When Trump is elected

Ross Douthat, a conservative columnist who writes op-ed pieces for the New York Times, announced some weeks ago that he was voting for Hillary Clinton.  He wasn’t too happy about it, but after considering Trump, he felt it was the best he could do.

In today’s paper he talked about three perils we would face with a Trump presidency.  He is not talking about nuclear war or authoritarian moves, but dangers that we will surely face no matter what other stupid things Trump does. 

1.  An economic slump.  This is not just when Trump wins, when we will see a huge drop in the stock market.  This is during the administration, when businesses stop hiring and the GNP drops, even if we somehow avoid a trade war, which is unlikely.

2.  Civil unrest.  Trump will not try to head off civil unrest, but will add fuel to it.  Look at some of his supporters.  Look at how hostility toward minority groups and immigrants has increased in the last few months.  

3.  Escalation of risks in every geographical theater.  Trump hates to appear weak, talks about “winning,” will get suckered by Putin, and has no historical understanding of foreign policy.  

Let me quote Mr. Douthat’s conclusion.  “I think that reluctant Trump supporters are overestimating the systemic durability of the American-led order, and underestimating the extent to which a basic level of presidential competence and self-control is itself a matter of life and death–for Americans, and for human beings the world over.”

Yuengling or Corona

The Morning Call ran a letter today from a Mr. Nickisher praising Dick Yuengling for supporting Trump.  He thought a proposed boycott wouldn’t do the Yuengling company any harm, since “Most Clinton supporters are drinking Corona.”  I was amazed at Mr. Nickisher’s clairvoyance. 

I quit drinking Yuengling some years ago when Dick Yuengling got rid of the union.  I even attended a march in Pottsville to protest the company’s union busting activities.

Here is the amazing thing.  I have a case of Coronitas in the cellar.  Coronitas are little Corona bottles, and in my opinion the beer tastes so much better than that swill from Pottsville.

Late Fall Harvest

I thought the garden was played out, but earlier this week I found that the mini-blue popcorn crop will provide us with more than enough popcorn for the winter.  We are still getting kale and chard, and today, when I was weeding one of the raised beds, I unexpectedly found about seven or eight shallots.  

While the cabbage wasn’t too great this year, probably because of the dry weather, I had enough to make one batch of red and one batch of green sauerkraut, now fermenting in the cellar.  

I have sunflowers to cut and potatoes to dig, and I replanted two Medusa hot pepper plants in pots, so I’m still getting fresh peppers from the front porch.  It turned out to be a better year than I thought it would be.

Am I bragging?  Just a little.

Indians and the Bundy Brothers

On the same week that Indian protestors were removed from a peaceful anti-pipeline protest in North Dakota, the armed antigovernment protestors led by Ammon and Byan Bundy were acquitted of federal conspiracy and weapons charges.  The Bundy Brothers and their armed supporters took over a federally owned wildlife sanctuary in Oregon last winter.  The Indians, unarmed, blocked the route of the pipeline.

My takeaway from this is that if you are white and wear a cowboy hat, you are one of the good guys.  If you are an Indian and you are trying to protect your tribal lands and water supply, you lose.  

Little has changed in the last 200 years.

Parkland High School

Tonight I attended a artist’s reception for my friend Patty at Parkland High School.  Patty is an excellent artist who does paintings, ceramics, wonderful paper mache birds, and much more.  

The reception was held in Parkland High School.  It isn’t just one building, however, it is a collection of various buildings, including one evidently devoted to the arts.  This was a real campus, not just a high school.  

Two weeks ago I attended a drug forum at the Panther Valley High School.  Panther Valley does not begin to compare with Parkland.

The problem is the property tax.  Parkland is a district in which property values are high.  Panther Valley includes Summit Hill, Lansford, Coaldale, and Nesquehoning, none of which are particularly prosperous.

As long as Pennsylvania schools depend on local property taxes for their main source of revenue, we will see tremendous disparities in our schools.

My solution:  keep the property tax, dump the local property tax collectors, make the tax uniform across the state (how about 1% of assessed value?), allow it to be paid in four installments, and send it to the Department of Revenue, where it is put into the general fund.  

