I am the white cream-stuff inside the Oreo

Why don't I know anything about this amazing artist/person, recently featured on PBS "American Masters"?

Have you ever wondered ...

Why during a solar eclipse the moon appears to be the same size as the sun, therefore blocking its precise surface area? Well, according to scientists it's a coincidence, just a coincidence, and only a coincidence for a while, because the moon is moving away from Earth an inch a year, so in a few million years the moon will appear smaller than the sun, not blocking it out entirely.

Really -- coincidence? I prefer a conspiracy theory.

Read it and weep for humanity

This extended analysis of ISIS is more than disturbing: it's terrifying.

Letter to the editor

Here's the text of a letter to the editor of the SB News Press which I emailed today. I'll update this post if/when it's published.

Update: The letter was published on February 11, 2015.

The European nations (Germany, France, Poland, Balkan countries) most affected by the impact of the conflict between Ukraine and the separatist forces are strongly opposed to the prospect of the United States providing "lethal armaments" to the Ukraine-government forces. The voices in Congress urging lethal arms shipments are, in the main, the same as those who gave full-throated support to the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as to aerial strikes in Pakistan and various African nations – and of course we know how successful those armed incursions have been.

The reaction of European nations is that providing arms to the Ukrainian government would be "pouring fuel on the flames," and those nations – closest to the possibly resultant fireball – should be heeded. Indeed, there are ongoing negotiations to tamp down the dispute, and these should be encouraged, not undermined by supply of arms to either side.

Accordingly, Americans' reaction should sanely be, Why do the voices of American politicians for armaments and military force be given any attention, any credibility? The simple answer is they should not, as they shouldn't have been before our previous armed interventions.

Consciousness

Here's a link to a comprehensible (although not comprehensive) discussion of the state of information on the concept of consciousness. For your early-evening consideration:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jan/21/-sp-why-cant-worlds-greatest-minds-solve-mystery-consciousness


Enjoy.

Letter to the editor

Here's a copy of a letter I emailed this date to the SB News-Press. I'll update this post if/when it's published.

The October 21 verdicts by a federal jury finding four Blackwater "civilian contractors" guilty of homicide (three verdicts of manslaughter, one of murder) for the 2007 killing of seventeen civilians in Iraq will likely result in lengthy prison sentences for all four. The contractors raised various defenses: that they were under stress; that they perceived immediate danger; that they were employed to ensure the safety of State Department personnel and sensed an imminent threat; and so on.

Nevertheless, after seven years of judicial fits and starts, after a ten-week trial and four weeks of jury deliberation, the federal prosecutors convinced a unanimous jury that the defendants' conduct evidenced a callous disregard for human life (twenty other innocent Iraqis were seriously injured), and that their lawyers' defenses were unavailing under the facts.

I agree with the verdicts and am heartened to see that a federal prosecutor had the stamina and diligence to persevere to obtain them. But I have this question: Given that these four Blackwater employees have been found to have acted with callous disregard for innocent lives, and their counter-arguments – which sound hauntingly similar to those made by the last two presidents in their years of drone-launchings and bombings throughout the Middle East, Asia and Africa – have been dismissed, unanimously, as without merit, why haven't Bush and Obama (the latter having received my vote in 2008) been placed in the dock to account for the thousands of innocents they've killed?

I'll say this: I'd love to sit on that jury.    

Here's a letter to the editor of the SB News-Press that I'm emailing this date. I'll update this post if/when it's published. (I appreciate that I've quite recently been published, and that the News-Press wants only one letter per month.)

Update: The letter was published on June 29, 2014.

Dear Editor:

Breaking news! Progressives and Conservatives agree on something – and it's something important, very important! I'm referring to Riley v. California, the U.S. Supreme Court's 9-0 decision (that's unanimous, my friends – with one of the conservative Justices, Alito, concurring in the result), issued June 25, denying police officers the ability to search an arrestee's cellphone content without first obtaining a warrant.

Why so important? Because – again, unanimously – the court's decision addresses the balance of the government's interest in crime detection against the citizen's right to privacy – and firmly strikes the balance in favor of the latter. The tilt of that balance, so long favoring law enforcement by means of internet surveillance, indefinite detention, airplane-travelers' searches, ubiquitous TV cameras, finally tipped in the direction that both stripes of Americans – folks of the Left as well as Right – have long sought. The Court recognized how prevalent were cell phones and how broad and intrinsically personal was their content that police were not allowed, under the Fourth Amendment's search-and-seizure provisions, to examine the phone's data absent a court-approved warrant.

There are other issues on which Left and Right agree. Both deem suspect any government intrusion into citizens' private lives; both favor robust public discourse and protest; both seek government truth and transparency; both despise government waste, whether in domestic or foreign (including military) expenditure.

Could the Riley decision make these seemingly "opposing" forces – from Tea Party to Occupy to Green – realize their common bonds and, more importantly, unify to take actions to effectuate them?

Letter to the editor

Here's a letter the I emailed today to the editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press. I'll update this post if/when it's published.

Update: The letter was published in the News-Press on June 18, 2014.

In the movie, "The Man Who Knew Too Much," Doris Day sings the popular song, "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)." This is an adage the United States could employ with advantage in its policy in the Middle East, Africa and throughout the world. Our several international military interventions (with troops, drones, money and weapons) in the last three decades have invariably produced dire results.

Indeed, the eruptions of violence in the countries where we've meddled or invaded, as most recently evident in Ukraine and Iraq – as tragic as they are for the residents of those nations – merely support the conclusion that our foreign policy, which relies almost entirely on force and sanctions, is uniformly an abject failure. It's not "isolationist" to demand that the U.S. desist from such policies and actions. Instead – in the off-chance it matters to American politicians – it's common sense.  

Letter -- What choice do I have?

Here's a letter to the editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press that I emailed today. I'll update this post if/when it's published.

To the editor:

I just watched the fourth game of an NBA playoff game between the New Jersey Nets and the Miami Heat. Miami (Lebron James, et al.) won the game, of course, a firm step (3-1 in the series) toward their eventually winning the NBA Championship.

