Aging in Place

Folks often ask, “so how’re you doing?  And sometimes I respond, “Who knows . . . the Shadow knows.”  And that goes over the heads of most folks under, say, 70. See, I used to listen to the radio during the 1940s, sitting in our front room in our flat on Second Avenue, near 71^st Street.  And I listened to “The Shadow”, Fibber McGee and Molly”, “Inner Sanctum”, and others of that early ilk.  “Who knows what evil lurks in the minds of man. The Shadow knows.”

But then, because I really am aging, I sometimes respond, “Aging in place.” And not everyone gets that, but most do.  It means, sort of, “well, I’m hanging around, mostly in one place, and I’m getting older every day.”  Mainly, it’s a signal that I no longer make any significant contribution to mankind.  Hanging around . . . some might say, “waiting to go”.  Now the trouble with that phrase, is that you don’t really “go” anywhere, when you end this existence on earth.  No, you simply cease to exist. Which to my mind is really weird.  If there is a god, she apparently didn’t think that one through.

But, in any case, it is what it is.  But, the important thing about all this silliness about life and its potential ending scenarios, is that there is great reason to look on each day as a gift. Open it carefully, and treat it with respect. You may not get another one tomorrow, but, if you do, open that one carefully and treat it also with respect.

I have now lived beyond the point in the aging game where any of my family members survived. Mostly, the women ended it all around my current age, mid-80s. The men generally didn’t make it that far. To be fair, we didn’t know as much about preserving life during the 1940s – 1980s when most of my aging family “left” this life.

So, does any of this mean anything?

Well, what it means to me is that we might want to consider leaving the place at least slightly better than when we entered it.  And by “better”, I obviously don’t mean financially “better”. I mean, somehow, kinder, or more humane, civil.  Now it is clear that individually we can’t simply make war, or poverty, or Donald Trump disappear. But collectively, assuming we continue to care, we of course can make such things happen.  Mostly, we make such momentous occasions happen by the simple process of voting.  All of the idiot, lazy louts who failed to show up at the polls in 2106, because “their candidate” didn’t make it onto the ballot. And they weren’t going to vote for Hillary. So, instead, they sort of voted for Trump, simply by not showing up.

So, we all need to do our bit. Even if you decide to vote for the “least-worst” you still need to do that.

And, even beyond that minimum activity, life offers lots of ways to make our world a slightly better place.  For example, the Cabarrus County Literacy Council recruits lots of volunteers like me to tutor folks who wish to learn English as a Second Language, or, as in my case, who wish to learn to read. I currently tutor a 58 year old man who simply never learned to read, despite having acquired a high school diploma. How could you acquire a high school diploma while being unable to read?  Well, mostly, he used to guess on tests, had his sister help him with homework, and relied on his teachers simply passing him through each class. No one either knew or cared that he couldn’t read. He somehow learned to cope, with his brain filling in something when he couldn’t read. But, I am working with him to remedy that deficit. And, I am making his life slightly better. My wife used to tutor a man in DC who couldn’t read, but he worked in his company’s mail room. He operated by recognizing people and he knew their first initials. But now he was actually learning to read, so he might be able to read to his grandkids.  Again, she was making his life a bit better.

So, it turns out, there are lots of little things each of us can do to leave this world a slightly better place than when we entered.

But, I am also increasingly aware that, as we “age in place”. We need to understand that aging thing and what it means to our earthly body.  Knowing that none of us can live forever (too bad, huh god??), we all still need to become increasingly aware of the changes that could make our few remaining years more or less difficult.

Our friendly neighborhood orthopedic surgeon tells us he has one big rule—DON’T FALL.  Easier said than done, huh? Well, one of the things I have noticed increasingly is that our propensity to fall seems directly related to paying attention. You know that thing about “Multitasking”?  Many people think they multitask all the time. We talk on the phone, while writing an e-mail.  We chat while driving, or maybe we listen to the radio while driving.  Or, we walk up or down stairs while our mind wanders. But the science says, conclusively, that our brain cannot actually multitask. What our mind does instead is rapidly switch from one task to another—we “serially monotask.” Now mostly, we get away with the charade of multitasking.   But often we “come a cropper”. While we are chatting on our phone, we fail to see the guy stopping in front of us suddenly, and we fail to stop before ramming into him.  But if we are “aging in place”, we often open ourselves up to falls. We walk downstairs while thinking of something we need to do, and we fail to notice that we are not yet at the bottom step, and, so, we tumble down the last two steps, perhaps banging our head on something hard.  Or we pay too little attention to the rug in front of us, and we fail to pick up our feet enough, and, so, we tumble.

