To mask or not to mask

       On Monday evening, the Divine Mrs. M and I enjoyed a hot and sweaty time watching the hapless Yankees lose to the LA Angels.  The interesting part was we were in person at Yankee Stadium for the first time in several years.   We were also maskless during the game!

      I did not see any masked people during the game, but the Metro North train we took after the game mandated masks for all riders.   Again, few if any masked people were in evidence on the platform or the train.   We did not inquire as to whether anyone was vaccinated, but we certainly hoped that was the case.  People are becoming more and more adventurous as the pandemic wanes in the US.  I just hope the vaccines will continue to defend against the ever more numerous variants of Covid which continue to pop up across the planet.  In the meantime, I will keep a mask in my  pocket and put it on if local regulations require it.   It is a small thing, but one that can easily done, although the idea of being masked in a crowd of people during a ball game with the temperature approaching triple digits is more challenging than you may think.

Weather warning

     Seattle, Washington, expects to reach a temperature of 114 degrees Fahrenheit today.   That is more than 40 degrees above normal for this time of year.  I have never experienced this level of heat, but one woman who grew up in Florida without air conditioning and is now living in the Northwest compares it to standing in from of an open oven.  A couple of minutes in the sun is physically painful.

    Climate change is real, it's happening and so far out response has been pitifully inadequate.  Climatologists say the situation in the Northwest would under normal conditions be a once in 10 thousand years.  Remember that later this year or next summer.  The time to act is rapidly coming to an end.

Changes

       Assuming all the t's are crossed and the i's are dotted sometime this afternoon the ownership of Casa Monzeglio will pass from us to someone new.   It's been a 20 year run for the Divine Mrs. M, myself and our family.   There have been lots of happy times and a few sad occasions, but the house and property have been a constant in our lives.  Now it will be up to the new owners to write the next chapter in the continuing story of 13 Lapham Mills Rd.

Republican insanity

       From asking if a government agency can alter the earth's orbit to counteract climate change to calling Joe Biden a communist, today's Republican party is in full insanity mode and it looks like they are doubling down on the strategy going into the 2022 mid term elections.

      Once upon a time, people like Louie Gohmert, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert would have been laughed out of a primary debate and gone down to a stunning defeat in their party's primary.  Now, these nutcases have to look over their shoulders and try to up their crazy to remain ahead of the pack.   

      The difference between the aforementioned Republican representatives and more mainstream GOPers like Ted Cruz is becoming narrower.   Cruz opined the other day that S1, the For the people Act is designed to make sure Democrats never lose another election.  If by proposing nationwide rules reversing Republican legislatures' efforts to suppress voting by black and brown people the Act ushers in an era of majority rule, then I guess Cruz may have a point.  But the shamelessness of his lies concerning the bill go far beyond typical Republican gaslighting.   

     Republicans in the age of tRump have figured out that telling the truth about their only salient policy, tax cuts for the rich, will not ensure their election.   Instead, a steady diet of lies about policies which actually help the poor and middle classes seems to be the ticket to electoral supremacy.  Democrats seem to believe telling the truth is the way to win.  I guess we'll find out in November of 2022.

In the long run...

       John Maynard Keynes, the famous economist wrote the famous quote, "In the long run we will all be dead", to convince governments to stimulate their economies in the short run in order to improve the lives of their citizens.   What was true in the 1930s about the economy is now true in the 2020s regarding voting rights.   

      50 Republicans voted against engaging in debate over the Democrat sponsored For the People Act.  The bill ambitiously protects voters from the kind of suppression being enacted in state legislatures around the country in the name of election security.  Most of the initiatives are  relatively innocuous, like the requirement for a voter ID.  Some liberals maintain even this requirement is too onerous, but up to 80% of Americans support it.  Properly used, voter ID could drive turnout among potential voters.  

     The dark side of Republican voter suppression legislation is the enabling of partisan supervision of elections and the willingness of state legislatures to overturn legitimate elections based on intimations of fraud.   This is the death of democracy.

