Courier Journal - Spring 2024

It is amazing what a different city Burlington is when the warm weather comes. I attribute this to three factors:

• Once the colleges let out, about half the city's population leaves. So driving around the University and Champlain College is a lot easier. The busyness shifts to other parts of the city once they leave. This is a great relief for someone like me that always fears driving among the texting youth that seem oblivious of their surroundings. For about a week, moving vans clutter the streets. Then peace ensues, but other treachery awaits.
• Burlington is a beautiful city, vibrant and exciting. It sits on Lake Champlain with the Adirondacks to the west and the Greens to the east. Every weekend it seems we have a new festival.  Jazz Fest last weekend. Food fests, Reggae fests, Brewfests, etc. This means we have a ton of tourists, particularly from Boston, New York and Montreal. These aren't cities known for their good drivers. This brings a whole new dynamic to driving. 
• Because we are a cold weather climate, most of our road construction takes place in the few warm weather months. This makes Burlington a nightmare to drive in. It seems like there is construction every other street.  For these months, Vermont's state flag should be changed to have an orange cone on it.

I have always been frustrated with people. To put it bluntly I am not a "people person." Driving in the city during tourist season has not interacted positively with this part of my nature. Here is a short list of how people annoy me: 

• Don't park in loading zones. I've confronted several people parked in loading zones. The response I get is that "it is okay, I'm just going in the bank" etc. No, it is not okay. Loading zones are for commercial vehicles, loading and unloading. I don't think Vermonters know this. They think it is someplace to put your car if you have something quick to do.
• The stop line is where you stop at a stop light. At every light, there is a line on the ground that tells you where you are supposed to stop. Some of them are far back. An expert has studied this intersection and has determined where you should stop. If you stop after the stop line, there is a possibility that a bus may come along and not be able to turn because you are in the way. Just follow the rules and traffic will flow just fine.
• Red arrows mean you can't turn. I don't know why, but people just don't seem to know this. If a green arrow means you can turn, what do you think a red arrow means? 
• If you are going to hang out as a pedestrian and just look at your phone, don't do so at a crosswalk or an intersection. You may be oblivious to this but drivers think you are going to cross and react to you. Stand back and away from the curb.
• Try, if you are close, to use a crosswalk. Some cars actually do stop if you wait in the crosswalk. Chaos is good for no one. 

Traffic flowing helps everyone. 

We recently watched all three seasons on Ted Lasso. If you haven't seen it, you should check it out. If you don't have Apple TV, sign up for a free trial, watch Ted Lasso and then unsubscribe. You'll get all three seasons in before the month is out, I promise. The reason I bring this up, the main character Ted has a philosophy that has stuck with me, that he got from my favorite poet Walt Whitman, "Be curious, not judgemental." I have been trying to get into this mind set when I drive and for the most part it has been working. 

So far I've had these experiences:

• I was at an intersection (North St. and Willard), the light turned green, I was about to go straight (east on North) when I noticed coming down Willard a bicyclist that I knew wasn't going to stop at the light. So I waited or I would have hit him. Not only did he blow off the light but he wasn't even looking at traffic; he was looking at his cell phone. Be curious, not judgemental. Must have been doing something very very important happening on that phone. This philosophy is challenging. 
• At the corner of Main and Winooski, a woman decided driving through the intersection out of her lane through a red light, all the while with her hand on the horn honking. About ten cars were at the intersection and we all stopped to let her go. They probably were as stunned as I was. Be curious: must have been a real emergency, perhaps she was going to hospital (which is in the other direction).
• While driving on College Street, heading toward Winooski and downtown, in front of the library, I had to stop for a group of homeless people (or is it houseless now?). About seven or eight of them were yelling at each other, I had no idea what was going on. I waited until most of them crossed but one woman remained in the street and decided to dance in front of my truck. I lightly beeped but she seemed oblivious. I drove around her by driving with one tire on the sidewalk. Luckily there were no other cars or pedestrians coming. The traffic behind did the same. If this were to happen again, I might get out of my truck with blinkers on and tried to escort her out of traffic. Be curious: I wonder what she was on.
• This philosophy is difficult at times, but it seems to be working. I was driving up College Street one day and I noticed a car driving erratically in my rearview mirror. He seemed to be yelling at me. He decided to pass me on a city street. I yelled, "What the hell?" or something a bit more vulgar. I noticed his Quebec plate and judgement ensued, but I stopped it with curiosity winning over. He pulled in front of me and stopped. He got out of the car and approached my truck. "Holy shit!" I unrolled the window. In a very polite French Canadienne accent, he said "Your back door is open." My freight was exposed. The guy that I was about to yell at just put a lot of energy into saving my butt. The weather stripping on my cargo door was preventing a good closure on the door. I had to do a quick repair. Ted Lasso and Walt Whitman rule. Merci beaucoup! 

The quote does sound Whitmanesque, but I didn't recognize it. I know my Walt. I was curious, of course. Snopes says it isn't Whitman, I have to believe this is true. To me, it just makes Ted Lasso a more realistic character. He is wrong on a little thing but overall, he is very much correct. 

Most of the Spring was spent delivering in Burlington and occasionally South Burlington. The only exception was the day of the total eclipse. Because of the chaos downtown, most businesses were closed so my boss didn't need me in Burlington. So he sent me up to the islands which is a really beautiful spot in Vermont. The most Northwestern part of Vermont are a group of islands in Lake Champlain that border Canada and New York state. It was a gorgeous day and I finished working in time to get back home to watch the eclipse with my family.

I Am A Pacifist, This Is Why I Support the Draft

When I was 18 years of age, I registered for Selective Service (aka the draft board), because I had to. Every male citizen or legal immigrant aged 18 to 25 is required by law to do so (Selective Service Act of 1918). A lot of people don't. The percentages are different in each state which is because each states have different requirements. New Hampshire has a 100% rate, but Washington DC is as low as 51%. Some states have requirements for attending state schools. Ohio charges student out of state tuition if you are not registered. I haven't found any such rules for my home state of Vermont which apparently has a low 73% as of 2018.  I couldn't find any more recent numbers. 

If you are going to apply for any Federal student loans, you need to register with SSS. That is why I did it when I turned 18, you have 30 days to do so. I had a little bag packed for a drop-in on my Canadienne relatives if it did happen if my draft number ever did come up, but I did register. At the time, I thought we were going into Nicaragua. I am grateful I was wrong. 

I know plenty of people who don't even realize that their 18 year old boy is required to register. I asked a co-worker, years ago, if her son was going to register. She said she didn't realize he had to. I told her if he was going to apply for student loans he needed to. She said she was paying for his college. This, by definition, is called privilege. Poor people get drafted while the rich stay state-side. This is the way of the world. College deferment allowed the rich to avoid service in Viet Nam. When college deferment ended so did the war. America cannot handle seeing white suburbanites coming home in flag draped coffins. Poor kids, black and brown kids. No problem. Wealthy white kids ... This war has to end! 

Why only men? Only men are required to register mostly because we are a sexist society. War is thought of as a male thing so the men did the working and the fighting and women stayed home and took care of the kids. Now that things are different and women now participate in the workplace and combat, they should have to register for the draft as well, right? Congress says they are investigating it. We all know that no politician is really working on this. Meanwhile, some men find out when they are in their 30's or 40's that they cannot get a state or federal job because they never registered. 

Tune out:  The reason I now, a pacifist in my 50's, support the draft is that it will prevent tune out and ultimately make wars shorter. We were at war in Afghanistan for 20 years. To most of us Americans, this had zero affect on us. America hasn't had anyone forced into the military via the draft since 1973. It is entirely a volunteer outfit. When we think of the war, we think they signed up for this. Indeed they do, but a lot of them is because they have no other options. Very few Americans followed the war and it was hard to do if you wanted to. You really had to look for it. It isn't like it was important like Britney and her receivership. 

If ratings are down, media won't cover it. It is expensive and dangerous to put a journalist on the front line. But if your cousin, neighbor's kid or child were drafted, you would probably pay attention. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were huge mistakes that went on too long, but these were small wars. I am grateful to President Biden for finally ending it, regardless of how poorly it was done. Because it is so easy to tune out, a bullshit war like this can go on for 20 years. It also helps that only 2,200+ Americans died. We've gotten good at this war thing. This is small compared to the over 58,000 Americans who died in Viet Nam. Americans were only involved in that 20 year war for eight years, but they were deadly years. 