These little occurrences increasingly dominate as we “age in place”.  There is, of course, no real “solution” to these little events of the aging, except, perhaps, to being more aware.  If we pay attention to the little things and stop the myth of multitasking, we really can avoid some of the nastier side effects of the aging process.  I think of the simple process of walking up and down stairs. Normally, we pay no attention, and instead do something else mentally while we walk.  But if instead, we focus on this simple process, holding on, really looking, we can in fact reduce the number of those nasty things called falls.

And if we pay attention pretty much all the time to what we are doing, we can avoid at least some of the nastier side effects of aging in place.  I have the habit, for example, of carrying too many things at one time, instead of making more than one trip.  I guess, when we are 25, we can pull off such stunts. But less so when you hit that magic 80 mark.  Note please, when you are in your 80s, you are old by almost any standard.  And when we hit that stage, we need to quit pretending.

We need to pay attention. In the early morning, when the sun begins to arise, go and observe the effects. It is glorious, but one must put down one’s phone while observing. When you walk in a garden and see an especially enchanting flower, or butterfly, again, stop and observe. Don’t multitask. Monotasking has real advantages, but even more so as we age.

Aging, it turns out, is not for sissies. It needs to be treated with respect.  Pay attention aging folks, pay attention.

Oh, and do go to the polls and VOTE. We really do need to rid our world of Donald Trump and his gang of thugs. Please, vote, and even there, pay attention to what you are doing.

Greenland

“Hey, so can I buy you”, said the fool? 

“Hmmm, I don’t understand. We’re a part of a country. What do you mean, Can I buy you? You do understand that isn’t the way things work, don’t you? I mean, of course, you’re joking, right?”

Well, it’s a bit less than clear actually. Our dearly beloved president seems not to understand much of anything actually.  He seems to believe that he can do anything he wants, and that everything is for sale (see, The Art of the Deal), and it’s always only a matter of the sale price. I assume that means that if Trudeau sent Trump a missive to the effect, “Hey, we really like New York, and intend to buy it. What’s your best price?” Trump would consult with the guy who actually wrote “The Art of the Deal” and try to come to some price level, at which bargaining could begin.  The fact that he doesn’t own it (New York) would be viewed as irrelevant. He is the president, so he can do anything he wants, right?

This is the real risk with Trump. Yes, he is evil, i.e., he does things almost anyone would consider evil. But that he is clueless, knows nothing about almost everything, knows no boundaries, respects no one and no thing, therein lies the risk of our president.  Eventually, someone around him says, “No, you can’t do that”. And then he gets pissed and fires that someone.  Have we ever seen a turnover at high levels of our government such as we have seen since Trump?  I don’t think so.  He fires folks like he’s still on The Apprentice. And I think he actually doesn’t understand that there are rules to live by as President. Because he has never followed any rules. He simply acts, whimsically, all the time, and the subject matter is irrelevant, because he doesn’t understand anything.

So, how could we even imagine giving him the keys to the nuclear arsenal? How could we trust him to make rational decisions about War and Peace? How could we trust him to make decisions about the future of America, and maybe even The World? Well, clearly, we can’t. Yet we are doing those exact things. Why are we acting so obviously recklessly? An interesting question, that.

Partly, I believe that the people in charge, republicans mainly, are star struck with their power. They have been given this power by the American people, and by God, they are going to hold on to it. That they may be destroying the wellbeing of the country, or the values and principles on which the Nation thought it was founded, matters less than the sheer fact of power.  Like money, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. We can see that clearly whenever Mitch McConnell says or does something. He seemingly always acts in his self-interest, i.e., staying in power.  If that self-interest collides with what is best for America, Mitch’s priorities always take precedence.

But, I think something else is also going on, and it is broader than the self-interest calculations of republicans. People actually voted for Trump, despite knowing almost everything about him worth knowing. He was/is known to be a complete narcissist, a sociopath, ignorant, and perhaps stupid almost beyond imagining, a core racist, a likely Neo-Nazi, a misogynist, and . . . well, more is unnecessary. You get the point. And knowing all those things, people still voted for him.

We actually know that Hillary won the election on the popular vote.  But, given our system, he won via the Electoral College. That’s the system by which we reward small states for being small—the tyranny of the minority. Whether that system needs to be trashed in view of the Trump election is for another day.

But, that more than a few thousand folks decided to vote for Trump is what is at issue here. How could that be? In this country? Approximately 62.9 million people voted for Trump.  That’s million, not thousand. How could that be?

