Behavior

If It Feels Right


This is a special time. It is a time when magical thinking has washed over the land, drowning our world in hyperbole, fiction and venom, and leaving so very little grounded in the observable. The waste of the neocortex imperils the people like oxygen deprivation, with hypoxia choking the rational.

Left behind is rigorous critical thinking, the very thing of the Enlightenment that brought such freedom and progress to mankind. It has been displaced by, “If it feels right to me, then it is right.” No need for evidence. No need for observation of any kind. No need for the bother of accuracy or the effort of thinking.

There is no need for testable theory, because that space has been taken over by the subjective satisfaction of, “If things are as I like them then all is fair. If not, someone cheated and stole from me.” So, fair becomes unfair if I don’t like outcomes, and accusation is the same as proof. Opinion is the same as fact and judgment is a prize unto itself. To quote Professor Scott Galloway’s commencement address, “We optimize for short-term emotional satisfaction rather than long-term prosperity,” and “[t]he prioritization of victimhood. The belief that to be offended is to be right.”

We are through the looking glass and opportunities to make the movie Back To Reality are incrementally, relentlessly turning to vapor. The portal to the world where lies are not the same as truth, where up is different from down, where knowledge, wisdom and learning are valued and where science is a real thing is closing. That is why there are so many calls for action right now, because absent our action, we won’t like the albatross we’ve placed around the necks of our children. They won’t like it either, although that won’t matter to the brutes, liars and manipulators in charge.

Our choices are: to ignore what’s going on; to sit at home and wring hands; or to take action – do something about it.

The first two options won’t help our children, so they’re unacceptable. Here are some ideas for the third option.

  1. Attend The For the People Act: A Conversation with Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Common Cause President Karen Hobert Flynn at 5:00PM on June 22. Register here. Go ahead: learn something that is Earth-based and useful. It will be a refreshing contrast to the ever-present magical thinking that assaults our ears.
  2. Do some phone banking to West Virginians to twist Joe Manchin’s arm back to where it belongs.
  3. Help the experts do what we don’t know how to do well ourselves. Donate to Focus4Democracy. These are the folks who know how to turn the crank of progress. And we surely need progress right now.

If this feels right to you, it’s because it is right. It’s right to fight for what you believe in. It’s right to do good and to fight the bad. And that stands in stark contrast to the magical thinkers, because you have evidence from the right side of the looking glass.

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Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

The Oldest Bigotry


Anti-Semitism is the world’s oldest bigotry. Go ahead – see if you can come up with an example that’s older than thousands of years. It rises and falls in frequency and in severity, but it always shows up.

Here’s a dramatically condensed version of history to put this in context, a story which you might recall from Sunday School and your history text books.

Jews started in Ur – that’s part of what is now southern Iraq and it’s where Abraham came from. He settled in what eventually became Israel. Then the Babylonians came, destroyed the first temple and dragged the people away into slavery. Then the people returned, only to be banished by the Romans, who sacked the second temple.

That’s when Jews became the diaspora, wanderers looking for a safe place to live. But eventually every place Jews settled became dangerous or deadly. There was an Inquisition, pogroms (those brought my ancestors to the U.S.) and a Holocaust, so each time we wandered yet again looking for a safe place to live.

Jews have always been accused of being evil, of being dishonest. The most heinous of those accusations was the nineteen hundred years of the Catholic Church declaring unequivocally that Jews killed Jesus. I was called a Christ killer many times while growing up, although I know for a fact that I wasn’t around 2000 years ago, so I really couldn’t have had a hand in anything that took place back then. Near the end of the Second Vatican Council in 1964 I was absolved by the Vatican of personal responsibility for the crucifixion. It was a shame that a lot of the bad guys in high school didn’t get the message.

Overall, though, life in the United States for Jews has been pretty good and has seemed pretty safe, if at times limited and sometimes threatening. But violence against Jews has taken a terrible turn for the worse in recent years. The frequency of anti-Semitic acts is increasing, as is the severity of its violence.

The Anti-Defamation League reports that, “In 2020 and 2021, there were 7,528 incidents of extremism or anti-Semitism in the United States.” That’s over 14 per day and the rate is increasing. Take a look at the ADL tracker – filter for your state and look at just the recent incidents near you.

“Incidents” is a strange word to use for anti-Semitic violence. If you were the rabbi just walking down the sidewalk and you got pushed to the ground and kicked repeatedly by a couple of toughs,* you might use a different word.

You’d surely use a different word if you had been at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh that awful October morning in 2018 or at the Chabad in Poway, CA in April 2019 or in that kosher deli in Brooklyn in December 2019. You would have had a different word, all right, if you had somehow survived the shootings.

Here’s the point: Hate is on the rise in America. I usually write about the anti-democracy hatred and racial cruelty of far right extremists, but it’s concurrent with the dramatic rise in anti-Semitic hatred in our country. And there is a difference.

If attacks like the ones listed above had been against Blacks there would have been BLM marches across the country and perhaps around the world, as there were following the murder of George Floyd, and rightly so. But these attacks were against Jews. There were and are no marches for Jews. Nobody comes to the rescue. It has always been this way. That’s just how it is in the world’s oldest bigotry. Refer to the videos below.

The hatred by angry Palestinians is rising in London following the May hostilities between Gaza and Israel. Have a look at the short videos below to get a feel for reactions to what is happening. As you watch, keep in mind how the public is reacting to this violence.

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.Many thanks to Mel Zahn for sending the videos.