     Thanks to Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema and a few fellow travelling Democrats in the Senate whose devotion to the filibuster overrides their allegiance to democracy, there is little to be done in the short run except pressuring them to change the Senate's rules and pass an amended version of  S1 and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act as soon as possible.   Otherwise we will just be another illustration of the timelessness of Keyne's famous quote.

An antidote

       Amid the headlines of doom concerning voting rights, the weather extremes heralding climate catastrophe and the posthumous follies of the tRump administration, I needed a break.  Over the weekend and last night I got that break in the persons of 2 of my grandchildren.  

    On Saturday the Divine Mrs. M and I journeyed to Plattsburgh to watch Erica play lacrosse with other 8-13 year olds.   The earnest joy of the kids as they scampered from one side of the pitch to the other was uplifting and sometimes laugh inducing.   There were some talented girls out there who will become stars in the booming lacrosse scene in the North Country.   EJ as Erica is sometimes called seems to like the sport and will continue to play.  Good on you EJ!

     On a slightly less serious note, we attended a tee ball game where the participants included grandson Ben and 15 other 5-6 year olds.  Hilarity and good sportsmanship ensued.   Most of the boys and girls involved had a rudimentary idea of what they were supposed to do, but often the proceedings looked like a rugby scrum as half the team descended on a batted ball and decided by committee who was to throw the ball and where.   Each "inning" ended with a bases clearing romp where everyone scored, even if they forgot to "touch em all".   A mashup of John Fogerty's "Centerfield" and Peter Paul and Mary's ''Right Field" should have been playing!   All in all, a delightful way to spend an early summer evening.

The fatherhood conundrum

       Our family celebrated the Summer Solstice and Father's Day  on Sunday.   Having taken part in many such celebrations over the years, I can say it was a fairly representative example of its kind.   A family dinner, kids running all over the house and some sentimental but welcome greeting cards hailing me as a sterling representative of fatherhood.   Everyone packed up early to get a head start on Monday.

      I think it is remarkable my daughters consider me a father to be emulated.  Through the early years of their childhoods I was working 6 days per week and trying to keep up with the care and maintenance of a fairly large house and garden after work and on weekends.  Also, my generation of fathers were perhaps the last to foist most of the parenting duties on the wonderful woman i married.   The Divine Mrs. M kept track of and planned for birthday parties and school activities, was always the go to parent for confidences and was the final authority for transgressions of the family rules.   That she also worked during those years is a testament to her abilities.

     It was left to me to be an example of the person who gets up every day and does what he or she hopes is the right thing.  Rarely if ever missing a day's work.   Helping with dinner and insisting everyone sit down together at least once a day and reading to them before bedtime.  We plowed through the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy in 5 page per night bites!   Perhaps the very fact of acknowledging  their importance in my life was in itself an example they measured others by.   

    Whatever gave them their inflated value of my importance in their lives, I am grateful and will continue  try to be worthy of the love and attention my girls continue to show me on a daily basis.  Fatherhood is a balancing act I have still not mastered, but will keep trying for the rest of my life.  Happy Father's Day to all who feel the same way.

Ideological whiplash

       Now that Moscow Mitch McConnell has made it clear he will marshal his Senate minority to filibuster Joe Biden's legislative agenda, Democrats will have to hunt with the dogs they have, including, but not limited to Joe Manchin.

       Early on, it was fashionable for pundits to zero in on Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema as the only roadblocks to Democratic dominance of this Congress.   Manchin seemed to enjoy the attention and Sinema seemed only too willing to aid and abet his performance.  Their defense of the filibuster fell in with McConnell's plan to stymie any remotely progressive legislation.

     The thinking of many of the talking heads has evolved over the past couple of weeks and now the groupthink is there is a rump "moderate" caucus of Dems in the Senate who are quietly cheering Manchin's antics in the hope nothing of note passes this session.   Many of these Senators are once liberal icons such as Diane Feinstein who have devolved in their time serving in "the world's greatest deliberative body", into do nothing hacks who represent safe seats.   They campaign as liberals, but govern as the neocons they have become.

      Chuck Shumer needs to either speak to these members confidentially but forcefully or else call them out by name.  S 1 and the John Lewis Voting act need to pass to save our democracy and the administration's agenda must go ahead in order to convince voter's we have a system worth saving.