Well, apparently, we have a lot of angry people in this country. Some of those people are, like Trump, racist. Some are militant white nationalists, maybe even neo-Nazi’s. Some despise women (remember Hillary??). Many (millions??) fiercely oppose all forms of abortion. Many more oppose anything to do with homosexuality. Many, many Americans seem really angry at Government, per se.  Hillary represented the status quo of Government. Trump was the Great Destroyer. They voted for the Great Destroyer. And that “Make America Great Again” slogan? It was interpreted many different ways. But first and foremost, it presumed that America was not now (then) as great as it had been in bygone days—you know, those days before our first Black president, before the Clintons and everything they stood for.  Remember, many, many people still idolized that dim bulb Ronald Reagan (St. Ronald of Reagan), the man who sold arms to Iran in exchange for hostages and then used that money to buy arms for terrorists in Nicaragua.  Reagan actually believed in that Laffer Curve, and gave us the largest deficits in the Nation’s history. He made it ok again to be a racist.  But they loved him, despite all that.

And over the years, as we traded away our industrial might for lower prices, many people suffered, and they blamed government—they didn’t/don’t care what government—irrelevant. Trump represented the opposite of everything they loathed in this country.  That he was stupid, or racist, or whatever, they did not care. He wasn’t Hillary. He was not part of the existing power structure, and so they voted for him.

But what they did not know in voting for him, is that he not only doesn’t care about them, but he does not care about anything but himself. And, further, he is profoundly ignorant, and seemingly, profoundly stupid. Now stupid means the relative absence of intelligence, or reasoning ability. It relates to the brain’s ability to bring in information and to make sense of that information. Ignorance is different. Ignorance means the absence of information, and is often related to the absence of education. Arguably, during our education, we acquire information on a variety of topics. That information is then processed by our brains to give us an understanding of the world, and pathways to expanding that understanding. Stupidity implies an inability of the brain to process and make sense of such information.  Trump seems to lack both qualities. That is, he seemingly has no real understanding of the world in which he lives. And, beyond that lack, when presented with information, he seems to lack an ability to process the information in useful ways.  He simply acts and reacts according to how it makes him feel. He especially looks for applause. He desperately wants to be rewarded with shouts of Huzzah, with smiles, with pats.

Now, I think the voting public remains relatively unaware of his real failings as a human being. Whenever Trump is criticized, Fox News, yells Lies, and Trump yells Fake News.  And because his public desperately wants to reject that other world, they respond in kind. They yell, “Lock her up”, or “shoot them”, whatever suits their mood.  But what they do not understand is that he is an even bigger risk to them than anything his opponents would have been.  Because he is profoundly ignorant and even stupid, he can and already has made decisions about our nation that threaten its very existence.  His tax approach, his environmental stances, his approach to both allies and foes alike seem to most informed folks disturbingly hostile to rationality. He is, in fact, an existential threat to our very being. But his supporters have not yet figured that out. They are still too angry, and they continue to blame all their woes on the past and on anyone who represents that past, i.e., the Democrats.

And so the campaign goes on, his perpetual campaign. He doesn’t really govern; he campaigns. Even when he golfs, he is campaigning. Every meaningless jibberjabber coming out of his mouth, is in the interest of keeping him in power, because it is the only thing that will soothe his savage beast mentality.  So, unless enough folks get off their asses and actually vote, we will have him for another four years. And we actually may not survive as a democracy for such a period.

So, if you care about survival, people, you better get off your couches, switch off the TVs, and ready yourself to throw him out of office in 2020 by VOTING.

Rage, Racism & Murder: The World of Donald Trump

Rage, the wonderful world of Donald Trump in America.  The number of countries that never have mass shootings is very large, so America stands out. Also, the world in which a mass shooting triggers immediate action by the head of government (think New Zealand) also overwhelms America, the author of “Do-Nothing: Send Thoughts and Prayers”.

What the hell are we to think about this increasingly violent, rage-filled and heavily armed nation? The right wing says it’s all about video games . . . or maybe it’s really all about the mentally ill.  Or maybe we just need to arm more people. Yeah, that’s it, we need more folks armed with assault rifles, so we can have shooting sprees everywhere we go. How about your next elementary school assembly, where all the six-year olds now carry AR-15s? Yeah, that’d stop the mass murderers.

But seriously, what is going on here?

Well, mainly we have lots of folks with motives. Oh, they were there before Donald Trump. But just like Reagan made it ok again to be a racist, Donald Trump has made it ok again to hate and take violent action against “The Other”.  See, he has opened the gates to people acting on their outrage. He asks his crowd of adoring fans, and what should we do to stop them (them being Hispanic immigrants, or Muslims, or just anyone who despises him) and they shout back “Shoot them”.  And what does he do? Well, he laughs.  And now they know that it’s ok to shoot them, anyone they hate.

See, when people murder, they need both a motive and a method.  So, our dear president is supplying them—all who hate and wish to kill—a motive. He is telling them that they are being threatened by “the other” and it is ok to hate them and to act on your hate. No, he never said publically, “well, I suggest that you get your guns and begun killing Hispanics, Muslims, Blacks, et al”. But he acted to incite his crowd to rage and to tell them it’s ok to be violent towards people you hate.