Then fund the schools from the state level according to the number of students in each district, with a formula allocating extra funds for schools with a high number of ESL students or families living in poverty.  Allow rich districts to spend parent-generated funds on sports or enrichment programs, but ensure the floor for all students is equal.

Seekins Precision SP15C Semiautomatic Tactical Rifle

Our newspaper today came with a circular from Cabela’s entitled “BIG BUCK DAYS.”  The very top of the first page noted that you could buy a Seekins Precision SP15C Semiautomatic Tactical Rifle for only $999.99, $200 off the regular price.

This semiautomatic has CNC-machined 7075-T6-aluminum upper and lower receivers, a No Excess Rail with a seamless top Picatinny rail and M-Lok slots, along with a Match-grade CNC-machined stainless steel armor-coated barrel.

Unfortunately, for “Big Buck Days,” this rifle is illegal for use in hunting deer. 
What could it be used for?  It could be used to shoot up an elementary school, a movie theater, or a nightclub.

If that shocks you, direct your anger at the N.R.A. and its members, many of whom think they are Second Amendment protectors, but really are enabling some of the worst people in America to kill innocent men, women, and children.

Am I bitter?  Yes.

Tom Hayden, 1939-2016

The first time I read the “Port Huron Statement,” I thought that this was what I had been waiting for.  It was the opening salvo of what came to be identified with the “New Left,” young people who didn’t care a bit about Communism, but knew something was wrong with the American system that condoned racial segregation and the Vietnam War.  The Statement called for a society based on fraternity, honesty, and brotherhood.  A watchword was “participatory democracy.”  I wondered what other kind there could be.

Later I learned that Tom Hayden was the author of the Port Huron statement and a founding member of the Students for a Democratic Society.  When I was in grad school at Penn State, I was all set to join SDS, but my roommate asked me not to.  He hoped to get a security clearance, and he thought that having a roommate in SDS would preclude that.  

In Hayden’s obituary I read that the FBI had amassed a 22,000 page file on Mr. Hayden and J. Edgar Hoover said that a prime objective of the F.B.I. “should be to neutralize him in the New Left Movement.”  Maybe my roommate was right to be concerned.

Hayden, one of the “Chicago Seven,” was later heavily involved in California politics, serving in both the California Assembly and Senate, where he supported legislation on environmental, educational, and civil rights issues.  He is one of my heroes, and he was a true American patriot.

The Pirate Party of Iceland

Iceland has a parliamentary election coming up, and the Pirate Party may actually win.  My friend Tom sent me a link to the Pirate Party’s manifesto, and it sounds reasonable to me.  

Here’s the link the the party’s manifesto: <http://piratar.is/en/>.

Reforming the electoral college

Bad “reform”

Now and again you will hear a Republican say it would be much fairer if electoral college votes were based on congressional districts rather than states.  If that were done, Republicans would win every presidential election because of “clustering.”  In Pennsylvania, for example, Democrats are clustered in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.  Even if congressional districts were drawn fairly (admittedly a big if), Democrats would be packed into fewer districts.

Two states–Nebraska and Maine–now allow their electoral college votes to be split.  Maine has four and Nebraska five electoral college votes.  To figure out the number of a state’s electoral college votes you add the U.S. House members (varies by population) and the U.S. Senators (always two).  Both Maine and Nebraska are relatively small and homogenous.  On the other hand, if large numbers of states adopted this policy, the Democratic Party will lose any realistic chance of winning the presidency.

While Republicans may think that is a good idea, one-party governments are generally not considered to be democracies.

Good reform:

Each party in each state picks the electors who actually cast the ballots should that party win.  Thus Pennsylvania now has 20 Trump electors and 20 Clinton electors.  If Clinton wins a plurality (more votes than any other candidate), her 20 electors will cast their ballots for her.

As unlikely as it may seem, in the past a number of a candidate’s electors have voted for someone other than the winning candidate.  Although these “faithless electors” are extremely rare, it has happened.

The easy reform is to simply get rid of the people but retain the votes.  Thus if Clinton won Pennsylvania in November, she would automatically receive Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral college votes.  There would be no need to have actual people cast votes. 

