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I can’t help myself. I try to ignore Donald Trump as much as I can but since he is now president it is impossible, so here goes.

Donald Trump wants to prioritize White South Africans as immigrants. Does this have anything to do with native South African Elon Musk? No, it couldn’t. Musk would never use his influence in the Trump Administration to ask for something so egregiously racist.

Immigration give priority to people who are in immediate danger. Trump’s focus is on South Africans of European descent. So this applies to mix raced South Africans as long as one of the two parents were of European descent. What if only one of the grand parents is of European descent? What percentage European descent is he talking about?

Then, why do White South Africans get priority? Are they in any more danger than women who want out of Iran? Or Sudanese rebels? Or just plain poor folk from Central America who want to escape drug lords?

The troubling aspect about Trump’s order is that it is so transparently racist. This order comes while he is trying to shut down the border from non-white immigrants. So Trump isn’t really opposed to immigrants, just non-white immigrants.

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Donald Trump is a mystery to me. I can’t understand why people vote for hm. I disagree with his politics. When he speaks, I immediately think what a pompous ass. I am deeply perplexed on how this vile unpleasant man is succeeding.

And it is breathtaking how successful he has been. The man has reshaped the Republican Party into his image against the wishes of the Republican Establishment. He has humiliated the Democratic Party twice. He wants to take over the Gaza Strip. The fucking Gaza Strip and people are actually considering it. The man has something going for him that I am missing but others find attractive. It is so irritating. Every time you think he has irredeemably screwed up, he comes out of it completely unscathed.

I once worked for an asshole. He was crude, not very bright, arrogant, a narcissist — well very much like Donald Trump. He was universally despised up and down the food chain. So how did he keep his job? I never understood but I got a glimpse when talking with two co-workers about him. They agreed he was an asshole but they also said that they thought he was the right man for the job because he got things done. He bulldozed his way to the finish line on time and on budget. His being liked was immaterial to what needed to be done. They both also, much to my surprise, said they would work for him again.

Assholes apparently have their place in the scheme of things. I don’t like it and it isn’t the way I would do things but millions of people voted for the man. Just look at his actions since becoming president. He has taken the initiative so aggressively that the Democrats can’t keep up with him. He has thrown so many ideas against the wall that some of them are bound to stick. He doesn’t want to just roll back DEI (diversity, equality, inclusion), he wants to destroy it so he has asked his Attorney General to pursue criminal charges against companies who continue to use it. The whole concept of DEI is in a defensive crouch.

Vast swaths of the American public are in trouble. Much of the public believe that government isn’t much help in dealing with these troubles. Education, which used to be a linchpin for future success, looks like nothing more than a meaningless money suck. I believe these ideas are wrong but this is irrelevant to the problem the Democrats have here. As long as people believe that government is more concerned in DEI than the ABC’s, the Democrats have a big problem because Trump has made the Democratic Party and Liberals the face of this failure.

I wish I had the answer to Trump’s frenetic attacks against government. They are damaging because they undermine the best ways in which regular people can better themselves. That doesn’t change one important fact — he is successful and part of his success is he has shown himself willing to shake things up in what people have come to believe are moribund and corrupt government institutions. Until this changes, the Democrats are on the defensive and Trump is in the driver’s seat.

Is there a liberal asshole out there up to the job of challenging Trump? So far I don’t see it.

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Elon Musk’s request for personal Social Security information is baffling. The Social Security system is a macro problem in which Musk is taking a distinctly micro approach. How is getting personal information from individual social security recipients in any way helpful? If social security is a problem to look into, then the problem isn’t Jane Doe getting a $2,000 social security check each month. What needs looking at is financing the whole system.

Trump, supposedly an advocate for transparency in government, needs to inform the public on why this distribution of personal information is necessary for the task Musk is undertaking. Trump is allowing a businessman with no responsibility to anyone except Trump access to the personal details of an entire country. How is Musk protecting this data? What is preventing Musk from making a copy of this information for future use?

Department Secretaries can be called before Congress to answer questions regarding their department. The problem here is that Musk is without actual government responsibility. He is acting for Trump and Trump alone. It may be all on the up and up but there is no way to know for sure unless the painful process of institutional review is practiced. It isn’t happening and that is concerning.

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I have already expressed my shock in seeing Kanye West’s wife near naked body at the Grammys. The bigger problem with Bianca Censori’s display of flesh is the attention it is grabbing from a compliant press. Since people are shocked, they are talking about it. I, writing about it now, am part of the problem. I apologize. It is just too big of a juicy target to ignore and I can’t help myself which is also part of the problem.

