate, and former governor of AR, makes the case for the budget allotments for the NEA. He says this money, 0.004% of the total federal budget, is essential in furthering creativity, and "those things that civilize and humanize us all," especially among children at the local level. Even though President Trump and his minions may not realize it, creativity, musical and otherwise, is one of civilization's essential driving engines.
Reading, non-fiction. In a recent email, an Irish-American friend mentioned a little known fact about the US - Mexican War. Peter Stevens tells the story of The Rogue's March: John Riley and the St. Patrick's Battalion, 1846-1848. (Brassey's Publishing, 1999) After arriving in the promised land, many Irish-American men flocked to the US Army where, they were told, they would find a better life.
What they too often found were officers (especially the young, including many "West Pointers") who were virulently and ruthlessly both anti-Catholic and anti-Irish. The book tells the story of John Riley who led a group of American-Irish dissidents across the line to fight for Mexico. Of course, in the end, the Mexicans lost, the American dissident survivors were court-martialed for treason, found guilty, and many hung. Given that many of the future Civil War luminaries (both North and South, including future president Grant) were involved, the US Army did its best to cover up the entire affair.
Dying too young in America. At first Anne Case and Angus Deaton, husband and wife authors, were sure their data were wrong. Mortality rates has always been going down. Then, suddenly, for middle aged (non-Hispanic) whites (45 to 54) it all went into reverse. Why? Especially since the unexpected downturn seemed disproportionately high only among middle aged whites who were not college graduates. Also, why was this trend happening in the US more than in other developed countries? (The article has a chart showing the contradictory, ever-lower trends in Germany, France, Sweden, Canada, UK, and Australia.)
Slowly, investigators have been looking at what they are labeling "deaths of despair." The data show "the [mortality] trends are identical for men and women with a high school degree or less...There's not a part of the country that has not been touched by this." One possible cause: social dysfunction caused by shrinking incomes and far fewer good paying, "meaningful" jobs. Puzzling and disheartening reading.
The Russian Revolution, 100 years on. In this week's London Review of Books, Sheila Fitzpatrick reviews five books, all of which reflect back on that momentous 1917 event and what has followed. Interesting reading which gives you a "feel" for what is new -- and not so. She writes, "Representing the new consensus, Tony Brenton calls it probably one of ‘history’s great dead ends, like the Inca Empire’. On top of that, the revolution, stripped of the old Marxist grandeur of historical necessity, turns out to look more or less like an accident." Quite the accident!
YouTube. In The Federalist, Ben Domenech opines that "The real danger to Free Speech is Corporate." He continues, "Fear of crackdown on free speech is a bipartisan thing these days." Google and YouTube are feeling major pressure, advertisers are deserting for their failure to "root out" extremist hate-related content. Social media do indeed present ever-changing areas of concern.
"What is religious speech in some parts of the world will be hate speech in some other parts of the world..." — you can see where this is heading. Domenech closes with, "You have the right to free speech as an American – you have no right to use YouTube to do it. And the mobs that exist can form very quickly if they are offended by your presence there. Be mindful of this in the years to come."
America's colony and the "new" ACA? In A Colony in a Nation, Nick Romero takes a candid, often unflattering, even frightening look across our urban divide -- the poor, more challenged urban areas vs. the "good side of the city" (Credence Clearwaters Revival") Looking back at 2014 and 1776, Romero notes, "[The] cops in Ferguson....sought to boost municipal revenue by writing as many tickets as possible, however trivial the offenses. [In the 1770s,] the British, broke after the Seven Years’ War, sought to replenish their coffers by aggressive enforcement of all tax and tariff laws in the American colonies."
In No One Cares About Crazy People, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Steve Donoghue examines the plight of America's many mentally-troubled souls. Difficult reading, especially as the Congress debates how much -- and from whom -- to cut affordable medical care.
Donoghue notes, "According to the World Health Organization, fully a quarter of the world's population will experience some kind of mental illness; “two thirds of these,” Powers writes, “either do not recognize that they are ill or simply refuse treatment.” As the world surveys the multitudes fleeing from terror and starvation, that could well be true and, if true, that amounts to a staggering 1.8 billion people, one-half billion more than the current population of India.
Health and nature. In this episode of West Obsessed, High Country News Managing Editor Brian Calvert talks with author and HCN board member, Florence Williams, on her new book, The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier and More Creative. Together they discuss the power of nature to affect mental health, and how a river trip in the Idaho wilderness helped a group of female veterans address their trauma. Ms. Williams also notes that in the 1850s Florence Nightingale reported much the same observations. Calvert and Williams discuss the suggestive notion, "Nature on the brain." Including suggestions that being in nature aids us in being emphatic and caring. If true, it is no wonder that Thoreau wrote so well.
The many rural Americas.
Last year’s earthshaking election brought new
attention to rural America. This attention is overdue — rural America
has long been largely ignored by reporters, researchers and policymakers
— and much of it is useful, as this increasingly urban-centric country
tries to understand and reconnect with those living far from cities...But so far, the narrative emerging about rural America has been woefully
incomplete, because so much of the media coverage has focused on only
one slice of it: rural white America....This rural America has a different history from rural white America: a history of forced migration, enslavement and conquest...separate and unequal [impoverished areas].
American workers. An article in Foreign Policy details how European companies are paying to train the young workers they need; in the end, it is money well spent. American companies have similar complaints, but have been slow to solve our labor shortages.
No Trump-care. You have seen/heard/read the news. Obviously, too many House members thought Trump Care would be no better than Obama Care. As the stories have cascaded out of the White House, you cannot help but wonder how many people/groups can the President find to blame. He always succeeds, he is never to the reason something fails. He has obviously banished (burned?) Harry Truman's famous desk top ultimatum: The Buck Stops Here.
Last, one personal thought: America's health care system is free market, profit-driven and until that changes, our well being will always be #2 -- just below the company's bottom line considerations. It is very simple: if the insurer cannot make a profit from you, they do not want you as a client.
Ann Telnaes, Washington Post cartoonist had a recent tag line "The Republicans aren’t talking about health-care access; they’re talking about buying health-care insurance."
Thank you for reading. Enjoy the week ahead.
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