Eliminating the electoral college

In a previous post I noted that moving to a national popular election for the presidency would make every vote in every state important.  No longer would states like California (solid blue) or Alabama (solidi red) be ignored by both candidates, since every vote in every state would count toward the national total.

On the other hand, eliminating the electoral college does have some downsides.

Recounts:  Now if the election is close (say Gore in 2000), only the states that are close need to be recounted.  You may remember that in the 2000 election, only Florida was at issue, and it still took weeks and a Supreme Court decision to settle the election.  Try to imagine a close election in the popular vote.  Every precinct in every county in every state would have to be recounted.  It would take months, and the winner would always be in doubt.

Loss of clout by minority groups:  A candidate can win the electoral college vote by winning the popular vote in only 11 states, but those states include California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Georgia, and Pennsylvania.  The eleven are very diverse, but they include important minority groups, including Latinos, Jews, blacks, and Asians.  If you look at Jews, you’ll find we make up less than 3% of the population, but we are concentrated in key states.  If you look at Latinos, you’ll find we are concentrated in key states like California and Texas.  In a nationwide popular election, many minority groups could safely be ignored by the candidates.

The federal system:  We are the united states.  The electoral college forces us to recognize, once every four years, that we are really a nation of states, not just one big country.  Every time we look at one of those maps of who is ahead in what states, we are reminded of that.

I have a hard time deciding whether or not I like the electoral college.  I like the idea of every vote in every state counting toward the national total, but I also see major drawbacks in moving to a popular vote system.

Tomorrow:  A “reform” that would guarantee a Republican president in every election, and a reform that would keep the electoral college but eliminate the human electors.

The Kigali conference

You never heard of it, right?  You don’t even know where Kigali is, right?

Kigali is the capital of Rwanda, and last week representatives of over 170 countries met there to target the use of hydrofluorocarbons, usually called HFC’s.  HFC’s are a major greenhouse gas, with about 1000 times the heat trapping ability of carbon dioxide.

Among the countries that agreed to the policy was China, world’s largest producer of HFC’s, which are used in air conditioners and refrigerators.

Although the agreement was not brought up in the presidential debate, President Obama praised the deal and what it would mean for the planet.  I already miss that man.


(I'll discuss what is the matter with a nationwide popular vote for President tomorrow night.  Hang on.)

Carbon County votes matter

I’m guessing that Donald Trump will win Carbon County.  The county fits the demographic of Trump supporters–older, whiter, not many college grads.  Although the support for Clinton is climbing rapidly, I’m still predicting a Trump win.

Nonetheless, the Clinton campaign is working hard to turn out Clinton voters in Carbon.  Why?  Because the race is a state-wide race.  Every Clinton vote the campaign nets in Carbon County is added to the statewide total.

At the same time Clinton is not campaigning much in Massachusetts or Alabama.  Why not?  As of today, she will win Massachusetts and lose Alabama.  It doesn’t matter if she increases her vote total in Massachusetts or in Alabama because the electoral college operates on a state-by-state basis.  

This means candidates only campaign in the “battleground states” like Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Florida.  Suppose, however, we elected presidents by popular vote.  If Clinton received more votes in Alabama or Massachusetts, those votes would be added to the national total.  

Every vote in every state would count.  Elections would become truly nationwide.  No voter would feel left out.

Tomorrow:  Some problems with a nationwide presidential vote.

Doyle Heffley and Act 13

Act 13, the Oil and Gas Act, contained a provision that physicians were not allowed to disclose “trade secret” chemicals to patients who had exposure to fracking fluids.  Act 13 also said that if a spill occurred at a gas drilling site, only public water supply owners had to be notified.  Private well owners did not need to be told.  Act 13 also said that eminent domain could be used to take private land for gas storage.

Last month the Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out these portions of Act 13.  

I wonder what Rep. Heffley thought about this court decision.  After all, he voted for Act 13.  Maybe I’ll ask him tomorrow night at the Makhija-Heffley debate at Penn’s Peak, scheduled to begin at 8 p.m.

