Booking to the election

        It feels as if a new book full of revelations of bad behavior by the president*drops nearly every week.  Virtually anyone who is related to him or worked for him but had a falling out is willing to write a tell all.   From Omarosa to Mary Trump and now Michael Cohen we have been treated to a barrage of charges of grifting, bigotry, malignant narcissism and outright sexual assault.   The result seems to be a collective yawn.   His supporters are seemingly immune from disgust at the charges and the rest of us buy the books and shake our heads at the revelations.

      As we get closer to the election, both sides fear and expect tampering with the results.   Democrats fear voter suppression and tampering with the Post Office to slow ballots in the mail.  Republicans just fear a fair count, although as usual they project their own behavior and shout about vote fraud.    Meanwhile, the Russians hover in the background looking for a way to influence the election in tRump's favor.

      Some say this will be the highest turnout election ever and say it is all about persuasion.  Others say it is all about turning out the base.  Whichever is true, the best strategy for dems is to make the election a referendum on tRump and his character.   

Gardening

        Despite a few cool nights, the gardening season is still in full swing.  I celebrated Labor Day by setting out lettuce and brassica transplants and fertilizing previous plantings.   Despite some havoc created by the omnipresent Swede Midge, my later plantings of broccoli and cauliflower are looking good.  October should be a great month for these tasty fall vegetables.   The winter squash vines are starting to falter and the butternuts and delicata are maturing.   Tomatoes continue to ripen and the last plantings of cilantro and basil look good.   The final row of beans may or may not produce before frost, but I'm rooting for at least one picking.   All in all, it was a good week in the garden.

Labor Day

       Over the years I have been writing this blog, Labor Day has always presented a problem for me.   I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment behind the holiday, but have always had problems with the way the day is used by politicians.   In the Covid 19 emergency there will probably be few parades and hopefully gatherings will be kept to a minimum.   

       The future of work should be in our thoughts today.  While many jobs will still be performed by human beings 25 years from now, many, especially those in the "knowledge economy" will be taken over by AI or artificial intelligence.   From reading and interpreting X-Rays and MRIs in medicine to writing the latest news for media outlets to driving big rigs cross country, automation is coming for your job.  Those of us lucky enough to be able to work from home during the pandemic should take note.  My own job, vegetable sales will someday soon be easily replaced by a computer which will more easily match supply with demand.   The same will happen to many other occupations in the near future.

      What will we do with the millions of people whose reason for getting up each morning is to do an honest day's work for pay?   Just something to think about this Labor Day.

A last full measure

         "Suckers" and "losers" is how the president* described those who gave the last full measure of devotion to their country.   Despite a roar of denial from the White House, Jeffrey Goldberg's story in The Atlantic, quoting tRump as he declined to visit a gravesite in France in 2018 was confirmed by the AP and there is little doubt he said what he is reported to have said.

        I checked the NYT and WaPo this morning and both carried stories on page one.  However, if Obama had been found to have disrespected our fallen as well as disabled veterans, there would have been half a dozen stories and most GOP members of Congress would have been calling for impeachment.  I'm sure they will be asked for their reactions today, but of course will offer some BS excuse to dodge the question.

      Had any previous president exhibited such a complete lack of empathy for the fallen, his campaign would have ended as of last night.   I suppose even a recording of tRump disparaging all veterans in the same manner he once did to John McCain wouldn't move his core supporters.  However, I think that among the millions of presently serving soldiers, sailors and marines and veterans and their families, Goldberg's story and its confirmation may have real world consequences.    

Requiem for the Franchise

       The original Tom Terrific is gone.   Tom Seaver, the face of the "Miracle Mets" of 1969 and one of the greatest pitchers of all time died yesterday at his home in California.  He was suffering from dementia, but the cause of death was listed a Covid 19.  He was 75 years old.

       Being a Yankee fan to the bone, I didn't follow Seaver's career, but couldn't help but admire his mastery of the pitcher's craft.  The local L.I. tabloid, Newsday, probably featured Seaver and the Mets far more often than the woeful Yankee squads of the late 60s and early 70s.  You could count on Tom Terrific to notch 20 victories and 200 strikeouts virtually every season or so it seemed.   In a stunning series of stupid decisions, the Mets allowed "The Franchise" to get away, trading him to the Cincinnati Reds for a package of no names in 1977 and then after getting him back in the early 80s failed to protect him in draft for compensatory damage and the White Sox claimed him.   He finished his career in Boston, ironically part of the team which lost to the Mets in 1986.   

      Seaver was known as a standup guy who mentored younger pitchers and was a savvy broadcaster who was brought in to call numerous World Series games.   RIP Mr. Seaver.  You will be missed.

Alternate Reality

        I live in a universe where Rachel Maddow can spend an entire show reading excerpts from a tell all book by an ex-friend of Melania Trump.   In an alternate reality,  someone tuning in to Tucker Carlson's White Power hour on Faux News is treated to non-stop praise of a 17 year old who allegedly killed 2 protestors in Kenosha, Wisconsin and wounded another.   How does one reconcile these drastically skewed visions of what constitutes reality?

      I guess you could wait for Trevor Noah to make sense of it on his comedy channel Daily Show.  Or wait even longer for This Week with John Oliver's profane take on both Maddow and Carlson.  It's a little scary that Comedy Central and HBO offer a more reality based take on the news than the supposed mainstream media.

      Meanwhile, in the WaPo, Dana Milbank declared the president's* plane took off for Kenosha yesterday, but somehow landed on "Planet Zog".   tRump's tour of the damage caused by looters and vandals in the aftermath of the Jacob Blake shooting and his subsequent roundtable praising the paramilitary policing were yet more jarring side trips to a different reality than the one most of us inhabit.  I think we need to agree on a shared experience or by November 4 our nation may experience a psychotic break.

Who could have predicted

          Among the avalanche of books about the tRump White House, there are two more additions today.  While many of the early releases were written at a second or third hand remove from the action, Melania and Me and Donald Trump v United States were written in the first and second person, respectively.

        Stephanie Wolkoff, who ran much of tRump's inauguration festivities is writing to clear her name and in the process take down the public perception that the First Lady is an unwilling participant in the tRump family's grift.   I'm sure there are juicy, gossipy bits throughout the book, but i won't be reading it.

      Michael Schmidt's book about Cheetolini's capture of the non partisan areas of American government, especially justice and intelligence is probably worth a read, although in this case, Schmidt's main sources are in it for self justification.   Don McGahn and John Kelly come off as tRumpian lickspittles who wish to be perceived as trying to rein in the Dear Leader's worst impulses.   Instead, they, along with Rod Rosenstein enable the corruption of the DoJ and FBI and pave the way for even more egregious hacks like William Barr to further democracy's downfall in service to a malignant narcissist.   Where were these paragons when the actual dirty work was being done, including the curtailment of the FBI's investigation into tRump's ties with Russia.   

     The very fact all these books are being written in the context of the 2020 election is a clarion call to bring this administration down before it brings down America.