Month: June 2022

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Early polling for the November elections look bad for the Democrats. The economy is suffering from inflation and the Democrats are in charge. They are going to get the blame. It is frustrating and familiar. I, also, can accept that.

If the Democrats must go down to defeat, let’s lose on issues that matter to the general population and avoid the trap the Republicans are setting with peripheral issues. Democrats should focus on abortion rights, gun control and health care. Issues they still can lose on, but issues that could pull in enough voters to win.

But to lose on Don’t Say Gay, Defund the Police or correct pronoun use would be senseless mistake.

I am gay. I see the importance of it being able to say gay in school. The Republicans didn’t frame it that way — they said we just don’t want sexuality being discussed in the classroom. Because Gov DeSantis cleverly eluded to not wanting to talk about trans or gay sex, opponents of the law came up with the slogan Don’t Say Gay. Which is exactly the chant DeSantis wants protesters saying. I expect most people would scratch their heads and ask why do they want to say Gay to a 2nd grader. This isn’t the impression we want to give. What we mean is if a 2nd Grader sees another kid with two Moms or two Dads that the teacher can give an explanation suitable for a 2nd Grader. There just isn’t an easy way to say something so nuanced in a slogan but I can assure you that Don’t Say Gay misses the mark.

The same complaint can be said for Defund the Police. When people hear that they think that you want to end all police protection. That isn’t it at all. Defund the Police is about moving resources to people who can better handle different situations. Police now are saddled with an array of responsibilities other than crime fighting. A lot of these problems would be better handled by mental health professionals or social workers. This would allow the police to focus on crime while also hopefully stopping these situations from getting violent. Try to make a slogan out of that. But Defund the Police isn’t it. If you have to constantly explain why you want to do away with the police, then your slogan is terrible, it is alienating potential voters and you should stop using it. Immediately.

This brings me to personal pronouns. When I first started reading about the pronoun issue I had no idea what people were talking about. What was a pronoun? I know I learned about them many years ago but, for the life of me, why were they creating such a fuss. After I reacquainted myself with what pronoun was, my first thought is why are we even talking about this. The first time someone introduced their pronouns along with their name to me, I was baffled. Why is she saying she/her after her name? Then I recalled that this was part of the new way to introduce yourself. You give your name and your personal pronouns. But is middle America actually buying this? Are they going to vote for a candidate that wants to put the proper use of person’s pronoun as a priority issue. Yes, people should honor people’s preferences on their pronouns, however is it worth losing an election over? I am emphatically no on this one.

In order to run government, political parties have to win elections. Given the political structure of the United States, this means getting votes across a large and diverse country. Now you may not like it. You may think the Electoral College and the Senate give too much power to smaller rural states and is unfair to larger urban states. I happen to agree with you. However the system is the system. It doesn’t change because you don’t like it. That means we have to live with it until we can change it. The only way to change the system is to win elections. This means biting your tongue when necessary in order to concentrate on the issues that will bring as many voters to your candidate as possible.

Political parties can choose which battles to fight. Just because Republicans are laying traps for the Democrats to fall in, doesn’t mean we have to be fooled. Let’s not go down to defeat over personal pronouns when we can focus on abortion or gun control or better health care. Issues we might be able to persuade enough voters to win. Losing this election, particularly at this dangerous time, is irresponsible and I am afraid that the Democrats might be doing that.

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As many in the Republican party continue to remind us, the end of Roe doesn’t end abortion access, it just returned abortion restrictions to the states which suits them quite well. Given the difficulty in changing laws in the United States, at least at the federal level, enough blue states have majorities to block any national abortion policy. This allows Republicans to maintain their faux moral superiority without losing access to abortion. There will be little pressure to change the laws in red states because middle class women will still have access to abortion. Maybe, it is an inconvenient trip but worth it all so that the Republicans can say they protect the lives of unborn babies.

Poor women in red states, however, will bear the brunt of this decision. Poor women will be the ones getting illegal and dangerous abortions and suffering the consequences to their health and from the law. It will be poor women having unwanted children. It will be poor women delivering children with expensive and difficult to care for birth defects.