I am not naive. I realize that war is sometimes necessary. The bullshit wars make it difficult for us to get into the ones that are necessary. World War I was a bullshit war. If it wasn't for the isolationism that the US experienced after WW I, two decades later Roosevelt would have been able to get into WW II a lot easier. A lot more lives would have been saved if we had. 

As usual, I fear for the future. I have concerns for the big one that is coming. Oil will not be that important in the 21st century, but water ... yes, water will. Also, within the next ten years or so, I am guessing that it is going to get hot with China. Will we resist the draft because the memory of this bullshit wars are still fresh? Now that I am a dad,  (yes, I adopted a seven year old boy), the fear is more real than ever. 

Killing Garfield (the President, Not the Cat)

Americans tend to fetishize our presidents. We put them on a pedestal often representing entire eras, but they aren't that important. The American Presidency doesn't have that much power. Yet, they serve as a fulcrum to balance our understanding of history. I was at a physical therapy appointment today and the guy working my should asked me about the book I was reading. I told him it was about the assassination of President Garfield (Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Mallard). He said, "hmm, I don't think I knew Garfield was assassinated." That PT does better than most of us, because most people don't even realize that we had a president named Garfield. This is unfortunate because he could have been a great one but because of an assassins bullet, he is relegated to mere footnotes of a very turbulent ear. 

He was only president for five months, two of which he spent on his death bed. He was a reluctant candidate, he didn't want to be president, his party nominated him for the 1880 election and the Democratic party at the time was mostly ex-Confederates who had no chance of winning. This was a pivotal time for our nation. The reconstruction of the South, after the Civil War, was badly handled by the Federal Government. After Lincoln was assassinated we had Andrew Johnson who was impeached. After Johnson, we had Ulysses Grant who was a decent president for one term, but all the progress he made in his first term was erased by the drunken stupor of his second. After Grant, there was Rutherford B. Hayes who was the epitome of corruption. With the Confederates populating almost half of our Congress, getting any type of reform done was close to impossible. You think we are divided now. Check out this Electoral Map of the 1880 Presidential Election:

Yeow! It makes our current situation look united.  

Garfield was one of our log cabin presidents. He was fatherless at the age of two. He left his home in Ohio at age 16 to work on the Ohio and Erie canals. He was responsible for a mule who pulled ships through the waterways. He got sick less than a year later and returned home. While he was recovering, his mother convince him to return to school. His education was his salvation pulling him out of poverty. He attended college by doing handy man, carpenter and janitorial work. He ended up being an academic, a professor dealing in ancient languages, literature and mathematics. He wrote an original proof of the Pythagorean theorem once that surprised everyone when they discovered it was written by a politician. 

It was as a college student where Garfield had a change of heart about politics and the slavery question.  He grew up as a Disciples of Christ which was a religious sect that believed that you could not be a Christian if you were involved in politics. In college he attended two lectures where he heard two fiery lectures by abolitionists that blew his mind and changed his beliefs on the subject. College will do that to you. He was eventually made the President of Hiram College. When a member of the Ohio State Senate passed away, he was convince to run for his seat by the, then-liberal, Republican Party. By the time the Civil War starts, his state of mind is that the War is a holy crusade against a Slave Power.  He becomes a Colonel in the 42nd Ohio Infantry and by the end of the war, a Brigadier General. Before the end of the war, he is elected to Congress and services as a Congressman, representing Ohio. He did so for 17 years. As a Congressman, he fought for equality of freed slaves. He was considered what they called at the time, a Radical Republican, which was the liberal branch of the party. 

Like the party is now, the Republicans were split into two factions, the Radicals (also called the Half Breeds) and the Stalwarts. Stalwarts were mostly from the South who supported Grant to be president again. The 1880 Republican Convention was totally crazy. unlike anything we have seen in modern times. Primaries didn't exist back then, they actually nominated the candidates at the Conventions. In four days, they had 36 rounds of votes for 14 candidates. In the first round, Garfield had received one vote about of a possible 755. The top three were Grant, James Blaine and John Sherman (General Sherman's brother). During the first 33 rounds of voting, Garfield got one or two votes each time. It wasn't until the 34th, when future president, Benjamin Harrison, started promoting Garfield as a happy alternative to both sides of the party. He received 17 votes in the 34th round, 50 in the 35th and eventually 399 in the 36th (well above the 379 needed for the nomination). He may be the first president that had no interest in the job but he took one for the team (in more ways than one).

When Lincoln was assassinated only 16 years earlier, it was thought of as an anomaly, an eccentricity of life during wartime and nothing to be concerned about for future presidents. Presidents were not thought to need security so Garfield had none. When madman, Charles Guiteau shot Garfield while he was standing on a train platform in DC, he had his two young sons and two members of his Cabinet with him. No security!  The bullet missed all major organs and if this happened today, he'd be up and about a few days later. We'd find the bullet with an x-ray and would remove it without any infection. The bullet didn't kill him but the infections did. While he was on the platform bleeding, a local doctor was sticking his finger in the wound looking for the bullet. Can you think of anything more unsanitary than a subway platform? He suffered for a couple of months and eventually died after every doctor and their ego chimed in on his health. The one doctor they should have listened to, Joseph Lister, was considered a quack by many. He is now considered the "father of modern surgery" and he tried to get doctors of that era to wash their hands and their instruments, but he was laughed at by the gentry. Fifteen years later, we'd have the x-ray and would understand asepsis. 

You really have to wonder what this country would be like if this great man had survived. It wasn't until the early 20th century that we would have another strong president (Teddy Roosevelt).  After Garfield we had a string of weak and ineffective executives. Much of the problems we have today stem from the Civil War era from racial inequality  to unbridled/unhinged conspiracy theories. Northerners and Southerners still have wide fissures on how we see our country. When the Garfield died, the entire country mourned. Mourning his death was the first thing we did as a country together, reunited after the war. If he had time to use this popularity to actually reconstruct the South, we may not have had a KKK, Jim Crow or the Great Migration. Somewhere, perhaps, there is an alternative universe with Garfield is on Mt. Rushmore, the Proud Boys don't exist and Trump was never President. If so, I'd like to go there. 

 

Hindsight 2020 - May 2019 Edition

Can we agree, you and I, that whomever gets the Democratic nomination, will have our support? We will not support a third party candidate whether they are a Green, Libertarian or Independent. The goal is to not have Trump as the president. Whoever wins the Democratic nomination will not be perfect. They will have something in their past that we don't like. They will have a stance that we disagree with.  We know this. The key thing we have to keep reminding ourselves is that on their worst day, they are still better than Trump on his best day. In the 2000 election in Florida, George W. Bush defeated Al Gore by 537 votes. Nader received 97,421 votes in Florida (and Pat Buchanan and Harry Browne received 17,484 and 16,415 respectively), which led to claims that Nader was responsible for Gore's defeat. Same thing happened in 2016 in state like Michigan, Ohio and Penn. If you are in a solidly blue state like California or Vermont, vote third party all you want. But if you are in a red or purple state (a swing state), you better go with the Democrat. If you don't, then you are voting for Trump by not voting for his only viable opponent ... plain and simple.

The books are closed on fundraising in the first quarter of the year. Trump leads the pack with over $30 million in his coffers.  Sanders, Warren and Harris have $20.7 million, $16.5 milli0n and $13.2 million, respectively. Don't dismay. This makes sense. The Democrats have a very competitive primary while Trump is an incumbent. Once the Dems are down to one candidate, there are many people like me, who will then donate. We have 22 candidates fighting for the same pool of money right now.

All but five candidates have qualified for the first Democratic debate Mike Gravel, Wayne Messam, Seth Moulton, Michael Bennet and Marianne Williamson. The first set will be on June 26th and 27th in Miami. A candidate will need to either have at least 1 percent support in three qualifying polls, or provide evidence of at least 65,000 individual donations from a minimum of 200 different donors in at least 20 states.

It is too bad we couldn't have all of these candidates as president and have them concentrate on their expertise. Inslee would be the environmental president, Booker would be the gun violence candidate, etc. We are very lucky to have such a great field of candidates. They are the most diverse group of candidates ever assembled. Why shouldn't they be?  We are America. We are a nation of immigrants and the candidates should reflect that. Not only in race and gender but in sexual orientation, religion, experience and age.  I love it. This is truly a big tent and a political junkie's dream. 