Note: I’ll appreciate it if you can identify the woman in the first video or provide a link.

The public isn’t reacting to this violence at all, just as these videos report. No help. No support. Crickets.

The violence in Israel and Gaza last month has been reported mostly in an irresponsibly simplistic way, as though this isn’t an enormously complex problem. Castigation of Israel has been the main theme, based primarily on the fact that there were many more Gazans killed and injured than Israelis.

Using John Oliver as a placeholder for all the grand pontificators who have dumped myopic criticisms on those events, he managed to mangle the logic of that casualty disparity. He specifically said it wasn’t a fair fight because Israel has Iron Dome and Hamas Gazans don’t. I haven’t a clue why he thinks fairness is an issue in this violence. I’m thinking survival should be the issue, like surviving rocket attacks. The way Oliver presented the issue sounds as if he would label it a fair fight if more Israelis had been killed. I’m not sorry to disappoint him.

Be clear that nobody lobbed 4,360 rockets at John Oliver, as Hamas did to Israelis, so he’s fully ignorant and missing the point. So did much of the world’s reporting of those dreadful days. This video and this one will explain that for you.

Key point: If you had been on the receiving end of those rockets, you wouldn’t have focused on playing fair. You would have done whatever it took to stop more rockets from being fired at you and your loved ones.

The leaders of Hamas knew in advance the likely response if they fired rockets into Israel. They’ve seen that movie before. Still, they fired rockets at Israeli civilians. They did it from Gaza apartment buildings and hospitals and office buildings, knowing that Israel would attack to stop yet more rockets from being fired. They knew that Israel silencing the rocket launchers would cause the death of a lot of Palestinians. Indeed, that was made worse because Hamas forced Palestinian civilians to remain in those buildings even after they were explicitly warned by Israel of coming attacks.

If there’s one thing Hamas leadership is good at it’s creating dead Palestinians so they can claim victimhood, gain world sympathy and make Israelis look like monsters. Where’s the fairness in that, especially for Palestinians?

Anger, hate and violence are always present or about to show up wherever Jews have gone. It’s the continuation of the world’s oldest bigotry and it is part of the reason why Israel exists and why Never Again means exactly that. The cavalry is never going to come over the hill for Jews, not in Israel, not in the United State and not in London (although the police did detain 4 suspects after the current anti-Semitic hate fest).

Jews have to take care of ourselves, regardless of whether John Oliver or anyone else thinks violence is a playground game with fairness rules. If the world doesn’t understand Never Again after the murder of the 6 million and Israel being repeatedly attacked by neighbors, there’s nothing I or anyone else can do to clarify it for them.

Palestinians are convoying through the streets of London yelling, “Fuck the Jews! Rape their daughters!” and the world’s condemnation of that vile hatred is  .  .  .  inaudible. It’s the same old crickets of the world’s oldest bigotry.

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  • * Google “rabbi attacked” and you’ll find links to stories of this happening in other countries, too.

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Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA

 


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

This Continues To Be True


A while back I wrote:

It’s easy to pin that clear and present danger on Trump, but it’s critical that you see him as the embodiment of the forces of absolutism running hellishly in our society. Trump is both the repugnant inciter of rage and a tool of the brutal, angry mob. He wouldn’t be in office or be getting away with his criminality, his cruelty and the destruction of our democracy if there weren’t millions of people who want that, who think his behavior is okay, who believe the end justifies the means. It doesn’t matter to them how evil and eventually tyrannical both the end and the means prove to be.

Then this:

It is truly frightening that millions of people are demanding authoritarianism in America. They want an end to our self-rule, our long and noble experiment in democracy. Christopher Ingraham spells out the truth that has been so difficult to define in his Washington Post article, “New Research Explores Authoritarian Mind-set of Trump’s Core Supporters.” Key takeaway: We practice apathy at our collective peril.

This continues to be true.

Texas Republican lawmakers and their governor continue their battle against rampant voter fraud in the Lone Star State. These brave warriors of the ballot are at the pointy end of the spear to prevent a continuation of the cheating that threatens our elections. Indeed, the Texas Tribune reported last December that,

“As of election week, the Texas attorney general’s office had closed cases on just over 150 defendants prosecuted for election offenses since 2004, according to the attorney general’s office. That’s out of nearly 90 million ballots cast in Texas in statewide primary and general elections since 2004  .  .  .  “

Or check it out in the Houston Chronicle.

That’s 150 prosecutions, not convictions, which amounts to 0.00017% (that’s 17 one-hundred-thousandths of a percent) of total votes cast which were found to be questionable. Not fraudulent; questionable. It’s a really good thing that Texas is crafting the most draconian anti-voter, anti-voting laws in the country to stop this stampede of non-fraud. Kudos to the state Republican Ballot Warriors for their courage to battle the near-complete absence of voting fraud in Texas. I believe they should be awarded a trophy of a windmill mounted in a jail cell.

Clearly we are indebted to Mike Coudrey for his sharp-eyed reporting from Wisconsin. He told us that Wisconsin had more votes cast in the November 2020 election than the number of registered voters in that state. Clearly, voting fraud is a pestilence upon the dairy state.

Except for one thing: The actual numbers supplied by the Wisconsin Election Commission show that there are roughly half a million more registered voters in Wisconsin than the number of votes cast in November. Guess we dodged that pestilence thing and the cheese is still safe to eat.

