Here They Go Again

Apparently our senior-most politicos simply are incapable of learning . . . or perhaps they just love a good war, especially if they are not the ones being shot at or bombed. Our senior Vietnam Warmonger, John McCain, accompanied by his very own Tonto, Lindsay Graham, are insisting that we go to war in Syria.  Why, oh, just cuz . . . well, actually cuz Asaad turned his very own chemical industry on his own people—well technically I guess they are no longer HIS people. They're sort of anti-his people.

And we have everyone running about yelling about bright red  lines having been crossed. Oh, and the Brits and the French, not to mention the Israelis and the Turks are all running about without their heads yelling “War, War, we want War!!”

The Russkies, of course, are adamantly opposed to war, and they are ungracious enough to remind us about Iraq, and even comparing Obama to The Shrub. Way to go Vlad. . . you really know how to hurt a guy.

But I keep wondering. What is there about that part of the UN Charter  concerning non-interference with the internal affairs of its member states, that we all don’t understand?  In what way, I wonder, would bombing/invading, or otherwise warring against Syria be in any way different from the Shrub’s patently illegal invasion of Iraq? Yes, Asaad used chemical weapons. So, what? He’s using bullets, bombs, tear gas, probably flame throwers—in short he’s emptying his arsenal at his people in an attempt to remain relevant.  His pathetic attempts may not, probably will not work, but it seems to me that’s for his people to work out. I continue not to understand why it’s ok to shoot your people, or run over them with tanks, or bomb them from the air, but it’s not ok to gas them.  Maybe we don’t get this thing of DEATH. When folks become DEAD, it really no longer matters how they became DEAD. They no longer exist (no, they don’t enter heaven, or hell. They just no longer exist). So, why do we care how they came to be DEAD? Yes, Asaad is a 12^th century thug, but so are many of his enemies.  Is Putin really much better than Asaad? No??? Yet, I don’t see us playing war games with him.

So, we really need to consider sanctions, perhaps, but not bullets, or drones, or other war toys. If we cannot get the UN to enter as a global force (enter Mr. Putin) then maybe we shouldn’t play George Bush, once again.

Perhaps we need to put Mr. McCain back in a jet fighter, with Mr. Graham as his copilot, and let them play their Vietnam Redux game, but all by themselves. There will be no real winners in Syria. But let us not be one of the losers there.

Time Passes

Another milestone in our passage towards oblivion. A good friend, May Boothby, passed away, while watching TV in her own home. May stoutly resisted the idea of moving in with her kids, despite the many attempts by them to get her to move in or closer to them. May remained stubbornly independent and died presumably as she would have wished.

We met May and her family when we lived in New Delhi and May lived in Jaipur. May’s husband was with the UN Food and Agricultural Organization. They lived in Jaipur so Guy could work with Indian farmers who were raising sheep.  Guy and May had three kids at the time we met and they added a fourth midway through their term in India. Their two sons were close in age to our two daughters and the kids played together regularly whenever we got together. One of our fond memories was a weekend we spent in Jaipur with Guy and May. It was one of the boys’ birthdays and May had arranged for the kids to take a ride around Jaipur on an elephant. We were all in the house, when the boys came racing into the house yelling, “Mommie, Mommie, there’s a strange elephant in the driveway” Not just an elephant, mind you, but a strange elephant.

 

While living in Jaipur, The Boothby’s had become good friends with the Princess of Jaipur and friends with her parents, the Maharajah and Maharani of Jaipur. Through them, we were invited to many fabulous affairs in Jaipur. We attended a formal ball at the Maharajah’s city palace—an amazing affair for two little kids from New York.  We were greeted at the palace gates—silver doors actually, by a well dressed man, and then farther on by a well-dressed elephant.

 

Later, May invited us to spend some time with the princess (we knew her as "Mickie") at the Maharajah’s summer hunting lodge near Jaipur.  We dined, the kids cavorted next to a tiger brought down by the Maharajah, and a good time was had by all.

 

May and Guy traveled extensively beyond India. They lived in Africa, and in South America before returning to Australia.

Happily, we got to visit May in Australia, when we journeyed there to attend the wedding of a Sri Lankan lad with whom we had become close in the US.

May had a full life. It did not deliver all she wanted or deserved. She and Guy divorced after their return to Oz. May deserved more.

But she had the full support and love of her kids until she finally left this life and passed into the Night for Which There is no Morning.

Google a Doodle

 

I found the article in the Guardian about Schrodinger's cat theorem wonderful. It also promoted many amusing comments.

 

Erwin Schrödinger birthday celebrated in Google doodle

 

 

By 1925, then a professor of physics at the University of Zurich and holidaying in the Alps, Schrödinger formulated a wave-equation that accurately gave the energy levels of atoms. It formed the basis of the work that would earn him the Nobel prize in physics in 1933.

In subsequent years, he repeatedly criticised conventional interpretations of quantum mechanics by using the paradox of what would become known as Schrödinger's cat. This thought experiment was designed to illustrate what he saw as the problems surrounding application of the conventional, so-called "Copenhagen interpretation" of quantum mechanics to everyday objects

Bank of America

Big article today about our home town bank, the Bank of America. Seems the bank has been committing fraud, selling investment instruments that were largely worthless. The details escape me, mainly because I no longer care, so I have trouble reading these articles about fraudulent banks all the way through.

I concluded some time ago that global banks should be considered part of the world’s largest organized crime ring. They make the Mafia look like little kid hucksters.  So, when a bank is taken to court by the SEC or anyone man enough to confront them, it gladdens my heart. I wonder how many people are now trying to figure out how to survive their retirement, now that the Bank has made their retirement investments worthless?

So, what should we do about such things?