The beginning of agriculture

Archeologists have uncovered a 10,000 year-old village in Jordan, where people lived in stone houses, made sculptures, and buried their dead.  Inhabitants of the village, named Ain Ghazal, raised barley, wheat, chickpeas, and lentils.  Some villagers were gone for months at a time herding goats and sheep.  

The Near East seems to have been the cradle of agriculture.  Using DNA analysis, scientists have learned that people from India to Ireland have ancestors from that area.  

We are still not sure if agriculture began just one time, or if various groups independently invented it.  One thing on which the geneticists and archeologists agree is that agricultural knowledge crossed the Bosporus about 8000 years ago, and then spread across Europe, where hunter-gatherers had existed for about 30,000 years.

I am amazed at what we can learn.  I am also amazed that it took us about 10,000 years to completely screw up our planet, and some of us aren’t even aware of that fact.

If you want to read the whole article on this topic, it is in today’s New York Times.  See Carl Zimmer, “The First Farmers,” p. D1, D6, in the Science Section.  Here’s the link:

<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/18/science/ancient-farmers-archaeology-dna.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0>.  At least I think that’s the link.

Rigged election

Trump’s right.  It’s rigged.

It is gerrymandered.  In Pennsylvania the Democratic congressional candidates will receive far more votes than the Republican candidates, but they will probably net fewer than half the congressional seats.  This is one of the main reasons the Republicans maintain control of the House of Representatives.  Republican state legislators have gerrymandering down to a science.

It is money-based.  Trump does not have as much money as he claims, but he did have enough to fund his initial primary race.  PACs funnel enormous amounts to campaigns, the Koch brothers fund races down to the state legislative level, and political contributions affect all aspects of American politics, from the Pentagon to Rep. Heffley’s “opioid” bill.

It relies partially on voter suppression.  In state after state Republicans undertook efforts to depress turnout by Democrats, instituting onerous ID laws, an end to early voting, and requirements that American citizens must produce proof that they are citizens.  Courts have recently overturned a number of these voter suppression laws, but Republicans are not giving up.  

It is a state by state election.  In 2000 Gore had a million and a half more votes than Bush, but Bush won the electoral college.  If Trump wins, it won’t be because he has the most popular votes, but because he won the most Electoral College votes.  

Yeah, it’s rigged.

Yard signs

Almost any professional campaign consultant will tell you that yard signs are not important.  People steal them, direct mail and television are far more effective, and, the ultimate mantra is, “yard signs don’t vote.”

They do get stolen.  In a two-mile stretch of Pohopoco Drive, we had five Clinton yard signs.  On Friday night three of them were stolen, including one from my front yard.  The two that weren’t were far off the road.  

Nonetheless, as a campaign worker in the trenches, I can tell you that campaign consultants are wrong about yard signs.  They are important for two reasons.

The first is that volunteers want them.  It is a way to show public support for a candidate that is impossible in any other way.  If the signs aren’t provided, the supporters feel ignored.

The second reason is that it makes supporters feel good.  I think one of the reasons Trump is as popular as he is in Carbon County is because everywhere you drive, you see his signs.  A friend of ours who came down from Long Island to campaign for Clinton said , “This must really be Trump country.”  She based that on the number of yard signs.  The Clinton campaign has provided almost none; the Trump campaign was already passing out free signs at the Carbon County Fair and the Redneck Festival.

Most of the few Clinton signs you see in Carbon were purchased by the county party, not provided by the Clinton campaign.  The one you saw at Forest Inn that read:  “Trump, make America grope again,” was a homemade one that lasted only about a day before someone stole it.

When the campaigns do not provide signs (and yes, I’m also talking to the McGinty campaign), supporters feel like they are being ignored, which they are.  So, to all the consultants out there:  Signs don’t vote, but people do, and the people would really like some yard signs.

Lehighton Halloween Parade

I marched in the Lehighton Halloween Parade today.  Our contingent had a very large wooden donkey on a pickup truck with along with signs for the Democratic candidates.  We had six marchers, including Ron and Lois, who came down from Long Island to campaign for Clinton.  I walked behind the truck holding a Clinton/Kaine sign.  

