Every year

Every year I think–

This could be my breakthrough year.

This one is the one.

I’ll get to work;

Find discipline

To think, to write,

To finish something good.

Take pride in what I’ve done.

I think that every year.

It’s kind of a New Year’s poem, but I actually wrote it on Mar. 31, 2000.

Israel

In a recent essay in the New York Review of Books, Zadie Smith explained that racially homogeneous societies were no more peaceful than racially diverse societies.  She looked at Northern Ireland, “an area where people who look absolutely identical to each other, eat the same food, pray to the same God, read the same holy book, wear the same clothes, and celebrate the same holidays have yet spent four hundred years at war over a relatively minor doctrinal difference they later allowed to morph into an all-encompassing argument of land, government, and national identity.”

So we have Israel, a land where groups of people fight over the words of 800 to 2000 year-old tribal prophets, either Jewish or Muslim, who actually believed that some god spoke to them directly and laid down some rules for them to follow.  An atheist like me can only look at the dispute over the “holy city” of Jerusalem and be awestruck that groups could even concern themselves over who gets to rule it.  I mean, it’s not like we are talking about Paris, or even Los Angeles.

Let me point out something.  Since its inception, Israel has been a democratic Jewish state.  If there is no two-state solution and the fanatics keep building settlements in Palestinian territory, Israel will be either a Jewish state or a democratic state.  It cannot remain both.  Secretary of State Kerry gets this.  Prime Minister Netanyahu either doesn’t get it, or doesn’t care, or is putting his short term interests above the long term interests of his country.

Extreme Prey

I’m a big fan of “police procedurals.”  Those are crime novels in which dogged police work solves the mystery, as opposed to the kind of cerebral activity you find in Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie.

John Sandford is one of my favorite authors.  His novels feature Lucas Davenport, a Minnesota cop who works for the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, or BCA.  Davenport is intelligent with flashes of brilliant insight.

The most recent book in the series is Extreme Prey, copyrighted in 2016.  I haven’t finished it yet, but a political fanatic is plotting the assassination of a female candidate for the presidency.  Davenport is privy to a number of emails sent by the fanatic, and he gives them to Elle, a nun who is also a childhood friend and a psychologist, for her analysis.

Elle tells Davenport he should take the threat very seriously, since the woman appears consumed by hatred.  Then Elle says something that I had not thought about before.  She notes that in the 60s and 70s the country was torn apart by the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-war Movement, and the Feminist Movement, but all of those protests and all of that activity was driven by optimism.  The people creating the ruckus were all hopeful.

Elle then says to Davenport that the current anger and protest comes from a completely different place.  It is driven not by hope, but by hatred. 

Rubbermaid

The Rubbermaid company began operations in the 1920s in Wooster, Ohio, a town of 24,000.  The company employed about 1600 people in the early 90s; it was the largest employer in Wooster.  In 1995 the company lost a contract with Walmart, which it had supplied with dozens of household items.  Walmart pushes its suppliers to charge the cheapest price possible.

Rubbermaid had already opened plants in Mexico, Korea, and Poland, but its products were still too expensive for Walmart, so it cut its workforce by 9% and closed nine of its facilities.  

In 1999 Rubbermaid was bought by Newell Corporation, a company noted for cost-cutting.  Newell shifted more manufacturing to Mexico and moved the corporate staff to Atlanta.  Employment in Wooster was cut to under 1000.

On December 10, 2003, Newell announced that the Wooster plant would be shuttered in a few months  

Wooster had other factories, but some of them moved production outside the U.S. as well.  The unemployment rate for Wayne County, home of Wooster, stood at 11.1% in 2010.

The U.S. in June 1979 had 19,553,000 jobs in manufacturing.  That was the peak.  By 2011 manufacturing jobs had dropped to 11.6 million.

I don’t know this for sure, but I will bet that many former Rubbermaid workers voted for Trump and shop at Walmart.  I will also bet that the Rubbermaid factory won’t be coming back to Wooster.

Information about Rubbermaid came from Donald L. Barlett and James B Steele, The Betrayal of the American Dream.

Large mammals

Here’s a quiz.  What large North American mammal regularly kills humans in the eastern part of the U.S.?