Announcing:

Ex-VP Joe Biden: He enters the race as a behemoth and on the top of the polls, but this is only because of his name recognition. Once the general public get to the know the other candidates, he will plateau. Once Joe starts opening his mouth and making those gaffs that we know him for, his numbers will drop. We've seen this before, Biden running for President, it is not a pleasant sight. Biden is from Delaware (born in Scranton, PA), was a US Senator for 36 years and Vice President under a very popular president Obama. In 1972, shortly after first being elected Senator, both his wife Neilla and daughter Naomi died in a car crash while Christmas shopping, Biden has a lot of baggage, particularly for liberal voters. The two big ones (1) his treatment of Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearings and (2) his support for mass incarceration. He might have peaked already. I don't think we'll have a Joe Biden presidency.

US Rep. from California, Eric Swalwell: He was born in Iowa where his father was Chief of Police in a smallish town, Algona. His family moved to California when Eric was young. He's been in Congress since 2013. He has probably been the most outspoken anti-Trump voice in Congress. That is the only reason I have heard of him. Five Thirty Eight published a story of how he could win. He pledged to ask a woman to be VP on his ticket. He recently wrote an Op Ed for US Today about gun control and the NRA.

US Rep. from Massachusetts, Seth Moulton: He was born in Salem, MA to a secretary and real-estate attorney. He went to Harvard for undergrad (physics) and grad school (business and public policy). He is an ex-marine officer and lead one of the first platoons that entered Baghdad in 2003. Here is where he stands on five issues. Does it surprise you that the ex-marine wants to increase funding to the State Department?  If Gabbard is the dove candidate, then Moulton is the hawk.

Colorado Senator Michael Bennet: He was born in New Delhi, India while his father (who is from NJ) was working at the Indian embassy. His mother is a Polish Jew who survived the Warsaw Ghetto and is a school librarian. His family has political roots. His father worked for VP Hubert Humphrey and his grandfather for FDR. He's been a Senator since 2009. Before that he was the Denver Superintendent of Schools and the Chief of Staff to Denver Mayor Hickenlooper (who is also running for President). He is also the brother of NY Times editorial page editor James Bennet, who has recuse himself from editorializing on the campaign.

Drop-outs and not-running:
Ex-governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, is not running for President. He is going to focus on helping Virginia Democrats.

Our Field:
We have a field of 22 now.

Booker has raised over $5 million in the first quarter of 2019 and 80% of the contributions are from first time contributors. That usually means he is attracting the young and/or tapping into something that everyone else is missing. He also introduced the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act that would require a bond hearing for all detained immigrants.

Klobuchar has raised over $5 million as well with 85% of it coming from donors giving $100 or less. She reintroduced the Americans Giving Care to Elders Act (AGE) to give relief to people supporting elderly members of the families.

Mayor Pete got some bad press when Buzz Feed published a story about gentrification in South Bend. He appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers. He does seem to be tapping into the hope and change phenomenon that none of these other folks are.

Bernie released Medicare For All bill. According to 538, he is doing better this time around in regards to media coverage, polling, fund raising and endorsements. Not having the spectre of Hillary in the race might explain that. He is calling for the reduction in defense spending to help pay for his programs which I love to hear. 

Warren raised $6 million in the first quarter with the average donation being $28.  Impressive! She also has the largest campaign staff among the 22 candidates.She released a Corporate Tax Plan and a plan to eliminate student debt.

Delaney announced a National Service and Climate Corp Plan for young people that has four tracts: 1) military service, 2) community service, 3) infrastructure and 4) climate corp.Also, he wants to create a Department for Cybersecurity lead by a cabinet level Secretary. He recently revealed his platform on mental health.

Harris is concentrating on California and the South rather than the traditional NH and IA.She reintroduced the Rent Relief Act to help renters recoup some of their expenses, if their rent is over 30% of our income.

Messam appeared on NPR's On Point and on an independent podcast called The Trail.

O'Rourke: Two of his top advisers left his campaign once he hired Jen O'Malley Dillon, Obama's old campaign chair, to run his campaign. He seems to be fizzling. Other than standing on tables and counter tops, he hasn't really done a lot.

Inslee appeared on Pod Save America for an interview (see below). He seems like a great candidate, but I am not sure how his "climate change is the #1 issue" goes over in middle America. I agree with him but I don't think he can beat Trump with this message. He also participated in the March for Science.




Castro says that he will create a department within the Department of Justice, just to investigate racial discrimination by police. He probably won't win the endorsement of the policemen's union.

Hickenlooper wrote an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal, apparently stating that he opposes both massive regulation and socialism. He said, “I’m running to save capitalism.” If he is looking for more exposure, perhaps he should write for publications that aren't entirely behind a pay wall. He did appear on Pod Save America. He kinda looks like a used car salesman.

Ryan introduced a bill that would require the Department of Justice to train law enforcement  in de-escalation.

Gabbard was recently called the best Democratic candidate by former Rep Ron Paul. He said she was "the best chance to bring about peace." His endorsement may be a good enough reason to move her down in my rankings.

Yang: To demonstrate Universal Basic Income (UBI), he is going to give two families in NH and IA $1,000 a month to show how it works.  I volunteer my family if he expands this to Vermont. 

Gravel doesn't really want to be President. He wants to qualify for the debates and push the debate to the left. Check out this Vice report. He's kind of a nut. He's a 9/11 truther. He should probably be ignored.

Power Rankings:
We have 22 candidates, soon to be 23 with Mayor de Blasio soon to declare that he is running. If I had to rank the Democrats in order of my personal preference, I would do so in the following manner:
Warren
Harris
Booker
Buttigieg
Sanders
Biden
Inslee
O'Rourke
Hickenlooper
Klobuchar
Delaney
Swalwell
Castro
Gabbard
Moulton
Messam
Ryan
Bennet
Yang
(I probably won't vote if the people below get the nomination)
Gravel
Gillibrand
Williamson

This is expected to change. 

Hindsight 2020 - March 2019 edition

Before I say anything the 2020 election, let us give thanks to the president. Thank you, Mr. Trump for setting a new precedent for presidential power. Traditionally, Congress has the power of the purse. Congress consistently told him "no" about funding the building of a wall on our southern border, but he is choosing to ignore it giving us a new tier of presidential power. We will surely remember this when a Democratic president takes over. We can declare emergencies also. If Congress refuses to fund the Green New Deal or the Medicare For All ... we say "Emergency" and pull out the funding reserved for disasters and invasion for our pet product.  Thank for having the foresight for giving us this power.

Trump's 2020 campaign has started collecting data on three Democrats, according to Politico: Booker, Warren and Harris. We look like we have some front runners at least in their minds.

Back to the issues: About those issue, David Leonhardt in the NY Times suggested that the issues don't matter much in the Democratic primary. Why? Because the candidates (12 now I believe), mostly agree with each other. So we should primarily be concentrating on one thing: Who can beat Trump?  He says that Sherrod Brown and Kamala Harris are the standouts.But they are all out there, still talking about the issues. You may or may not agree with them, but every single one of them is better than Trump. If you say that both parties are to blame for our awful political situation, then you are just announcing to the world that you haven't been paying attention for the last 30 years.

The Republican party is still the party of global warming denial, maintaining the status quo on health care and billionaire tax cuts. By the year 2050, there may be no maple syrup production in Vermont and no wine grapes growing in California, but yet, a border wall is the emergency. I think the existential and economic crisis of our environmental situation is the real emergency. How silly of me!

I would love another president, like Obama, that would make the right wing extremist freak out. This generally means we are going in the right direction as a society. So a Jewish, Hispanic or a Black Woman as a president would be a really good thing then we can watch every scumbag pundit on Fox "News" heads explode.