I was expecting a lot of nasty comments, but I got far more cheers, thumbs up, and applause than I did boos and catcalls.  I have a feeling that a lot of women along that route, once they get into the voting booth, are going to vote for Clinton, even if their husbands are Trump supporters.  After all, in the booth, no one can see how you vote.

Pennsylvania lags behind

There’s a headline that could be used for so many posts–on public infrastructure, ease of obtaining absentee ballots, reform of property tax, quality of the state legislators, quality of secondary education, etc., etc., etc.

In August the New York Times ran a map of where the action was in government reform.  The article looked at current “vote reform efforts,” a relevant topic with our presidential election less than a month away.

The article listed four types of reform.  The list included lawsuits against gerrymandering on racial or partisan grounds, gerrymander reform efforts, a push to amend the Constitution to overturn the Citizens’ United ruling, and ballot initiatives on clean money.  South Dakota was listed for three of the four.

Pennsylvania was not listed for any of the reform efforts.  On the other hand, neither were Mississippi, New Jersey, South Carolina, or West Virginia, if that makes you feel any better.

Albertine Anthony, Award Winner

Each year the Towamensing Township Historical Commission presents an award to a township resident who has done the most to preserve township history.  This year’s award went to Albertine Anthony of East Stage Coach Road.  

Ms. Anthony, who owns a 90-acre preserved farm, recently had repairs made to her bank barn, which I believe to be the oldest existing barn in the township.  The barn is unique in our township; most bank barns are two-story, but Ms. Anthony’s barn is three stories tall; you back the wagon into the third story.  According to my father, who knew much more about these things than I do, there were no other three-story barns in the entire township.

Ms. Anthony also owns a historic cool cellar, and her house is over 100 years old.  She still maintains a garden that is weed-free and puts mine to shame.  She is an amazing woman and a township treasure.

She is also one of the main opponents of the proposed PennEast pipeline.  She said that if she wanted to ruin her farm, she would have done it herself.  Now a pipeline company proposes to cut a trench across her fields above her spring.  It’s not right.

Panther Valley drug forum

Tonight I attended a forum on drugs held at the Panther Valley High School.  Congressman Matt Cartwright and his Republican opponent, a staff member from Congressman Lou Barletta’s office and his Democratic opponent, and three candidates for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives–Democrat Neil Makhija, Libertarian Matt Schutter, and Republican Doyle Heffley–attended.

The staffer from Barletta’s office brought up Barletta’s “efforts” to seal the border with Mexico to prevent the importation of heroin, ignoring the fact that meth can be cooked in people’s kitchens and the fact that as long as the demand is there, people will get heroin.  Lou Barletta sings in one note, and it is off-key.

Heffley was his usual self, contorting himself to pat himself on the back for his bill to “combat addiction,” written by big pharma, since it involves selling “non-addictive” drugs at four to five times the cost.  Neil Makhija pointed out that similar bills had been vetoed in New Jersey, New York, and Maine as being ineffective.  Makhija also noted that Heffley had voted against the medical marijuana bill, denying cancer patients a treatment that would be to their benefit.

Someday Heffley may actually put the interests of his constituents before those of his party and his campaign contributors, but don’t hold your breath.

An editorial opinion

A number of newspapers like The Dallas Morning News, The Arizona Republic, and The Cincinnati Enquirer have endorsed Hillary Clinton, although they either had never endorsed a Democrat or had not endorsed one for years.  The USA Today had never endorsed any candidate for president until this year, when it endorsed Clinton.

Last week an article in the New York Times, which itself endorsed Clinton, was entitled “Editorial Writers Have Spoken, but Will the Voters Listen?”  The article noted that editorials don’t seem to influence many people.

Nonetheless, it is time for this blog to take a stand.  I hereby endorse Hillary Clinton for President.  I am doing this in part because she has a long record of fighting for the right causes, beginning when she was in college.  Because she sucked it up after Obama won the nomination in 2008 and loyally supported him.  Because the misogynists can’t stand the idea of her winning the presidency.  Because the issues that people hold against her are, in the face of global warming, income disparities, and international problems, minor stuff like email servers.  She is smart, able, and will probably do better than President Obama at dealing with Republicans in Congress.  She deserves our vote.