What other large mammal could lessen those deaths?

If you answered the first one “deer,” you are correct.  If you answered the second one “cougars,” you are also correct.

Earlier this year the on-line journal Conservation Letters published an analysis of returning eastern cougars to their historic range.  The authors determined the cougars could prevent 155 human deaths, 21,400 human injuries, and save 2.3 billion in accident costs in a 30-year-period.  Perhaps I wouldn’t have run into that deer on 209 if we had some cougars in the area. 

Bring ‘em back!

(The article can be found in <onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12280/full?....>)

Why Republican legislators love voter suppression

Because it works.  

In 2014 a Federal court said that over 300,000 registered voters in Wisconsin lacked the IDs that the Republican legislature required of voters.

Trump won Wisconsin by 27,000 votes.

Christmas Cheer

We had a number of firsts in this past election.  In Washington, Pramila Jayapal, was elected, the first Indian-American woman in the House of Representatives.

In Florida, Stephanie Murphy defeated Republican incumbent John Mica to become the first Vietnamese-American woman in the House.

Kamala Harris won in California to become the first Indian/black U.S. Senator.

In Nevada, Catherine Cortez Masto was the first Latina elected to the Senate.  Incidentally, all of the above were Dems.

Four states (Arizona, Washington, Colorado, and Maine) raised their minimum wage.

Finally, medical use of marijuana was approved by voters in Arkansas, Florida, and North Dakota.  Recreational pot was approved in Massachusetts, Maine, Nevada, and what was that fourth one?  Oh yeah, California.

Marion Pritchard, 1920-2016

Marion Pritchard was riding her bicycle in Amsterdam in 1942 when she saw a group of soldiers raiding a Jewish children’s home.  They were “picking up the kids by an arm or a leg or by the hair” and throwing them into a truck for deportation.  Ms. Prichard reported that, “Two other women coming down on the street got so furious, they attacked the German soldiers, and they just picked the women up and threw them in the truck after the kids.”

“I just stood there.  I’m one of those people who sat there and watched it happen.”

Except she didn’t.  She went on to register Jewish infants as her own children and found safe homes for them.  She got Jews ration cards, secured false IDs, and found medical care through a friendly pediatrician.

By her estimate, she helped to rescue about 150 Jews.  She was also tough; at one point to save three kids she shot a Dutch collaborator to death and found a sympathetic undertaker to bury him in the same coffin as another body.

Ms. Pritchard received the Medal of Valor from the Simon Wiesenthal Center in May 2009.

On Christmas Eve, when millions of people are celebrating the birth of the Christ child, it is a good time to reflect how some children have been treated and are being treated at the present time, and how the world needs more Marion Pritchards.

Ms. Pritchard’s obituary appeared in today’s Times on page A17.

No room at this inn

Today I received a mailer from Amnesty International with a list of the top five countries that have accepted approximately 95% of the refugees from Syria.  According to Amnesty International they are:

Turkey 2,744,915

Lebanon 1,048,275

Jordan   655,217

Iraq   246,589

Egypt    120,491

So far the U.S. has accepted just over 10,000 Syrian refugees.  I assume after January any more refugees will be turned away.

Merry Christmas.

Boycott "Rogue One"

At least that is what some white supremacists are advocating.  I saw “Rogue One” last night, and it is true that the Empire seems to be run by old white guys, and the rebels, led by Jyn Erso, are truly a multi-cultural group.  In fact, the admiral of the rebel force looks rather amphibian.

My first impression, from a strictly esthetic viewpoint, was that this was the worst in the series of Star Wars movie since that one with the rather creepy Jar Jar Binks, but now that I know some Trump supporters are urging a boycott, I’m glad I saw it.

Plus, the climactic battle was shot on the Maldives, which will soon be underwater because of global warming.

U.S. life expectancy falls

Last year life expectancy in the U.S. slipped about a month.  The trend has been upward except for years when a major disease outbreak occurred.  For example, in 1993 it dipped during the AIDS epidemic.  In 1980 it dipped because of a major flu epidemic.  Last year, however, saw no major epidemic.