Announcing this month:
Vermont Senator, Bernie Sanders: Bernie was the dark horse candidate in 2016. He enters this race as one of the front runners, if not the front runner. At this point, they could all be chasing him if he gets the momentum that he did last time. He is 77 years old which for many makes him too old. Is this ageism or simple practicality? The presidency is a very stressful job so his health is something to take into consideration, but health and age are not the same thing. His VP candidate should be chosen wisely because of this. He has two scandals behind him: (1) his wife's problems with Burlington College and (2) the sexism in his staff during the 2016 campaign. Hopefully, both of them don't weigh too heavily in the general voter's minds. If you think about him running against Trump, these "scandals" are minuscule compared to anything Trump has accumulated in only two years in office. As a Vermonter, I like Bernie and I have voted for his for both Rep. and Senator. I also voted for him in the primaries in 2016. I have met him twice. I disagree with him on a lot (particularly on economics), but I know him as an honorable and honest person. I vote for him because I trust him. He represents us well. He'd be a fine president. Jamelle Bouie in NY Times, says that Bernie is the only candidate so far that has a clear and comprehensive message on foreign policy, something he lacked during the 2016 campaign.

Bernie has the passion without details while Warren has details but is lacking in the passion. This makes me think that among the two further left candidates, Bernie is more likely to beat Trump, but far left is still going to be tough to win in the general election.

South Bend Mayor, Pete Buttigieg: In last month's Hindsight 2020, I didn't mention Pete Buttigieg (pronounced Buddha judge), who is the two term mayor of South Bend, Indiana. What's a mayor of a city of 100,000 people doing running for president? Good question. One thing to point out, he has more experience in government than Trump did when he became president. He is another Rhode Scholar, an Afghanistan war veteran and is openly gay. Just on that last sentence alone, he is a better candidate than Trump. I've heard him speak a view times in the past few weeks and I like him, a lot actually. But the key question here is: will the general public vote for a gay man? a married gay man? It is hard to believe he'd win the general election.

New York Senator, Kirsten Gillibrand: She is very pleasant and personable. If you have watched Colbert at any point in the past, you may have seen her on one of his shows. She was conservative in her past, but has claimed to be reformed. She appears to me to be an opportunist and a hypocrite.When she talks about important issues she comes off as being quite trite. When sexual assault accusations came out about Senator Al Franken, he asked for investigations into the allegations and she lead the charge to throw him under the bus. Now that much worse allegations have come out about Lt. Governor of Virginia, Justin Fairfax, she is calling for an investigation. Not sure why Al Franken didn't get this respect. She is a lightweight and I wouldn't turn my back on her.

Governor of Washington Jay Inslee: He is the current governor of the state of Washington and used to be a member of the US House of Representatives. His campaign is the only one so far to have his campaign headquarters fully based on the West Coast. He is from humble stock with his mother being a clerk at Sears while his father was a high school counselor and football coach. His big issue is the environment which makes him appealing to me. Can a relatively unknown like this defeat a sitting president? Since that President is Trump, perhaps, yes.  Clinton did it to Bush and Bush (the first one) was a half decent President.

Marianne Williamson: She is a new age spiritualist author from Houston and is often called Oprah's "spiritual adviser." I don't take her very seriously and unless I see something that makes her qualified to run this country, I am not going to mention her again.

Those still not declared yet:
Former VP Joe Biden, former NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, Governor of Montana Steve Bullock, former Governor of Colorado John Hickenlooper, former Governor of Virginia Terry McAuliffe, Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, Rep. from Massachusetts Seth Moulton, former Rep. from Texas Beto O'Rourke, Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, California Rep. Eric Swalwell and Mark Warner, Senator from Virginia.

The rest of the field:
Cory Booker: I have notice that eight of my friends, on Facebook, are following Mr. Booker. One of them is a staunch Republican so I know this doesn't mean much, other than he probably has the most name recognition in the Democratic field right now, among those who have announced. He made a visit to Iowa in February and is hiring staff in the early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. He is trying to draw a distinction between himself and his competition stating that they haven't run anything and while he has run a major city, Newark. He has released a plan to reduce housing costs.

Kamala Harris: California's primary has been moved up early this year. This gives a distinct advantage to Ms. Harris. She has visited Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada in February. She advocated for universal childcare and has proposed the LIFT act to assist struggling middle class families.

Amy Klobuchar: The Senator from Minnesota raised $1 million within 48 hours of announcing her candidacy which is pretty impressive. She is the only candidate that is positioning herself as a moderate. She may do well if Biden stays out of the race. If he does enter the race, his name recognition alone may overshadow her.

Elizabeth Warren: While Bernie talks about blowing the system up and rebuilding, she talks about restructuring the system from within. She has proposed a universal childcare program.and a family leave act. She is a policy candidate, which may have a lot of appeal to someone like me, but many voters choose based on personality and the "would I like to share a beer with this person?" question looms bad for her. If I were voting on domestic policies alone, she may have my vote.

Julian Castro: He plans on visiting all 50 states during his campaign. I'm looking forward to seeing him here in VT if he lasts that long. Maybe he should just come on over when he is pounding the pavement in New Hampshire. Since we're overwhelmingly for Sanders, I doubt if we'll see him.

Tulsi Gabbard: If you are looking for the peace candidate, she might be your candidate. She has come out strong against US involvement in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Here is an interesting fact about her. Her net worth is only $208,504.00. This is really amazing since she lives in a very expensive state, Hawaii.

John Delaney: Because he declared so early, he has already visited all 99 counties in Iowa. He is another moderate candidate who has gotten accolades from even conservatives like George Will who in a November 2018 opinion piece in the Washington Post, stated that Democrats should consider a moderate like Delaney to defeat Trump. While having a background in business might not appeal to the left in the Democratic party, it may be gold in the general election. He is pro-business but he still stands in all the right places on the issues that Democrats care about: health care, the environment and education etc.

Andrew Yang: He is another candidate I am not taking too seriously because he has no government experience, but it seem like others are. Rolling Stone Magazine puts him at #17 among 27 candidates (published in mid February 2019) which is not great but is higher than Delaney or Gabbard. So I will keep him on my radar.

Talk to you next month.

Picks of 2016

Regardless of this year's suckitude, I do still have my picks of the year.

MEDIA:
Best book I read in 2016:
All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doeer was probably my favorite book this year.  I 've read some really great books this year: Lafayette In the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell, The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin, Dead Wake by Erik Larson, The March by E.L. Doctorow and The Manticore by Robertson Davies. The Doerr book is definitely my favorite and I haven't even finished it yet.  Even though, I am getting a little tired of the WW II era, the book still captures me with some really fantastic writing. It tells the story of two young people, one blind French girl and an orphaned German boy. Their stories are told in parallel as their worlds are crushed around them. I am relishing every page.

Favorite new movie: 
Arrival was my favorite new movie this year.  Some other favorites were The Big Short, Deadpool, Doctor Strange, A Man Called Ove, Manchester By the Sea and Florence Foster Jenkins. These are very different films but Arrival was definitely my favorite. It reminded me of Contact or 2001: A Space Odyssey in that it was a real science fiction, unlike Star Wars which is more like an action film in space. When you watch Arrival, you get the feeling that there is something going that you don't understand. Halfway through the film you start figuring it out and by the end, your mind is blown because the story is very different than what you thought. I need to watch it again now that I know what I know.

Favorite new TV show:

I've watch some great television this year: The Exorcist, Paranoid, Glitch, The Get Down, Stranger Things, Maron, Roadies, One Mississippi, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and This Is Us. My favorite is probably The Get Down which is a Netflix show about the early days of hip hop. It is full of great music without the nonsense of a musical. It is edgy but really sweet simultaneously. One of the things I like most about the show is that the child characters are really well developed. They are not your usual one dimensional children that you usually see on television and the young actors are up for it.

Two shows really surprised me The Exorcist and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. I didn't expect anyone to make a decent show of the classic horror film The Exorcist, but it is actually a very good show. They captured the creepiness of the classic while also sustaining a story throughout the season. I am not a believer in demons and such, but still, I find this all very intriguing and good story telling. Also, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is hysterical. I don't like musicals at all, but I guess, musicals that laugh at musicals is fine. Regardless, it is very entertaining and the star, Rachel Bloom, is a joy to watch.

Favorite quote:
"When you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything," our future president. I don't really like this quote, but I think it best describes where we are as a nation ... not in a good place.

Favorite new podcast :
I've tried several new podcasts this year but most of them didn't cut it and I have unsubscribed. Among them are: Red Sox Beat Podcast, FiveThirtyEight Elections, What the Crime?, Dogsmarts and Rolling Stone Music Now.