I wrote "of course" and "eventually" advisedly, because I know – everyone knows – the Heat will win the NBA title for the third year in a row. In fact, knowing this inevitable outcome of playoffs, I wonder why I – like millions of viewers – continue to watch the games. More poignantly, why did tonight's Nets fans keep screaming and chanting from the stands during the game? Why did the Nets coach keep coaching? Why, indeed, did the Nets players keep playing? For that matter, why, knowing the Heat will win it all in the end, do all of these folks, during the weeks to come – players, coaches, fans of other teams – keep crying out, keep hoping and trying to win?

What does this have to do with issues regularly presented on Voices?: Questions about the state of the economy, the environment, the world. Why do folks keep caring, keep writing, keep chanting, keep marching about these issues, when – by many mainstream accounts – the game is already lost?

Here's the answer from a dejected Nets fan who, upon exit from tonight's loss to the Heat, was asked by an interviewer why he kept cheering even after the Heat's victory was apparent: "What choice do I have? To quit?"    

To the editor

Here's a copy of a letter I emailed to the editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press this date. I'll update this post when/if it's published.

Update: The letter was published on April 18, 2014.

My favorite adage to describe the current state of American governance is that it's merely "arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." As our ship of state churns onward in the cold and dark, our captains – which include, at least, President Obama, the Congress and the "mainstream media" – are content to provide us, their passengers, only comfort and distraction, trusting that we'll remain oblivious to the looming disaster.

The deck chairs are such items as pot legalization, missing-airplane searches, gay or gun-toting athletes, items which, although perhaps worthy of some slight attention, hardly help right the ship. To continue the metaphor, these and similar constant front-page entries don't even belong on the bridge.

The imminent iceberg is apparent – and immense. It's our bloated military, our fear-based society, our consumer-obsessed culture, our corporate-dominated politics, our inequitable economy, all contributing to our collision with history: the inevitable end of the American empire.

Prominently at the helm are five Justices of the Supreme Court whose opinions in the Citizen United and McCutcheon cases have steered us straight toward our destruction. Their decisions that money is speech, that corporations are people, and that financial influence over politics is disallowed only by proof of outright bribery, taken together, mean this, and nothing less: We, the American people, must retake the wheel; otherwise, there won't be enough lifeboats for most of us – and we needn't guess who'll fill them.

 

Root and branch

Here's a copy of a letter to the editor of the Santa Barbara New-Press that I emailed today. I'll update this post if/when it's published, although, unlike many of my letters, I doubt I'll see it in the newspaper's pages, given how direct and strident my message is.

Update: The letter was published on April 11, 2014.

To the editor:

Does our government represent Americans anymore? That is, the vast majority of Americans who only reluctantly – as a last, self-protective act – assent to wage war? Who value privacy and freedom of expression above all? Who care for our poor and sick and less-advantaged? Who take pride in sharing wealth and opportunity?

Americans who believe legislators should answer to the people – not only the wealthy few and corporate contributors – and who demand that honesty, transparency and principle, not money, should reign? Americans who refuse to react out of fear in their world view, as well as in their neighborhoods? Who believe criminals deserve due process, but – of whatever status and wealth – warrant vigorous prosecution? In short, Americans whose core values are anchored in the Constitution: Does our government represent them anymore?

The answer to these questions is No. The government wages war – by covert ops, "contractors," drones and troops – all over the world. It silently, secretly (until revealed by Edward Snowden) collects and archives our private communications. It spends our tax money on bank bailouts and foreign adventures. It rewards corporations and their executives with tax breaks and loopholes while suppressing workers' earnings. It is, in short, a government run amok, unresponsive to and uncaring of Americans' will.

It's time – well past time – to remove our government,  to replace all of its actors, all of its supporters, root and branch.

  

Letter to the editor

Here's a letter to the editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press that I emailed today. I'll post an update if/when the letter is published.

Update: The letter was published on March 12, 2014.

To the editor:

Two more names for Americans to ponder: Ukraine and Crimea. What's going on, who are the players, what are the issues, why do we care?

If you listen to the mainstream media, to many members of Congress, and the Obama administration, you're told that at issue is a "fight for freedom" between good guys – activists who forcibly ousted the elected (probably corrupt, pro-Russian) government of Ukraine – and bad guys, namely, Russia (Vladimir Putin), who seeks to maintain influence over Ukraine and control over the Crimean Peninsula, where Russia's Black Sea fleet is based. These mainstream voices argue that we – EU, NATO and, of course, the U.S. – should become involved, by sanctions, by deployment of arms, by aid to the non-Russian side.

Others argue that the West has unduly meddled in the Ukraine, that battles of the region are historical, cultural, economic and complex, and that the West shouldn't intervene in any form; and that Crimea, largely ethnic Russian, should exercise self-determination of whether to separate from Ukraine.

As a responsible American, I know this: I don't have a dog in this fight. Nor do I have a dog in Syria's fight, in Iraq's, in Iran's, in Libya's, in Somalia's, in Yemen's, in Afghanistan's, in Egypt's – in short, in anyone's fight but our own, here at home. I wish I could blow a silent whistle to bring all our dogs home to fight our own battles – against economic inequity, to achieve fairness and good health and humane care for all Americans. 

 

Letter to the editor

Here's the text of a letter to the editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press that I emailed today. I'll update this post when/if it's published.

Update: The letter was published in the News-Press on February 16, 2014.

To the editor:

Senator Rand Paul, meet ACLU. With his joinder as a plaintiff in a recently-filed lawsuit by the Tea Party entity, FreedomWorks, against President Obama and the National Security Agency, the Far Right has officially joined the Far Left. Not entirely, of course. Not on many "social" issues or, to be sure, on taxation. But with formidable vigor, the Kentucky Senator and his devotees by this filing have entered the freedom-of-expression and right-to-privacy debates in lockstep with ACLU, insisting that the government's mass collection of Americans' electronic messages is unlawful, unconstitutional.

Two previous lawsuits to this effect – by ACLU and by Judicial Watch – have met with mixed results: the former being dismissed, the latter victorious, with the issues doubtless headed to the Supreme Court.