Since abortion is likely to stay legal in at least some states. What really is accomplished here? Women with financial ability still can get their risk free abortions while it becomes even more difficult and dangerous for poor women to get their abortions. Why are we punishing the poor for their mistakes while the middle class and the rich get away with their’s.

What a strange country we live in. Billionaires can pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes because they are job creators. When, in fact, there is no obligation for them to do so and no one checking to see if they do. While working poor people are kept in low paying jobs and prevented from accessing anything that might liberate them from the burdens they carry. Healthcare is difficult for them to get. Higher education is difficult for them to get. And now abortions are more difficult for them to get.

Perhaps if doyens of business could see poor people differently. The poor are already connected to the market economy and just need a little help here and there to make it possible for them to bring even more dollars to market. This means more money in your pocketbook if you could just see it in your hearts to treat them half way decently. These aren’t just people, they are an untapped market.

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While listening to the January 6 hearings, I was struck by the number of Republicans and White House staff that have turned against Trump. So I googled people who have turned on Trump to see if there are any lists of these people. There are (see below), in fact, there are many lists.

Then I thought maybe this is a common experience for presidents, so I googled people who have turned on Obama. I could find one person — a secret service agent who ran as a Republican for congress. His main complaint was about the deals Obama made to pass Obamacare and not specifically about Obama himself. So even this critic, who served under Obama, was more critical of the system as opposed to the man himself.

Think about this for a moment. Person after person who worked for Trump are saying that he encouraged them to commit crimes, that he was detached from reality, that he bullied his employees and elected officials, that he turned on his own Vice-President, and the list of his bad behavior goes on. While the worst thing somebody said about Obama was he made deals to get a bill passed in Congress.

This speaks volumes about both Mr. Trump and Mr. Obama.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/04/politics/officials-who-criticized-donald-trump/index.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/06/19/the-growing-list-of-ex-trump-officials-who-now-denounce-the-president/?sh=473707053965

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/18/all-aides-allies-even-family-who-have-spoken-out-against-trump/

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I think this is a fair question.

If more restrictive gun laws are impossible to obtain in the present political environment, which is about the only thing everyone can agree to, maybe we can get better mental health care instead. Since many Republicans describe mass killings as a mental health problem, let them prove their concern with better and easier to afford mental health care. Now I don’t buy that gun violence is just a mental health problem but I do agree that anyone who goes into a school and kills 4th graders has a mental health problem.

What causes young men to become a mass killer? Is there anything we as a society can do to stop them? Yes, if we can, ban the type of guns that allow this type of carnage to happen. But there is also a point to addressing the mental health issues that prompt these massacres. These men still are potentially dangerous to others and themselves, if possible, they should be dealt with before they do something horrible.

I don’t understand mass killers. I don’t think anyone does. This isn’t a jealous husband who breaks from the news of his wife’s infidelity. It isn’t a greedy child knocking off his parents because he can no longer wait for them to die to get his inheritance. But to kill a stranger for no particular reason other they are in the class room the killer decided to invade that day, is baffling and frightening. And, most importantly, it is a mental health concern. If there is a way to stop these men before they snap, then we should try to identify them and prevent them from moving forward with their mad plans.

This obviously means that the present mental health system is failing to stop mass killers. The painful truth is American mental health is almost exclusively reactive — we wait until someone breaks before addressing mental health issues. Then we collect the pieces and, if there is enough of a person still there, we work on putting them together again.

A reactive mental health approach is never going to stop mass killers. We would have to take a proactive approach to mental health something are system is in no way prepared to do. Our legal system and our mental health care system would need to be overhauled considerably in order to stop these young men before they begin to shoot. We would have to be able to assess people, take control of their lives and let them know their future freedom is contingent on them changing their behavior. In order to do this, we would also need a place to house our potential killers, drugs and therapy to help change their behavior, and professionals to take on this task of managing the person’s mental health.