I've found a few that I continue to listen to: Revisionist History, Radio Lab's More Perfect, the New Yorker Radio Hour, Next New England, You Must Remember This and Slate's Trumpcast. 

Trumpcast is probably my favorite. It not only keeps you up on the doings of the orange douche-nozzle, but they are funny. The best part is when they have a Trump impersonator read his tweets of the week. 

MUSIC:
Best concert I attended: 
The best concert I went to was Brandi Carlyle at the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont. This is my favorite local venue and she put on a great show. I didn't go to a lot of shows this year, mostly because my wife is in graduate school again and she doesn't have time. I hope to go to more in 2017.

Best album:  
I bought some great new albums this year, in MP3 format of course. I bought Ray Lamontagne's "Ouroboros," Avett Brother's "True Sadness," David Bowie's last album "Black Star," Andrew Bird's "Are You Serious," Rachel Yamagata's "Tightrope Walker," "A Monolith of Phobos" by The Claypool Lennon Delirium, "Human Performance" by the Parquet Courts and the soundtrack to "Roadies." I enjoyed all of them except for the Ray Lamontagne album, mostly because it is not what I expected from him. He usually delivers some decent bluesy pop songs but instead, he experimented and like many experiments, it failed.

It is difficult for me to pick a favorite out of all these, but since I have to pick one, I pick Andrew Bird's "Are You Serious." The lyrics are solid and the musical orchestration is phenomenal. 
 

Favorite new songs: 
I have 191 mp3 files of songs from 2016.

Here are some of my favorites:
"I Wish I Was Sober" by Frightened Rabbit
"Roma Fade," "The New Saint Jude" and "Capsized" by Andrew Bird
"Smithsonian," "I Wish I Was ..." and "Mama, I Don't Believe" by The Avett Brothers
"Golden Age" by Chris Staple
"No River" by Esmé Patterson
"Let Me Get There" by Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions
"Call Off Your Dogs" by Lake Street Dive
"Berlin Got Blurry" by the Parquet Courts
"Water" by Ra Ra Riot and Rostam
"Over" by Rachel Yamagata
"Open Your Eyes" by School of Seven Bells
"Quiet Americans" by Shearwater
"Cricket and the Genie" by The Claypool Lennon Delirium
"In Bloom" by Sturgill Simpson
"Hands of Time" by Margo Price
"Beautiful Strangers" by Kevin Morby
"Rican Beach" by Hurray for the Riff Raff
"Atomic Number" by case/lang/veirs

Since I have to pick a favorite, I pick "Smithsonian" by the Avett Brothers. I find the tune addictive and the lyrics very assuming. 

OTHER STUFF:
Favorite discovery of the year: 

The Library of Congress is DC is perhaps the most beautiful building in the United States. The building alone is a good enough reason to visit. But then you get to see some of the most amazing books. There is a copy of the Guttenberg Bible, an original copy of Common Sense and Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass." It is a really impressive place. You also get to see the remainder of Thomas Jefferson's personal library that he donated.

Best trip: 
Our trip to Arizona was definitely our best trip, to see the Cubs in Spring Training, especially since this was the team that won the World Series. The Cactus League is such a better experience than the Grapefruit League in Florida. All the games in Arizona are a short drive from each other, around Phoenix, as opposed to Florida, which is all over the state. We got a close up look at all the Cubs' rookies and actually got to meet their manager Joe Madden (see my wife below getting a ball signed). We also met some old time greats like Bill Buckner, Fergie Jenkins and Lee Smith. Lee Smith was a lot of fun. He laughed at me when I told him the Red Sox were going to the playoffs.  Jokes on him!

We also took a week long visit to Portland Maine, with our niece, mostly kayaking, walking our dog on the beach, eating out, minor league baseball and visiting friends. All other trips this year were relatively local: Boston (for Fenway), Rhode Island, Connecticut and Montreal.

Song Dissection: Roads To Moscow

I thought of blogging my interpretations of some of my favorite Beatles or Bowie songs, but the Internet is full of these.  Rock n' roll is so chock-full of great songs, why pile onto the massive amount of Beatles fandom when I can tackle something more obscure. While listening to my Classic Rock play list on my iPod today while doing my errands, I heard Al Stewart's Roads to Moscow and I doubted that there was anything on the net that gave an interpretation of this song. When I got home and started googling. I found some sites that actually documented the history of the song, the World War II battles and such, but interpretation of what the song is about, I did not.

Al Stewart is a folk rock musician most famous for his song Year of the Cat from 1976. He is Scottish and is one of those UK musicians you can actually hear his accent when he sings (like Todd Rundgren or Robin Hitchcock) most likely because his singing is more like talking than singing.

Many of his songs, like Roads To Moscow, are historical in nature. It came out in 1973, on the Past, Present and Future album, a few years before his biggest hit got international air play. The song (lyrics below) is a first person narrative from the perspective of a Soviet soldier in WW II. The first verse highlights the events of June 1941 when Germany forces destroyed 90% of the Soviet air force in about a week.  The second verse recounts the German retreat through Ukraine, later that summer after the Battle of Moscow. The third verse brings us into the winter as the Russian troops march into Germany towards Stalingrad. The last verse is the saddest among them where he returns home, after four years of fighting, only to be arrested and thrown into a gulag.

The verses mostly tell the historical events and don't tell much about the state of mind of our narrator. For that you must look to the chorus. With all these events happening around him, all that he is ever "able to see" is "fire in the air, glowing red silhouetting the smoke on the breeze." He is in a forest but the only natural things he sees is "fire" and "smoke." He is isolated, not seeing much of the battle or the history unfolding around him. He is more of a pawn than a knight, slipping, crawling through fields and moving through shadows. As the town of Orel burns, they turn their backs on it. This was the point in the war, where Hitler thought Russia was defeated. General Guderian, creator of the blitzkrieg and Panzer commander, "stands at the crest of the hill." He, the leader, looks at the wreckage of Orel and reflex on the carnage, not the soldiers with their backs turned. The pawns have to move onto the next fight.

The second chorus replaces "smoke" with "snow" for here is where the war takes a turn, for the German war machine was not prepared for the Russian winter. "Snow" will be the savior of the Russian army and of Moscow as the Nazi troops fail to take her. The German army approached Moscow in a 200 mile long semi-circle. On December 5th, they decided to retreat for they did not have the strength to take the city. In the last chorus, "the city" awakes from a dream. It could be Moscow or Berlin, but at this point, it could be Tokyo or New York or any other city in the world because this is one of the big turning points of the war. The under-armed and starving Russian army are the not the push-overs that Hitler thought they were. Yet, our narrator is still feeling insignificant. All he sees is the "eyes" of the city. What are the eyes doing? Are they watching him? Judging him? All he wants to do is go home, but he never gets there. We never get home from war and we are always prisoners of history.

Apparently, Al Stewart claimed that he based the song on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Nobel Prize winning author's life is similar to our narrator's. He served as a commander and artillery officer for the Red Army in East Prussia. He witnessed war crimes against German civilians, pillaging of some very weak and elderly civilians and gang rapes. He wrote about it in letters home criticizing Stalin and was arrested at the end of the war for it. He spent eight years in a labor camp. Not "forever" like our narrator, but the similarities are there.

I doubt if you will hear this song on the radio any time soon. The only time I've ever heard anywhere other my MP3's is on Radio Paradise.  So if you do ever hear it, maybe I will help with your appreciation a little, I hope.