But Senator Paul's recent joinder in the claim of the NSA's unconstitutional over-reach by its "metadata" collection of our phonecalls and Internet activities does more than add heft to arguments about its illegality. It shows what we Americans – Left, Right or Middle – have always known but have seldom seen so squarely framed: That the Bill of Right's First and Fourth Amendments aren't mere political articulations. The rights to be free from government intrusion into, and monitoring of, our private expressions and activities are fundamental to what we, of whatever political persuasion, hold paramount – rights we've enshrined in our founding documents, rights we've fought wars to protect and rights we won't surrender to any secretive, rogue government agency, no matter what its claimed rationalization or its initials.  

It must be in the blood

Not just Mo Dowd, but an O'Dowd from a previous century, makes observations about class although as my many readers of this blog have doubtless noted, I rant lately more about war and spying than about the plight of the poor. It's nice to see Mo has joined the herd of Downton Abbey devotees, however. I can now watch my newly-arrived disks containing all of season four. Goody.

Fallujah falls

This is a letter to the editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press that I emailed today. I'll update this post if/when it's published.

Update: The letter was published on January 9, 2014

To the editor:

Remember Fallujah? For the historically challenged, that's the Iraqi city that during America's invasion was the site of not one, but two, major U.S. military operations which reduced the city to ruin, drove out thousands of its inhabitants and created walled enclaves for its remaining residents. All this was done, we were told, in the interest of creating secure zones for Iraqis in the aftermath of our destruction of the city's infrastructure and populace. It was a classic case of "We had to destroy the village in order to save it."

Well, guess what. Within the last few days, Fallujah has fallen under the control of al-Qaeda-aligned militants after a prolonged battle against the Iraqi security forces. A repeat of the Viet Nam experience, to be sure, both in terms of the eventual outcome – the Communists took over all of Viet Nam after years of battle, remember? – and in terms of the American war-resisters' outcry against our military involvement in that nation's conflict.

We "peaceniks" don't want to say, I told you so. That sounds impudent, crass. Rather, to those Americans who would involve our military in Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Libya, elsewhere – as well as maintain our forces in Afghanistan indefinitely – the words of Pete Seeger seem apt: "When will we ever learn?"

How dare those Japanese! Letter to the editor

Here's a copy of a letter to the editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press that I sent today. I'll update this post if/when it's published.

Update: The letter was published on November 8, 2013.

We've just learned from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that more than a million tons – a million tons – of debris from the earthquake and resultant tsunami-triggered disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, windblown over the waves of the Pacific for two and one-half years since the event, is now approaching our coast. According to NOAA models, this diffused, enormous pool of trash – of unspecified content, except that most of it is indestructible and likely carries life forms alien to American ecology, to say nothing of an unknown quantity of radiated matter – has by now traveled five-sixths of the way from its catastrophic origin and will begin to invade our western – including Central California's – shores in 2014. And because the pool is so enormous, its debris will continue to wash up here for years.

How dare those Japanese, we cry out, build such a dangerous power plant immediately beside the Pacific Ocean, and directly along what's long been known as the "ring of fire" for its proclivity for Earth-shattering earthquakes! What idiots! What monsters! Why, you'd think the folks who planned it were of the same mind (same corporate structure and mentality) as those who built a similar nuclear power plant along our own Pacific coast – along our own historically active segment of the ring of fire. I speak, of course, of the nuclear power plant ninety miles to our north, at Diablo Canyon.

And, of course, you'd be right.

A brilliant, succinct analysis of the use of drones

I've long time been an anti-drone person, as used for both surveillance and destruction. It's a knee-jerk reaction I've experienced as I've seen so many wars and intrusions on privacy over my time on Earth, and this last expansion of snooping and killing capacity of man has drawn from me a reflexive reaction. But here, briefly and effectively stated, is an essay that focuses on precisely the issues I've not regarded in my reaction to the use of drones to kill, and I'm humbled by its incisiveness.

Unreported

I was unable to find it readily on the popular search engines, but here -- published on the website of an Israeli newpaper, Haaretz -- is the full text of the recent speech by Iran's President Rohani to the United Nations. I ask you, What's not to like about it? And -- scroll to the end of the speech -- will you join the WAVE?

I wouldn't change a word

Putin rocks!

Letter to the editor

Here's the text of a letter to the editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press that I emailed today. I'll update this post if/when it's published.

Two in a row for Congresswoman Lois Capps. A few weeks ago, I applauded her vote to de-fund the National Security Agency's secret gathering of Americans' telephone calls. Hers was fine, high-principled vote and although (for now) the vote failed, as our representative in Congress, she truly and faithfully represented the wishes of her constituents. Good for her; good for us.

Well, Congresswoman Capps has done it again. On August 29, she, along with fifty-nine other Congressional Democrats, co-signed a letter authored by Congresswoman Barbara Lee and directed to President Obama, calling on him to submit the question of the use of force in Syria to Congressional inquiry, debate and decision. The letter, while acknowledging the severity of the situation in that embattled nation, was unequivocal in asserting the responsibility of Congress to authorize military force in foreign nations, a responsibility expressly reserved to Congress in the Constitution.

The recent unilateral war-making by our presidents must come to an end. While they are commanders-in-chief of our armed forces when engaged in conflict, the threshold decision to use destructive force in a foreign country is not the president's. The framers of the Constitution understood that such a step was so important that it required discussion and debate – traditional tools of democracy by which the citizenry, not a single person, decides the fate of the nation.

Congresswoman Capps understands this, and understands that her constituents do too. She deserves a salute for that understanding and her actions in accord with it.  

Letter to the editor

Here's a letter to the editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press that I sent today. I'll update this post when/if it's published.

Update: This post was published in the News-Press on July 19, 2013.

Congratulations to Congresswoman Lois Capps for voting in favor of the Amash/Conyers amendment, which sought to de-fund the blanket collection by the National Security Agency of Americans' telephone records. In voting to support our constitutional rights to free expression, free association and privacy – foundations of the liberty Americans have fought and died for – our Congressional representative exhibited courage and principle, taking a position in opposition to the Obama administration as well as that of the Democratic House leadership, whose Chairperson Nancy Pelosi and Whip Steny Hoyer both voted against the amendment and urged all House Democrats to do so.