This is an enormous and costly task. But, given the array of mental health issues our country face besides mass killings — drug abuse, alcoholism, homelessness, spousal abuse to name a few, the cost would be worth it in numerous ways — less time off from work, less suicide, less emergency room visits, less homeless people in public spaces and, of course, less mass killings.

Therein lies the problem. Money. We are always looking at the costs of doing something right and saying it is too expansive. We can’t afford it. Imagine all the money that Ulvade cost — all of the police resources, emergency room resources, an entire school suddenly unusable, grief stricken parents unable to work, tearing school down because nobody wants to use it, building a new school to replace the torn down school, health care for the wounded who survived, the funeral expenses, and the psychiatric care for the teachers, students and parents. Some Republicans are advocating “hardening” of the schools in order to make it more difficult for mass killers to attack. This would mean that every school in the United States would have to be physically altered. Think of all of those costs and then figure the costs of better mental health care and see which would be cheaper.

The important thing here is that some Republicans are identifying mass killings as a mental health problem. If they are identifying this as a problem, they also need to provide a mental health solution. They can’t say that mental health is a problem and do nothing about it. They are on the hook for at least a discussion of how to get better mental health so these killings don’t happen. Perhaps we can get better mental health care for everyone in the process. It may not be the answer some of us are looking for but something worthwhile could potentially come out of this.

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My book club read Connie Willis’ The Doomsday Book. The book was about a woman who travelled to medieval England around the time of the Bubonic Plague. Part of our discussion was about whether we would travel to the past if we had the opportunity. I expressed no desire to go back in the past. My friends understood my concern, no one wanted to live permanently in the past, but they were perplexed that I wouldn’t want to see how people lived in the past. I gave it more thought because everyone else seemed to be curious enough to want to see the past. After giving it a think, I can confirm that I have absolutely no desire to see how people lived in the past. I am happy to read about it from a safe distance.

First, and this, I believe, is the most important point here, I am not falling for this is only a short visit to the past and that we will be able to bring you back. No problem. Trust the technology. Having read a few time travel books in my time, the whole point of them is people getting trapped in the wrong time. You can’t have a time travel book without having a time travel problem. For me, it is definitely not worth the risk just to see people living in wretched poverty and dying young from infections that penicillin can now cure. I can imagine the misery fairly well and do not need confirmation of the horror.

Even if the mad scientists could guarantee a safe return to now, I don’t really see the point of making the trip. The preparation is more than stepping into a little time travel apparatus and ending up in 1492. Willis, in her book, describes all the work a time traveller had to put into their trip — learning the language, learning the customs, learning the appropriate behavior of that period and, even after all that study, because nobody knows for sure if historical information is correct, you could still wind up being burned at the stake for doing the wrong thing. Why would I spend all that time preparing for a two week adventure to the past? And, really, if I couldn’t learn French before going to France, I certainly am not going to put in even more time so I could to fit into medieval England for a couple of weeks.

Then there is the absence of flush toilets. In a moment of temporary madness I joined the Boy Scouts as a lad so I have dug latrines and have used them. I never want to do either ever again. Not even for a couple of weeks. Not even for a day. Thanks for the invitation to visit but I will stay in the present. Now if you want to go, I will be happy to see the slide show of your trip.

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Did you know that Otis Redding sang Day Tripper? I didn’t. Here is one cover song that sounds nothing like the original. From the horns in the background to Redding using every last bit of his vocal cords to sing it, Redding’s version is unrecognizable with the Beatles version (see below). I searched to find a Redding performing the song as I am sure I would have like it more if I would have seen a performance. All I could find was a recorded lived version with photos of him performing. Not the same thing by a long shot but I was still absolutely blown away by it. My white middle class sensibilities were shaken to the core.

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The average price for a home in San Diego county, where I live, snuck across the million dollar mark last month. This was good news for home owners but disastrous news for any young person wanting to buy a home here. The ever increasing price, however, has created an impossible situation for new buyers. They may never be able to afford a home in San Diego.