How many people will this endorsement affect?  I thinking it may tip the election. 

Debate questions I would have asked

Whose side are you on, the Indians or the pipeline company?

According to a report in the October 9 New York Times, victims of American torture continue to suffer both physical and psychological problems.  Do you condone torturing American prisoners?  If yes, would you use techniques of ISIS, the Nazis, or the Stalinists?

Are you a Lockean or a Hobbesian?

When I was a teenager in the Fifties, we usually experienced our first frost in early September.  Now it occurs in early October.  Is global warming really a hoax?

The Robbs fringe-limbed tree frog, discovered in a Panamanian forest in 2007, has already gone extinct.  The tadpoles of this frog lived in water-filled cavities high in trees.  Lacking food, the male frog would lower himself into the water, where the tadpoles would rasp the skin off his back for sustenance.  Now this frog is gone.  We are in the midst of what is sometimes called the 6th great extinction, of which this frog is one example.  Do you have any recommendations?  Do you even think this is a problem?

Missouri is an open carry state where anyone can buy a gun with no background check and no training and carry it around loaded.  Would you be willing to give a speech in Missouri with no Secret Service protection?  Would you let me know when it will occur?

Lincoln-Douglas debates

There wasn’t a lot of give and take at the Lincoln-Douglas debates.  One candidate spoke for an hour, followed by the other candidate for an hour and a half, followed by the first candidate for 30 minutes.  There were seven debates, and the candidates took turns being first.

In one of the debates Douglas accused Lincoln of believing that blacks were equal to whites, much to the amusement of the crowd.  When Lincoln had his turn, he brought in the philosophy of John Locke, and said that when a black man mixes his sweat with his labor, the product of that labor belongs to him, and in that regard he is the equal of Mr. Douglas or any other man.

His audience, quite familiar with Locke’s philosophy, agreed with Lincoln.

I wonder if tonight’s debate will reach that level.  I wonder if the audience will reach that level.  I have my doubts.

Anti-pipeline rally in Riegelsville

Today Linda and I attended a rally in opposition to the PennEast Pipeline in Riegelsville, a small community about eight miles south of Easton.  We heard from the Delaware River Keeper, a representative of the Sierra Club, a Lenape Indian, and about eight other speakers, including the president of “Save Carbon County,” a local environmental group that is fighting the pipeline.

That speaker, our very own Linda Christman, noted how Carbon County is still suffering the effects of the last extractive industry–coal.  Blighted towns, acid mine drainage, giant culm banks, black lung disease.  Now PennEast proposes a pipeline that will actually bring fewer benefits to the county than coal once did, but will add to water pollution, air pollution, declining property values, forest fragmentation, and harm to the tourism industry, all to benefit a few corporations.

The rally was held at a site along the Delaware to stress that people from both states are working to defeat this pipeline.  References were made to the fight in South Dakota.  The anti-pipeline movement is going national.  Actually, it is going international, with groups in Canada fighting pipelines as well.

Locker Room Banter

I was a warehouseman in a TRW Auto Parts center in West Oakland for a number of years, including summers when I taught at San Jose State.  I get a pension from my days there.  I was a proud member of the Teamsters Union.  My co-workers were white guys, black guys, Asians, and Latinos.

In all the years I worked there, I heard some pretty raunchy stuff, but I must say, I never heard anything quite as crude as what I heard tonight on a recording of Donald Trump.  Than man is one sick little puke.

Oblivious Trump supporters

According to the Tax Foundation, a conservative group advocating tax cuts, Trump’s proposed tax cut, aimed mostly at the rich, would reduce revenue by $4.4 trillion to 5.9 trillion over ten years.  

Trump has also said he would double Clinton’s proposed spending on infrastructure by borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars.  

The deficit will soar sky high.  He could cut funding to other programs, but most of those have already been cut back.  He also proposes to increase military spending, which he had better do to pay for the wars he will get us into.

How do we explain that his supporters aren’t concerned.  Here are four possibilities.