Although the amendment was narrowly defeated – 217 to 205 – Representative Capps was joined in support of this fundamental expression of our citizens' freedoms by both progressive Democrats and conservative Republicans, who found NSA's secret, massive collection of our telephone calls an unlawful and outrageous intrusion on liberties. Our Congresswoman, whose voting record is hardly perfect, deserves praise when, as in this instance, she gets one very, very right.

Hotshots

The recent death of nineteen firefighters while battling a wildfire in Northern Arizona is sad, sad. It calls to my memory the memorial I "discovered" in Prineville, Oregon, while I was on one of summer trips to the northwest. The little park -- a pathway lined with small headstones honoring each of the fourteen firefighters from the local area who were killed during a fire in Colorado -- and a large bronze statue of firefighters, was so fine, so sweet and gentle and heroic, that I took photos of the memorial and returned to visit it a few summers later.

Here's a recent article about the Colorado fire.

They don't hate us for our freedoms (such as they are, of late)

They hate us for this.

Letter to the editor

Here's a letter to the editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press that I emailed today. I'll update this post if/when it's published.

During recent testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Defense Department officials were asked to define the duration and breadth of the "war on terror," as part of the committee's hearing on the need for revision of the 2001 Authorization of the Use of Force (AUMF), under which the U.S. carried out military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The answers were shocking (though largely unreported in the major media): Michael Sheehan, Assistant Secretary of Defense, testified that the "war" would likely last "at least ten or twenty years" after the expiration of President Obama's second term, while Defense Department counsel Robert S. Taylor stated that the authorization to attack wasn't limited in geographical scope – as evidenced by strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia – and that the definition of groups that are within the scope of U.S. attack is "a bit murky." As to how and when the war might be determined to end, Taylor stated that it was "unclear."

A more textbook example of George Orwell's 1984 vision of endless war cannot be imagined. And so this is the legacy of our generation: a war with undefined enemies, undefined territory and undefined end. Good luck, my children and their children. Have a nice life. 

Arming the "Syrian rebels"?

These are just the sort of folks we should be supporting, right?

The most significant event since my last post

A death in the family.

Where are the bread riots?

This video, concise and clear, gives perspective on wealth distribution in the U.S. today. Hard to stomach, isn't it?

A great essay

Glenn Greenwald does it again! If you're short of time, scroll to the penultimate paragraph of Glenn's piece and then watch the brief video at the end. Spoiler alert: It's a campaign ad for Ron Paul.

Letter to the editor

Here's a letter to the editor of the Santa Barbara News Press that I emailed today. I'll update this post when/if it's published.

Update: This post was published on February 15, 2013.

It's now clear beyond doubt that the Obama presidency has not only embraced but has grossly expanded the claims of lethal authority made by the Bush administration. Astute news-followers have known for years that Obama's assertion of the power to kill anyone who is "determined" to be a "threat" to American interests has been taken much further than even Bush and Cheney dared. Despite the President's effort to keep them secret, reports of Obama's "kill lists" surfaced in 2010, as have reports of at least two drone strikes on American citizens. And within the past few months there have been repeated references in the press to "terror Tuesday" meetings at the White House where the President's advisors gather to decide who deserves to die.

But now, after the Senate hearing on the nomination of John Brennan as CIA director and the release of a Justice Department "white paper" on the subject, it's starkly presented: This president claims the power to assassinate anyone, including Americans, whom he (or an "informed high-level official") – by exclusive executive decision – determines must die because they're part of a group that's an "imminent threat" to the United States.

So the question is, Where's the outrage? If Bush/Cheney had claimed such power, Democrats would be screaming from the rooftops words like "dictator," "Stalin," and, of course, "Hitler." But now that it's their man in the Oval Office we hear from them (with a few exceptions) a deafening silence. To call these Democrats hypocrites is to slur hypocrites.  

A nine-minute speech that says it all

Sadly, Eisenhower's farewell address wasn't heeded.

King's oration

I've listened in vain for the President in his Inaugural Address, or for any of the several mainstream commentators thereon, to address a fundamental component of Martin Luther King Jr.'s ideology, that of an end to American imperialism, its global warmaking, its constant use of violence to obtain the aims of its oligarchy. A fine exposition to this effect by Glenn Greenwald may be found here.

Bad news, good news

One of my favorite TV personalities has died. OTOH, Downton Abbey, season III, is underway.

An Australian speaks

Here's an essay examining American politics and concluding that there is no longer an American Left, and that the rest of the world appears to be following the drift to the Right that America is experiencing. A couple of nice quotes from Arizona's Senator Barry Goldwater, a lover of liberty -- probably more a Libertarian than a Republican conservative.

A view of our politics from beyond our shores, and, as I see it, manifestly correct.

As gross as it gets

Having your family's Thanksgiving meal in line while waiting for a retail store to open on Black Friday? America gone mad.

A different feeling this morning

Different from other Presidential election-day sensations. Previous occasions: Intense interest in the outcome, from Kennedy/Nixon through Carter/Reagan and Bush/Gore and certainly Obama/McCain.  This morning: a mild, somewhat amused curiosity to learn if America has gone so far in the tank as to elect Romney/Ryan over the incumbents.

Don't look now

but Rev. Moon's right-wing rag, The Washington Times, has an editorial piece with which I agree.

Not bad company I'm keeping

in deciding to vote for Dr. Stein for President.

Making my vote count

Here's a letter to the editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press that I emailed today. I'll update this blog if/when it's published.

Update: It was published on October 28, 2012.

During the summer of 2008, I worked diligently for Obama's election, traveling with other Californians to swing-state Nevada to canvass residential neighborhoods, knocking on doors, waving signs on street corners, all in the intense desert heat. It was a powerful experience to feel part of the "change" that Obama proclaimed. But now, after his term as President, I no longer support him: I'm voting for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate.