In a normal real estate market where the normal rules of capitalism apply, a slight downturn in prices would correct the market and bring about more manageable prices. California, as we all know, does not have a normal real estate market. A slight downturn in house prices would do nothing to relieve the situation. Indeed a 20% reduction in the average price would make the price 800,000. Still out of reach for the average buyer who makes somewhere in the neighborhood of $68, 564. Worse still, a big reduction of housing prices might ruin the present owners. Nobody, particularly home owners, wants that.

So we are left with the high prices. A million dollar home will need quite a down payment particularly since the banks have gotten a little stricter since the Savings and Loan collapse of 2008. Wink. Wink. Just kidding. The banks can still be gamed but this requires parents with money and who are also willing to temporarily loan their children money. Once the loan has gone through the children can return the money to the parents. The banks have evidence that the buyer is a good credit risk and every is happy.

It does defeat the idea of actually vetting people to see if they can reasonably pay a bank loans though. This type of strategy usually comes from either the real estate agent of the bank loan officers who are anxious for the buyer to get the loan. Why you ask would the bank encourage someone to take out a loan on a house they can’t afford? Well, the bank has the house for collateral. If the buyers can’t pay, then the bank get this house. The real estate agent gets their commission for selling the house. Win-win. Of course for the buyer it is lose/lose. They lose their money they paid into the house, they lose their house and they lose their credit rating.

But enough about the losers because there is another winner who also makes the real estate market difficult for the Average Joe. The people who flip houses or who buy houses for investments. These people pay cash. Sellers prefer cash to mortgages. If there is a cash offer and mortgage offer, the seller usually takes the cash. It is a lot less paperwork and the money is guaranteed. Wouldn’t you? However, this means anyone who needs a mortgage (read here young couples looking to buy their first house) is always outbid. Flippers are particularly annoying because they usually bid on fixer uppers which is just the type of house a young couple might get because it needs work and may come at a lower price than the average house.

I know of a young couple who had the money for the down payment and had jobs that were suitably high paying that they could comfortably pay the mortgage. They were, however, always outbid by cash buyers. What is a potential buyer to do? Well, the young man in the couple complained to his boss about his situation. His boss liked the young man and decided to loan him the full cash payment. The next time the couple bid on a house, they won because they had cash. So really, to get into the California real estate market, it helps immeasurably to have someone with a lot money who is willing to help you out. Seems simple enough to me. Doesn’t everyone have a loved one or friend willing to loan them a million dollars?

Then rent, you say. Because it is expensive housing market, San Diego also suffers from a highly competitive and expensive rental market. The average price for a one room apartment is $2,756. For a year this would be a little less than $36,000. Remember that the average wage is $68,564 which means the average person will spend over half of their income on rent. Leaving $32, 500 are so for taxes, food, car payment, electric, wifi/cable and whatever you can set aside for a down payment on your future house. In Duluth.

There is very little we can do to remedy the situation because it is in nobody’s interest, nobody, that is, who has a money in the game, to do anything about the high cost of housing even though it is seemingly untenable. People are leaving California at record levels for less expensive vistas. The market may correct itself, as capitalists like to say, but at what cost. And if real estate collapses, the whole California economy soon follows. The good news will be that you can pick up some prime California real estate for a song and there is no better investment than California real estate.

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The rave reviews of the new Top Gun sequel are puzzling. I didn’t hate it and I didn’t love it either It has about 15 minutes of exciting flight scenes sandwich between a boiler plate script. You can practically say the lines that the actor is about to speak. All of the characters are people you have seen a hundred times before.

The plot is anorexic thin and it focuses on the wrong characters. The old movie characters are connected to the present movie quite nicely. So far so good, but then it introduces Penny (Jennifer Connolly), who is not in the original movie and whose main purpose seems to be to show that Maverick (Tom Cruise) likes the ladies. She does gives Maverick (Tom Cruise) an encouraging pep talk but that could have been given by any number of other characters. I think it would have made Maverick a bit more compelling too. He would have been a man without any life but the navy.