"Roads To Moscow"
by Al Stewart

They crossed over the border the hour before dawn
moving in lines through the day
Most of our planes were destroyed on the ground where they lay
Waiting for orders we held in the wood
Word from the front never came
By evening the sound of the gunfire was miles away

I softly move through the shadows, slip away through the trees
Crossing their lines in the mist in the fields on our hands and our knees

(chorus)
And all that I ever
Was able to see
The fire in the air, glowing red
Silhouetting the smoke on the breeze

All summer they drove us back through the Ukraine
Smolensk and Viasma soon fell
By Autumn we stood with our backs to the town of Orel
Closer and closer to Moscow they come
Riding the wind like a bell
General Guderian stands at the crest of the hill

Winter brought with the rains, oceans of mud filled the roads
Gluing the tracks of their tanks to the ground, while the skies filled with snow

And all that I ever
Was able to see
The fire in the air, glowing red
Silhouetting the snow on the breeze

(Ah, Ah, Ah) [x4]

(Ah, Ah, Ah) [all thru bridge]
In the footsteps of Napoleon, the shadow figures stagger through the winter
Falling back before the gates of Moscow, standing in the wings like an avenger
And far away behind their lines, the partisans are stirring in the forest
Coming unexpectedly upon their outpost, growing like a promise
You'll never know, you'll never know, which way to turn, which way to look you'll never see us
As we steal into the blackness of the night you'll never know, you'll never hear us

And evening sings in a voice of amber, the dawn is surely coming
The morning road leads to Stalingrad, and the sky is softly humming

Two broken tigers on fire in the night
Flicker their souls to the wind
We wait in the lines for the final approach to begin
It's been almost four years that I've carried a gun
At home, it will almost be spring
The flames of the tiger are lighting the road to Berlin

I quickly move through the ruins that bow to the ground
The old men and children they send out to face us, they can't slow us down

And all that I ever
Was able to see
The eyes of the city are opening
Now it's the end of a dream

(Ah. Ah, Ah) [x4]

(Ah, Ah, Ah) [thru this section]
I'm coming home, I'm coming home , now you can taste it in the wind the war is over
And I listen to the clicking of the train wheels as we roll across the border
And now they ask about the time that I was caught behind their time and taken prisoner
They only held me for a day, a lucky break I say
They turn and listen closer
I'll never know, I'll never know, why I was taken from the line with all the others
to board a special train and journey deep into the heart of holy Russia

And it's cold and damp in the transit camp and the air is still and sullen
and the pale sun of October whispers the snow will soon be coming
And I wonder when, I'll be home again and the morning answers never
And the evening sighs and the steely, Russian skies go on,
forever...

I've Been Complaining About Cops For Years, It Is About Time You Admit I Am Right

Think back to when you were high school. If you are high school now, you can do this also, look around you. Think of the dumbest person in your class. He/She was sitting in the back of the room, perhaps carving something into the desk, maybe sleeping. What is this person doing now as an adult? It is possible they made something of themselves. Perhaps they went into the military or pulled their act together somehow. I hope so, but they could be in jail.  Also, there is a good chance that they are a cop. 

For me I think of this one guy that I used to walk to school with in middle school and for the first few years of high school. He was someone that I was very good friends with in elementary school, from my neighborhood, but as I matured, we went our own different ways. He couldn't read while I was buried in books. He used to torture bugs. A few times he dropped acid on the way into school. I stopped walking to school with him after a while. I was hanging with a different crowd. What is he doing now? He is the chief of police in my home state not too far from where I grew up. I assume and hope he turned his life around, but from my experience with cops, this is not necessarily true. This isn't exactly a profession that attracts the most intelligent and for some it may attract the most sadistic among us.

I have not lead a life of crime. My life has been quite boring, but I did speed a lot when I was younger and I did get a lot of speeding tickets. I was a nervous driver. But after awhile, I started to get pulled over and told I was speeding when obviously I was not. When cars were passing me. I was an easy target for cops who had quotas. I'd challenge them in court and lose. Who was the judge going to believe, the college kids with long hair or the cops which she knew. Of course, I lost. I was once given a ticket on Cape Cod for driving 70 MPH up a hill from a stop with my K car. For those who don't remember K cars, they were a crappy four cylinder car that could barely get to 70 MPH on a flat surface, never climbing an incline. Again, I was an easy target, an out-of-stater with a bad driving record. I just payed the fine rather than challenging the ticket because it was less expensive than taking a day out of work and school to go to court ... and then to probably lose. I ended up getting an attitude of "why not speed," I am going to get a ticket anyway.

That was a long time ago, but my attitude hasn't changed.  Not about speeding, no, I don't speed much anymore especially since I bought a Prius. My Prius doesn't use gas if I drive around 35 MPH so I chug along these dirt roads going real slow. My attitude about cops hasn't changed. They are dicks, power-seeking douche bags out to financially-rape the tax payers. Cops are not a source for good in the world. Cops are there to maintain the status quo ... to keep the poor down and keep the wealthy ... wealthy. They are not there to keep our roads safe, but to raise revenue. I don't call a cop unless I absolutely have to. It is my experience that having a cop present usually makes any experience worse.

I say all this as a white guy in Vermont. Since I moved to Vermont, I have noticed that the cops are a lot nicer and seem to harass the tax payers much less than a lot of other places in this country. Occasionally, I do get pulled over for bullshit like my headlight is burnt out or my license plate is obstructed. While Vermont's meth and heroin problem is still out of control, you can rest assured, our headlights are just fine.

I know plenty of people from around this country and some of them are not white. I hear their complaints about cops, I usually believe them but I know most white people don't. But now that we have had so much coming out these days from dash board cams to iPhone videos, can anyone really not believe me or them when we say that cops are dicks? I know the immediate response we get is that "my brother is a cop and he is a good cop" but let's face it, the dick cops have relatives that think they are good cops too. Do you really know that the cop you know is one of the good ones? Isn't it about time to admit that we don't have have a crime problem, but a cop problem?

How much more evidence do you need than this?

Exhibit A: A Staten Island man, Eric Garner, being choked to death by the NYPD. Mr. Garner's crime: selling cigarettes.

Exhibit B; When a bunch of black kids show up at a pool party in a white suburb in Texas, this what happens:



Exhibit C: Here is what happens when you run from a cop in Charleston, South Carolina.

Exhibit D: Here is what happens to you when you peacefully protest at UC Davis. That's right, that is pepper spray.

I could go on, it is very easy to do here from my back porch in Vermont.  Just type "police brutality" in your search engine. It is fun!

I could imagine that being a police officer is a difficult job. I could also imagine that it can take a toll on you psychologically. I am not sure what the solution is to this problem. I think we might want to start the solution by stop the recruiting cops from the bottom of the pile. If we simply picking the best of the sadists and sociopaths that we can find, I can see why we are where we are.

The Literature of Passing

One of my favorite short novels is the book Passing (1929) by Nella Larsen, a Harlem Renaissance writer. Her two short novels, Quicksand and Passing are usually sold together in one volume as Quicksand and Passing. Both books are excellent and worth reading, but Passing is one of those books that my interpretation completely changed after I talked to a friend. The book is about a two black girls (Clare and Irene) who are good friends. One of them, Clare, has extremely light skin hence can pass as a white person. Because of this, they go different ways. Clare marries a white man and lives among his world. Most of the book is about the relationship of the two women when they meet up again as adults. The "passing" in the title meant racially passing to me as I read through the book, but this friend pointed out that Clare was also passing as a gay woman pretending to be straight. This blew my mind. She pointed out passages in the book where there are erotic undertone to how Clare describes Irene and how Irene has a sexless marriage. I've always wanted to reread the book. It is so short, I am not sure why I haven't.

I have been thinking about this lately because I recently read an article in Salon about a professor, Carlyle V. Thompson, at Medger Evers College in Brooklyn that is proposing that Gatsby (from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby) is a light skin black man passing in the white world. This is the first time I have heard this and it is intriguing. This book came out just a few years after Larsen's and it is possible that Fitzgerald did recognize the hypocrisies in our nation's racial politics and coded it therein. The textual evidence is light, with Gatsby hair being "close-cropped" and he owned 40 acres and a mansion (as opposed to 40 acres and a mule).  The best case for this is that Gatsby's past is unknown and mysterious. No one knows anything about him. He changed his name from Gatz to Gatsby and claims that his family is all dead. The only overt reference to race in the book is when Tom Buchanan (Gatsby's rival for Daisy), a Nordic with a body with "enormous power" and "two shining arrogant eyes," starts talking about the black race taking over the world. Tom says "next they'll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white." This is pre-Hitler set in an era when eugenics was discussed casually.  Miscegenation was still controversial. The only person that seems uncomfortable with Tom is our narrator, Nick Carraway.

If anyone is passing in The Great Gatsby, it is Nick. His family's discomfort for his isn't only because he is single. It is possible that he is a gay man passing in a straight world. He tells us of his experience with the "feminine" male photographer Mr. McKee that "I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio in his hands." Indeed. We are then given an ellipsis ridden paragraph and four hours missing from the plot line. This is about as homo-erotic as we get in any novel of the sexually repressed Jazz Age.