Fiddling while the world burns

       My local rag and the NYT both featured stories about the effects of  climate change on local economies and what can be done to mitigate the damage.   The paper of record was far more comprehensive in its coverage of the drought currently gripping the west coupled with triple digit heat in Phoenix and other areas in the southwest.  The Press Republican was merely covering how the area's premier summer attraction, Ausable Chasm is coping with drought conditions.

       For those of you who haven't heard of Ausable Chasm, it is a sort of mini Grand Canyon carved out of native rock by the Ausable river.   It has been a tourist attraction since the 1870s and currently employs up to 60 people during the summer.  Hiking, rock climbing, rafting and tubing are some of the activities offered.

     The current manager of the attraction is an area native and has rarely seen the flow of the river as sluggish as it is right now.   Neither he, nor the reporter mentioned climate change, but the elephant was still in the room.

    Meanwhile, the American west must grapple with soaring temps, drought and a power grid which is buckling under our relentless desire for air conditioning.  Local authorities in Phoenix warned people of the danger of third degree burns just from touching asphalt roads.   

     One climate expert says this is about as good as it gets if we don't begin reversing the effects of dumping millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.  

     From my little local tourist attraction to a pretty large chunk of the American West, the challenge has been thrown down.  We fail to meet it at our own and future generation's peril.

Persecute or Prosecute

      It's only a change in a vowel and a consonant to go from unjustly harassing someone to justifiably holding them to account for wrongdoing.  The die hard defenders of the former guy, but mostly the subject himself, maintain the 45th president is being persecuted by a liberal mob.  tRump calls it a witch hunt and seemingly will whip his followers to the point of actual violence in the event of his arrest and prosecution on any number of crimes for which he is presently being investigated for.

     From libel to sexual assault to election tampering, the list is long and comprehensive.  Yesterday, it was revealed Cheetolini's staff sent the DOJ a memo in December of 2020 asking the department to file a brief with the Supreme Court.   The brief, seemingly written in haste, would have asked the court to set aside the electoral votes of swing states tRump lost.  The court is then asked to call for new elections in the six states, presumably leading to the re-election of the loser.   This seems like the very definition of election tampering, going beyond even his call to the Secretary of State of Georgia in which tRump demands Brad Raffensberger "find" 11,780 votes in order to overturn the election in that state.

    Whether it is the Manhattan DA, the NYS AG,  the Fulton County Prosecutor or the US DOJ,  some government entity will eventually bring charges against a senile, but still dangerous old man who will gladly throw our democracy under the bus if doing so will let him avoid the consequences of his manifold crimes.  It is up to us to demand justice.

Looking both ways

       We teach our children to look both ways when crossing the street.  This seems an anodyne policy.  Yet, our political leaders, at least on the Democratic side, consistently look only one way before crossing the proverbial street.   

     The Biden administration has just uncovered abuse of power by the tRumpies and is now faced with a dilemma.   Should the DOJ follow the evidence even if it means prosecuting high officials of a previous administration or should they fall back on the "we are looking forward" excuse made popular by the Obama administration?

     Looking backward and holding the appropriate individuals accountable for their actions would seem to be a no-brainer.   Failure to look both ways in this case could turn our democracy into roadkill.

The poverty problem

       Ezra Klein's column in the NYT this morning is a searing indictment of poverty in the US today and our inability to grapple with the moral implications of deliberate policy making which keeps 20% or more of the population immiserated.

      Klein points out the huge uproar following business owners complaining they cannot fill low paying, miserable jobs at starvation wages because many who might ordinarily take such jobs out of desperation are not doing so because the social safety net measures passed by the Biden administration have allowed the impoverished to demand higher wages and better working conditions as conditions to taking the jobs being offered.   Americans it seems love cheap Uber rides and inexpensive restaurant meals so much their is a public outcry against those who would deny them.   If there is anything which would unite the middle class and the super rich it is the demand for cheap goods and services.

     Most of us don't think about the people who flip burgers or change sheets at the local motels, unless no one is willing to do those jobs for starvation wages.  Perhaps it is time to spare a moment to wonder how much we are responsible for the plight of those who labor so we might be spared the increase in the price of goods and services a more equitable policy might require.