It is a self-replicating problem. Famous people know that they will get press if they do something shocking. The papers, because they think people will read it, publish the scandalous story. I, because it is a scandalous story, read it. Once the scandal has drained every bit of media attention, a new attention seeking celebrity enters the fray.

First, and most importantly, it is about absolutely nothing other than Kanye West’s need for publicity. He knows how to create controversy and he did it. But what now, other than a few more days of Kanye making the headlines, is this about?

This trivial event, also, reveals how sadly out of touch Hollywood and the Media is with the rest of the country. It’s both titillating and boring. Kanye has become so lame, so desperate for attention that he will ask his wife to expose herself in front of millions. The media will roll out all the really important people to talk about the controversy. Opinions will churn for days to come but nobody outside the environs of Hollywood much cares.

But West, Hollywood and the Media think we do. This has long been an explanation for the sensationalist press. It isn’t our fault. We are giving the public what they want. They want to see people behaving badly so we, wishing we could report on the serious issues of the day but also needing to make money, will report about it. We aren’t the villain here, the public is.

I am not sure what to do here. I understand. If perusing the headlines and you give me a choice about reading about the problems in the Middle East or a naked celebrity, I’m afraid I am going to choose the naked celebrity every single time. Between my need to be entertained and the media’s need to make money, I am stumped on how to proceed.

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Bianca Censori, Kanye West’s wife, appeared nude at the Grammys last nights. And everybody is “shocked.”

Of course, everybody is far from shocked. Given the arc of Grammy’s fashion, nudity had to come into play eventually and so it has. People say shocked because there isn’t really another word for the feeling one has of seeing a naked woman married to a powerful man coming to a public even in nothing. On the other hand, it is difficult to see how people can honestly be shocked in a world where there is 24hours a day cable television. Once I saw rimming on the White Lotus, I realized anything was possible. There is really very little that can be described as shocking anymore.

The problem with shocking people is that celebrity culture has upped the game so much that more and more flesh needed to be shown in order to count as shocking. A revealing nightgown just wouldn’t cut it anymore when the goal was the headlines West was after. Anyone can do a revealing nightgown. Kanye had to come up with something really big in order to top previous daring fashion choices. You have to give West credit, he managed to pull it off. He wanted to “shock” the denizens of celebrity culture and he succeeded. They claim to be “shocked.” Kanye, Mission Accomplished.

In the process, though, I wonder how anyone can really claim to be shocked by much of anything. If at each celebrity event, people are waiting to be shocked by what people are wearing, then the word shocked has become so debased it is meaningless.

In the meantime, West, ever the game changer, has forced the issue in such a way that the only direction to go is showing less flesh. I mean no flesh if at all possible. Mark my words burkhas and old fashion nun’s habits will be the next big fashion statement. It will be shocking, right?

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One of the most annoying things about the Christian Right is that they try to reposition Jesus as an angry warrior for Right-Wing causes. Jesus was remarkably silent about the wrath of God although you would never know this from the Jesus these Christians describe. Sean Walsh, in TCW Defending Freedom, reacting to Bishop Budde’s inaugural church service where she reminded Trump of Jesus’ compassionate approach and urging him to consider it when he makes his decisions, says Jesus was a difficult person who would be reviled by liberal Christians because he advocated for adherence to Hebrew laws.

This is a pretty nice trick. He ties Christians to the Old Testament’s angry God, the punishing God, the God that will send you to Hell for any wrong move. But Jesus wasn’t all that much on punishment. Remember the woman who he saved from stoning. He just wanted her to sin no more. He saved her from death which, according to Hebrew law, was the appropriate end for this woman. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Is Jesus then an angry warrior for Hebrew Law when he actively worked to prevent it from happening?

The reason that Jesus urges compassion is that all humans are sinners. The men with stones. The woman being stoned. Even his own apostles, his most trusted friends, would disappoint him. Every last one of us. Jesus realized that people will sin and keep sinning. Some day, we could wind up on the wrong side of the stone thus the reason for compassion when dealing with sinners.

Walsh ignores another big problem with the Old Testament Law. Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. These books are chokablock full of things that modern Christians ignore. Forgive your debts every seven years. How many Christians do that? I am betting none. Christians having been picking and choosing what they follow and what they will ignore for centuries. Jesus would want us to follow the entirety of these laws.

No better example can be found than divorce. Jesus actually talked about divorce so I imagining it was important to him while completing ignoring homosexuality which the modern Christian Right want complete adherence. Jesus had a very ancient Hebrew outlook on divorce. He didn’t like it one bit. Given that there are vastly more heterosexuals than homosexuals, divorce should be a bigger problem for Christians than homosexuality.