True, it's an easy choice for me, resident of a non-swing-state that will award Obama its electors notwithstanding my vote for Dr. Stein. But my ballot isn't symbolic. I'm voting for President as if it were a true choice--a democratic act, not just the political one of choosing the "lesser of two evils," which is the most I can say for Obama. I'm voting for what I believe in, including an end to American militarism and to corporate control of our political system; the advancement of economic fairness; the restoration of civil liberties; in short, the same principles I supported four years ago--the same "change" that Obama abandoned from the moment of his inauguration.

I admit I'm also voting against Obama out of spite, to express my belief that he bears the label, "worst President ever"--not, however, for reasons cited by Right-wing pundits but because he has, both for this writer and for future generations of like-principled voters, despoiled the concepts of "hope" and "change," leaving an electorate that has lost faith in effective democracy.           

A ditty

This much must be said for Mitt Romney:

His positions on issues are omni.

He also orates

With speech that sedates,

A boon to the heedless insomni.

Turning inward

The brief essay -- and its link to a recent New Yorker cover -- captures precisely my reaction to these new Internet gadgets. Especially bothersome to me is the Twitter/Facebook combo. (Cell phones have some satisfactory functions, which I appreciated when I was on my roadtrip last month, on gravel tracks somewhere in the woods of Central Oregon.) And it's not just the idiocy of most communications, but the utter worthlessness. I mean, what do I care -- what does it matter -- that a massage was awesome or a pizza was cold upon delivery? For that matter, what does it matter that I hate Twitter/Facebook? So, perhaps I should cease cluttering up the ether with posts to this blog.

A perfect interview

Mike Lofgren -- sage. The best, most succinct exposition of America's present condition that I've ever read.

Letter to the editor

Here's a letter I wrote to the editor of the SB NewsPress today. I'll update this post if/when it's published.

Update: This letter was published in the NewsPress on July 15, 2012.

On July 15, 1979, President Jimmy Carter delivered his since-dubbed “malaise” speech to the American people. It bears revisiting now because its essential themes have only become more compelling, its strains more urgent, its warnings more apt in today’s America. At that time, America faced a dire energy crisis due to disruption of oil supply from the Middle East, but Carter spoke more broadly about our nation’s condition.

He spoke with poignancy about Americans’ tendency to “worship self-indulgence and consumption,” to define our identity “no longer by what one does, but by what one owns.” The decline of the American spirit was evident in our governance as well. “We’ve always had a faith that the days of our children would be better than our own,” he said, but “our people are losing that faith, not only in government but in the ability as citizens to serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers of our democracy.” This “crisis of confidence,” he said, resulted from “a system of government that seems incapable of action,” a “Congress twisted and pulled in every direction by well-financed and powerful special interests.”

The crises America faces today – among them, a collapsing economy, senseless militarism, restrictions on our freedoms, a degrading environment – require that we finally follow President Carter’s calls for action, that we put aside “fragmentation and self-interest” and embark upon “the path of common interest and restoration of American values.” We didn’t heed the president’s words thirty-three years ago. We must do so now. 

End of an era

What shall I listen to on Saturday mornings?

Telling it like it is

I read the same NYT essay about Obama's death squads and was as horrified as the writer of this article. Obama's a murderer, and proud of it.

Start your day with this

A quick video that plays when you click on the link in the upper left hand corner of this page of radio programs.

Letter to the editor

Here's a copy of a letter to the editor of the SB News-Press that I emailed today. I'll update this post if/when it's published.

Update: It was published on May 25, 2012.

On May 17, the House was presented with an easy decision: whether or not to vote in favor of an amendment to the massive military spending bill. The amendment, proposed by Representative Barbara Lee of Oakland, would forbid the use of any funds for the war in Afghanistan, except for the “safe and orderly withdrawal of U.S. troops and military contractors” from that war-torn country. It was an easy decision, because a “yea” vote would comport with the sentiments of a strong majority of Americans who have determined that the war is senseless and the U.S. engagement should cease. Nevertheless, Representative Lee’s amendment failed, 113 – 303.

To her credit, Representative Lois Capps voted in favor of the amendment, and while I have often criticized her positions, I applaud her “yea” vote. However, I find it odd that she gives us, her constituents, no indication of her action. She doesn’t mention it in newsletters, doesn’t note it on her website or Facebook. Indeed, on her list of “issues” on her website, neither “peace” nor “war” appears, even though our endless military adventures impact every aspect of our security, our economy, our environment, our culture, our nation.

Representative Capps, as a shoo-in come November, an emerging veteran Congressperson, hear this: It’s time you devoted as much attention as you devote to other concerns of your constituents to the most critical issue of our time. It’s time you spoke out, with unabashed fervor and unleashed ardor, for peace.

Ya gotta love it

A district court judge with some balls.

For my good friend, the poet

Whoever said they were irrelevant? Not this poet.

How long do you think it will take

before the Orange County (California or Florida, doesn't matter) school board proposes this idea for their public schools? (Are you as surprised as I am -- disappointed too -- that the concept took root in Brazil?

Sold out again

Here's the text of a letter to the editor of the SB News Press that I emailed today. I'll update this blog if/when it's published.

Update: It was published on March 23, 2012.

With friends like Lois Capps, who needs Republicans? Once again, our Congressperson has sold out her constituents – the 99%, that is. Not long ago she voted in favor of giving the President the power to arrest and imprison indefinitely any person, including U.S. citizens, who he decided was a terrorist. So much for our personal freedoms. Now, Lois has inserted herself into our pocketbooks, voting in favor of a bill – misleadingly called the JOBS act – that weakens regulation of corporate stock offerings, diluting, and in some cases eliminating, their disclosure requirements and abandoning longstanding rules protecting individual investors from fraud and overreaching by corporations and the sellers of their stock. Companies are now able to peddle stock publicly – using the Internet, for example – without heeding many of the regulatory requirements that protected investors’ pocketbooks in the past.