Mike Coudrey is an activist and promoter of all things Trump. What we don’t know is how to explain his false claim. We don’t know whether he’s a terrible – as in: inept or lazy or evil – elections researcher or just another Trump liar. But, really, does it even matter?

Because we are constantly beset by false claims, many, perhaps most of which, are painfully, obviously self-serving lies. The Big Lie of a stolen election is, of course, the most dangerous, because it is being used as an in-plain-sight attempt to end our democracy.

This continues to be true.

It may have always been true that mere accusations are enough to establish a false claim as truth in the minds of we gullible humans. However, we have been beset by wild, false political accusations going back decades and they have led to absurd and dangerous actions.

The Gingrich Republicans hated Bill Clinton and fabricated salacious stories about him and Hillary, like their claim that Vince Foster’s suicide was really a murder done by Clinton and their claim that Hillary Clinton’s Whitewater land deal in Arkansas was somehow illegal. They had no evidence to suspect either accusation, so there was only one thing to do: appoint a special prosecutor, which they did.

They hired Ken Starr to investigate all things Clinton and he spent four and a half years and 52 million taxpayer dollars poking into their underwear drawers, metaphorically speaking. He pored over every aspect of the Clintons’ lives and came up with nothing. Literally, absolutely nothing.

Until Monica Lewinsky’s friend Linda Tripp went out of her way to betray Lewinski and told Starr about sex in the Oval Office. You may find such behavior repugnant – here I’m talking about the sex, not the ugly stab-in-the-back betrayal – but it isn’t illegal. Yet it was all Starr got out of those millions of dollars and all those years of feigned moral superiority. His prosecutorial genius was limited to getting Clinton to lie to a grand jury about the sex.

Even better was that years later, after a most tragic attack in Benghazi, Libya where four Americans died, the Republicans controlling Congress held hearings into, not the incident, but into then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s culpability. Did I say hearings? They held 11 hearings over 2 miserable years of muck raking and every time found no culpability.

In both cases, Ken Starr’s investigation and the Benghazi Congressional spectacles, the true victory belonged to the Republicans who did their self-righteous crowing and tsk-tsking for years, keeping phantom Democrat wrongdoing in the public eye. They were surely the true white knights of our country, saving us from the unworthy ones. You just have to ignore their dishonesty and hypocrisy. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Just like they’re saving us from that most awful hoard of fraudulent voters. The same ones they can’t find in Texas or Wisconsin or in any other state.

This continues to be true.

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Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Have A Nice Memorial Day


From Giovanni Russonello’s article in the New York Times:

“QAnon Now as Popular in U.S. as Some Major Religions, Poll Suggests
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“But it’s not just the notion that the election was stolen that [QAnon] caught on with the former president’s supporters. QAnon, an outlandish and ever-evolving conspiracy theory spread by some of Trump’s most ardent followers, has significant traction with a segment of the public – particularly Republicans and Americans who consume news from far-right sources.

“Those are the findings of a poll released today by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Interfaith Youth Core, which found that 15 percent of Americans say they think that the levers of power are controlled by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles, a core belief of QAnon supporters. The same share said it was true that ‘American patriots may have to resort to violence’ to depose the pedophiles and restore the country’s rightful order.

“And fully 20 percent of respondents said that they thought a biblical-scale storm would soon sweep away these evil elites and ‘restore the rightful leaders.'”

Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene are conducting hate rallies. Last week Gaetz began, saying, “We have a Second Amendment in this country and I think we have an obligation to use it.” He was reported by Heather Cox Richardson and all major news agencies this way:

“[Gaetz] told attendees that the nation’s founders wrote the Second Amendment to enable citizens to rise up against the government. ‘It’s not about hunting, it’s not about recreation, it’s not about sports,’ he said. ‘The Second Amendment is about maintaining, within the citizenry, the ability to maintain an armed rebellion against the government if that becomes necessary.’

“As the audience cheered, Gaetz continued: ‘I hope it never does, but it sure is important to recognize the founding principles of this nation and to make sure that they are fully understood.’”

These are powerful words harkening back to our founding days of tricorn hats and muskets and thoughtful men in wigs, except for one thing: every bit of Gaetz’s chest thumping declaration is false. All of it.

The Second Amendment was included in the Constitution for many reasons, including self-defense. It was also included to keep southern slave states in the Union. White slave masters were vastly outnumbered by slaves then and the slave owners figured they needed a mechanism to counter any slave rebellion. Local militias – essentially vigilantes with firearms – was their solution. The Second Amendment was included in the Bill of Rights to appease the slave owners.

Further, as Garrett Epps writes in The Atlantic. ”  .  .  .  the main—indeed, almost exclusive—purpose of the [Second A]mendment was, in fact, to protect the rights of states to maintain and arm militias.” And, indeed, they’ve done that. Today they’re called the National Guard.

However chest-thumpingly satisfying it may be to our citizens wearing camouflage, carrying military weapons and assaulting our state capitols and the Capitol Building in DC or plotting to kidnap and assassinate the governor of Michigan, they aren’t the militias envisioned by the Framers. They aren’t well-regulated. They aren’t even militias. They are insurrectionists in waiting.

There is nothing in the Second Amendment or in The Federalist Papers or in the words of any Founding Father, nor is there any representation anywhere of a right of citizens “.  .  .  to maintain an armed rebellion against the government,” to rise up in violence against democracy – not a word, however our many insurrectionists and impassioned blowhards think there is. What’s worrying is that our self-righteous believers in citizen tyranny own a huge proportion of the over 300 million firearms in this country.