And the Method? Well, clearly, the NRA provides the method. The NRA, and all its members, lobby Congress to prevent anything even remotely sensible about gun control.

It isn’t guns that kill people, it’s people who kill people (wrong NRA, it’s people armed with guns . . . see NRA, guns are the necessary element in a shooting-killing).

All it takes to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun (wrong NRA. The good guys with guns are all over the place, but most of them –cops excepted—hide under the table, or in the bathroom when the bad guy with the guy is doing his thing).

It’s crazy people, not us normal people, doing this killing thing (wrong NRA, because you have personally prevented any legislation aimed at preventing crazy people from owning guns).

We need to arm more people—teachers, students, presumably workers at WalMart, and all workers at Gay bars (wrong NRA, arming the teachers among us, or, heaven forfend the students, will simply trigger more violence, and will likely not stop an armed NRA thug armed with a submachine gun who bursts in the door and just begins shooting anyone in view).

The NRA and its members have no solutions, and they are not in the business of finding solutions. They are in the business of selling guns.  Asking the NRA for help here would be like asking General Motors for help in reducing the number of automobiles sold to the public.

No, the NRA is definitely part of the problem, not part of the solution.  In fact, we should seek out information on which members of Congress receive money from the NRA, or any of its disguised, black money affiliates. Any such Congressperson should have an immediate negative campaign launched against him or her.

And what, if anything, does this crap have to do with the Second Amendment? Well, really, nothing. The so-called Second Amendment was intended to sustain state militias, not individual members of the public? And what does it have to do with the right to own weapons for personal use, e.g., hunting? Well, again, nothing. There is no plausible use for assault weapons to protect one’s home, or to hunt game, even big game.  These weapons should be taken off the market and removed from all private ownership. Assault weapons should be bought back from private citizens and then destroyed. And then all such weapons should be banned for sale, except to the military, or formally organized, armed police forces. Within days of the killing in New Zealand, such legislation had been passed and the guns were removed and destroyed.

But here, the NRA argues to its members that they must resist such efforts by the government, on the basis that the government is the reason citizens must arm themselves. Their argument essentially, is that government is always potentially evil, and must be resisted.  Yet, all evidence points in exactly the opposite direction. That is, our government is relatively benign, when compared with the fairly crazed NRA advocates, and the folks shooting up innocents in public places.  It is, in fact, the NRA and its advocates who are the problem regarding violence.

The NRA has now reached the point that we should consider designating it as an agent of domestic terrorism.  The NRA members should really consider seriously letting go of their membership, and themselves lobbying for banning domestic assault weapons of all kinds for sale to anyone. The NRA is not ISIS, mind you. It is not the NRA itself that is going around shooting innocent civilians. And no one is suggesting that it is. However, the NRA is but one step from that stage.  And it doesn’t matter anyway. The NRA has officially supplied the means and its members have taken up the empty spaces and filled them with domestic terrorists.

Now you can ask why ordinary citizens, even ones armed with such weapons, would commit such unspeakable violence upon innocent people? Well, fairly clearly, they are unhinged.  But, more to the point, they are people who are insecure to the point of terror. Yes, they are clearly terrified individuals, who have been taught that certain other people are responsible for all the problems they have personally, or fear they may have.  The Other, they have been told repeatedly, are acting now to take away their jobs, rape their sisters, and destroy this fair land in which they live. That, friends, is the constant rhetoric adopted by our pseudo-President, Donald Trump. He claimed his office through means, fair or foul, but he obtained that office through a campaign of hate against “The Other”.  He is all about HATE, because HATE gains him supporters, supporters who are devoted, and loyal, mainly because they have stopped thinking.

The Donald claims he is the least racist person in the world. Clearly, again he is lying. How does one know Donald Trump is lying? Well, whenever he opens his mouth and words begin tumbling out, he is lying. And so long as he can continue spewing his hate-filled rhetoric against “The Other”, his supporters will continue killing innocent people. That trend will only slow down, if not stop, when Donald Trump and his legislative band of thugs, is removed from the public scene. And we don’t do that by killing them. We do that by VOTING people.  Voting is the mechanism of civilized people. Guns and killing are the mechanisms of thugs. So, how long will we tolerate thugs running our government? We will see. We will see.

We Are Idiots

So, more than half of the republican folks who responded to a survey agreed with the idea of postponing the 2020 election? Really? Why? Well, President Stupidhead continues to lie on and on that the 2016 election was damaged by voter fraud and that he actually won the popular vote.  Mind you, he has no data, plausible or otherwise to substantiate his claim, but he never does and lies are just fine with him.