We weren’t doing all that well even before last year.  Quite a few countries, including Slovenia, Greece, Costa Rica, and Malta, do better than the U.S.

Maybe the upward trend will resume after Trump and Paul Ryan get rid of Obamacare.  

Do I have to explain I’m being sarcastic?  I suppose so, just in case any Trump voters are reading this.

Trump wins the presidency

The Electoral College has voted and Trump won.  I know that thousands of people tried to convince Trump electors to vote for Clinton.  Ironically, if I am reading the results correctly, more Clinton electors were “unfaithful” than were Trump electors.

Three comments:

First, the Electoral College no longer operates like Hamilton thought it would.  The electors don’t sit down and vote for the candidate they believe is best to run the country.  They vote for the candidate who won their state’s popular vote.  The Electoral College has been operating this way since 1800, and it is now part of the Constitutional order.  In political science terms, this is called “custom and usage.”  We expect that if Pennsylvania votes for Trump, his electors will vote for Trump.  I don’t particularly like that, but the problem is with the voters, not the Electoral College.

Second, the easiest reform of the Electoral College is to eliminate the actual people and assign the Electoral College votes to the candidate who wins the state.  Trump wins Pennsylvania, so he gets the 20 votes from Pennsylvania.  No need for actual people.  

Third, it is high time to scrap what is an antiquated system.  We got rid of the 3/5 clause.  We amended the Constitution to allow direct election of Senators.  We only allow the President two terms.  It is time to move to a direct election of the President.  When a candidate wins almost three million more votes than her opponent and loses the presidency, that is undemocratic and calls the legitimacy of the whole election into question.

Stupidity on stilts

Every now and then I read something that is absolutely breathtaking.  On Dec. 18 the Morning Call ran a letter by Ron Rickert of Moore Township.  I will quote an entire paragraph of that letter for your enjoyment.

And next time a sad soul tells you that Hillary Clinton won the actual vote count, tell him to look at the results map that shows how the entire U.S. voted, county by county, red and blue, and then honestly tell me she won the popular vote.

Wow.

Airport Delay

It is a truism that the worst trips make the best stories, so I have a great story.  Friday was the first sunny day we had in California, so we anticipated no problems flying out of the Sac airport.  Whoops.

The departure was delayed because of high winds in Las Vegas, our first stop.  Once we got on the plane, we sat on the runway for over an hour.  When we finally got to Las Vegas our connecting flight to Philadelphia had already departed.  They put us on a plane to Nashville, and from there to Philly, but the Nashville plane didn’t leave until Saturday morning.

That meant a night sleeping in the airport.  I know that many of you would have seized the opportunity to go into Las Vegas and catch a show or gamble, but we are rubes from the country.  The thought of trying to find our way to a hotel and get back in time for our plane’s departure was way too scary.  So we slept on the floor.  Of course our toothbrushes and everything else was in the suitcases, presumably on their way to Philadelphia.

The plane from Las Vegas to Nashville was late, but it didn’t matter, since we had a five hour layover in Nashville.  The plane leaving Nashville was two hours late anyway.  When we finally reached Philly, about 1 a.m., we still had to get the shuttle to long term parking and then drive home in the fog.  We got home at 4 a.m.

I decided not to post anything.  I hope you understand.

Re-shoring

I learned a new word today.  Re-shoring, or reshoring without the hyphen, is when American companies bring back operations from overseas.  They do this because the work is automated, and robots can work as cheaply in the U.S. as in China.  Unfortunately, while Chinese employees lose their jobs, American workers don't gain employment.  As automation grows (think driverless trucks), more and more Americans become superfluous.  This is already a problem, and it grows bigger each year.

It would be so nice to have a President for the next four years who understood such issues and did more than spout slogans and post tweets, but that ain't what we got.

Note:  Tomorrow evening I'll be flying back to Penna., arriving in Philadelphia about 11:30, so I won't be posting.  I might not even be awake.

Demonstration in Grass Valley

We passed a demonstration in downtown Grass Valley on behalf of the Standing Rock Sioux.  The number of demonstrators was comparable to our group in front of the Courthouse in Jim Thorpe, but this demonstration had an advantage.  It was in front of a Wells Fargo bank, one of the major investors in the North Dakota Access pipeline.

