Birthday Suit

I thought about posting a photo in my birthday suit but it needs to be tailored.

Prosecution

If you can prosecute an employee for stealing after he’s been fired from the job, you can prosecute a president for insurrection after he’s been fired by the voters.

Weirdness

There are two kinds of people in the world, the weird ones and the ones who go to great lengths to disguise their weirdness.

The Easy Way

There is an easier way to do things, or so the marketers try to tell us. Want to lose weight? Buy this pill. Want to get in shape? You need this fancy ab machine.

If you’re tempted to buy the exercise machine, you’ll discover quickly that even with it, your dream of having washboard abs will require months and months of strenuous daily workouts. That’s probably not what you had in mind when you’re reached for your credit card.

A significant achievement requires a significant effort. That has always been true. There are no shortcuts to success. Shortcuts are in fact a waste of time. They’ll leave your feeling discouraged and farther behind than you would be if you had put the effort in in the first place.

For whatever it is that you want to achieve, resolve to do the hard work that it will take to get you to your goal. Block out time on your calendar. Schedule the tasks that need to be done and stick with the plan. Do whatever it takes to stay motivated and keep going. Log your time so you can see how much you’ve done (or where you need to do more). Ask for help when you need it - everyone does - and do your best to make the process as fun and rewarding as possible.

The good news is that when you do the real, hard work that it takes to improve or move toward a goal, you’ll see real results, not right away, but it won’t take too long. The results will be your best reward. If you’re not seeing results, you may be doing something wrong, and you need to revise your plan. Don’t grind away doing something ineffective. Get on a good path and have fun with it. You’ll get there, and it will feel great. Don’t shy away from hard work. The hard way is actually the easy way, because no other path will take you to where you want to be.

Stimulus 2021

Mr. Biden has asked Congress to pass a $1.9 trillion Covid relief package. Opponents argue that it will cost too much, but how much does it really cost, and what is the price of inaction?

The money doesn’t disappear. It goes back into the economy. People who receive stimulus checks or extended unemployment payments will use that money to buy goods and services. This will help businesses in their communities.

When businesses receive payments, it helps them to stay in operation. They in turn pay employees and suppliers who in turn do even more with the money that they receive.

Money for hospitals and vaccine distribution is a no brainer. Nothing is going to get back to normal until the population has been vaccinated.

Money granted to state and local governments will enable them to continue to pay teachers, firefighters, and other essential workers through the pandemic. It will also help pay for public health investments with immediate benefits to the entire community.

The economy as a whole will benefit from a stimulus package, but does the proposed bill cost too much? To put it in context, think about the cost of doing nothing or of passing a smaller package. What is the cost of letting the pandemic rage on for longer than it has to? What is the cost of additional economic hardship, of higher unemployment, of more businesses shutting down? What is the cost of evictions, lost rent, and defaulted payments? What is the cost in loss of tax revenue? What is the cost of extended school closings? What is the cost of lives lost that could have been saved with an aggressive vaccine roll out?

Extraordinary challenges demand an extraordinary response. Let’s attack the problem and do what we have to get through the next few months. Life will be brighter if we take decisive action now.

Winter Boots

I bought new winter boots. I used the money in my slush fund.

Madame Veep

I told my significant other that she could be my VP, and I would be the tall, gray-haired man with experience and wisdom. That didn’t go over well.

Stay Vigilant

In the past two weeks, more Americans were killed by Covid-19 than in the entirety of the Vietnam War. The country is moving forward, but we still face grave challenges.

Please wear a mask anytime you leave home, even if you are outside. Please practice social distancing for a little while longer. We’ll get through this, but your actions now could mean the difference between life or death for you or a neighbor, a friend or a family member.

Stay vigilant. Save lives. Thank you!

E Pluribus Unum

Black voters just saved American democracy. A majority of White voters sided with perpetual autocracy. Remember this always, and you’ll understand why the promise of the American dream has to apply to ALL of our citizens. E pluribus unum. Out of many, one. God bless America.

Immigration Policy And Political Violence

The Trump presidency put a lot of energy into securing the border with Mexico. From the first day of his candidacy, Mr. Trump demonized immigrants from Latin America. He pledged to build a wall and vowed to have México pay for it. He declared a state of emergency at the border, cancelled visas used by farm workers, launched ICE raids around the country, enacted punitive policies toward sanctuary cities, refused entry to asylum seekers, and punished families entering illegally by separating parents from their children with no records indicating how to reunite them.