I am not sure how relevant it is whether Gatsby is black or Nick is gay. It just throws more depth in an already masterful tiny book that I can be reread many times without catching everything. Should I give it a fourth read? I'm sure I will get around to it, eventually. Fitzgerald lived in Paris for a short time hitting the jazz clubs with Zelda and Hemingway. His exposure to other ways of life was undoubted rich. I have no doubt it had an effect on him.

What Happened To Dr. Crusher?

It has been awhile since I blogged about Star Trek. I like to do so because my blog hit stats go way up.  Trekkies can't seem to get enough of reading and writing about the show even though it has been off the air for about ten years now. When the Star Trek: The Next Generation (aka TNG) came out in 1987, on demand viewing did not exist yet. The Internet was still a baby, known by very few people. To catch the week's new episode, you had to be at your television at the time it played which made for more communal viewing. For me, it was 7PM on Saturdays. I was still living at home so I roped my dad into watching it with me. We were a one-tv home. I am not sure if those exist anymore. I could always set the VCR's timer to record the show for me, but that didn't always work. Now, it is a real treat being able to pull out my phone and watch any episode at a moments notice if I want to.

Great television shows were a rarity back then. If TNG came out now, it may not have been such a sensation, but at the time, there wasn't much else worth watching from a sci-fi standpoint. I'd go out on Saturday nights to meet friends and that week's episode would always come up. This is something that we miss now. Most of us don't watch shows at the same time. Water-cooler talk doesn't go into the realm of television much when everyone is binge watching different shows.

The first season of TNG was uneven in quality. The characters were kinda goofy, the music was awful and the writing was all over the place. It was nice to see Star Trek back on television but I wasn't optimistic that it was ever be as good as the original series (aka TOS). At the time I referred to TNG as "Yuppies in Space." The characters looked so handsome and neat without any edge and depth. The feeling was that all our problems in the future are resolved and everyone is going to be boring. The first seasons ended in a low point, during the writer's strike. The last episode of that season, "The Neutral Zone," is one of the worst episodes ever made with two unrelated plot lines that go nowhere. They had pulled some fan fiction from a pile and a few producers carved the episode together. By the end of the first season, I doubted if the show was going to be on the air for long, but the ratings were so high, it was clear it wasn't going away.

The changes they made in the second season may have saved the show. At least it did for me. Many were subtle. Commander Riker grew a beard. He looked a lot older without the baby face. The only female character from the first season to make it into the next season was Deanna Troi, the ship's counselor, who also got a badly needed hair-style change. The ship now had a bar with Whoopi Goldberg as the bartender. Of course, the biggest change was the new chief medical officer, Dr. Pulaski, portrayed by Diana Muldaur, who appeared in two TOS episodes portraying two different characters. Gates McFadden, aka Dr. Beverly Crusher, was fired after the first season.

Many of the characters, particularly the females characters, were poorly developed in the first season. The actresses were not happy about it. Denise Crosby, aka Tasha Yar, didn't make it through the entire first season. It was clear to her that the male characters, Worf and Data, were gaining in popularity and her character was being thrown into the background by the writers. She quit and they killed Yar off in the 23rd episode. Yar was very poorly written, flippant and inconsistent. You wonder if Crosby would have stayed with the show if Yar would have been developed better like the rest of the show. Gates McFadden, who portrayed Dr. Crusher, had the same gripe with the writers. The added stress of the writer's strike didn't help. The working relationship became unmanageable and she was fired.

One of the better things that happened to the show in the second season was the introduction of Dr. Pulaski to replace Dr. Crusher. She was a better actress and her character was better written. Her character was edgy, which was badly needed on this show. All the characters up to this point were just perfect people, particularly the humans. They all got along too well, with little conflict and very few flaws. Then came Dr. Pulaski. She was abrasive and somewhat of a bigot which made her interesting. Her bigotry was a new one for the 24th century. She was uncomfortable around androids. She would refer to Data, the android on the crew, as "it" and she would continually challenge the idea that he was a sentient being. While the rest of the crew was not phased by his sentience and accepted it unquestioningly, she struggled with it. It was this struggle that made her a better character than the rest of the crew, annoying but more realistic. This was the kind of stuff that we expected from Star Trek. McCoy had a problem with Vulcan and this made for good television.

Of course, most people don't agree with me. The fan-base of the show complained and demanded the return of Dr. Crusher. The character hadn't been killed off. She was written out of the show by stating that she was the head of Starfleet Medical so they could easily write her back in. Nothing much was said about the reasons for her return. Her character was still overshadowed by most of the male characters although she did star in some of the episodes, some of the worst Star Trek episodes ever made.

Saying Bye to Timmy

I am not one to acquire many material goods. I often say that one good way to not get robbed is not own anything worth stealing. I have no jewelry and no family heirlooms laying around. I have some computer equipment, most of it is too old to be valuable to anyone. With nothing to steal and a couple of big dogs protecting my land, I have never had a house break in. Or if I have, they haven't taken anything that I noticed. Maybe some some beer was stolen.

The first material good that I have loved was my Schwinn LeTour 10 speed bicycle when I was a teenager. My parents would buy me a bike, but not a good one. If I wanted a good one, I'd have to buy it myself. So I saved up my allowance and made money shoveling snow etc. After saving for about a year, I had a bike that I loved and I went everywhere with it. From my home town of Woonsocket, I'd bike into Providence (about 30 miles) just to go to my favorite comic book shop. I'd bike to school in the Spring and Fall and while living in the southern Rhode Island during the summer, I'd bike to the beach. The bike was my lifeblood. It got me everywhere. In my senior year of high school, when the bike was stolen out of my backyard, I was crushed. I learned quickly not to love any material goods because of how easily they could be taken away.

If it wasn't for my wife, I'd never buy anything new. Perhaps it is my working class background, other than my lap top, I wouldn't buy anything I could used and keep it until it died. It wasn't until 2004 that we bought a new car off the lot. I had always bought used cars and had to have them towed to the junk yard when I was done with them. My wife convinced me to buy new after we lived in Vermont for a few years because here in the north country, you need a good car. You can't do much without one. Here is where Timmy comes in. Timmy was our 2004 Toyota Matrix. I say "was" because we traded him in on Friday and got $2,000.00 as a trade in for our new 2014 Prius V. I did not break down and cry when we left him, but I came close; I felt weepy. Why? It is probably because of the time that I spent in him and not so much as a love for the actual product. Like when I lost my bike, the saying good bye to the car, was an end to an era. It is the loving of the product (like one does with jewelry) but what a product added to your life, the independence and opportunity, not the product.

We needed all-wheel drive and a car big enough to carry two or three dogs. We had a very good experience with an old used red Toyota Corolla (aka Ruby) so we went with the Matrix. Ten years brought us 172,440 miles with relatively no problems. We drove him as far south as Florida with our dog Rex when he was a pup. He learned to get excited when he saw the car or heard its engine. We drove to Chicago, Boston and Montreal many times and further into Canada (westward to Ottawa, Ontario and northward to Quebec City, Quebec). In 2009, Timmy became our old car when we bought our second Matrix, Dot. We referred to them collectively as the Matrices. Timmy was relegated to lugging the dogs or kayaks. Since I telecommute, he spent most of the day in our yard or garage awaiting my lunch time errands.

A lot of life happened in this car.

The fact that we traded the car in and didn't deliver it to a junk yard is pleasing to me because we know someone else will get to use him. We move on.  Let me introduce you to Luther:

The bonding will ensue shortly.

The First of the World Wars

This year marks the 100th year anniversary of the start of World War I, but we could easily call the war between France and Britain in the 18th century (1754 to 1763) a World War. Here in America and in English speaking Canada, we refer to it as the French and Indian War.  It spanned most of the continents of the world: Europe, North and South America, Asia and Africa. The belligerents were mainly France and England but their empires spanned much of the globe at the time. In French Canada they call it La Guerre de la Conquête (the War of Conquest). The French name has a lot of meaning for them in that it marks when France was removed from the North American mainland and French Canada (New France) was taken over by the British. We now know this land as Quebec just a few miles north of me. They still grapple with maintaining their French identity in an English nation.