Now we know

        I posed the question; whose DOJ is it anyway the other day.   Yesterday came the answer.  It was and seemingly still is the tRump family law firm in the wake of revelations that under Jeff Sessions and later Bill Barr, the DOJ subpoenaed Apple for phone records of Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee.    Apple was put under a gag order that only recently expired.  Apple then informed Adam Schiff he was one of the targets of the investigation into leaks to the press of the ongoing probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 elections.

      It is obvious tRump doesn't give a rat's ass for the continuation of democracy in America if the price is investigations of his ties to Putin, his business and his family.   He managed to turn the entire DOJ into a subsidiary of the Trump Organization and subverted the very meaning of justice in 21st century America.

     As more and more stories like this come out, it's a good bet a few of his supporters will peel away in horror at these revelations, but the core Trumpkins will find a way to turn their hero's anti democratic impulses into something to cheer about.   Meanwhile, the gravediggers of democracy will lean on their shovels for a few minutes before going back to work.

Democracy vs. hurt fee-fees

       Both print and media journalists have spent the past few days obsessing over Joe Manchin and to a lesser extent Kyrstin Sinema's feelings and how to convince them to support Democratic programs without hurting their feelings.

       The emerging narrative is Dems not only can't get anything done, but are unwilling to force apostates in the party to own up to their obstructionism.   This plays into the Republican plan to obstruct the administration's  policies and blame it on Democrats.   Delay in confronting these twin problems is likely to de-energize the party's faithful.  Lack of enthusiasm will be deadly to Dem prospects in next year's elections.  

       There are real problems with trying to enact a progressive political program when you have no margin for error and several of your senators are actively or passively against it.   Of course, the solution is to elect more progressive Democrats, but without an excited base, the chance of that happening is about as likely as DC becoming a state next year.  

Weather woes

       I'm pretty happy not to be gardening on a large scale this season.   The weather has been hot, cold, then hot again, but more than anything it has been dry.    Over the years I have hoped for dry weather early in the season, followed by moderate rains on a weekly basis.   Believe it or not, on several occasions during the last 20 years this scenario has actually happened.  However, more often than not, a wet spring has been followed by a hot, dry summer.  Fortunately, the heavy clay loam soils i have worked with hold the spring deluges to quench summer crops' thirst.  This year there is no spring surplus and without supplemental irrigation, the harbingers of summer will suffer.  Even  that quintessential spring crop, spinach, is bolting due to hot, dry conditions.   Farming and gardening in the era of climate change is not for the faint of heart.

Whose DOJ is it, anyway

        When Joe Biden appointed Merrick Garland as Attorney General, many liberals, myself among them, felt a little schadenfreude.  Garland's appointment by Barack Obama to the Supreme Court was stolen by Mitch McConnell, so, the feeling went that at a minimum, Garland would enforce the law without fear or favor.

     Now, in a series of rulings which must have run through Garland, the DOJ is bending backwards to accommodate the former guy's administration.  The latest blow to my sense of justice is the department's continuation in the defense of tRump in the defamation lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carrol in which she claims the 45th president slandered her in a press conference.   The government regularly defends officials who are sued over comments or actions taken in the normal course of their duties.  However, in tRump's case, the action for which he slandered Carrol, a sexual assault, happened many years before his election.  There seems no basis for the government to defend him in this manner.   So much for blind and equal justice.

A Brave Old World

     It is hard to read Democratic leaning blogs or other content these days.   The drumbeat of electoral doom in 2022 and the very real possibility Republican legislatures will nullify the popular vote in their states if it contradicts their preferred narrative is hard to take.

      I prefer to think whimsically.   Republicans will step back from the brink of autocracy and continue to do the right thing if the election for president in 2024 does not go their way.  tRump and his acolytes will continue to be too odious for the vast majority of Americans to stomach.   The near universal revulsion toward the policies advocated by the GOP will ensure a landslide victory for Dems who espouse the social investment policies of the Biden administration.

     In other news, a certain bridge in Brooklyn is being touted as a wise investment in the future!