Then an awful lot of screen time is consumed by the dying Ice Man (Val Kilmer). He is now an admiral and, because he is Maverick’s protector with the bigwigs, he has to die. The bigwigs then can dispense the troublesome rebel Maverick. But it takes forever. We get hints near the beginning of the movie, then we hear Ice Man’s wife talking about his imminent demise, and then we see the Ice Man is in obvious bad health, followed by a whispered conversation where Maverick learns Ice Man is dead, and ending with a completely gratuitous funeral with fighter jets, 21 gun salute, people clutching one another. I guess it was then, and only then that I knew Ice Man was indeed dead.

This misdirection of focus leaves little time for all the young pilots who are actually vying to fly this suicide mission. They are never given enough time to rise above being a stock characters in a war movie. So this story about an intense competition between the best pilots in the navy is drained of any drama because we don’t know enough about the individual characters to care about who gets selected or not. All I wanted was for them to get those bodies into the plane and let us see some explosions.

The action sequences are exciting. While I have complained about the plot, it isn’t bad, just predictable and misdirected. Acting is fine but then it isn’t Olivier doing Hamlet either. Perhaps I was tainted by all those rave reviews which I admit happens from time to time. People were so enthusiastic about the movie that I was expecting more. If you manage your expectations, you will have a fine time.

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Recently I posted about the unserious solutions that anti-gun control advocates offer whenever there is a mass shooting. In the link below, the Rev. Franklin Graham gives a perfect example of what I am talking about.

Graham: “Ban All Movies, TV Shows, And Video Games” That Depict Violence, Gun Control “Won’t Help Problem”

The Rev. Graham’s solution to gun violence is to eliminate images of gun violence. The images of violence, in his mind, are far more dangerous than the actual weapons of violence. The sheer impracticability of his proposal is apparent from the start. Oddly enough, particularly coming from a Constitutional purist such as the Rev. Graham, the biggest impediment to his idea is the Constitution. The 1st Amendment guarantees the right to free speech. If Rev. Graham wants to ban gun violence in the media he would have to address this ban in context to the Free Speech Amendment. So he would face the same difficult task that gun control advocates now face with the Right to Bear Arms Amendment. Constitutional changes, as advocates of gun control are keenly aware of, are extremely difficult to enact.

Which brings me to workable. I am really scratching my head on how banning gun violence from media is any easier than banning specific high caliber guns. Rev. Graham is not wrong that gun control measures are difficult to enact for both constitutional and popular reasons. But to propose that banning violence in entertainment as a more practical alternate is baffling. It would face exactly the same resistance on constitutional grounds and, as far as I know, nobody, aside from Rev. Graham, wants such a change in the first place. So, how, Rev. Graham is this more workable than gun bans?

And, if people are the problem and not guns, doesn’t the same argument apply to free speech? If there are millions of media consumers who can watch gun violence without engaging in a mass shooting, why should they be restricted because of a few bad apples can’t. Media doesn’t kill people, people kill people. So, then, his ban is unfair.

Then there is the problem of what does he mean by images of gun violence? It is beyond vague. Does he mean images like the famous scene in the movie Bonnie and Clyde where bodies get graphically ripped apart by bullets or does he also include drawing room mysteries were a shot is fired, a man clutches his chest and falls to the ground wounded. Does Rev Graham find one image more offensive? Both? Neither? Images of gun violence are so pervasive in modern culture that censors would be spending years parsing what is and what is not actual gun violence. There is just too much of it around to eliminate, kind of like actual guns in America. For an urgent problem, how workable is that?

Finally, Rev. Graham is wrong. Every other country in the world gets exactly the same violent media images and they don’t have mass shootings like the United States. Why?

To sum it up, the Rev. Graham’s ban is unconstitutional, unpopular, unfair, vague and wrong.

But then, Rev. Graham knows this which is precisely why he proposes it. He knows it will never happen. He will continue to pontificate on the dangers of violent media because it is both an easy target and impossible to implement. It allows him to speak in meaningless bromides that satisfies his congregants while completely sidestepping the problem at hand. It gets him off the hook quite nicely.