Europeans call this war, The Seven Year War, which is odd because it lasted nine years. The name Nine Year War was already taken, The seven years refers to the most active years of the war, '56 through '63. The Swedes and Prussians referred to it as the Pomeranian War which describes the region that they were fighting over. This theatre ended in a stalemate. In India it is referred to as The Third Carnatic War which was basically French and British troops battling over the India. Britain's victory left them as the dominant colonial power on the Indian sub-continent.

This all started on the border of Pennsylvania and Ohio when a 22 year old Colonel in the British Army, named George Washington, left Fort Pitt (aka Pittsburgh) to inform some French settlers that they were encroaching on British land.  The French refused and continued to build Fort Duquesne. Washington returned with an army to remove them and war began. The British were allied with the Iroquois Confederacy (which was huge) while the French were allied with the Abenaki, the Algonquin and the Shawnee among many other native people that I never heard of.

France cared more about gains in Europe and maintaining possessions in the Caribbean. Canada was a money loser for France and didn't care if they lost it that much. The sugar crop from the Caribbean Islands were too important to their economy. While Britain decided to concentrate on North America. By 1759, Britain controlled Quebec and by 1760 Montreal surrendered.  Britain attacked many of the places that were vital to French economy (the slave, sugar and gum trade) in Senegal, Martinique and the Caribbean. In the Treaty of Paris, Louisiana goes to Spain and Canada goes to Britain while France ends up keeping their major Caribbean Islands.

It was this war that put Britain in debt.  If not for the huge war debt accumulated during this war, American independence may not have ever happened just a few years later. Britain raised taxes on the colonies to pay off the debt sand rebellion ensued in responses to over-taxation. The American Revolution may have lasted longer if Britain could afford it and the US would never exist.  George Washington started the war that indirectly lead to our country being created. He really is the father of our country.

The Almost Boycott of 1968 Olympics

As a student of history, I have to admit that I have been enjoying watching the television show Madmen not just for the drama but for the history. The attention to detail is impeccable. When they turn on their black and white television sets, with the rabbit ear antennae, that white dot slowly comes on the screen and takes a few seconds for the picture to appear. I love it. As I watch season six, with the storyline based in 1968 (one of the US's most turbulent years), I observe some the best television characters ever created reflect on their current events: assassinations, violence at the Democratic convention, the Vietnam war and pot smoking in the office. I was three years old when this unfolded, but I feel like I am sharing the experience now. If the novel is the great art form of the 20th Century, then surely television will be the 21st Century's. Don Draper is our Gatsby, as complex and as relevant our era as any Fitzgerald, Hemingway or Salinger character.

With the Winter Olympic in Sochi starting tomorrow, I have to wonder, will the events of 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City be mentioned on Madmen. Don't tell me, I plan to watch it as soon as my wife gets home. The Olympic Project for Human Rights was founded by UC Berkley sociology professor Harry Edwards. Its intention were to organize the American black athletes to boycott the Olympics. The most famous of them was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (named Lew Alcindor at the time), but they were supported by Jesses Owens, Jackie Robinson and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  The five demands were: 1) the removal of racist IOC president Avery Brondage, 2) a retraction of Rhodesia and South Africa invitation to the games, 3) reinstating of Muhammed Ali's boxing title, 4) hiring more African-American coaches and 5) ending the "whites only" policy at the New York Athletic Club. South Africa and Rhodesia were disinvited but that had happened before the demands were made.  None of the others were met and the athletes went anyway. They were urged to find some individual gestures of protest. In this video King mentions six demands but I could only find five.

The US received 45 gold medals in that Olympics, ten of them were by black athletes setting seven world records (including the famous Bob Beamon long jump). The only protesters were Tommie Smith and John Carlos who placed first and third in the 200 meter run. Smith wore a black glove on his right hand, Carlos on his left. They raised their hands with the Black Power symbol. They also wore no shoes to symbolize poverty, they wore beads to protest lynchings and an Olympics Projects for Human Rights button. Instead of looking at the flag while the national anthem played, they bowed their heads. They were suspended from the team, thrown out of Olympic Village and had to go home but could keep their medals because the US wanted to count them in the medal count.

The reaction from home is what you'd expect, America hasn't changed much. The worst thing that was said in the media was by sport broadcaster, Brent Musburger, called them a pair "dark skinned storm troopers." This was before Star Wars, so storm trooper was still associated with German soldiers. They received tons of hate mail and death threats. Tons of problems followed including social isolation and loss of employment bottoming out with Carlos' wife's suicide in 1977.  

I don't know if this is a big enough event to appear in Madmen, but it is just a reminder that I am glad I am not old enough to remember 1968.

The Bush and Pierce Connection

I still hear people refer to the George W. Bush presidency as the worst in American history. While I am no fan of our 42nd president, now I have the distance of a few years, the worst is a bit harsh. I say this not because I don't think he was horrible, for the country and the planet, but because I have more perspective now. We have had a lot of really awful president. We had a stretch of very weak presidents from Van Buren (#8) to Buchanan (#15) that may have lead to our country's Civil War. If we had a Lincoln, one of the Roosevelts or Washington in that stretch, perhaps our bloodiest war wouldn't have happened. The ramifications of that war are still felt today.

One of those really weak bad presidents was Franklin Pierce (#14). Pierce was the son of a Revolutionary War hero and Governor, Benjamin Pierce.  He was well-known and well-liked in his native New Hampshire. He had an unimpressive college career, military career and an equally unimpressive political career before being president with two terms in US Congress and one term in the Senate. Then how did he become president? While he attended Bowdoin College, he made one very good friend, Nathaniel Hawthorne. They were such good friend that when Pierce died, years later, Hawthorne was the person who found him. As you may recall, Hawthorne was one of the big stars of the time. Great and popular novelist in the 19th century were like the rock stars of their time. Hawthorne was already extremely famous for writing the classics The Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables, when he wrote The Life of Franklin Pierce. It was not exactly fiction but not what you would consider a good non-fiction book either. It was more the type of biography a politician publishes from their campaign office than from a curious journalist. It was extremely biased toward Pierce portraying him not as the mediocre person that he was. One point was clear, he did not support the abolitionists. He thought that if slavery were outlawed, it needed to come from the South, until then, the Federal Government needed to stay out of it. The book was popular enough to give him national attention.

Presidential Primaries in 1852 were still decided at the convention. In the first round of voting, Pierce received zero votes.  It wasn't until the 35th round that he received his first votes at the Convention with 15. Even his home state wasn't giving up their delegates for him. It wasn't until the 49th round that Pierce had the majority of the votes. He was considered a moderate with few strong opinions so it was easy for the other candidates to throw their support from the left and the right. Pierce's Whig opponent (the party's last), Winfield Scott's, anti-slavery reputation made it an easy win for Pierce. The only states that Scott took were Massachusetts, Vermont, Kentucky and Tennessee. The most interesting fact about this election was that Daniel Webster was still on the ballot as the Union Party candidate, even though he had died earlier that year. He still received .2 % of the vote.

A few months after Pierce was elected, his son Benjamin, 11, died in a train accident. He and his wife, Jane, both were on the train with him and when the train tumbled down an embankment in Andover, MA, they watch as the boy was crushed. They both suffered from deep depression that badly affected his presidency. Jane was referred to as the "shadow in the White House" for she never came out of her state of melancholia while Franklin turned to drinking. As president he supported the expansion of slavery into the West, his administration vigorously pursued fugitive slaves in the North to return them to their "owners," and supported the annexation of Cuba. This was a bad President in a time we needed a good one. We were headed toward war. While Bush was bad and divisive, we won't be midst a civil war anytime soon (but I could be wrong). He is also the only President ever to not be renominated by his own party for another term. One other thing about Pierce, he is the only ex-President to support the Confederacy during the Civil War.

George W. Bush was certainly one of the worst presidents in history, but his father wasn't so bad. George Herbert Bush (#40) was not a great president, but not one of the worst either. So it isn't genetic ... but wait. Barbara Bush, W's mother, was born Barbara Pierce. She and President Pierce are fourth cousins four times removed. President Pierce's parents were Benjamin Pierce and Ann Kendrick. Their son, James was Franklin's brother. James and his wife Chloe Holbrook had a son named James. That James married Kate Pritzel and had a son Scott. Scott married Mabel and had Marvin. Marvin Pierce and Pauline Robinson are Barbara's parents. So perhaps there is a bad president gene. Something to think about if Jeb Bush ever runs.