But how can it be even remotely possible that more than half of people who identify as republican actually agree? Something really bad has happened to America. I keep thinking of his absurd claim that he could go out on Fifth Avenue and shoot someone, and his poll numbers would go up.  We all laughed when he said that. It was so absurd, we didn’t even think of it as a lie. It was just a joke and everyone laughed.

But now? Everything he says practically is a lie, but his lies aren’t funny any longer. And he isn’t joking.  He’s the President of the United States, with all the power of that exalted Office, and he is talking like some crap, thuggish dictator. And it is obvious to anyone with a functioning brain that he is talking trash, but now folks nod their heads and agree with him.

Now, in any halfway serious country, at least the thinking members of our society would be up in arms. And even his own party would be yelling at the rafters to stop him.  Because he is making them look like members of a thuggish political party from some fourth world dictatorship.  Yes, Mitch and his BFFs all look like idiots, racist, thoughtless, and entirely beholden to this idiot.

But, I keep asking, how can this be?  How did this buffoon so completely capture the republican party that there exists no one left in the party to challenge his absurd pronouncements?  I read Andy Borowitz routinely, and he used to be funny. Now, I have to check to make sure he isn’t just reporting the facts of the day.  Comedians find it increasingly difficult to make jokes about him. He just isn’t funny any longer.  And now, he has made it seem that America is the actual joke, and the rest of the world is laughing at us. Not “with us” but at us. We are now the butt of all jokes around the globe. All of Trump’s “shithole” countries that he has been decrying, are now laughing at us, because look who’s the shithole now?

We are now at the bottom of the barrel. I’ll bet even Vlad the Impaler sits around drinking vodka and laughing at us. Because Vlad won the day. Against all odds, he installed a total idiot in the White House, and now the American people are standing around clapping.

Aren’t we proud?

The Imperial Presidency

So is he or isn’t he? A racist that is. And do we the American people care?  The dictionary defines racism as a belief that one race is inherently superior to all other races. The belief is manifestly dangerous when it enters the sphere of public policy, and begins to affect the rules by which citizens lead their lives.  During the period when slavery existed worldwide, Caucasian peoples, generally of European origin saw fit to treat other humans of different races as property, as distinct from humans. As such, they felt able to treat the human property as they saw fit, including elimination of those property-humans.

In other cases, e.g., the British Empire, the Caucasians from Britain traveled to other places on our globe and claimed ownership over everything therein, including the peoples who occupied those foreign climes. So, while the peoples of the Indian Subcontinent may not have been slaves per se, they could not operate independently from the new owners of their land.  Racism continued to operate in such places fostered by the illusion (belief) that the British (White) race was inherently superior to the local (non-white) and therefore deserved to control the land and all its occupants.  Thus, in 1857, the revolt by Indians against their British masters became known among Indians as the First War of Independence, whereas the British overlords referred to that same war as the Great Indian Mutiny.  Perspective is all.

In this country, slavery was the defining context for American racism. One was either European or a slave (largely from Africa). At the time, there were no competing races to interfere with the purity of the racist concept.  And then came the Great War—the “Civil War” of the 1860s. One side, largely the Northern states within that new United States decided that slavery should no longer exist. The Southern states then rebelled and began shooting at the North. The ending we all now know resulted in considerable bloodshed—it is estimated that 620,000 died in that conflict, perhaps the largest in the history of American warfare, although there is some dispute about whether the losses in Vietnam equal or exceed that number.

But the problem is that the war may have settled the argument about whether slavery was legal or illegal, but it never really resolved the underlying issue of racism. Even if you agreed that it was now illegal to own slaves, it did not mean you would agree that, therefore, all races were equal in all respects. Quite the contrary. Within the southern region of the US, racism continued unabated. And, racism existed in all states and regions—see all areas formerly claimed by Native Americans, and subsequently claimed by Caucasians of European descent.

Growing up in midtown Manhattan during the 1930s and 1940s, I virtually never encountered a person of color. African Americans all lived north of 125^th Street in Harlem.  Then I moved to New City Park in Rockland County, NY. Again, no people of color. I think in my elementary school, we had not one single person of color. Then I went to high school in Spring Valley, NY. Again, few, very few people of color.  And all this whiteness was not because slaves were still maintained in the North. No, it is because northern whites did not wish to live next to northern people of color. Racism? You betcha.

Oddly (odd to me) we had army units during every war we fought, consisting mainly of segregated units. During WWII alone we had 125,000 African American soldiers in distinguished fighting units. For a brief history, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_African_Americans.

Despite the fact that these units were segregated by race, the soldiers died in combat, regardless of their race. But we should be clear, it was racism that kept these units apart from their white counterparts. 