So, then, where is the outrage with Trump’s marriage history. Well modern Christians have come to terms with divorced Christians. Second marriages involving a divorced person can even be performed in many churches without a second thought. If Jesus is a cultural warrior for values, Jesus, being Jewish, would want adherence to all Judaic Law. This means the laws detailed in the Old Testament.

Walsh is making a big assumption about Jesus here. Jesus would be offended by immigrants and would strive to keep them out. There is little evidence that this is true. Given what we know from the New Testament, we know Jesus spoke repeatedly about compassion and forgiveness. I think it is safer to say this is what Jesus was concerned about and not the Hell and brimstone prophet that Walsh and his compatriots are so wild about.

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One of the mysteries of modern media is how much time is consumed on absolute bull shit. The other day, Elon Musk’s Nazi salute made the headlines and, as far as I can tell, is still creating a bit of a hullabaloo. Some believe he made a Nazi salute; others believe it was just an accidental incline of the man’s arm. Musk denies it. This, as far as I can tell, should be the end of it. But no this tempest is still whipping around the teacup.

The fact is Musk is astute enough to deny it. What are his critics expecting him to say. “You caught me. I am a secret Nazi. I just got so excited that my arm just naturally went into a Nazi salute.” Since he didn’t fall into that trap, the matter should be closed. But it simmers on to what effect. Talking about it any longer is a waste of time and is taking up precious headline space on speculation over a trivial matter.

Distractions seems to be the game Donald Trump is playing. Take, for example, flying the flag at half staff for Trump’s inauguration. This is no big deal to anyone except Donald Trump and maybe Jimmy Carter’s family. If anyone remembers this in a weeks time, it would amaze me. Trump could have been gracious about it because it really is meaningless bull shit. Seeing the flags at half staff would go unnoticed by most and, by those who did, they would wonder who died, thinking that Jimmy Carter died years ago. But Trump knows how to grab headlines and attention. The media promptly fell into line reporting it and we have a controversy.

Now apparently the Trump administration is suspending Black and Women’s history months at the Department of Justice. I disagree with this but, in the scheme of things, this is small potatoes. I am not sure what occurs at the Department of Justice during these months and this is very much the problem. It doesn’t matter to most anyone in the country. But lets, by all means, have a little tiff about the Department of Justice display cases going empty during Black and Women’s History month.

What worries me is that Trump is the master of making controversial statements about meaningless bullshit that consumes the press for days on ends talking about his bullshit and then are immediately forgotten. There needs to be focus on the things that matter as opposed to the things that are nice to have. If I had to choose between Trump’s attack on the 14th Amendment which declares there is no birthright citizenship and the Department of Justice’s Black and Women’s History month. I know what I am going to focus on. Let’s choose our battles wisely because having a conniption fit about everything is pointless and time consuming which is exactly what Trump wants.

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Samuel Hammond, writing in the City Journal, complains about the L.A. Water Department deciding:

To take the Santa Ynez Reservoir in Pacific Palisades, with its 117-million-gallon capacity, offline, due to previously scheduled maintenance. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which made this call, effectively ensured that the basin was empty in the middle of wildfire season.

The southern California fire season normally runs from May to November. This means that all maintenance work is done in the winter. January is a good time to take a reservoir off line because it is the start of the southern California rainy season and allows for a couple of months work before the fire season begins again in May. Maintenance work on a reservoir requires some planning. Equipment needs to be in place, materials purchased, water needs to be moved, people notified. It is a complicated process that requires planning and time prior to taking it off line to prepare.

Given these requirements it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the Santa Ynez Reservoir was off line in January. If I were planning such an undertaking, January would be the perfect month to do it. I am not sure how officials could have known that the normally wet December would be a continuation of an unusually long dry spell beginning the previous winter. If Hammond was planning to maintain reservoirs and he had to choose a date, what date would he choose?

Hammond, while giving a rather laconic acknowledgement of strong winds and dry conditions, wants to pin incompetence on water officials who put a reservoir off line at the height of the fire season. January is not the height of the fire season. It is the actual low point, at least historically, of the fire season. The problem that Hammond doesn’t acknowledge is that the fire season is increasingly a year round phenomena. The fire season is now year round. Global Warming is cited as a possible reason for this year long season. No, let’s not mention global warming, but DEI yes, bureaucratic incompetence yes. I have yet to see how bureaucratic incompetence and DEI has seriously affected the fire while a year long dry spell and high winds obviously have.

Critics are focusing on side issues, all which maybe could be done better but had very little to do with the resulting disaster, while ignoring the bigger issue here which is a changing environment that makes wild fires more dangerous and more frequent.

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Elon Musk is supposed to have raised his arm in what looks like a Nazi salute. I linked to said crime because given the context of what he was saying and how he raised his arm, I am inclined to agree with Musk. This is nothing to get our panties in a twist.