1.  They don’t know about this, having gotten all their news from Hannity.

2.  When someone presents these facts, they put their hands over their ears and chant “la la la” as loud as they can.

3.  They don’t know what the words “infrastructure” and “deficit” mean and show no inclination to learn.

4.  Who cares about that stuff when he is going to build a wall and deport 11 million people and make America great again.

The "Great Migration"

I don’t want to insult my relatives in Alabama, but the state is not in the forefront of intellectual achievement, or many other achievements other than football.  One reason may be that in the past a large part of its population was not given the opportunity to participate in any meaningful way.  

In the “Great Migration” of blacks to the north, here are a few of the people whose forebears left Alabama and moved north:

Michelle Obama

Jesse Owens

Nat King Cole

Condoleeza Rice

Stevie Wonder

Smokey Robinson

LeBron James

Joe Lewis

Queen Latifah

Toni Morrison

I believe that one reason so many Middle Eastern countries are not producing scientists, political leaders, and economic advancement in general is because they ignore or tamp down half of their populations.  When societies or states or nations discriminate against large portions (or even small portions) of their populations, they pay a price.

Obit

I get angry when people make a false equivalence between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.  “They both lie,” or “Neither should be president.”  It drives me up a wall.  To compare an ignorant blow-hard narcissistic congenital liar and bully to Hillary Clinton, the actual adult in the race, is maddening.  

Having said that, I did think the following obituary was pretty funny.  It was for Mary Anne Noland of Richmond, Virginia.  Here’s what it said:

“Faced with the prospect of voting for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, Mary Anne Noland of Richmond chose, instead, to pass into the eternal love of God on Sunday, May 15, 2016, at the age of 68.”  

Letter to Mayor Taylor

Mayor Ken Taylor

500 N. Gonzales Blvd.

Huachuca City, Arizona 85616

Dear Mr. Taylor:

Some weeks ago you were quoted in the New York Times as saying “One nation means one language, and I am insulted by the division caused by language.”  You then went on to refuse to attend a meeting of border mayors because the invitation was sent in both English and Spanish.

As a member of a minority group, the Pennsylvania Dutch, many of whom served in both the American Revolution and the American side in the Civil War, I found that statement very offensive.  The Pennsylvania Dutch, most of whose ancestors arrived before the Revolution, continued to speak and use Pennsylvania Dutch (a form of German) well into the 20th century.  

Being a good American has nothing to do with the language one speaks, whether it be Polish, Japanese, Navajo, or Pennsylvania Dutch.  

Sincerely,

Roy Christman

I mailed this out today.  Any guesses on whether or not he will reply?

The "Amish PAC"

The Lancaster Farming newspaper has been running ads for an “Amish PAC,” a group with a return address in Arlington, Virginia.  The ad says there are serious risks of Hillary Clinton winning the election, including “More on-demand abortion and more tiny baby bodies will be sold for profit.”  

The ad concludes:  “This November, your country needs your prayers and your vote.”

I called the phone number listed in the ad.  It was kind of odd; I thought Amish people were not tied into the grid.  A young man answered who had less of a Pennsylvania Dutch accent than I do.  I told him that Donald Trump was about as far from the teaching of Jesus as you could get.

I think the whole “Amish PAC” is fraudulent, and I doubt if it has a single bonafide Amish person in it.  Here’s the number to call in case you want to give them heck:  717-283-2150. 

Solitary confinement for 36 years

Government officials sometimes do things that defy belief.  In late September a federal judge ordered prison officials in Pennsylvania to end a convicted murderer’s solitary confinement after 36 years.  The officials said they were concerned he might try to escape, as he had before.

The judge ordered prison officials to develop a plan to monitor the inmate’s mental health and increase contact with other inmates.  For the past 25 years the prisoner lived in a 7x10 foot cell.  He did have a TV, radio, bed, desk, and toilet.  He also got one hour of exercise in a caged-in area of the prison five days a week, and he was allowed to shower, in handcuffs, three days a week.

For the past 25 years he was a model prisoner, although one wonders how he could have been much else.  He did receive one misconduct citation, for having a multivitamin in his cell.

Information for this post was taken from Mark Scolforo, “Inmate’s decades in solitary to end,” Pocono Record, (22 Sept. 2016), pp. 1, 2.