This enactment is said to make it easier for companies to raise capital. Haven’t we heard this refrain before? Isn’t the absence of regulation precisely what got us into this ugly economic mess? And who benefits from this law? You guessed it – the corporations. And if Representative Capps has the temerity to suggest that the bill will create jobs, I suggest she answer this question: Where’s the evidence? The short answer is, There is none – absolutely no studies, no empirical evidence was submitted to the House supporting the notion that by loosening reporting requirements on corporations more jobs will be created – except, of course, on Wall Street and, eventually, among bankruptcy lawyers

This can't be right

Gerald Ford (not the dead former president) who was the chief stockholder in my bank, having in 2010 bought up 91% percent of the shares of Pacific Capital, my bank's parent company, for the munificent sum of 20 cents a share, will receive $46/ share for his stock in a merger deal under which Pacific Capital Union Bank is acquired by a Union Bank, which is in turn owned by Japanese holding company. That's got to be a typo, right? Nobody's entitled to a two-year return of 2500%. Right?

Not only racist, but stupid

Check out this piece about the "Don't Re-Nig" bumpersticker, and don't fail to read the last two sentences of the article.

I'm a sucker for musical theater

I just watched a presentation of The Phantom of the Opera as shown at the Royal Albert Hall, shown on PBS this evening. I'd seen the show on stage in Cincinnati some years ago and I love it -- the music brought me to tears, really -- but this television production was even better. Powerful, moving, much better than the movie.

Breaking silence

because I'm weeping over this.

A linguist's wish list

is aptly and humorously presented here. But it's much too short. "Don't get me started."

Talk about your litmus test

The Senate race in Massachusetts -- Warren against Brown -- is too close to call. Check out the numbers in the box halfway down the article. The young and the old like Warren, the middle-aged prefer Brown, and most voters could yet change their mind between now and the election. Both have the money to campaign and Massachusetts is a relatively "liberal" state. If a candidate with Warren's views can't get elected statewide there, we're in deeper poo-poo than even I thought.

Born and raised in Arizona

and, for good reason, lately ashamed to admit it. But this...this outrage...takes the cake.

I give up

Okay, I'll vote for Obama, maybe send him a check, but only because of this.

A perfect motion picture

Wonderful cast, terrific story, exquisite pacing, all with a profound, timely and timeless message. The movie? Wargames.

Well, duh...

My reaction to the findings of this study.

I'm still here

I haven't posted on this blog for quite a while, and, looking back several months I note that my posting has become sporadic and increasingly occasional and, frankly, not very interesting. But (mostly because maintaining this blog is free) I'm not quitting, but also not apologizing (much) because the reason for this isn't torpor. I've become engaged in work of a physical nature -- remodeling this condo I bought in May, doing almost all of the work myself -- and I find it such an absorbing activity that it drains all my interest and energy. Furthermore, it's an action I can take that has consequences and payoffs I can see and touch. Much more satisfying than wailing about the state of the world, the result of which is that nothing changes.

I'll continue to post here, and maybe I'll catch fire again, or from time to time, so stay tuned.

Shame on Lois Capps

Here's a letter to the editor of the SB NewsPress that I'm sending today. I'll update this post if/when it's published.

Update: It was published on January 3, 2012.

To the editor:

Transparency. We’ve been hearing that word a lot from politicians, including our Congressperson, Lois Capps. Indeed, she uses it in almost every speech she gives, at every appearance she makes. And so you’d think that when she casts a vote, such as the vote she cast last month, authorizing the president of the United States to arrest and detain indefinitely, without trial, American citizens whom he deems are supporters of terrorist groups, she’d tell us about it, explain her vote to us.

It’s not like it was an inconsequential vote. By voting to pass the 2011 Defense Authorization Act, Ms. Capps, in direct contravention of the fifth and sixth amendments to the US constitution, vested the federal executive with unreviewable power to determine what constitutes “material support” of terrorists, to decide who has provided such support and to slap them in military prisons for so long as he or she deems proper. No hearing, no lawyer, no court review, nothing. Summary indeterminate imprisonment, imposed by a single person, the president. If that sounds like vesting the Chief Executive with the powers of a dictator, it’s because that’s exactly what it is.

And so, on her website, “applauding” passage of the bill, did she tell us any of this? No. Check it out. What she shared with us—the only facet of the bill she mentioned—was a feature of the bill that provides funding of some small business efforts along the Central Coast. Some transparency.

Breaking...

This just in. Why am I not surprised?

For your reading pleasure

this article about the Republican presidential candidates.

Nader nails it

In this concise essay, Ralph Nader assails a fundamental error in "free trade" as it is practiced globally. It happens that the economist, Paul Samuelson, whose works Nader discusses, wrote the Econ 101 text that I carried to class at Stanford five decades ago, long before Samuelson saw the light, and so I was taught the mutual benefits of free trade. Fortunately, I flunked Econ 101 and so the lessons of Samuelson's text never sank in.

I don't know what it will take for Nader's long-standing critique of free-trade agreements to grab hold. He and, notably, 1992 third-party presidential candidate Ross Perot (he of the "giant sucking sound" bite) have been right about the effects of such treaties for at least thirty years, with no apparent effect on our leaders--including Obama, who recently executed a deal with South Korea.

Look around: Besides retail service-industry jobs such as salesperson and wait-person, the arms industry and the military, where are American jobs going to come from?

Despair, wretchedness, sadness

are words that are woefully weak to describe my reaction to this story about the aftermath of our invasion of Iraq.

No shopping today

Not only did I not buy anything today -- Buy Nothing Day -- I returned to Radio Shack a laptop and accessories (more than $500 worth of merchandise) that I'd bought three weeks before and received a full refund. I didn't need the new computer because my old one hadn't suffered a fatal crash after all, but was simply taking a prolonged rest and woke up last night.

I hate when that happens...

but no problem: An "inquiry" has been instituted.

Occasionally I regret

leaving the old profession. Reading this article from the Guardian is one of those times.

Obama, the Republicans' tool

This essay says it: It's all political theater, and the people aren't the directors.

A psychiatrist analyses Obama

A brief capsule, based on Obama's recent appearance on Leno.

My reaction: "And they pay you for this?"

What's happening?