There is no cabal of Satan worshiping child sex traffickers running the world or our country, nor is there an imminent biblical-scale storm that will sweep away elites. There is no right of insurrection. Accusations are not the same as evidence or proof. Fantasies aren’t the same as facts. Lies are not truths. But some people will believe whatever feeds their passions, hate and anger, good sense be damned.

And all of this fantasy based insanity that promotes tough guy-ism and stokes violence flies in the face of the special day we set aside for our military people who died protecting our nation from “all enemies, foreign and domestic.” That refers to enemies of the Constitution.*

Go to your local Memorial Day ceremonies tomorrow, be they in person or virtual. Honor our fallen ones and say thank you.

And have a nice Memorial Day – while we still have our democracy.

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In Case You Missed The Craziest Play in Baseball

Watch this.

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  • * I’m reminded of a line from Aaron Sorkin’s wonderful movie The American President:

“How do you have patience for people who claim they love America, but clearly can’t stand Americans?”

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Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.

Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Relativism and National CPR


Relativism: The idea that nothing is any more correct or true than anything else.

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I know, it sounds preposterous, but that is the prevailing assumption about reality in much of our society. Example: Kellyanne Conway did an interview from the White House lawn shortly after Donald Trump moved in. She was defending a false claim that press secretary Sean Spicer had made at his first press briefing a day earlier. He had insisted that Trump had the greatest number of attendees at his inauguration of any president, ever. When presented with empirical evidence that the claim was false, Conway announced that they (the administration) believed “alternative facts.”

Let’s be clear that “alternative facts” doesn’t mean that they were looking at other metrics, nor does it mean that they had additional information not included in the original observations. It means specifically that they believed that they were free to make up anything they wanted and that their made-up story was just as valid, accurate and true as any other. For them and for so many others, false = true, fiction = fact. Relativism.

While Trump is gone from a position of power and is now preparing for his position as defendant, alternative facts have not disappeared. We hear them every day from politicians blabbering some vacuous reinvention of history, from QAnon spouting another impossible conspiracy fiction, from yellow journalism masquerading as news and from extremists breaking the law while claiming they’re protecting the Constitution. But these conjurors of alternative facts aren’t alone. Indeed, we have a major cultural problem.

Kurt Andersen’s book Fantasyland is an historical trip through our wondrous American tapestry of belief in fantasy, in anything goes. Andersen quotes science fiction writer Phil Dick, introducing his words writing, ”  .  .  .  he wrote a perfect summary of his dread about the transformation of American society and culture as the real and unreal became indistinguishable.” Sounds a lot like today, don’t you think?

‘The problem is a real one, not a mere intellectual game. Because today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups – and the electronic hardware exists by which to deliver these pseudo-worlds right into the heads of the reader, the viewer, the listener.  .  .  .

‘And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing. It is my job to create universes.  .  .  .

‘I consider that the matter of defining what is real – that is a serous topic, even a vital topic. And in there somewhere is the other topic, the definition of the authentic human. Because the bombardment of pseudo-realities begins to produce inauthentic humans very quickly, spurious humans – as fake as the data pressing at them from all sides.  .  .  .  Fake realities will create fake humans. Or, fake humans will generate fake realities and then sell them to other humans, turning them, eventually, into forgeries of themselves. So we wind up with fake humans inventing fake realities and then peddling them to other fake humans. It is just a very large version of Disneyland.’

And here we are in our alternative worlds, stumbling through our cultural Fantasyland of alternative fact inbreeding. We believe whatever we want to believe and then accept the mutants we’re creating, as we befuddle ourselves to death, all because relativism rules.

This is dangerous stuff. It is where people believe whatever they want to believe with no weight given to reality. They believe whatever serves their motives and fears and hopes, like believing that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump; like sending partisan know nothings to audit the last election so that they can fabricate the desired result; like people selecting themselves to attack democracy, even as they invoke the red, white and blue. It is what causes little self-inflated men and women to lie and to cling to power over others, while justifying their actions with fantastical fabrications. That and more goes on every day in America, regardless of how our detachment from tangible facts causes us to self-immolate.

Perhaps that is why President Biden speaks of fighting for the soul of America. It needs life support intervention right now and nobody else is showing up to do national CPR.

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Tweets So Far This Week

From @richardhine:

“If 53% of Republicans think Trump is still President but only 26% of Americans say they belong to the decaying Party of Trump, that would mean only 14% of Americans think Trump is still President. Which might be an accurate measure of the batshit fringe.”

From @HunaNaMeaHuna

“Vote Theft Is Your Future Denied”

Gerrymandering and sham voting audits will do that.

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Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.

Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Are You Seeing a Pattern? Ug!


We humans are predisposed to look for causes for what we see, relationships to explain the way things work and patterns of events to help us predict the future. For example, if caveman Ug leaves his cave, turns left and runs into no danger, and if this happens the next day and the next, Ug is wired to see the pattern and he will expect to be able to leave his cave safely, as long as he turns left. Such is the power of repetition.

This observed pattern is reinforced when one day his cave mate Gug leaves the cave, turns right and is attacked and devoured by a very hungry, grouchy carnivore. In that moment Ug will have thoroughly internalized his important lesson on cave exiting.

It’s the same for us today. You find a restaurant you like so you go again with the expectation that you’ll like it again. If you do, you’ll likely eat there a third time. By then the pattern is clear and expectations are reinforced by the evidence and by repetition. We’re quick to pick up on such things, just like Ug.

