My wife and I watched a fascinating and troubling film called Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy.This documentary answers those questions so many of us wrestle with about why ‘christians’ embrace and support Donald Trump.
This is about poseurs claiming to be patriots and freedom-loving Americans setting out to tear down the nation as it is and its ‘liberal institutions’. Their ideal for freedom, the pursuit of happiness, and liberty is for you to behave as they want, full stop. Democracy and the Constitution aren’t important in their minds; it is about their religion and their false ideas that the United States was founded as a christian nation. The polarization we’re experiencing is a deliberate and coordinated cultivation of wedge issues. Donald Trump is not one of them; he’s a convenient tool to advance their agenda. The two sides made a deal. He agreed to supply the SCOTUS justices to overturn Roe v. Wade, and they agreed to support and promote him as the GOP candidate.
These are cynics who will lie to support their goal of a theocratic America, users and abusers who have declared war on anyone in the U.S. who is not part of their movement. They’re indifrerent to Trump’s morals, dishonesty, rapes, lies, and criminal convictions because he’s just a tool and works fine for them and their needs.
Voting in 2024 is about saving democracy in the United States. That’s not just a slogan. A war is beng waged against democracy in the U.S. and Donald Trump is the tool we always suspected. We just didn’t realize how deeply organized and cynical the machinery behind him is.
TL/DR: It’s spring. Today’s song is “Why Worry” by Dire Straits. President Biden’s predecessor and current GOP candidate is enamored with dictators, promises a bloodbath if he doesn’t win, and thinks some humans “aren’t human”.
Hello, my traveling peers. It’s Sunday again, March 17 again, but adding the year, 2024, makes it a whole new date.
The average daily high for Ashland in March is 58 F degrees. We expect to hit 71 F. I think I’ll be higher.
I checked a local weather station’s temperature, along with the SOU (Southern Oregon University) weather station, and a web weather source. Here are our temp variations:
My house: (Clay Street, southern end, in early morning mountain shadows, 1836 feet elevation): 45.5 F
Wimer Street: (2 miles west of Clay Street, above downtown, 2050 feet elevation, in mountains): 46.2
SOU: (1.1 miles southwest of Clay Street, 1890 feet elevation, in sunshine by East Main Street): 42.1
MSN.com: 50 F.
Honestly, SOU’s elevation — 1890 feet — seems suspect to me. We descend to that location via a series of hills. For the record, Ashland’s official elevation is 1949 feet. We consider ourselves ‘the valley’, but the valley floor is a little bit lower than us. It’s a pinched and rolling place on this end of the Rogue Valley.
Whatever the temp, it’s a spring day out there, with colors along the spectrum breaking out all over the region.
Then there’s the story circulating about Trump’s other comments during a campaign speech. This is from an article on TheHill.com, but it’s in WaPo and others, too.
“I don’t know if you call them people,” he said at the rally. “In some cases they’re not people, in my opinion. But I’m not allowed to say that because the radical left says that’s a terrible thing to say.”
See, I am ‘the radical left’ because I think others are people. I base this on biology. Genetics. Not politics, religion, or circumstance. It doesn’t matter where they come from. Or how they reached our land. But in Donald J. Trump’s opinion, some people are not people. That’s just laying the foundation to treat other humans as less than human as justification for inhumane treatment.
Okay, class, can anyone name a fomer world leader and dictator who said things like that about other humans?
Well, no. I agree. However, a surprising chunk of Americans seem to disagree. People — and I was one — overlooked how many Americans backed Hitler before WWII and even during WWII. There are Americans among us who still back Hitler because they’re antisemites. They want someone to blame, and remain willing to claim Jews are causing them problems.
That’s one reason they like and support Trump. Trump isn’t bothered by Hitler’s record. His former chief of staff related that “Trump said Hitler did some good things.” That’s worrying for someone threatening bloodbaths if he doesn’t win, and chatting and joking about being a dictator on day one if he does win.