Before I delve into this further, I want to be clear I am no fan of Elon Musk (see here, here, here). As far as I can tell he is an overpaid idiot with authoritarian instincts. I don’t like the man.

On the other hand, it is ridiculous to believe that he, in a widely seen speech, would break out in a Sieg Heil at Trump’s inauguration. It is a complete waste of time to be talking about it. He says he was thanking his audience for voting for Trump. His critics say his raised arm suspiciously resembles the Nazi salute. a

As there is no way to know what is in a person’s mind, I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. I don’t think he is that dumb, particularly after denying any Fascist inclinations for years, to suddenly give the Nazi salute because he so imbued with Nazi theology that his arm raises unconsciously a la Dr. Strangelove.

Then there is the matter that calling Trump and his gang Fascists has failed to dissuade millions from supporting him. Trump, Musk and gang have been repeatedly called Fascist to an indifferent audience. People either don’t understand Fascism or don’t care that they are Fascists but continuing to call them Fascists has had little effect on people voting for him. People have heard it a million times and have made their peace with it. Now it doesn’t mean he isn’t a Fascist, but it does mean that calling him one is pointless. Other than giving Trump opponents a strange sense of satisfaction for calling Trump out for what he is, it is screaming into the void. It is time to reach into the election handbook for a new and, hopefully, more effective trope to use against him.

Even if he was intentionally Sieg Heilling, it is hardly the best stone to throw at him. He has plausible deniability as so many people end up giving the Nazi salute that it makes the criticism uniquely irrelevant. See Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez found giving the Nazi salute. Here is Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, giving the Nazi salute. If you search long enough you can find most prominent speech givers caught in this pose. It means nothing. Let’s get him on actual policies and not the accidental position of his arm.

The bottom line here is that Musk appears to be innocent of Sieg Heilling. The media are making a big deal out of nothing. This would be OK if the press were held in high esteem but they aren’t. It amplifies an already widely held sentiment that the press will make mountains out of molehills. More importantly it isn’t changing any ones mind and this is what needs to be done. But, by all means, carry on with the same tired strategy and see where that will take us.

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I am finding all of this antagonism towards DEI (Diversity, Equality and Inclusion) irritating. First, let me preface this with no system organized by human beings is perfect. The system needs to be improved as you see how the system is working. DEI is no different from any other system. Let’s look at it and improve it. Make it better.

But tossing it out wholesale though is wrong. The United States has a long history of racial prejudice and this prejudice has had a deleterious effect on people of color. Racial prejudice is still with us and is still a problem.

I am White middle class man. Historically, this means I have had an advantage in my job search. Not necessarily because I am white but because people told me about jobs where they worked. When I went into apply I had a name that gives me a leg up. The hiring manager knew someone who knew me. I have been remarkably successful at getting jobs this way. I never have been out of work for long and generally have had allies already in the company showing me the ropes.

But it isn’t in the least bit fair and it works against people who don’t know someone working for the company.

The counter argument to this is that, of course, people are going to hire friends and family because someone they know is recommending them. It gives the hiring manager an additional element of confidence in this person they don’t know who is looking to work for them. But how is this getting the best person for the job? Why do recommendations from people you do know carry more weight than people you don’t know?

We all know why and we all accept it without question. The hiring manager knows the person recommending the applicant. He is a good guy and he is saying that Tom, this stranger to me, is also a good guy. Now, this other person I am looking at, is just as qualified for the job but I don’t know him and I don’t know the person recommending them. Who gets the job?

Without DEI, this type of unfairness goes unchecked. Friends and family get the jobs while qualified strangers are passed over because they are unfamiliar. The connected get hired while the unconnected don’t. Family and friends get the jobs. Now if they happen to be all White that is just a coincidence. Not all hiring managers who work this way are prejudiced but it does allow for hiring managers who are prejudiced to stack the odds against people of color. DEI allows for imperfect measurement of what your work force should look like and it forces businesses to consider this when making their hiring decisions.

Is it perfect? No, but neither was the system before. There is this notion that in the good old days, businesses only hired the best. Since, in the good old days, people legally could discriminate against people of color and women, it lead to a workforce dominated by White me until DEI added an element of fairness for people who did not have connections. If you remove DEI, it makes it easier for hiring managers to hire people they know over trying to be fair to those without connections. Attempting to create a more diverse work force that includes more people historically discriminated is still important and should not be abandoned because it is imperfect process.

Lastly, please stop harkening back to the good old days when people only hired the best because they didn’t. The game was rigged and the process was unfair. DEI was one way to right that particular wrong. Can it be improved? By all means, every process can be improved. DEI is no different. Eliminating it, however, will only call into question how people of color and women are being treated in a market that historically discriminated against them.