For this week: Optimist; notable dates; opioid deaths; political ads; moon landing; historic preservation; Pittsburgh; birthright citizenship; congressional compromise; trade war and Vietnam; Iraq and Saudi Arabia; 3D printing; unraveling; David Brooks; midterm elections. 

Optimist, 4 November. Halloween costumes with a difference. What to do when you are a kid in a wheel chair. See two links below in "Pittsburgh."


Notable dates in American history.
     31 October 1926. This date in 2018, Halloween, was the fitting date to note the death of magician Harry Houdini.
     1 November 1765: The hated Stamp Act went into effect, propelling the colonies headlong towards the Revolution. In 1952, the US exploded the first H-bomb, code-named “Ivy Mike,” at Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
     3 November 1911: Chevrolet Motor Company was founded in Detroit by Louis Chevrolet.
  
Opioid deaths. Deaths due to drug overdoses have now reached 200/day. Nevertheless and against the advise of its own advisory panel, this past week the FDA approved a drug reportedly 5 to 10 times more potent than today's most misused opioid. "Drug overdose deaths hit the highest level ever recorded in the United States last year, with an estimated 200 people dying per day, according to a report by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration." Does this sound like a "well country?"

True/False political ads. Of late there has been much concern about meddling in our elections by foreign government/groups, as well as in various social media forums. Given these well voiced concerns, in a Denver Post letter to the editor, Randy Flipse (of Golden, CO) wonders why we allow (countenance) political ads that are "distorted, full of half truths and sometimes just false." Why, indeed?

Armstrong, moon landing. Armstrong's sons auctioned off many, many pieces of their father's memorabilia. Their stated reason: to make it available to people who were alive in that era and to excite the public, to further the future of space exploration. Left unsaid, obviously, was will benefit from the auction's proceeds. Reportedly the auction brought in $7.5M.

Preservation. This subject generally get little press, unless, of course, the "subject" is somehow noteworthy locally. What about Rome's Pantheon? As a very young man, a visit to the Pantheon forever changed the life of William J. Murtagh, later to become known as the "pied piper" of American historical preservation.

Pittsburgh. Even the memorials/funerals being held after the Tree of Life synagogue shootings were not without dissent: the President and First Lady were not welcomed by all as they paid the respects by placing traditional stones and white rose buds on each victim's cross on the front lawn of the building. Here in Denver, we thankfully learned that a former neighbor's daughter, a physician living in Squirrel Hill, was not among the dead and injured.
     Magda Brown, a 91 year-old Holocaust survivor from Skokie, IL, was scheduled to speak in Pittsburgh the day after the shooting. A wise trip now? Of course I will go she said!

Birthright Citizenship. This largely unremarked topic was thrust into the news when President Trump asserted his ability to deny the right by executive order. Most legal scholars do no think that is possible. Even some Republicans (e.g. House Speaker Ryan [R, IL]) said it could not be done.

Compromise in Congress? On Capitol Hill, is compromise now a dirty/toxic word? One group, the Problems Solvers Caucus, evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, is attempting to do just that. They are laying plans for the 115th Congress. With ratings lower than used car salesmen, hope springs eternal for a more functional legislative branch.

Trade: China, US, and Vietnam. One of those historical points the US missed on its way into the Vietnamese war: the long history of distrust and outright conflict between China and Vietnam. Now that the Beijing and Washington are hard at their trade war, Hanoi is only too happy to "pick up the pieces." Indeed, to cite but one example: one Samsung cell phone manufacturing complex accounts for one quarter of Vietnam's exports. The Vietnamese are also happy to play off - and profit from -- competition between American and Russian defense contractors.
     When you have lived with such a dominant neighbor and beaten so strong a once-enemy, you have learned how to "get along, to go along."

Iraq and Saudi Arabia. 1979 : Saddam Hussein :: 2016 : Mohammed bin Salman. A good comparison? This Foreign Affairs article examines the similarities and differences in our international relations. The modern US -- Iraqi affair began in 1963, the JFK administration. The US -- Saudi relationship is, of course, longer dating to the beginnings of Aramco oil in 1933 in the FDR era.

3-D printing. In the not too distant past, there have been stories about college engineering students at University of Central Florida who developed a 3D printing program to make a hand for a young girl born without one. They then put the program in the public domain, free for anyone's use. A young Penn State grad has developed a program to build a personalized running shoe. One his Saturday CBS program, Moe Rocca introduced a young German who is perfecting a 3D-printed wire mesh bicycle tire. Goodbye flats!

David Brooks. On last Friday's PBS News Hour, columnist David Brooks characterized a feeling among both Democrats and Republicans as that of an "unraveling" from the expected of the past.

Midterm elections. The lead article in a recent Economist article, "Why the mid-terms matter," pointed to the increasingly toxic problems of  partisanship and ideology. No one appears without fault: executive, legislature, Supreme Court, the media, the populace. "Just as American politics did not sour overnight, so the route forward is by many small steps, beginning with next week’s elections. And the first of those steps is for the House, at a minimum, to switch to Democratic control.This matters because Mr Trump should be subject to congressional oversight."

Thank you for reading. Enjoy the absence of political ads!