But what about the greater Republican party? I share Ms Pequeño concern, “Will Republicans ever care?” I’m concerned that many don’t know and don’t care because they’ve convinced themselves that Trump is something else, someone special to them. They write off the rest of us and our dire threats about Trump as the lies of outsiders who don’t see Trump as they do.
I agree, too, with Ms Pequeño’s final assertion: “So, everybody who is bothered by this, Republicans and Democrats alike, should keep pointing to his comments for the rest of this election. Then voters can ultimately decide if they support this or not.”
Today, The Neurons posted “Why Worry” by Dire Straits to the morning mental music stream (Trademark coming in two weeks). I know exactly what’s going on with me this soft 1985 song by Mark Knopfler.
I’m a worrier and regularly talk myself down. I recognize that the view I get of the world is skewed and imperfect, no matter how many sources I use. Many of those sources are political or commercial. Each uses buzzwords and headlines to gather attention. Some of them are just trying to rile me up or say things to help their revenue streams. So, while I will continue to worry and voice my thoughts about my worries, I’ll also try to talk myself down.
The cats are outside in the fenced backyard, loving the warm air and sunshine. I’m about to do the same. Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and vote. Hope your weather is to your approval at your place. Here’s the music. There’s the coffee. Let’s bring it all together. Cheers
Hello, fellow sojourners of season and space. It’s Tuesday again, but this time it’s Feb. 20, 2024.
Sunshine is crashing through the eastern and southern windows and it’s already 54 F outside, though a bit ‘o wind is still stirring up the trees and ruining the cats’ outings. Layers of grey clouds smother my western view, darkening the pines’ green lines with long, heavy shadows. Rain is expected, but so is a high of 67 F. Can you dig it?
Ah, rain falls through sunshine. Where is the rainbow?
Tucker, my black and white house floof, continues improving. A side effect has emerged. He’d become less interested in Papi while he was feeling ill. Papi thus became bolder. Now Tucker is feeling better and beginning to notice Papi more. Papi has noticed he’s being noticed and is letting Tucker know he knows he’s being noticed, and warnings have been issued.
Finishing up Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism by Rachel Maddow. It illuminates corners of United States history I didn’t know, such as the conspiracy circulated by the Silver Legion or the Silver Shirts. Led by William Dudley Pelley, they believed all Jews are communists, and all communists are Jews. Rising during America’s Great Depression, the movement seemed to flourish in small, rural towns and was favored by white Christians. (Any of this sound familiar?) They believed Jews were starting all the wars in the world and wanted to turn the United States into a communist nation. To save the United States, they wanted to instead turn it into a fascist nation and were looking for America’s Hitler.
I’m summarizing, of course. Ms Maddow offers more details in rousing style. This is just one of many surprising stories about fascism in America. Depressing and infuriating, it’s more history that we Americans should know. I hugely recommend the book. I, for one, was unaware of the deep roots about conspiracies that have circulated through right wing circles for decades. I always believed that my fellow Americans supported the principles espoused in our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights, and subsequent amendments. My ignorance embarrasses me but also blows my mind. Just shows again, I know so little about so much.
On the fiction side, I’m finishing Crime Manifesto by Colson Whitehead and beginning Widows by Lynda LaPlante.
Today’s music comes by way of JJ Cale, Brian Eno, and a television show called “The Bear”. The show often uses interesting and diverse music. I’ve been a fan of JJ Cale and Brian Eno since the early seventies. When they collaborated and released an album in 1990, I went right out and bought it. The album, Wrong Way Up, didn’t fail me. The first song on it was “Lay My Love” and showed up on “The Bear”. Since hearing it, “Lay My Love” has flickered in and out of my personal mental playlist. Today, The Neurons pushed it through into the morning mental music stream (Trademark coming in two weeks).