Now, that Donald Trump issue.  It seems fairly clear that the Donald’s entire family has always operated from a base of racism.  Nicholas Kristof recently wrote a useful article in the New York Times about the Trump family racism.  It can be viewed at: 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/17/opinion/donald-trump-racist.html. Also, The Atlantic published a piece on the Trump family racism, which describes the same issues as Kristof identified. It can be viewed at: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/06/trump-racism-comments/588067/

As these and other articles make clear Trump’s racism is born and bred. His family was racist and he simply adopted these family traits, and carried them over into his businesses. Note that housing has traditionally been the touchstone of racism.  Entire housing units, or housing developments have been denied to people of color. In the case of Trump, housing units developed and operated by Trump were racist by design and operated as such.

And Trump’s problem in denying the racism, (“I don’t have a racist bone in my body”--see the Kristof article specifically) is that he lies almost every time he opens his mouth. The truth-watchers (PolitiFact and others) stopped counting after he passed his 10,000^th lie while in office. So, for Trump to decry the calls of racism is somewhere between laughable and outrageous.

But the more important question, beyond whether Trump is a racist (he is), is the same question about the American people.  There seem to be several types of people in America:

Hard-Core Racists (KKK lovers) – the folks who think the wrong side won the Civil War, and that folks of a different color, but especially African-Americans, should not be living here, and maybe should “go home”, despite the fact that Georgia might well be “home”.  You know them. They refuse to live within any community that houses people of color, hate the fact that schools are even vaguely integrated, and refuse to have anything to do with such folks.

Ordinary Racists – many Americans do not practice their racism openly and would be offended were the term applied to them.  But they still prefer living in communities that are largely devoid of people of color, and seek out schools for their kids that are predominantly, if not completely white. Charter schools are largely a direct response to such people.  They are polite when encountering people of color, but prefer not mixing socially or even in business settings. They will not create scenes when encountering black folks, but they prefer not encountering them.

Largely non-Racist—many (percentages would be handy, but . . .) Americans who are largely free of racism. While they might not seek out communities of color within which to house themselves, they do not shy away from housing communities that have a black component. They will send their kids to integrated schools, and will mix easily both socially and in business with people of mixed race.  These are the folks who voted for Barack Obama, and who continue to think that Obama was a successful president.

I assume there is some component of our population that simply has no racial bias at all. They treat everyone equally, regardless of skin color.  Percentages would be nice, but I assume this group is fairly small.

Now, growing up in this country, I have also observed a concept that may not be racist, but operates in similar ways. Many folks who migrated to the US from many different countries have often tended to seek out others of the same characteristics, be they color, language, or ethnic background. Thus, within many cities, German villages emerged, or Chinatowns, or Irish neighborhoods, or Hispanic neighborhoods. People feel more comfortable with other folks who seem to be like them. I once spoke with a Hispanic man who functioned as a translator. He attended a large meeting of sales people in Los Angeles, and came away with the conviction that these people never needed to speak/learn English, because they lived their lives entirely within Hispanic communities.

Similarly, African Americans have learned to be cautious in all aspects of their lives. They know they are at greater risk than white Americans. Over time, they may well seem themselves to be racist. Mainly, it is a defensive style of living, borne of many years/decades of life experiences in which their communities suffer different fates than their white community counterparts.  Thus, “driving while black”, “dining while black”, and other similar tropes have arisen in our language to describe the plight of African Americans in encounters with our various police forces.

At any one time, these differing racist views coalesce and produce different political environments. Groups such as the KKK and white supremacists, like Neo-Nazi’s have arisen and taken on a political identity. In most previous Administrations, these groups were marginalized and considered “undesirables”.  Now, with our current Trump Administration, these groups seem to form the core of the supporters. Others, the “not-quite full racists”, or the MAGAHeads, join in to forge a new hard core Trump support group, one that hopes to re-elect him in 2020.  They are the ones now chanting “Send her back”, thus replacing the “Lock her up” chants of his 2016 campaigns.  But it is the same campaign strategy—define his opposition as evil, Anti-Americans, who should be either in prison, or kicked out of the country. “This country is for whites only” seems to be their campaign slogan, or motto.

And now that Fox News has given up all pretense at being a neutral news organization, they can now turn up their own amplifiers and broadcast his message as though it was coming directly from Trump’s mouth.  He has a full-time political PR firm at his disposal 24-7, and it doesn’t even cost him any campaign money.

So, it seems clear that not only is Trump a racist, but his entire campaign is a racist trope.

Now that is a damning thought, assuming I am accurate. But it may not be the worst we can deduce from the Trump campaign. We need to remember that Trump is the compleat narcissist. By that I mean that all of his actions and reactions are derived from his immense sense of self. In his world, he is the only human that matters. Nobody else is of even the slightest concern.  If, in the course of pursuing some end in which he is interested, someone or some set of somebodies, gets hurt, he does not care. He is the only thing that matters. In his eyes, he can do no wrong.  And, his desires are what matters. Nothing else.

