The notes for the week. Optimist column; attorneys general; another political upset; a boycott answered; Bannon in Eastern Europe; elections in Sweden; the "Roberts" Supreme Court; strange hacker target; fascism.

Optimist, 9 September. Link here. Planting gardens on campus, amid their fellow students.
     A cheap meal -- when you are 109, that birthday discount amounts to money back when you leave.
    For Jocelyn Bell Burnell, a $3M prize, but no Nobel award. In 1967, Burnell built, installed, and operated the telescope that gave astronomer's man's first evidence of pulsars. "In 1974, when a Nobel Prize in physics was awarded for the discovery of pulsars, Bell Burnell's adviser Antony Hewish was one of the recipients....Burnell was not."
     What's in your closet? School custodian, Carolyn Collins, has been giving and giving and giving to needy students from her school closet.

Attorneys General. Is your state's AG office on the ballot this coming November? If so, Karen Tulmulty, suggests you look carefully at your ballot choices. "[T]the growing footprint of the state attorneys general is also a symptom of deeper problems — of the intractability of the nation’s polarization, and the fact that political differences can no longer be worked out by the dysfunctional legislative and executive branches in Washington....[Just] as Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro has done so admirably with his investigation of the Catholic Church in his state."

Boston, U.S. House District 7 . Yet another Democratic male officeholder has been ousted from the ballot this coming November. Forty-four year-old African American, Boston city council member, Ayanna Presley, bested 10-term U.S. Representative Mike Capuano. This historic seat was once held by JFK, then later by Speaker of the House, Tip O'Neill. Today, the district, which encompasses nearly one-half of Boston, has a majority non-white population. Change is in the air --at least in some areas.
     Here are E.J. Dionne's thoughts on Presley's victory. The online title, "Boston couldn't wait for change." He noted, "Pressley didn’t just win. She swamped Capuano, 58.6 percent to 41.4 percent. The size of the margin seemed to shock even the victor, as suggested by a widely circulated video of her tearful, stunned elation at first word of her triumph." The late Tip O'Neill once held the seat and, as he famously said, "All politics is local." That was certainly true in this now majority-minority district.

Nike's new face. Whatever your view, few football fans doubt that NFL owners have conspired to keep Colin Kaepernick off any NFL roster. In a move both praised and condemned, Nike has made him a spokesperson. Their stark, black and white poster has Kaepernick's face overlaid by , "Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything." In the TV ad, Kapernick makes the same statement. Nike's famous trademark, "Just Do It," is at the bottom/end.

Bannon and right-wing populist nationalism. Krithika Varagur opens by noting that ["l]ike many Americans and Henry James characters before him...the president’s former chief strategist [Steve Bannon], wants to make his name in Europe." Eastern Europe is -- has always been -- a very strange world, indeed.

Election in Sweden. Anti-immigrant, pro-law and order forces of the Sweden Democratic party, made significant gains (17.6%) in last Sunday's elections. "They effectively set the terms for debate during what was an unusually heated campaign, forcing other parties to address the country’s immigration policies and move significantly to the right on them"

Justice Roberts' Court. Today, the nonpolitical role of the Court is very much in question. Is a portion of the Court's less-than-splendid past about to be repeated? Is the following narrative (from The Atlantic) correct?

The Roberts Court is poised to shape American society in Trump’s image for decades to come. All three branches of the federal government are now committed to the Trump agenda: the restoration of America’s traditional racial, religious, and gender hierarchies; the enrichment of party patrons; the unencubered pursuit of corporate profit; the impoverishment and disenfranchisement of the rival party’s constituencies; and the protection of the president and his allies from prosecution by any means available....That [earlier] cause succeeded for a century not simply because of the implacable commitment of the Democratic Party, but also because the federal courts, filled with Republican-appointed jurists, chose to be compliant, painting the scaffolding of segregation with the language of constitutionalism. Together they built Jim Crow, which would last for a century, until it was torn down to its still-intact foundations by the civil-rights movement.

Another Russian "Fancy Bear" attack.

On Aug. 27, one of the strangest targets yet of Russian hacking was revealed, when The Associated Press broke the news that Fancy Bear—the group infamously entangled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election hacks—had also targeted the heart of Eastern Orthodoxy, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople...That struggle pits the Russian state and the Russian Orthodox Church against Constantinople and its apparent support for an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

President Putin, sensing a re-surging religious revival among many Russians and wanting an ally in his struggle with Ukraine, wants the Church (i.e. God) on his side. "In recent years, Russian President Vladimir Putin has embraced aspects of this Christian imperial ideology [and] envisaged a messianic role for Russia in the world..."
     Given President Trump's affinity for Putin, should we expect even more Administration outreach to America's Evangelicals? 

Every age has its own fascism. Primo Levi (Quoted by Madeline Albright, in the front-piece of her latest book, Fascism: A Warning, 2018, Harper Collins

Thank you for reading. Prepare to vote wisely; carefully read/watch the flood of campaign literature/TV ads.