All of the above was designed to “protect us” from vague threats posed by Latin American immigrants, even though studies show that immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than native-born American citizens do.

Admittedly, Latin America has serious problems with crime and corruption. Mexico’s homicide rate per capita is five times that of the US, and some other countries are worse. It can be argued that these high crime rates are caused by the illegal drug trade, of which the US is one of the largest customers, but it cannot be denied that violent crime is a serious issue south of the border.

Political violence is common in Latin America. We don’t hear about this much in the US, but attacks on politicians and officials happen frequently, often with deadly consequences.

Political violence in the US was rare before the Trump era. Representatives Gabby Giffords and Steve Scalise were shot in recent years, but those incidents were outliers.

Ironically, political violence has become one of the legacies of the Trump administration. Politicians, even those who have supported the president, are routinely harassed and receive death threats. The storming of the Capitol by a large pro-Trump mob determined to overturn the election was unlike any other event in US history.

Hence, the irony: A president who was determined to push back against the worst elements of Latin America, ended up fomenting the kind of deadly anti-government violence that causes problems in the very countries from which he claimed to be protecting us.

It’s worth noting that the US Capitol was not attacked by immigrants, but rather by Trump’s most ardent supporters, American citizens who felt that his anti-immigration policies were necessary to “keep us safe.”

By the way, México never paid for the wall. American taxpayers did when Trump illegally misappropriated funds from the military budget. Congress passed a bill asserting that only they were allowed to direct the use of federal funds, but they were too spineless to override the president’s veto. And so we paid for the wall but ended up with the crime anyway.

Crank Call

I answered a phone call this morning. A recorded male voice informed me that this was the “second attempt” to notify me about “extended coverage on your vehicle warranty.” “There’s still time,” the voice assured me, but this would be the last notice before they “close the file.”

I was instructed to press 1 for more information or 2 to decline the offer. I pressed 1.

- Hi, this is Lilian! Can I please have the make, model, and vehicle number so I can pull up your file?

- I’m sorry. What was that?

- Hi, this is Lilian! Can I please have the make, model, and vehicle number so I can pull up your file?

- What was your name again?

- Lilian.

- Hi! How are you today.

- I’m doing fine. How are you?

- I’m good. Thanks for asking.

- Can I please have the make, model, and vehicle number so I can pull up your file?

- Oh, I don’t have a car, but thanks so much for calling me!

- Oh... I...

(click)

By the way, the number that called was 978-759-2706 from Concord, MA. They called back an hour later.

The Trump Legacy

The Trump Legacy: Division, Distortion, Disruption, Disinformation, Retribution, Intimidation, Corruption, Extortion, Incitement, Insurrection, Violence, Sedition, Destruction, Dishonor, Disease, Death

Mr. Leech

I recently thought about an old man who lived in my neighborhood when I was a child. Mr. Leech was tall and very slender. He had a grim expression, and I was actually rather afraid of him, but he would come by from time to time to talk with my neighbors.

It's difficult for children to judge the age of adults, but Mr. Leech seemed to be significantly older than my grandparents. I'm guessing that he was born in the 1870s. He would have known people who had fought in the American Civil War, probably a number of them. He would have been nearly 40 at the beginning of WWI and 70 by the end of WWII. He was an adult when the Wright brothers completed their first powered flight. Mr. Leech was a living monument of history, and yet here he was in the 1960s, big as life, chatting with my neighbors.

My own life has thankfully grown quite long. Combine my lifespan with that of Mr. Leech, and together we have lived through nearly 150 years of history. Add a third person, some elderly man or woman whom Mr. Leech knew in his childhood, and the span reaches back to the dawn of the American Republic.

The next time you see an elderly person talking to a small child, think about how much history the two of them might live through.

Deep Hatred

I have discussed this topic before, but now there is a new context. I’ll make two points at the conclusion of my remarks.

I have a friend; let’s call him Zeke. I’ve known Zeke for a long time in real life. We were connected on Facebook for a while, but not any longer. 

Zeke had a habit that I found objectionable. He used to post crude, nasty, and extremely personal memes about Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, one of the most powerful people in US politics. A mild example would start with an unflattering still photo taken while Speaker was talking. The facial features would look distorted because of fleeting the movements that we make when we talk. To that, they added some insulting text such as, “can you believe that someone has to sleep with this person?” Their language was more vulgar, but you get the idea.