Now, what does that mean with a US President? I think it means that he views himself as somehow above the US Presidency. That he views as simply a high level job. What he may want is to be a king-emperor, in fact if not in title.  He may see himself, now that he has been elevated to the Presidency, as an historic figure, who will forever be remembered reverently.  And I think he may do anything to so elevate himself into that historic picture. He may in some fashion declare a war—think Iran. He may act so as to corrupt our election process to yield his desired objective—him elevated for another four years.  And then he may begin acting to remain longer than four years in that high office.

His entire campaign is built on creating in the minds of his supporters a fear and a hatred of the other, and “the other” is anyone who fails to fully support Donald Trump. He casts them as traitors to the country—anyone who does not support his every whim is, therefore a Traitor.

This folks, is the stuff of radical dictators everywhere in history. It is the stuff of absolute monarchs. It is the stuff of fascist dictators, such as Hitler and Mussolini.  It is the stuff of the Iranian Ayatollah. It is the stuff of Kim in North Korea, of MBS in Saudi Arabia.  It has no relationship to any of our past presidents—NONE.  He has placed himself in a class, the likes of whom we have never seen in this country.

He is an existential threat to the security of our very democracy.  He is not simply the “worst president in our history”.  He is in a different class, a class that degrades to the point of elimination the very concept of our Presidency.

The fact that his republican allies in Congress support him is a sign that our entire system is now at risk. This is not simply a political disagreement over policy. It is a battle for survival of our nation.

We dare not lose this battle.

Sexual Predators of the World Beware

I find myself wondering why we are all surprised, even perhaps shocked at the idea of sexual predation amongst the rich and famous.  Well, at the least, I guess, we are mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it any longer.  Until the next incident that is.

I’m thinking maybe we should reconsider how we treat certain types of crimes. For example, suppose all the girls who were raped or otherwise abused carried guns (NRA pay attention).  And suppose they had been taught to use them. And suppose further, we decided as a society that shooting/killing a sexual predator/rapist was not treated as a crime, but instead a simpler, perhaps more efficient form of justice.

Think of the number of priests who might have been offed, and consider how that might have changed the sexual predation habits of priests—a centuries old habit we think. And then fast forward to Jeffrey Epstein. Suppose, the first, or at least one of the first of the girls he abused had been armed. And suppose, she simply shot him, and he died as a result. His predation days would then have been over, and then consider how that might have changed Donald Trump, or any of his friends who liked to get it on with “very young girls”. Maybe young girls might now be a bit safer.

So, instead, we ship the errant priests off to yet another parish. And for the Epstein’s of the world, we circumvent the real criminal justice system, and give the bad boys a slap on the wrist and a warning to behave better in the future.  But they never do behave better do they? And actually, we know they won’t, because they understand that they will get away with their behavior.

Part of the problem of course, is that we at least pretend to believe in the rule of law. And the current rules allow sexual predators to deny all charges and claim the girls are lying. Perhaps short of catching them in the act, our rules of this game often allow easy escapes, especially if the predators are sufficiently rich, or if the institutions housing/protecting them (the Catholic Church comes to mind) are sufficiently influential that our system ignores them.

So, shooting the predators seems a nice, tidy solution. It introduces a few little problems obviously. Arming a bunch of 12 year old girls could arguably result in other problems. For example, instead of yelling, “nyah, nyah, nyah nyah” at each other in the lunch room, one could imagine a frustrated girl just pulling out her Glock and offing her abusive friends.  Seems unlikely perhaps, but bullying does have consequences.  So, we would need to deal with such incidents. Maybe the shooter could get suspended from school for a week. Bet that would stop the bad behavior, huh?

And if a girl gets raped and then shoots her assailant, I suppose we would need to consider even tougher measures. I don’t know, maybe a week’s suspension and a whole month of counseling.  See, we would be treating the shootings with the same seriousness we now treat the rapes, and sexual trafficking.

So, I suggest that our criminal justice system take a good long look at how we protect youngsters and how we are willing to deal with the results of predation, should the girls finally tire of being raped by the idiots of the world. So, Jeffrey Epstein, beware. You may be the next target practice.

Reimagining Humanity

We just watched an episode of John Oliver the other day, and Oliver took on Amazon and others of that ilk. We buy stuff from Amazon Prime and we were appalled at the way workers are treated.  Apparently Bezos raised their salaries to at least the $15 minimum wage standard, but they otherwise are treated like robots, rather than humans.