I believe, though they won’t confirm it, that the lines hooking The Neurons were, “I am the crow of desperation” and “I am the termite of temptation”. Instead of those, though, my head rang with “I am the bastard of misinformation”. The Neurons continued my imagined stanza, “I live with what I don’t know. I try to find and remain behind, the knowledge that goes before.” Yeah, I know, I’m not a songwriter.
Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and vote, please. Coffee drinking has progressed. Onward. Here’s the music. Cheers
It’s a sunny, cloudy, snowy, dry, cold Friday out there in Ashlandia today, January 12, 2024. (Ashlandia: where the snowfall is below average.) The snow isn’t falling but hazardly tossed as lumpy blankets as it unevenly melts and freezes. Roads are clear and dry. Clouds are a buff, low gray mass which sometimes permits a blinker of sunshine. It’s 34 F now, but rain is supposed to be coming as we’re treated to a high of 44 F today.
The cats are out, taking advantage of the storm lull. Though I dislike it, Papi is prowling and inspecting, looking for changes in his kingdom. Tucked in with his tail wrapped around him as a warmer, Tucker is just breathing fresh but cold air on the covered front porch’s doormat.
I’m better, thanks, already drinking coffee, breakfast already well along the digesting process. It’s interesting, too, but after Wednesday night’s BVVP experience, my tinnitus is amost completely gone. The worst after-effects is worry that it’ll happen again – especially in somewhere public — and my abdominal muscles. Every giggle, guffaw, laugh, yawn, cough, sneeze, and grunt has those muscles screaming, give us a damn break.
I perused the list of ‘not banned’ books in Escambia County, Floridayesterday. These over sixteen hundred novels, biographies, dictionaries, and encyclopdias are not banned, the county always explain, but have been called unsuitable by some and were removed for review and decisions.
From the cited article, PEN America notes (their emphasis),
“Five dictionaries are on the district’s list of more than 1,600 books banned pending investigation in December 2023, along with eight different encyclopedias, The Guinness Book of World Records, and Ripley’s Believe it or Not – all due to fears they violate the state’s new laws banning materials with “sexual conduct” from schools.
“Biographies of Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Oprah Winfrey, Nicki Minaj, and Thurgood Marshall are on the list, alongside The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Black Panther comics by Ta-Nehisi Coates. The Feminism Book was banned along with The Teen Vogue Handbook: An Insider’s Guide to Careers in Fashion.
“The list obtained by the Florida Freedom to Read Project also includes Anne Frank’sDiary of a Young Girl, The Adventures and the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’sDeath on the Nile. The Princess Diaries and 14 other books by Meg Cabot have been taken from libraries, alongside books by David Baldacci, Lee Child, Michael Crichton, Carl Hiassen, Jonathan Franzen, John Green, John Grisham, Stephen King (23 of them), Dean Koontz, Cormac McCarthy, Celeste Ng, James Patterson, Jodi Picoult, and Nicholas Sparks. Conservative pundit Bill O’Reilly’s two books, Killing Jesus and Killing Reagan, were also banned pending investigation.”
I have to thank Scottie’s Playground for pulling this together and providing it to us. To close, the most shocking aspect are the quotes Scottie included from Judd Legum’s coverage:
Attorney General Ashley Moody argued that the school board could ban books for any reason because the purpose of public school libraries is to “convey the government’s message,” and that can be accomplished through “the removal of speech that the government disapproves.” This is a novel argument about the purpose of school libraries.
That’s GOP freedom and democracy for ya.
For some alien reason, The Neurons were playing operator-themed music in the morning mental music stream (Trademark perplexed). Songs like “Operator” by Jim Croce, “Smooth Operator” by Sade, ”Operator” by the Grateful Dead, and “Operator” by Manhattan Transfer. The last stayed put for a longer period, morphing into today’s theme music.