That pattern recognition can carry over to our politics, although it can be badly warped. For example, Trump continues to make the demonstrably false claims that the election was rigged, that there were millions of fraudulent votes cast against him and that hundreds of thousands of votes cast for him weren’t counted (only in swing states). He whines as though making the claims is enough to make them true. Both his true believers and his cowardly sycophants repeat those lies over and over until they seem to many otherwise sensible people to be true. The repetition, not evidence, drives their belief. That is the essence of The Big Lie throughout history.

Last week the House voted to establish a January 6 commission to learn the full story behind the insurrectionist domestic terrorists that killed 5 people, brutalized police, vandalized the Capitol Building and threatened to kill the Vice President and members of Congress. 175 Republicans voted against that bill, even though they themselves had been targets for violence on that awful day.

From the Washington Post:

Republican leaders denounced the commission as a partisan Democratic plot. [House minority leader Kevin] McCarthy [R-CA] accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) of not negotiating “in good faith” and wasting “time playing political games.” [Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell [R-KY]  chimed in to accuse House Democrats of having “handled this proposal in partisan bad faith going back to the beginning.”

I count 4 baseless claims and zero evidence in those 2 sentences and the rest of the article puts no evidentiary meat onto those bones. And the bad faith thing – in negotiations over the creation of the commission Republicans were given everything they asked for and – did I mention? – 175 of them, including all of Republican House leadership, still voted against the bill. These are the same people who declared unequivocally following the domestic terrorist insurrection that a full investigation was required. Perhaps they disliked having a bulls eye on their backs that day.

Apparently, giving Republicans all that they asked for was Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “partisan bad faith.” Absurdly, their claims about the evil Democrats, having been repeated in the extremist echo chamber, and are now believed. That rejection of the legislation after getting everything they asked for makes me wonder what Republicans don’t want uncovered by a commission.

Georgia Representative Andrew Clyde (R-GA) is a guy with a most pliable memory. He delivered the fantastical claim that the violent, murderous, defiling insurgents were only making “a normal tourist visit.” To give credit where it’s due, Clyde did offer cherry picked, misleading “evidence.” Of course, that’s actually worse than offering no evidence. On the other hand, on the day of the insurrection he was screaming and helping to erect barricades inside the House chamber, hoping to stop the terrorists.

Sen. Rob Johnson (R-WI) is always reliable for a fantasy-based quote, now claiming that the insurrection was largely a “peaceful protest.” It’s entirely possible that murdered Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick’s next of kin might see things a bit differently. Nevertheless, it’s likely that huge numbers of believers of evidence-free claims think Clyde and Johnson have it right. Once again, outrageously false and evidence-free claims got repeated and people believed them because of the repetition.

For a clear statement of the insanity of baseless, hollow claims and the harm they do to America, watch this 52-second clip of Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) excoriating Republicans for their detachment from reality and perfidy to the Constitution.

QAnon claimed that Democrats were running a child sex trafficking operation out of the basement of a pizza shop in DC. That  conspiracy claim was extra crispy crazy, if only because that pizza shop has no basement. But those claims were made and repeated in the vaporous, conspiracy-echoing universe and then believed by millions.

Are you seeing the pattern? People with large megaphones are making wild, ought-to-be unbelievable claims, offering no evidence (because there isn’t any). They repeat their fictitious claims over and over and people start to believe. And it’s worse than that.

Otherwise normal Americans are now trained to repeat these evidence-free claims themselves, as though making the accusations alone causes them to be true. These millions of Americans require no factual evidence.

Indeed, for true believers, continuous repetition of fraudulent claims at last becomes its own evidence that proves the claims.

That’s the kind of thing that could cause Ug to foolishly leave his cave and turn right, only to come to a very brutal and ugly end, just like Gug.

Speaking of Patterns

I’m an enthusiastic fan of John Oliver and I commonly appreciate his sense of outrage over very real outrageous issues. Here comes the “but.”

But last week he weighed into the Israeli-Palestinian carnage, making simple judgments about complexities he apparently doesn’t understand. He’s in good company, as most public commentary has done the same thing. I encourage you to view these videos (here and here) for a response to Oliver, because at the very least, they shed some light on the complexities and skewer the simple, easy and misleading judgments that so many are making.

I’m still a fan, but this time, as he sounded like he was making sense, John Oliver was actually making very little sense.

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The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

What? Sane Republicans?


Yes, really. I’ll prove it with just a few clicks.

There is little policy on which Liz Cheney and I agree. I cannot call her a hero when the bar is so low that simply honoring her oath of office and telling the obvious truth is all she’s done. On the other hand, she’s told the truth at a time when the red side of Congress is in sore need of truth telling.

Have a look at this video narrated mostly by her. Further, in her Washington Post op-ed she wrote:

“The Republican Party is at a turning point, and Republicans must decide whether we are going to choose truth and fidelity to the Constitution.”

She’s right, of course.

Now have a look at the GOP Report Card crafted by Bill Kristol, Olivia Troye and Sarah Longwell at Accountability.GOP. These are sane Republicans calling for a sane GOP and calling out – holding accountable – crazy and dishonest Republicans. What a concept! 

They’re right, of course.

Steve Schmidt said, “To be successful within the Republican Party today comes down to one question: Will you side with truth and democracy or will you side with Trump?“

He’s right, of course.

The Arizona Secretary of State, a Republican, has been tweeting about how insane and dishonest the election so-called audit is.