Well, I for one like to consider going back to something Judge Tony (aka Scalia) made possible. Tony asserted, and got his right wing buddies to approve, the premise that corporations are persons. So, why is that important? Well, it occurs to me that, if the Bank of America, was defrauding other folks (including other corporate folks), then the Bank of America itself  should be held accountable, as part of a conspiracy.  So, not only can the Bank officers be brought to judgment, but the Bank itself can also be brought to judgment. And what do I mean by “brought to judgment”? Well, let’s suppose the charges against the Bank and its officers holds up in court and that the Bank is found guilty of fraud—a felony I believe. So, what’s such a felony worth in prison time? Well, let’s say 5-10 years in a federal penitentiary.

I am thinking that, since Corporations are now persons, that the corporation and its officers should be sentenced to actual prison time.  So, let’s say the Bank of America gets a 5-10 year sentence in some federal prison (I so wish that Alcatraz were still open). That means that a cell would be reserved for the Bank—mainly I guess its formal charter or its certificate as a corporation, placed carefully in a nice box and placed carefully on the bed. And, the Bank as a person could of course no longer operate as a corporation, so the bank would essentially close for 5-10 years. Now we would have to make some provision for ordinary folks to remove their money and assets from the bank prior to executing the sentence.  Then the Bank (its papers of incorporation) would be placed in that box and locked away for 5-10 years.  After the Bank had demonstrated that it could behave, maybe it would be granted probation and allowed to resume banking, assuming of course anyone still cared.

Now that would be an adequate payment for wrongdoing. Perhaps it might even make other global bankers a bit more cautious about their current plans to screw the public once again. AP Giannini would be so proud.

Just a thought.

GOP Largesse

Wow, it’s really interesting learning that the North Carolina GOP is modeling the state’s educational system after that in the great state of Florida, aka the Florida Free Fire Zone, that region where people shoot one another, just because they can.  Here they are trying desperately to kill off the public schooling system (you know, that system that created the American Middle Class) and replace it with, guess what, private charter schools. And the best part is that in charter schools the teachers don’t even have to be certified. I guess they all get their pedigrees from the University of Phoenix.

Yeah, the republicans  are really moving smartly to dismantle the state. Maybe they should just annex it to South Carolina. And the Gubernator tells us that it’s all for our own good. He said that he wouldn’t change a woman’s access to abortion and family planning, and he has now imposed a new architecture for clinics that carry out abortions, such that most of them will doubtless have to close. But, hey, he’s just protecting the women. And we know he never lies . . . don’t we?

Oh, and that voting rights thingie—you know, where they restrict voting hours, require voter IDs and restrict where students can vote. That has nothing to do with limiting voters who might cast a ballot for the other side. Nope, it’s protecting us from voter fraud. We have virtually no such fraud, but hey, you can’t be too careful.

And then there’s their views about national health insurance and protecting the ability of poor folks to gain access to our health care system. Well, that apparently just sounds too much like communism for their liking, and you can’t have that.

Oh and then we have Congressional Neo-Cons who are busily trying to eliminate SNAP, or the food stamp program. Yeah, can’t have all those poor folks scarfing up all the Stolle Vodka and Beluga Caviar on the public dole can we? So, they’re putting a stop to all that “Liberal Largess” as readers of the Charlotte Observer often put it.  I wonder if they have given any thought to stopping the folks on welfare from buying their 500 class BMW’s from their overly generous welfare checks. Must have them check up on that scandal.

Florida Mess

It’s really hard to know what to make of the Zimmerman jury verdict. On the one hand, their verdict seems terminally weird. Zimmerman seems to have actively stalked Martin, then maybe was attacked, then shot Martin. He probably did shoot somewhat in self defense. On the other hand, Martin was also within his rights to “stand his ground.”  Had Martin been armed, Zimmerman would almost surely now be dead and Martin would have had to stand trial against a similar charge. Because he is Black and Zimmerman, sort of White, Martin would have had more difficulty sustaining innocence in Florida—kind of like Texas.

The central problem here is the underlying law. Zimmerman and his attorneys played to that law well. Zimmerman had to plead “self-defense”. Maybe he was actually attacked, or maybe not. Only Zimmerman knows and he seems unlikely to have conveyed anything like the full truth about what actually occurred.  The law seems likely to create more such situations. Whether they all include a racial element is possible, perhaps even likely. Black teenagers are now more likely to arm themselves, regardless of Florida’s laws about gun ownership and age. Hopefully, reason will prevail and we will not see a dramatic rise in violence, or mob rule. But Florida has now opened the doors to violence.

I am drawn to thinking about Florida as a “free fire zone”, like we used to see in Vietnam, with more shootings and more claims of “self-defense.” Floridians hopefully will live to regret this law.  Were I considering a vacation, Florida would now be just below Afghanistan on my list of possible places to visit.  I am hoping that Americans heed the potential risks now from a visit to this former vacation spot. America is a vast and beautiful country. Go visit all the other places throughout our fair land. Leave Florida to suffer their own “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”

Stand Your Ground America. Go visit someplace safe and sane.

Happy 4th

If you're lucky enough to live in DC, you will be celebrating this evening by watching the National Park service oversee a few protests--in DC, the protests go on, rain or shine . . .
You have the usual collection -- the crazies . . .

 

or the righteous . . .

 

 

But, in DC, you could also take the Fourth as an opportunity to visit your favorite neighborhood subway . . .

Finally, should have a mind to, you could also try to pay a visit to your friendly neighborhood Congressperson. There are a probably a few still hanging out . . .

 

Oh, yeah, I forgot, if you're still awake and reasonably sober, after dark, there are some fireworks . . .

But if you're like the rest of us, you will probably invite a few friends over for dinner . . .

and share some wine with your best buds (BFF)

So, whatever you do, have a happy, safe, and sane fourth of July . . .