Although either agnostic or pastafarian — it changes as much as the weather — I enjoy gospel music. I also feel for the search for community, support, reassurance, love, information, etc., from something beyond our daily endeavors. You never know what you’ll find or where you’ll find it when you reach out in need. Although religion doesn’t do much for me, I’m happy for those who can find their answers there, so long as they don’t tread on me or try to foist their answers on the rest of us.
On to the day. Stay pos, be strong, test negative, and keep leaning forward. I know it’s not always easy, believe me, but I’ll keep trying for those four fundamental foundations. Here’s the music. Cheers
It’s 39 F outside in Ashlandia, where the skies are cloudy all day. Clouds smudged with dark shadows collide above, smothering sunshine, undermining warm temperatures, and dribbling and spittin’ on us. It’s Thursday, November’s final day of 2023, i.e., the 30th. Tomorrow, we take it to December, and December brings it to us. It’s getting darker and colder as the day slides into afternoon, like fall is ready to surrender to winter.
I’ve been reading many news articles, ranging from straightforward local news to updates on various trials and political issues, elections, war, disasters, science, and technology. Many of these things are wearying as so much of it has been written about with little changing; I await endings just to give me a break. I suppose I could take a break from it all but I appear to edge toward being obsessive compulsive about some of it.
The most exciting news to me was a story in the NYT about six planets orbiting in resonance around a star 100 light years away. Twelve telescopes were used to observe this and put it all together. Scientists say that such orbits in a solar system takes place “1% of 1%” of the time. They believe that when planets form and the solar systems begin, this resonance happens but then events take place to disrupt the orbits. Finding a solar system like this provides them an opportunity to study how the orbits change, a sensational learning opportunity.
For theme music today, The Neurons have installed OneRepublic with “Secrets” (2009) in the morning mental music stream (Trademark treacherous). This all comes down to the manifest insincerity I read about in so many news articles about complex issues. It’s a large catalyst to the weariness coming down on me. I mean, it’s one thing to read about issues but quite enough to gag through loads of insincerity presented in the articles. See, a line in the song goes “I’m sick of all the insincere”. That’s where the connection comes up.
Let’s take Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, ex-college football coach. He seems to live in Florida, according to records.
“As of last month, Tommy Tuberville did not own a single square foot of property in Alabama after selling parcels in Macon and Tallapoosa counties for $1.4 million, according to a Washington Post report published Thursday.
“And while a spokesman for Alabama’s senior senator maintained to the Post that Tuberville’s primary residence is an Auburn house owned by his wife and son, campaign finance documents and property records suggest Tuberville’s main home is in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, the paper reported.“
“The sale of the Alabama properties were notarized by a Santa Rosa Beach resident, which the Post reported suggested the senator was in Florida when the transaction went through on July 14.
“The report went on to say that Tuberville’s wife, Suzanne Tuberville, is a licensed real estate agent in Florida and has worked for a Santa Rosa Beach real estate firm since the start of the year. She does not have an Alabama real estate license, according to the Post.”
Senator and Mrs. Tuberville sound like fine Alabama citizens, perfect reps of their people, even if they don’t seem to live among their people, don’t they? (Yes, that could have been snark.)
It bothers me even if his constituents aren’t concerned because it strikes me as counter to the ideal of a representative democracy and the founders’ vision about what they were trying to create in their idea of a government by and for the people. It’s another ethics lapse for Tommy T in my mind, but then I’m predisposed against him.
Some of my reasoning against him is that he’s holding up military promotions, basically having a hissy fit and behaving as a terrorist to coerce change on the military while undermining the US military’s strength and stability. That’s particularly galling becaue he claims he’s a great supporter of the military. Of course, he’s never served, because the military isn’t that important to him. (Yes, I definitely detect snark there.)
Tuberville so supports the military that he founded the Tommy Tuberville Foundation “to recognize and support organizations and causes that connect with the beliefs and values of the Tuberville family: assisting our military and veterans; awareness, education and prevention of health issues, particularly among women and children; and, education and community initiatives.”