He’s right, of course.

100 former Republicans are siding with truth and democracy and have issued A Call For American Renewal. It is a plain declaration that if the current Republican Party doesn’t break from Trump and embrace democracy they will form a new political party fashioned on traditional conservative principles. Click through and read both links. Be sure to note the names associated with this effort. These are people you respect.

They’re right, of course.

Let’s be clear about a key point: The radicals, the truth deniers, the liars and the cowards in Congress and in our state houses are not conservatives.

Conservatives wouldn’t encourage and support an insurrectionist mob to attack the Capitol Building and then deny it happened.

Conservatives wouldn’t make wild, false allegations about voting fraud or challenge certified electoral college votes. That’s because attempting to overthrow our democracy is not a core conservative value.

Conservatives wouldn’t put 100% of their effort into opposing anything Democrats propose.

Note that this is just a short list and it doesn’t even look at policies. This is about fundamental dishonesty masquerading as conservatism. That has been expanding for the past several decades and has brought us today’s extremist, radical, fraudulent, unscrupulous, unethical, perfidious Republican Party, which is not conservative. Just forget the “conservative movement.” There isn’t one and there never was. It was just a bumper sticker slogan.

Here’s a message from the traditional Republicans to the radical Republicans in Congress:

Side against democracy and with Trump at your peril, because the sane people are coming for you and they will stand on your neck. It will hurt and there will be nothing you can do to stop the pain but to shut up and resign.

You already know that what goes around, comes around. It often doesn’t come around on our preferred schedule; nevertheless, it shows up and it’s looking for radical, truth-vacant Republicans now. They have broken the laws of the universe and justice will be swift and fierce.*

If you’re a Bible thumper, here’s the same message in a format that may be more familiar to you:

“Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Galatians VI (King James Version)

Read it and weep, Thumper.

————————

  • Late Addition
  • The Arizona Board of Supervisors, the people who are responsible for elections in that state, have had enough of the Big Lie insanity that has been foisted on Arizona. The four Republicans and one Democrat are furious with Karen Fann, president of the Arizona Senate, for engineering the so-called ballot audit being conducted by a totally incompetent company, the leadership of which (and likely its workers) hold strongly biased partisan views. Clearly, that’s way too much for the supervisors, as it should be.
  • So, they sent Fann an email which ripped her and the “grifters and con-artists” who made this sham audit happen and who are continuing the boundless dishonesty.
  • Grab your morning cup o’ joe, download and read the letter and bask in the satisfaction that in contrast to the manipulators and schemers who have embarrassed the state, there are good Republicans in Arizona.
  • ————————
  • * For justice to be applied will require more muscle than simply hoping for it to be enforced by traditional Republicans. We have to help. The most powerful things we can do are:
  1. Contact your senators and demand that they pass the For The People Act so that our next elections will actually be exercises in democracy. And won’t that be refreshing?
  2. Volunteer to help a Democrat win his/her election. Do that by contributing a few bucks and getting active in canvassing, phone banking, envelope stuffing, etc. NOTE: It’s easier than you may think and it’s actually fun – plus it’s non-confrontational. You really can do this.
  3. Vote in every election and bring with you someone who otherwise wouldn’t vote.

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Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.

Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Under Attack


We have a lot of huge challenges before us. The problems are complex and not susceptible to simple thinking or uncomplicated solutions. In consequence, our indelicate dances around gun safety, education, healthcare, jobs, infrastructure, race and so many more issues continue to vex us, even as they are all secondary issues. There is one that lies like a death shroud over our country and resolving it has, is and will continue to bedevil us until we at last find the courage to assertively confront it.

We are a nation perpetually drunk on power, so we have a large minority that wants to get its way vigilante style. They are certain that they are right and that they are the true patriots, but they are ironically using unconstitutional means while thinking they are protecting the Constitution. They don’t believe in majority rule. They are ready and even eager for physical confrontation and they thrill to the message of a megalomaniac autocrat wannabe. They don’t want democracy and have demonstrated their intentions against it many times.

In short, we’re beset by people who are appallingly angry agents of unconstitutionality, who are somehow content in their dishonesty and who love the power rush of minority rule. That applies to both cowardly politicians, as well as to the mobs in the streets.

Our democracy is under attack from within.

We’ve been warned many times that this was happening, but we’ve done far too little to combat it. It continues almost exclusively because of elected leaders and appointees promoting hatred and spewing lies powered by their mindless and cowardly obeisance to a cult leader.

This is stuff that promotes vicious attacks, mob violence and civil wars. This is stuff that leads to autocracy and fascism. This is stuff that violates everything we say we hold dear.

Read what Professor Timothy Snyder has to say about that in his brilliant New York Times essay and in his little book, On Tyranny. Read what Professor Jason Stanley has to say in his book How Fascism Works.

Our democracy is under attack from within.

Just in case you have even a tiny bit of doubt that an angry, animated minority hates democracy, is intentionally working to take away your vote and whose members want to steal power for themselves, read this piece that unmasks Republican voter suppression, this in their own words, as reported by Mother Jones. The report is horrifying, even as it is completely unsurprising.

This kind of cheating and manipulating has been championed and practiced since Paul Weyrich* announced his voter suppression strategy four decades ago. Indeed, this kind of effort has a long and sordid history, as Heather Cox Richardson explains here.