And speaking of robots, it turns out that robots do a lot of the work at Amazon. The humans basically work to serve the robots.  But beyond feeling overwhelmed at the terrible working conditions, I began wondering about workers more broadly.  It seems clear to me that most of the remaining Amazon workers, the ones who serve the robots, will soon be replaced by more robots.  Just watching the robotic movement of goods destined for shoppers all over the country (world?) it seemed inevitable that those robots will soon be carrying out most of the work of the humans who currently work there.  The robots mainly now seem to move the goods through the retrieval and packaging stages, with humans intervening at various points.  So, what is all this work about?

Well, Amazon gets an order online from a customer who wants a book. Someone retrieves the order, and then places an order from the Amazon book depository—yes, Amazon already owns the book and it is stored in a warehouse somewhere.  The person who places the order within Amazon has to tell the system that person X wants a copy of The Half Has Never Been Told, and has ordered it on Amazon Prime. That defines the products and the terms—it must be mailed by a certain date/time.  So, someone in the warehouse gets that order and walks to collect the book, stuffs the book into a box with some stuffing, and places the box onto a conveyor headed to a computer station that seals the box, and prints the address and postage. The box then rolls away to its delivery point, where it is placed by a human into some end stage delivery service, enroute to the truck that will carry it via USPS or UPS to its ultimate destination, all within the allotted time.

So, humans intervene whenever it is convenient and Amazon doesn’t yet have a robot to carry out the needed procedure. But soon, I imagine, most of those procedures will be fully automated, and the warehouses, now filled with humans, will become relatively empty of humanity. I can easily imagine warehouses devoid of humans, aside from some oversight technicians and some maintenance technicians. Even robotic systems will require maintenance.

But thousands of manual workers will soon become hundreds of more highly skilled tekkies who exist to keep the robots moving swiftly through their appointed tasks. And then I begin thinking, extrapolating really, to other industries, perhaps to the source of the goods that now move through the Amazon warehouse systems.  Maybe to the printers who now produce the final copies of The Half Has Never Been Told.  And I can envision a system by which a digital file is sent via the Internet to a fully automated printing shop, and the file arrives with a digital order for 500 copies of the book and some instruction as to the type of printing—hard or soft bound, color of cover, etc. And that order enters the computer, which then sends a digital instruction to the printing presses and the bindery, which then literally prints the books, binds them and then separates the final copy into sets of books to be delivered to various end stage customers, like Amazon. Again, no humans intervene, except perhaps to keep the automated wheels turning.

No, no, you object, surely humans will still be required at many stages of this process. And I say, No, humans will not be required.  Over time, we have seen whole industries basically destroyed in this country by cost considerations. The mills of New England first moving to the South—think Kannapolis—because labor costs were cheaper in the South. Then the owners decided that labor costs were actually less expensive in Mexico, then China, until there were no mills left in America, or Mexico. But if cost is really the determinant, then surely robots will eventually win out, and those same mills will soon be moving out of China. Well, they may move from one town in China to another town in China, or they may move back to America. Where will the robots be located—anywhere and everywhere.

Now if this forecast proves true, what then is the future of the labor force—the actual humans on this planet who exist partly to create things for other humans? I am thinking that we may well need to rethink our entire system of education in this country and beyond.

Partly, we have built a system of education that seeks to inform our humans and to help them to become thinking humans—people with some sense of the past and a path to the future.  Partly, though, this educational system is an employment preparatory system, and I do not mean just the trade schools. All of education, including the “higher” system of education exists to equip humans to carry out various kinds of work.  I include here doctors, lawyers, accountants, physicists, teachers, “management” executives.  We already have robotic surgery, where surgical procedures are carried out by robots under the watchful eye of a human surgeon. I cannot but imagine every field being subjected to robotic intervention. Your friendly neighborhood accountant?  Sure, automation would be simple there. All it takes is a set of rules for operating, and then transferring those rules to a computer.

So, although I am sure that we can find various jobs that would be difficult to transfer to robots, the number may well not be very high.  And so what does this mean for humans, and, more specifically, what does this mean for our system of education?  I think we need to reimagine education, and the entire system of what we like to call “WORK”.

Now, I cannot imagine any inquiry being initiated under the Trump Administration, which wants to see coal mining jobs come back into existence, with folks still equipped with picks and shovels, dragging coal out of underground caverns. But surely, later, perhaps after Trump is dead, and new thinking humans have taken over the government, that inquiries will be initiated throughout the land. The inquiries will be needed, first into the more obvious robotic-friendly industries. But then we will need in-depth examinations of one field of study after another, until we have examined our entire system of education and employment-based training.  

Where will this lead? We cannot know at this stage, since our minds remain firmly embedded in the manual labor mode of thinking. But the inquiries may well free us from the stone age of work and open up a new view of why humans exist and what we should be doing while we are here. I see this as an uplifting atmosphere in which all humans everywhere become re-engaged in the subject of why humans exist, and I do not mean a rebirth of organized religion. We need to think beyond religion and fairy tales. 

We need to re-imagine humanity.