“Through its first five years, the foundation raised $289,599 but spent just $51,658 on charitable causes, tax records showed.[56]This rate of 18% is less than the 65% that the Better Business Bureau says ethical charities should spend on their causes.[57] In 2020, the Associated Press called the Tuberville Foundation “a questionable charity that raises money but gives very little away”.[58] Foundation officials said the tax filings did not reflect volunteer labor and donated materials used to refurbish veterans’ homes.[59]
“In 2020, The New York Times reported that Tuberville campaign and foundation officials “produced internal records for 2018 that showed nearly $20,000 was raised for a temporary project to provide a retreat for veterans. But the records raised bookkeeping questions, since they showed more than $61,000 of 2018 revenue, roughly twice what the charity reported to the I.R.S. that year”.[60]
In 2021, the Washington Post reported, the foundation “reported it had $74,101 in revenue and spent just 12 percent of that, or $9,000, while $32,000 went to administrative costs (including nearly $12,400 to pay off a truck the charity purchased in 2018 for $27,369)”.[61] By the end of 2021, the foundation’s website had gone defunct.[62]
“In July 2023, a spokesperson for Tuberville said that the foundation had been under audit and had paused its activities, but that Tuberville was reforming it.[61]“
h/t to Wikipedia.org, emphasis mine.
Do you get how I mean that reading about Tuberville reeks with insincerity that fills me with nausea?
Anyway, have a better day, stay positive, be strong, and lean forward. Coffee has been slurped up on my end, and I’m ready to sit inside and take on the cold rain.
It seems like the United States’ GOP is working hard to divide the nation. Through actions like dictating what pronouns and genders must be used, and what can be read and taught in schools, they’re narrowing the boundaries of freedom and undermining intellectual thought and creativity.
Once the Republicans were happy to merely oppose the Democrats. Now they oppose personal freedom and choice, forging deeper and sharper divides based on the formulation of ‘us’ and ‘them’, far from the Founders’ vision of ‘we, the People’. Congress under the GOP, and as en extension, the Federal government, is obstructed from governing as Republicans do all they can to stop anything and everything the Democrats attempt to do, treating everyone outside of the GOP’s narrowing scope as enemies. They demand compromise while offering none. Even Republicans who do not heel hard to the line, “Our way or no way,” are ostracized as enemies.
It is one thing to disagree and debate, and another to throw tantrums and hold parts of the government hostage. Holding the government hostage is the modern Republican way, whether it’s:
the US military (Senator Tuberville’s ongoing blocking of senior officer promotions until they make changes Tuberville wants);
the Federal budget (the GOP Freedom Caucus threatening to shut down the government again and again, as the GOP has done before);
reading and education (the GOP embraced ‘Moms of Liberty’ and their advocacy against school curricula that mention LGBTQIA+ rights, race and ethnicity, and ‘critical race theory’, as well as Governors Abbott (Texas) and DeSantis (Florida) and their bids to ban books and forbid teaching certain aspects of history);
or the ability for the Federal government to execute and enforce laws (Speaker Johnson’s moves to cut funding for IRS agents and their investigations of tax fraud).
In the GOP’s latest vision of the United States, the vision of who the people are and who may vote, and what rights ‘they may have’ is diminishing in front of the GOP’s idea of God, their idea of religion, their idea of science, and their idea of culture and history.
In so doing, they drive the United States further and more deeply away from being a welcoming melting pot of freedom, independence, and equality for all. Their tools to accomplish their vision are fear, intimidation, discrimation, and bigotry, fortified and encouraged by lies and hypocrisy, often done under cover of ‘religious freedom’, citing the Bible as the source for things it never mentions, in a nation where separation of church and state are supposed to be a foundation of our nation’s existence.
Ironically, the GOP marches down a path that is directly against the words of their party’s founder. President Lincoln declared in his House Divided speech (June 15, 1858), “A house divided against itself, cannot stand.”
It’s an insight which the GOP in its right-wing, short-sighted zeal, has chosen to ignore.