If we don’t get a handle on that, if we don’t find ways to stop that attack, none of our other problems, challenges or opportunities will matter, because all will be lost. This is no time for complacency or willful self-delusion. This is no time to sit on the sidelines and expect someone else to do the critically important  work.

From Thomas Paine in The American Crisis #1,** December 23, 1776:

“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”

Paine was right then and he’s right once again.

The anti-democracy mob is angry and motivated. They vote in large numbers and joyfully suppress others. Democrats aren’t as constantly angry and have a way of failing to be active, failing to vote and, of course, they’re nice. That’s a liability when facing an insurrection.

Stacey Abrams did an amazing job in Georgia last election. Can we replicate her 49 times? That, plus our active foot soldiering and the For The People Act are what we need in order to protect democracy and stop the thieves from stealing the next election.

Isn’t that an odd thing to be able to say? The insurrectionists – both politicians and the mobs – are having tantrums over what they’re calling a stolen election. Yet at the same time they are erecting barriers to voting so that they themselves can steal the next election. And they’re still trying to steal the last one. Pathetic irony.

Our democracy is under attack from within.

Fun Section

We all have to use our talents and energy in our own way to do our part. These posts, for example, are some of what I do to make a difference.

Randy Rainbow does his part, too, and I think he’s topped all of his prior offerings, as good as they are, with this musical paean to insurrection loving Josh Hawley and his duplicitous pals. Trust me, you don’t want to miss this.

Many thanks to brother Jim for the pointer.

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  • * Weyrich laid out his intention to suppress voting, saying,

“I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact our leverage in the election, quite candidly, goes up as the voting populace goes down.”

** “General Washington found Paine’s first essay so inspiring that he ordered it to be read to the troops at Valley Forge.”

————————————

Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.

Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Indicting Administration Officials & The Extremist Oath


By the end of his term, 138 of Reagan’s administration officials had been convicted, had been indicted or had been the subject of investigations for official misconduct and/or criminal violations. Reagan had been a B-list actor. Once in office he was apparently attempting to play the part of Richard Nixon.* While there were 26 Reaganites actually indicted for felonies, Nixon had 3 times as many – 76. It’s noteworthy that Obama had zero.

Which brings up some interesting numbers, because over the 49 years since Nixon took office until 2018, Republicans hold the championship, hands down, for the greatest dishonesty, malfeasance and criminal activity: 4.28 indictments per year of Republicans versus 0.20 for Democrats. If foreigners acting on behalf of domestic Republicans are included, the Republicans’ already impressive number surges to 5.22 indictments per year. Clearly, the trophy should be placed in the Republican trophy case and permanently retired there.

Read the documentation by The Daily Kos for yourself. Note that it has not been updated since September 2018 and an updating will surely cause recent numbers to rise. Our newly rehabilitated Justice Department is just getting cranked up. The current number of indictments of Trumpian thugs will likely soar over the coming years, so don’t be disappointed by only 7 indictments of domestic Trumpies and 55 indictments of foreign nationals through 2.5 years ago.

And just so that you don’t think that the numbers are tainted because they come from a lefty-liberal-progressive source, Google ‘political indictments” or “indictments of presidential administration officials” or anything along those lines. Be sure to select and review some known right wing sources. It will look pretty much like the information above.

It’s a sad thing to realize that there were a lot of terrible things done by the Trump mob which will go unpunished. I’m thinking of the bastardization of the Justice Department done by William Barr, as he distorted justice to serve Trump instead of serving the nation. Recall his interfering in the sentencing of Michael Flynn and Roger Stone and his wilful deceit before Congressional committees and so much more.

And don’t forget the toadying of officials in every department of the Executive branch by Trump’s donor lobbyists and know-nothings. Betsy DeVos won’t be indicted for her galactic ignorance of public education and the harm she’s done to school children across the nation, but she should be.

Meanwhile, keep an eye on the count of indictments against these Trumpian malefactors. Gotta wonder if Trump’s leadership will produce a higher body count than Nixon’s. The bar is high, but the candidates are many.

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Another fit of poetry overcame me at the same moment I was contemplating the mindset of Trumpies, of Q believers and of conspiracy lovers. Here is their oath, as much as I can understand it.

We Believe It, And That’s Enough Evidence To Make It True

Covid is a hoax, of course, like landing on the moon.

The holocaust is just a ploy by Jews to be a boon,

To get the gold and subjugate us, masters of we slaves.

Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya in a cave.

He hates we Christians and of course America as well,

And wanted to come take your guns, you know that sure as hell.

He hoped to make us weak and soft, unable to defend

Our families from the governmental tyranny they send.

That hasn’t stopped, of course you know, with socialists’ control,

They speed us down the path of ruin and in a deeper hole.

So, Q is who we trust for truth to give it to us straight.

We loved the pizza shop sex thing, it’s something good to hate.

He said that Jewish lasers started wildfires with intention,

And we believe ‘cus he says so, his newest hate invention.

We don’t need proof, we just believe and that is all it takes

To make it our reality, we bake it in our cake.

We have our facts, alternatives, we draft them on the go.

We know they’re true, rock-solid stuff; believing makes it so.

Like fraud in voting, Trump tells us, made theft of this election.

His true boys say that’s true for sure, so we’re for full rejection.

We don’t need mainstream media or any of their stink.

‘Cus Trump’s our leader, so there’s never need for us to think.

We have no need for evidence of cheating counting votes,

Or cheaters casting votes who should be thrown back on their boats,

Returned to shit hole countries, which is where they all belong,

Instead of their contaminating us, that’s just so wrong.