Zeke used to post stuff like this all the time. He really seemed to enjoy sharing it. He had friends who would chime in with approval.

To be fair, I have leveled a lot of criticism toward Mr. Trump over the years. I have criticized his rhetoric, his policies, his actions, his apparent ineptitude for the job that he was given, and I have suggested that he should be held accountable for what I believe to be some serious offenses.

That said, I never made personal attacks in the style of Zeke’s posts about Mrs. Pelosi. I have never had an interest in attacking the man personally, only his job performance. Further, when I see people posting unkind things about the First Lady, often using photos from her former career as a model, I call out that behavior. There’s no reason to criticize the family members of politicians unless they become involved in the politics themselves.

I noticed something interesting. When I criticized the president for his divisive rhetoric or one of his questionable policy decisions, Zeke would often accuse me of being “filled with hate.”

I didn’t feel that this was fair. Zeke’s criticism of Mrs. Pelosi was personal and ugly. It that had nothing to do with her job performance. I, on the other hand, made no such comments about the president; I simply remarked on actions that he took during the course of his work.

“Why are you so filled with hate?” Zeke would ask. He sent that phrase so many times that I suspect that he had it programmed into his keyboard.

Comment 1 - When Zeke accused me of “hating” a political rival, it was not in response to what I actually said. He was reflecting his own emotional state. This is how HE felt toward his own political rivals.

Zeke legitimately hates Mrs. Pelosi. He has a deep, overwhelming animosity toward he, and I can’t explain why. I suspect that he doesn’t even understand it. It’s not for any policy position that he’s ever mentioned. He just despises her as a person as though she were some reprehensible villain in a story.

Maybe he heard other people making nasty remarks about her and eventually got into the habit of parroting their comments. Maybe it’s the result of classical conditioning from the radio and television programming that he consumes. Maybe he and his friends enjoy laughing over beers while sharing such rude comments about the lady. It’s a deep hatred, but it doesn’t seem to be based in anything factual.

Comment 2 - This week, during the violent insurrection at the US Capitol, several of the rioters told the press that they had come with the intention of doing serious physical harm to the Speaker. I’ll bet that they didn’t really understand why, either. Nevertheless, they were conditioned to hate her so deeply as to want to do her grievous harm.

As a nation, we need to understand address the factors that lead to such virulent extremism. Our survival as a democracy depends on it.

New Era For Twitter

Way, way, way too late

They knocked him off of Twitter

Now he’s got nothing to do with his rage

When he’s sitting on the shitter

Blame

Blame is the ultimate failure of personal responsibility.

Demagoguery is the ultimate expression of blame.

Disparity Of Force

A Black woman sleeping in her bed, not a suspect in any crime, was killed when police shot at least 26 bullets into her apartment. A mob of thousands of White rioters stormed the US Capitol building during a joint session of Congress, and cops didn’t even draw their weapons while the rioters rushed up the steps and into the structure. Officers with assault rifles just stood there and let the mob walk past them.

The Real Problem

The problem isn’t the person who doesn’t look like you. The problem is the person who resorts to violence when they don’t get their way.

Political Chameleon

Lindsay Graham jumped off of the Trump ship faster than a weasel with diarrhea.

The Big Lie

Do you recognize The Big Lie now? The Big Lie is that Black Lives Matter is coming to your neighborhood where they will defund your police department and leave you defenseless.

The real problem is people who feel privileged to control society to the point where they believe that they can commit violence with impunity when they don’t agree with what’s happening.

The Big Lie claims that the only defense against annihilation is draconian policing, restrictive immigration policy, and marginalization of “the other.” Politicians who advocate such policies are perceived as heroic champions fighting the specter of violence conjured up by The Big Lie.

People who would vote against marginalization and for an expansion of liberties are perceived as a threat. They can be intimidated, harassed, bullied, beaten, and imprisoned because their actions run contrary to the desires of the privileged.

A Blast From The Past

That moment when your mind wanders back in time, stumbles across a memory, and you think, “Wow! I really did that!”

Hung Over

Yes, I woke up with a hangover on New Year’s Day. I didn’t drink anything; I just got the hangover. It’s funny how that happens.

2021 Arrives

I had an intense emotional reaction when the clock struck 12 and 2020 was finally over. The sense of relief was profound.