Thankful this morning, for the firefighters around the world fighting fires, including those fighting fires in Oregon and California. Thankful for a lot of things which I have and enjoy, including good health, comfort, and security. Thankful, too, for the easterly wind which took the smoke out of our end of the valley. I’m cognizant that our good fortune is now someone else’s misfortune. Smoke goes somewhere as long as the fires burn.
The hourglass called Saturday, August 18, 2023, is running. Sands are pouring through it. The sands of August and the sands of 2023 are also rushing through through glasses. Guess they’re not truly hourglasses; just time glasses. Do they measure time’s passing, or are these mythical things creating time for us?
It’s a cool morning. A little smoke still crazes the sky’s blue facade and discolors small patches but the sun is the right color. 63 F was the overnight low. We’re up to 70 F now but will climb to 92 F in Ashlandia, where the political differences could be called the Deer Party and the Dog Party. Then there’s the Parks Party. DeP, Dop, and PaP.
The cats are so pleased that smoke vacated the area and cool air rides the day. After making morning rounds of the year, they staked out positions, washed, and settled into napping configurations.
I’m looking forward to the GOP debate coming up. First, I’m impressed that the GOP has verified that it’s about money; only those gaining enough monetary donations are able to participate. I guess the theory is, the potential candidates put themselves out there and convince people to give to more their candidacy forward. Works on a built-in assumption that all donors have the same power and money to give, contrary to the reality we’ve seen perpetually demonstrated since the age of capitalism began. But who are we to attempt to force reality onto the GOP? That, demonstratively, no longer works.
Although, fairness, the GOP is not homogeneous. The NYTimes published an article about the GOP’s factions this week. They included estimates about how much of the GOP each faction made up. While many have held that five factions dominate the GOP, the NYT identified six ‘types’ of voters in the GOP. The interesting aspect of reading this is that while they specify only 36% of GOP members support Trump, they show by their groupings that only one, Moderate Establishment, which accounts for 14% of the party, is the only Never Trump group. Dominated by an alliance between Trump’s biggest support factions, the Right Wing and the he rest either enthusiastically endorse Trump or they’re willing to swallow it and support him because they either agree with his positions or because they like him more than they like Democrats. Not really that different from Democrats and their position on President Biden.
For music, The Neurons have fed “Crossroads” by Cream (1968) into the morning mental music stream (Trademark fishy). This is their cover and interpretation of Robert Johnson’s “Cross Roads Blues”, layering it with a faster tempo and hard rock sound. I figure it’s right for this day, these times, when every day in the US seems to be about being at some kind of cross roads regarding the rule of law, ethics, democracy, climate change, etc. The rest of the world also seems at cross roads about multiple matters as well; some are the same as the ones affecting us in the US. So it’s a good song for t’day.
Have coffee, will travel. Be brave, be strong, be positive, and keep on being you. Here’s the music. Cheers
“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.” — Mark Twain
The flags are up because today is Armed Forces Day in the United States, a holiday initiated by President Harry S. Truman in nineteen forty-nine. I don’t celebrate martyrs, death or killing. I celebrate those who served to defend the principles on which this country is formed, and the Constitution embodying those ideals as the law of the land.
We’re not perfect as a nation or a people, but establishing goals, recognizing our flaws and weaknesses, and striving to improve is the process that will lead to success. Success means freedom, equality, liberty and justice for all. We don’t split hairs about our sexual preferences, politics, religious beliefs, education level, race, sex, creed, or origin. We sometimes fail, but we need to try to succeed, and sometimes that means we’ll fail. Get back up; embrace the ideals; try again. But don’t bastardize those ideals to rationalize your fears and hate. Rights are not ours to give, yet, that’s where we find ourselves. Someday, we’ll fully recognize and accept that as truth.
To all those who served or are serving, Happy Armed Forces Day. Thanks for serving.
Michael Seidel, writer 