I gave the demonstrators the thumbs up.

Farewell Tour

I've billed my trip to California as my farewell tour.  In the past two days I've visited former students and old friends in Berkeley, El Cerrito, and Sacramento and relatives in Grass Valley and Chico.

Back in Pennsylvania people sometimes ask me, "Do you miss California?"  Well, yeah.

It is so nice to walk into a Burger King where the entire staff is speaking Spanish.  To be in a state where people know how to merge onto the freeway.  To be in a state where the hills are green in winter   before they turn golden in the spring.

The politics are corruption free, and most politicians are actually interested in solving problems, perhaps one reason why the state is so prosperous, running a budget surplus.  This is the state that for many years was represented in the U.S. Senate by two Jewish women and has for its governor Jerry Brown, the smartest governor in the U.S.

There are a few hoofties here, but not many.  Some of the Central Valley and foothill counties went for Trump, but the Bay Area and L.A. were overwhelmingly Clinton.  There are a large number of smart people in this state.

California secession

In the Spring of 2019, Californians will go to the polls in a historic vote to decide by referendum if California should exit the Union, a Calexit vote.

The Yes California Independence Campaign will qualify a citizen's initiative for the 2018 ballot that if passed would call for a special election for Californians to vote for or against the independence of the state from the rest of the U.S.

Yes, people are serious, although there are some funny aspects, like the call for Arizona and Nevada to pay for a wall.

California independence, of course, would require Congressional approval.  On the other hand, those yahoos in Mississippi and Texas might welcome the state's departure.  They are way too dumb to realize that the taxpayers of California are subsidizing them.

Incidentally, the independence movement started before the presidential election, but since then has really picked up steam.

Sixteen years after chads

Why are we unable to do simple things well?  How hard is it to run an election that is fair, honest, and open to a recount if any questions arise?  Evidently very hard, as Jill Stein is finding out.  

I'm not even talking about voter suppression or attempts to make registration or voting difficult.  I'm talking about the actual system that records the votes.  Machines that can be hacked, systems that provide no paper trail, obsolete machines-we have them all.  

Other countries are able to do this.  You might not always agree with the outcomes, but countries like Britain, Canada, or France don't have the technical problems we seem to encounter in just about every election.  Sixteen years after the Florida recount debacle, we still can't get it right. 

Rain in California

It's been raining in northern CA.  Today our daughter Rachael drove us through Bidwell Park in Chico to look at Big Chico Creek.  The water is overflowing the banks.  We weren't the only tourists who came down for a look.  It has been so long since people in this part of the state have seen real downpours that high creek levels are a cause for celebration.

The Wizard of Oz

The Hooker Oak Elementary School of Chico, California, presented a two-act musical production of "The Wizard of Oz" based on the story by Frank Baum.  The large cast (over 60 members) included Munchkins and Flying Monkeys.  The star of the show, however, was the Cowardly Lion, played by a ten-year-old 5th grader named Gavin Newkirk.  Young Newkirk stole the show with his acting and his singing.  At least one audience member felt this exposition of the Cowardly Lion was the best he had seen since Bert Lahr's performance in the original movie.

Professor Watchlist

A conservative youth group called Turning Point USA has put out a list of about 200 “dangerous professors” who “advance leftwing propaganda in the classroom.”  The list includes pictures.  

So, even though I’m not teaching any more, I feel bad that I’m not on the list.  Tonight I went on the website (You type in “liberal professor watch list”) and added my name.  I put in my telephone number as well.

I love doing stuff like that.

Tomorrow night I will be in transit until late in the evening and won’t post.  

Hamilton on the Electoral College

Trump supporters have become strong defenders the Electoral College.  Sure, Clinton won the popular election by two and a half million votes, but the Trumpians note that the Founding Fathers didn’t care about the popular vote.

If you want to know what the Founding Fathers, or at least Hamilton, thought about the Electoral College, read Federalist Paper #68.  Christopher Suprun, a Trump Elector from Texas, read #68 and decided that he had a responsibility to make sure the candidate for whom he cast his vote was qualified to be President.  He concluded that Trump was not, and he explained his decision in an op-ed essay in today’s Times.  It’s entitled “Why Electors Should Reject Trump.”