Today, and several days before today, at the checkout counter at a retail store, when I moved my credit card through the store's counter-mounted implement, I understood I was "swiping" my card. I rather liked that term because it was so precisely expressive of the physical action of moving the card through the machine's slot. However, lately I've been hearing the word "slide" to depict that action, a word that, although not descriptively inapt, seems less precise and, frankly, a word that owes its recent adoption to political correctness. I understand that "swipe" sometimes means "steal" and often refers to an act of wiping up various forms of detritus, as from a countertop or floor, which lead me to ask, Why this change of the word in common parlance?

Support our troops?

Well, not all of them.

I'm still here

I appreciate that it's been quite a while since I last posted on this blog (perhaps the longest gap in my posting since I started this site on August 18, 2003, with a co-blogger, Kyle, who a few months later left this blog to me and maintains his own blogs, Metaphor and Squelch -- see my list of blogs), but the interruption isn't because I've had nothing to say, just that I have nothing to type. I mutter to myself, I mutter to the few others who'll hear me -- and some who won't -- muttering, muttering. I know after eight-plus years of blogging that my posts don't affect anything, and muttering takes less time and is easier. Perhaps if Jobs' successors invent a hand-held device that allows one to create a post on one's blog by muttering into it, I'll be back at it with my earlier frequency. (On the first day of All That Arises, Kyle and I posted eight (8) separate items on various subjects! Oh how young and innocent we were back then.)

Anyhoo, I'm not bowing out, just explaining my recent cyber-silence. Later, gator.

An observation about art

I suppose I've always known this: Very seldom is a work of art, especially in literature and writing, truly novel. As proof, consider the famous comedic line from the movie, "Young Frankenstein" by Mel Brooks: "Walk this way," spoken by the hunchback Igor to Frankenstein, after which Igor limps away followed by Frankenstein attempting to imitate the limp. Funny, eh? And unique? No, not at all.

The same sequence appeared four decades earlier in the movie "After the Thin Man," where Nick Charles (William Powell) is told by an aged butler to follow him ("walk this way") and thereupon shuffles into the drawing room, which Nick dutifully imitates. It's a scene funnier than Mel Brooks' copy, much more in tune with the story.

Why do I bring up this obscure fact? I have no idea, except that I felt like it in the moment, and I don't Tweet.

There is a God

or at least a god: The Detroit Tigers beat the New York Yankees in the American League playoffs to advance to the finals, sending the Yankees home, no longer in contention for a World Series title.

Another bike stolen

I returned to my condo this evening to see that my bike had been stolen from my carport sometime during the day. It was hidden from the adjacent street but I hadn't locked it because when I ride it locally (as I do often) it feels paranoid to lock it each time I return home. It wasn't a two-thousand dollar bike, but it was a good ride and I like the darned thing. And now it's gone. It's the second time I've lost a bike to theft. My previous bike was stolen off the back of my truck when I stopped at 7-11, momentarily, in Ukiah, California, on my way back to SB from a trip up north. I've also lost two laptops to theft from my car. That's four thefts, none inconsequential, in the last ten years.

You'd think I'd become more circumspect about securing my possessions on these accounts. But no. So far I've taken the position that we are good people, we humans, and don't do evil. But, damn it, I'm becoming jaundiced and, frankly, I'm growing tired of replacing these things. We're talking many hundreds of dollars over these years, not to speak of the pains in the ass(es).

So, I'm on Craigslist now, looking for a used bike to buy and, I must admit, there are many. Another reason I'm shopping: I might find my own bike for sale. If so, do you think the seller might give me a break on the price?

Reconstruction in Iraq, American style

If I hadn't been crying so hard while reading this article about our efforts to rebuild Iraq, I'd have been laughing.

Worst president ever

Herewith is a letter to the editor of the SB NewsPress that I sent today. I'll update this post if/when it's published.

Update: The letter was published on September 24, 2011.

Several liberal bloggers and essayists predict that an “Arab spring” will soon come to America: that after three years of Democrats’ (read Obama’s) failures (1) to rein in the excesses of wealthy traders and profiteering corporations; (2) to support the needs of the poor and middle class for jobs and decent incomes; and (3) to end Bush’s wars and egregious violations of our privacy, a mass of disaffected Obama voters (acronym: a D.O.V. movement) will take to the streets to force their representatives to fundamentally change America’s international and domestic policies.

To which predictions I reply: LOL. Americans are too chained to cable TV and Internet connections; too stressed by falling values of their homes and retirement accounts; too fixated on consumption and maintaining incomes to support that consumption. No, the time for an American “Arab spring” has passed; its people are too cowed, too lost in the maze of distractions created by those in power: power over our finance, our media, our governance.

The most Americans can hope for is that our inevitable decline ends in a soft landing. And the most Obama can hope for after his single term as president is that, having presided over the demolition of the hopes and aspirations of his constituents—traditional progressives and, most appallingly, minorities and the youth—by his repudiation of his campaign promises, he ends up being second on the “worst president ever” list, behind only Harrison, who died after thirty days in office.

Handwriting on the wall

As long ago as during the months before the general election, Obama revealed himself to be the "political hack" that the McCain campaign termed him. So, why are we progressives surprised at the nature of his governance, to wit, doing anything and everything necessary to be re-elected.

My favorite line from this essay

about Obama's "jobs" speech is near the end: "Republicans have never had such an effective lackey."

This morning's Yahoo! News front page is covered with stories about "jobs": Obama's upcoming speech, the Republican candidates' debate, the impact of job loss on all segments of our economy, etc. But the theme of all stories is that Obama must come up with a plan in his speech that solves the problem.

What a crock! First of all, a speech isn't going to solve anything. Laws and policies and human conduct are. Second, where's Congress in this? They pass the laws and deal with domestic economic issues, not the President. He's paramount in foreign affairs (somewhat) but domestic issues are to be dealt with by the legislative branch of government. Third, it's more than a year until the election, but the stories all deal with the political issues--who's leading in the polls; what Obama "must say to turn the tables on the Republicans"; who's at fault for the persistent economic doldrums, etc.

I'm tired of all this, so much so that I'm not going to watch the President's speech tonight, just as I didn't watch the Republican candidates' debate last night. Fuck 'em all.

Everything you need to know about our militarist empire

is found in this excellent interview, that summarizes five important books on the subject.