Science? Really, who needs that for knowing what to do?

Our victimized and picked on former prez will get us through.

Inject the bleach and don’t wear masks, Amer’cans through and through.

We have no need for CDC, so Fauci, you go screw.

We’re rugged individuals, can’t tell us what to do.

We’ll follow Q and Trump, tough me, and also tough guy you

Right down the rabbit hole because we’re very rugged guys,

Until we ruin everything including mainstream lies.

The country fought for many times to save our fabled dreams,

Conspiracies can bring it down and that is what we mean.

So, criticize, you so woke ones, who look at us with scorn.

We’ll make it all come crashing down, Q patriots; now you’re warned

That we don’t give a damn who’s hurt because it’s now our turn.

We’ll smash it all, we patriots, and you can all go burn.

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  • * Reagan was not impeached, nor was he indicted for the several felonies he committed just in the Iran-Contra scheme. He did convene his own commission to look into what he did, as if he needed to be told what he had ordered be done and which he obviously already knew. Then, in a Hollywood B-movie moment, he read from his script that the commission said he might have been a bad boy and if that was true, well then, by golly he was sorry.

————————————

Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.

Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Bridging the Divide


Approximately 40% of Americans identify as Republicans. That includes traditional conservatives, centrists and hair-on-fire extremists. A new poll shows that 44% of them say they refuse and will continue to refuse to be vaccinated against the worldwide pandemic that has already killed nearly 600,000 Americans. Some say they’re all about individual freedom and nobody is going to tell them what to do. Perhaps it isn’t a problem to them if they become infected and spread it to others. (See my question for these people at the end of this post.)

So, let’s do the math. If 40% of Americans identify as Republicans and 44% of them are adamant vaccine and mask refusers, that means that 17.6% of all Americans – that’s 58,150,400 – who identify as Republicans will not get vaccinated.

Looking at all Americans, another poll found that one in four Americans are vaccine refusers, which translates to 82,600,000 Americans who think they’re bullet proof or that they’re the smart ones who know better than the scientists. That blends nicely with the roughly 50 million Americans who believe that the 2020 election was stolen and the 10 million who support an insurrectionist movement.

We are a nation of a great many absolutist, “it’s-true-if-I-believe-it’s-true” propaganda targets. They are easy to manipulate with lies told repeatedly, like the lie started decades ago by a fraudulent British doctor that vaccines cause autism. Or the lies of a megalomaniac telling the Big Lie, leading his chumps to have certainty of their rightness and virtue as they promote the obvious lie. No need for critical thinking here.

For a most informative take on how people are recruited into extremist views and organizations, read this from The Washington Post. Keywords: identity, community, purpose. It’s like the allure of city gangs: everyone wants the feeling of belonging, of community. Perhaps that’s part of the appeal of QAnon and its outrageously impossible and hateful conspiracy theories.

These are our fellow countrymen and -women who are eager to believe the unbelievable. They are ordinary looking people who are unwittingly making themselves the enemy of public health and the enemy of democracy. To state the obvious, that’s not okay. That’s harmful to women, children, men, other living things, our country and the world and they walk among us. It screams at us, demanding a solution.

On Thursday I posted the speech I wish President Biden had given. It betrays my frustration and an impassioned desire to let the facts – actual Earth 1 realities – do the persuading. The only real problem with that is that telling someone with fervent beliefs that both their “facts” and they themselves are wrong is a pretty effective way to prevent progress. Nobody likes to be told they’re wrong.

Which makes me think that President Biden is a pretty smart guy to go about persuasion just by doing a great job and being decent. (Click here and watch the video at the bottom for instruction on this.) I’m sure his having great people skills, a subtle understanding and a gentle touch is why he’s president – and I’m not.

For more on how to bridge our enormous cultural and political divide, have a look at Braver Angels.

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The Zombie Election – It Won’t Die

Surely, by now you know that conspiracy theorists and Big Lie proponents have been hired and paid for by mysterious and unidentified rich people to scour the Maricopa County, AZ 2020 election ballots. They are in search of the tens of thousands of non-existent fraudulent votes cast for Biden that they believe belong to Trump. And they’re on the lookout for the millions of fictional votes cast by non-citizens – illegal aliens – immigrants – people from shit-hole countries – who they believe voted illegally. Perhaps they’re hoping they can get those people deported. For sure they think they will prove the election was rigged, stolen. “It wasn’t fair!‘ they cry.

They have largely banned observation of their chicanery by third parties with no political axe to grind, as they pursue their “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” double secret, occult manipulations of ballots to arrive at their pre-determined conclusions. They will prove that Trump is still the president. Be ready for, “Nya, nya, so there.”

Here’s a read on that which is both entertaining and factually illuminating. Many thanks to RS for the pointer.

—————————-

America’s Mayor

The Giuliani-Ukraine-Trump disinformation scheme for undermining the United States of America is another unbelievable that is believed to be valid by many Americans. If you’d like to better understand what actually happened in that scandal, read Asha Rangappa’s Twitter thread. This sordid Ukraine affair is exactly the kind of unpatriotic stuff that compromises our country.

Note that Rangappa is a former FBI Special Agent and a lawyer. She knows what she’s talking about. And unlike the conspirators, she’s a patriot.

Final note: Expect to see indictments against Rudy Giuliani, then his conviction and a trip to prison. And who knows? Perhaps he and Trump can get adjoining cells and further conspire while incarcerated.

————————————

Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.

Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

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