Thousands of people are sending letters to their electors urging them not to vote for Trump on the basis of Federalist Paper #68.  If a large number decided not to support Trump, I think we would have a Constitutional crisis.  On the other hand, we are about to officially elect a demagogue who doesn’t even understand the Bill of Rights, who for years propagated the fake news story that Obama was born in Kenya, and whose appointments like Michael Flynn are appalling.  We already have a Constitutional crisis.

Drain the pool

Sammy Lee, the first Asian-American man to earn Olympic gold, died at the age of 96.  Dr. Lee won his medal in platform diving 1948 and won another gold medal in 1952.  

Lee was a Korean-American who served as a medical officer in the Korean war.  In the late 1920s he was living in Highland Park, where he swam at Brookside Park in Pasadena.  He could only swim on Wednesdays, “International Day,” when Asian, black, and Latino kids were allowed in the pool.  After they had departed, the pool would be drained and refilled for the white kids.

Dr. Lee is survived by his wife, two children, and three grandchildren.

Information for this post was taken from Robert D. McFadden, “Sammy Lee, Olympic Trailblazer Who Stood Up to Prejudice, Dies at 96,” Times, (Dec. 5, 2016), p. B6.

Victory!

The Army Corps has announced it will begin a new Environmental Impact Study for alternative routes for the North Dakota Access pipeline.

I'm celebrating, but somewhat cautiously.  President-elect Trump supports the pipeline, and while the Corps has a major say, Trump could bring pressure to bear.  Personally, I don't think he will want to stir up this hornet's nest again.

The other issue is with the people who oppose any pipeline.  They see this as a sellout, since an alternative route is still a route.  There are people who don't understand the saying "Half a loaf is better than none."  These are the same people who voted for Jill Stein and gave us a president who does not even recognize global warming.

The Recount

Trump and his supporters have gone to court to block the vote recounts in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Why?  Is there something to be afraid of?

The population center of Pennsylvania

Imagine Pennsylvania as a flat map, and that an identical weight has been placed at the residence of every person in Pennsylvania.  According to the latest newsletter of the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, that map would balance in Watts Township in Perry County.  (There aren’t any big cities in Perry County, but it’s to the north of Carlisle.)

From 1900 to 1950 the center was either in Juniata County, to the west of Perry or right on the border with Perry.  Then  the center began to move east.  From 1960 to 2010 the center shifted east about 13 miles.  It’s now close to the Susquehanna River, and by 2020 may cross it.

What’s happening is that the population in Western Pennsylvania is decreasing; the population in the Lehigh Valley and suburban Philadelphia is increasing.  

I’d like to tell you the political implications of this, but I’d be guessing.  

Rural PA for Hillary Clinton

Only it wasn’t.  

In September we drove up to the Democratic Headquarters in Bloomsburg to pick up 100 “Rural PA for Hillary Clinton” yard signs.  The signs were purchased by the rural caucus of the state Democratic Party; Carbon County is part of that caucus.  While residents of Lehighton or Jim Thorpe might not feel rural, Carbon County as a whole is considered “rural.”

All across the country rural areas were a disaster for Clinton.  In 2008 Carbon County voted for Obama as did the whole state of Iowa.  In 2012 Iowa again went for Obama.  Not this year.  In Pennsylvania rural counties are expected to vote Republican.  What was different this year was the margin by which they voted Republican.

As long as the Democratic Party fails to make inroads in the rural vote, the party will have a difficult time ever winning the Senate.  Remember, Wyoming, with fewer than 600,000 people, gets two Senators, same as New York or California.  The Democrats will also lose state legislative seats, and those Republican legislators will adopt gerrymandered districts and voter suppression laws.

A reader recently forwarded me a link to a Washington Post article that featured the views of Agricultural Secretary Vilsack.  You may want to check it out.  <https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/vilsacks-tough-message-for-fellow-democrats-stop-writing-off-rural-america/2016/11/27/6751f8b8-b31d-11e6-be1c-8cec35b1ad25_story.html?postshare=1371480431760218&tid=ss_tw>.