The digitalized novel

An interesting, incisive essay about the value of the hardcopy version of long fiction. The significance of the codex form of presentation vs. the serial presentation of the electronic tablet. To this analysis, there's this: If you drop a book on the floor, you can pick it up, leaf to the place you left off and keep reading, no doubt; with a Kindle-like device, maybe not.

Getting the bumper-sticker slogans ready

After Obama's latest outrage--scrapping EPA's proposed smog regulations--I'm more certain than ever the man doesn't deserve re-election. I've proposed in previous posts the creation of a DOV movement, realizing, however, that he'll doubtless be the Democratic nominee. But at least I can have some fun with this campaign, proposing slogans for the bumpers of Progressives' vehicles. How about these?
(1) Don't impeach Obama, ignore him.
(2) Obama--2012! ...Whatever.
I came up with a third slogan yesterday, but can't recall it right now. I'll supplement this post when I come up with it.

Supplements:

(1) Don't blame Progressives--It's not our B.O.
(2) With friends like Obama ___ ___ ___?

Your slogans?

Across the pond

their foreign intelligence leaders seem to be both wiser and, if it needs to be said, of a different gender from ours.

An interesting idea that would deal with two huge American problems

dealing with the government financial deficit and obesity at the same time.

My favorite television show

hands down is Big Cat Diary.

An idea whose time has come

Some months ago (I posted on this blog about it, but because I'm too lazy to tag my blog entries, you'll have to trust me on this) I had the idea of starting a new political party, or at least a new movement, entitled the DOV party, for "disaffected Obama voters." Actually, because the "D" could stand for everything from "disappointed" to "distressed" to "disgruntled" and so on, I reasoned that it was an appropriate acronym for a large category of voters, a big enough tent to attract some attention, even, perhaps, to wield some clout.

Well, I didn't act on the idea (the laziness thing operative again) but now I just might. I mean, there have been plenty of articles -- the most recent one being here -- that discuss how Obama's failures and his rightward shifts have caused his base to question both his political bent and his competence. Trouble is, "disaffected" and such-like terms don't capture all facets of the effect of Obama's conduct as president. It leaves out the recurring theme of essays on the subject, namely, that former Obama supporters will, however reluctantly, vote for the man because they have "nowhere else to go."

And so, what about this: DOV--meaning, in addition to all else, "Disenfranchised Obama Voters"?

A must read

for anyone who wants to understand Gorbachev, his rise, his fall and his legacy. To me, a monumental and positive force in the last half of the twentieth century, along with Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela.

Matt Damon for President

In case you're keeping track, you heard it here (scroll down a few posts) before you heard it here.

An amendment--an addition--to my previous post

urging Matt Damon for President ("You heard it here first"), adding Warren Buffet as his running mate.

A movie recommendation

From director Carol Reed ("The Third Man"), a relatively obscure film, "Odd Man Out," available streaming from Netflix. Fabulous black and white cinematography, street scenes of Belfast in the forties. Throughout the movie, I kept wondering, How'd they do that?

Priceless

Literally so, because George Carlin is dead. Must see video.

You heard it here first

or maybe second, because I thought of it a week or so ago, but didn't blog about it, then I heard it--a quick suggestion-- on the Rim of Fire program yesterday: Matt Damon for President.

Ya gotta love the Web

I mean, where else would you find a fabulous site like this? Sure, in the past you could stumble across a book in the library that contained such information, but wouldn't you just leaf through it then put it back on the shelf? Now you can bookmark it and have access to it instantaneously, whenever the mood strikes or the need arises. Amazing. You'd think we'd all be getting smarter with such a tool, but you'd be wrong.

A fine blog

I don't usually do referrals of blogs, but here's one that strikes my fancy, and it's not just because she apparently likes my novel.

A thoughtful question, and my reply

A good friend of mine--Kyle, who hosts two blogs, Metaphor and Squelch (links below)--emailed me a question after summing up his frustration at the current state of our nation's politics and policies: What would the French and Italians do?

http://kylekimberlin.blogspot.com/

http://squelch.wordpress.com/

Here's what I wrote him back.

Kyle, I'm not certain what the French or Italians would do, but they'd surely do something. I think what's happened in the US over the last thirty years is that we've been overtaken by a perfect storm of developments that has destroyed citizen action.

1. We've become cynical about politics, because no matter what we do (having done lots in the sixties and seventies) nothing changes. Wars keep on being waged; government corruption and waste continue; inequalities, drug wars, poverty persist. Even when it appears something has changed--as when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Berlin Wall came down--our "leaders" found new enemies to justify and enhance their role in our culture.

2. We've become overwhelmed by distraction. Religion isn't the only opiate of the masses (although it's a strong one). Now there's television, the Internet and its attendant gadgetry, consumption of material goods as well as food, drink and drugs, and a most powerful one: financial indenture. We're so engaged in digging ourselves out of the pile of debt that we incurred over the last decades that we don't have the energy or interest in events not related to that most compelling concern.

3. The Internet isn't just a distraction; it also has the effect of channeling any protest into meaningless displays to assuage our guilt at not doing anything effective. We write and connect with each other (as with this email) but do so while sitting at a desk, not swarming the streets. This is Chris Hedges' point in his many essays and which has led him from his Ivory Tower to the White House fence where he and others were arrested for failing to disperse. He's right: We must do something, anything. But we must do it.

The three of us Saturday soldiers have quit our weekly "peace march" after eight years-plus because of a combination of factors, together with the growing futility of our demonstration. For years we kept on because of the support we got from passersby. Nowadays, however, it's not just the shopping along State Street that pulls strollers away from us, it's the infernal plugs in people's ears and those damnable tiny boxes they're twiddling with their thumbs. Besides, we reckoned that since we began our march long ago, wars haven't ceased, they've multiplied. We thought perhaps our protest was simply provoking increased military engagement and so determined to quit marching to see if that stopped US warmaking.

So, come to think of it, I have done something after all. I've stopped marching.

Revised economic figures of US GDP "growth"

Why don't you tell me something I don't know?

I can't resist

making this observation: In the Middle East the populace riots for freedom; in Greece they riot over economic austerity; in the US we riot about a deejay's music festival.