Partly Sunny with a chance of autocracy

      Watching Joe Manchin perform for an audience of who knows, I had a sinking feeling regarding the continuation of American democracy.   Sometime after the elections in 2022, a Republican state legislature somewhere will nullify a Democratic win and install a Republican.  The talking heads and many Democrats will decry this transparently authoritarian coup  and it will be ratified by the newly installed Republican House and its craven Speaker, Kevin McCarthy.  This will be the dress rehearsal for 2024 and the end of democracy.  And yet, most of us will continue to get up and go to work each morning.  Unfortunately it will no longer be under the aegis of the longest running democracy on the planet.  

A Democratic Suicide pact

       If you listen to the talking heads gathered around the table at the Morning Joe bloviation, you usually come away with the uneasy feeling that most of America has no use for the programs the donkey party espouses.   This, despite the fact poll after poll shows most Americans want a $15/hr. minimum wage, they want the government to tax the wealthy and corporations to pay for a slew of social safety net programs and their only quibble is why can't the Dems get it done more quickly.

     Scarborough and many pundits cling to the belief the average American is slightly to the right of Attila the Hun.   This may be the case in the culture wars so dear to the hearts of Republican strategists.  However, on economic issues, most of us would make Karl Marx proud.   This dichotomy has driven our politics since FDR's election and it is why Republicans are desperate to restrict the vote to those reliable culture warriors who willingly vote against their economic interests in favor of owning the libs.  

     Should the Democratic party align itself with the ex Republicans who frequent Morning Joe and other quasi right wing shows,  it will alienate the voters it needs to remain in power.  Warmed over conservative ideology excites no one and will lead to a crushing defeat in the 2022 elections.   A full throated liberal economic agenda may attract enough independents and moderate Republicans to allow for Dems to deliver the change most of us want.

The new activists

       It looks like it will cost more to drive to that July 4th fireworks display.  The burgers you consume before the after dark celebration will also cost more, if you can find them.   That's the takeaway after the latest round of cyber hacking disrupted the operations of a Brazilian meat packing giant which has plants on nearly every continent.  Added to the Colonial pipeline hack this latest ransomware threat is messing with some of the average American's most guilty pleasures.

     I'm sure JBS will cough up however many millions of dollars the hackers are demanding because the collapse of the supply system which converts cows into hamburgers would cost producers and consumers much more than any conceivable ransom.  As the Covid crisis illustrated, the meat supply is delicately balanced with demand and if one or the other is out of whack, the consequences for everyone concerned can be catastrophic.

     We have been told the planet cannot support 8 billion meat eating, gasoline powered car driving human beings.  Most of us have ignored these warnings and either keep doing or aspire to doing just that.  Perhaps these ransomware hackers can be considered the new climate activists.   They merely need to advertise themselves as such and many of us will applaud this new "Robin Hood" approach to getting  us to do what needs to be done.

History by any other name

       I went to a pretty good high school in the America of the 1960s.  We had a small number of blacks in our school and to be honest there was some racial tension between them and the overwhelming white majority.   The Civil Rights bills of the 60s had desegregated lunch counters across the country, but as a child of white privilege I freely admit ignorance of racial turbulence aside from an occasional episode of intimidation.

     We all learned our glorious heritage during four years of history.   From the settlement of the Americas to the Revolution against the British, to the various wars fought in the name of freedom, our history was depicted as a series of triumphs over anti democratic forces.   As I recall, we paid comparatively little attention to the Civil War and none at all to emancipation and the history of the former slaves.

      My fellow students and to be honest, probably our teachers never heard of the Tulsa Massacre of up to 300 black Americans by their white neighbors on June 1, 1921.  My first introduction to this shameful history was the Sci-fi series, Watchmen.   Surprisingly, it didn't stun me as much as I later imagined it should have.   In the wake of the brutal response to the demand for Civil Rights in the 60s, the wanton murder of fellow citizens because of their skin color in the 1920s didn't seem so shocking.

     The point I am trying to make is there is much to celebrate in American history, but we must also acknowledge the darker moments.  Genocide practiced against native Americans, slavery and its shameful aftermath and the spread of the American Empire in the wake of two world wars  must be taught to future generations.  The soul of America demands it.