none plus one equals minus two...

So today's piece of nonsense, a bit less pernicious on the surface than others is the latest executive order, this one directing any agency that promulgates any new regulation to simultaneously eliminate two others. The executive order does not direct how this is to be done. It does not direct the head of the agency to conduct any kind of review to see what two regulations are to be eliminated, the cost of eliminating the regulations, or the effect that elimination of the rregulations would be.

I understand the desire of the president to eliminate what he believes are regulations that hinder business, and more important for him, business profitability. Certainly there are federal regulations out there that are outdated, silly or onerous without any benefit to anyone. Logically, we do not willy nilly eliminate the first two regulations we see so that we can implement a new one. No, logically, you ask all agencies to conduct a review of their regulations to see which ones truly are unnecessary, outdated, or just a waste of time and federal funds. Then you do not wait for a new regulation to be implemented. you just rescind the old and useless ones.

But that requires a bit of thought and a bit of effort, something that has already been proven to be lacking in this administration.

Instead, we are left with the ridiculous display of plus one, minus two, even if the one added is nonsense, or another gift to large multinational corporations, or more likely the president's friends, and the two eliminated are critical regulations for the health and safety of we the people.

For instance, let's assume for a moment that a friend of the president, let's say it's the nominee for the post of secretary of energy, is on the board of a company trying to build a pipeline that traverses sacred Native American land and potentially threatens their water supply. The project, for argument's sake, is being complicated by protests from the Native Americans and their supporters, who have entered the area of the project and stood in its way. Just a hypothetical mind you. In order to facilitate the construction of the pipeline, the secretary of energy announces a new regulation that states that any oil pipeline running through sacred Native American land must be constructed with American steel from a company owned by a company that is run by a pair of brothers in the mid west, who happened to donate, for argument's sake, somewhere in the neighborhood of one or two hundred million dollars to oil company interests and sympathetic pacs to the oil companies during the recent election. Hypothetical only. Where do i come up with this stuff? Now, two regulations have to be eliminated. So let's eliminate the regulation that requires an environmental review and impact statement prior to the construction of the pipeline through the Native American sacred lands. Tthis eliminates public comment, which also happens to take care of a large percentage of the legal grounds for the protesters, but that is just a coincidence. Now, let's eliminate the requirement that the steel used for the pipeline has to meet certain quality requirements.

There you have it. One new regulation. Two eliminated regulations.

While we're at it, why not have the civil rights division of the justice department pass regulations encouraging states to pass laws outlawing protesters at sites where pipelines are being constructed through sacred native american lands. Yes, I'm making this stuff up. To offset this rule, we can eliminate the rules requiring the justice department to enforce civil rights laws of the Native Americans and their supporters, and those which prohibit erosion of rights of Native Americans as a voting block.

One in. Two out. I can't believe my mind can think up fantasies like this.

And hey, while we are at it, why don't we have the department of education pass a regulation that requires every single privately owned charter school to be fully funded by a tax on NativeAamericans, who are otherwise costing us money by their protesting a pipeline being constructed across their sacred lands. To offset this, we can eliminate that pesky regulation requiring all schools to be fully accountable for meeting certain educational standards. and since it's so expensive, eliminate the rule requiring free school lunches for children of indigent Native Americans, but only those who are costing the rest of us money by their irritating little protests.

One more in. Two more out. i'm getting feverish.

And I'm practically solving the national debt all by myself at the same time.

Ain't math easy?

a primer in mexican border wall building economics

So, here's a quick lesson in Mexican border wall building economics for those who have not yet figured it out yet.

It's clear that the president is going to at least try to build his wall even though the mere announcement of this intent has already set back relations with Mexico. Is Mexico going to pay for it? Of course not. They are not going to pay for now, or ever for that matter.

To get around this, the president says, we will pay for it up front, and recoup the costs directly from Mexico later. How is he going to do it? Apparently, by imposing tariffs on Mexican goods coming into this country, the logic being that the Mexicans will have no choice in paying the tariffs if they want to sell their goods here. the figure being bandied about is a twenty percent tariff.

sooooo.....

We, the American people are paying for this wall up front to the tune of however many billions it actually costs to build, including the inevitable cost overruns, because since when do these projects actually end up costing what they initially say they will. And then? Who do you think pays the tariffs? Mexico? All the tariffs do is raise the price of Mexican goods on the theory that it makes it more difficult to sell the products here in the United States. The person who ultimately ends up actually paying the tariff is the person at the end of the line -- the consumer. So, if a company in Mexico is importing, for argument's sake, a bottle of rum that would ordinarily be sold for $10.00 in an American store, there is now going to be a twenty percent tariff, $2.00, that will be imposed upon it at the border, paid for by, yes, the Mexican company importing that bottle. To recoup the cost, as any intelligent company would do, the price of the bottle will now include the tariff. That now runs the price of the bottle up to $12.00, meaning that ultimately, we have paid the tariff, not the Mexicans.

in other words, the wall has been built and paid for entirely by the American people, the Mexican company has recouped their costs, the Mexican people have paid nothing and we, the American consumer, have now paid for building the wall and the tariff imposed to recover the costs of building the wall. in other words, we the American people, have paid for this stinking wall twice, and destroyed relations with Mexico in the process.

Brilliant...

this american carnage

Along with a small handful of friends and family, my wife and I will be stepping out from our shelters to survey "this American carnage" today.  Some of us will be marching past the library of congress and picking up the books left in the war.  Some of us will undoubtedly survey the remains of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.  Others might walk the Freedom Trail in Boston and long for the good old days.

I watched the inaugural address yesterday.  I believe it to be a civic duty to watch if possible, just as I generally watch the State of the Union address.  I did not expect much this time.  No soaring rhetoric a la Obama, or inspirational appeals to our better nature as Americans, as in Reagan or Kennedy.  I held out hope that he would say something inspiring, even though he has yet to say anything of the sort since he announced he was running for president.  In the absence of inspiration, I hoped he would say something unifying, but I guess that is just not in his nature.  At least he did not call for us men to go forth and grab some pussy.

So now, we are left with the true American carnage, also known as the Trump Administration.  This is a land where the Department of Education is proposed to be headed by a person who is not an educator, but has made a fortune in publicly funded, private charter schools.  This a land were the Department of Energy is proposed to be headed not by a person who holds a degree in nuclear physics, but a man who barely passed his classes while majoring in animal science, once tried to call for the abolition of the department he is now nominated for, but failed to do so in part because he could not remember its name.  It is also a land where the person proposed to head the Environmental Protection Agency has spent a career suing the Department over just about every regulation he could think of that was designed to actually protect the environment, where the person proposed to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development said the day before he was nominated that he was not qualified to hold any such post in any governmental department, where the person proposed to head the Justice Department was previously rejected by a republican majority to be a federal judge on the grounds that he was too racist, where the person proposed to lead the Department of Health and Human Services has vowed to dismantle the health delivery system in this country without proposing a meaningful alternative, and where the person proposed to lead the Treasury Department has made a fortune helping people shelter funds from taxes in the Cayman Islands, and now claims he overlooked over one hundred million dollars in his own personal wealth on his disclosure forms because the forms were too complicated for him to figure out.

My friends on the right, and yes, I do have friends on the right, have urged me to put our differences aside and stand behind him for the good of the country, apparently just like they did for the past eight years.  I will take them up on that.  I will stand behind this charlatan just like they stood behind a truly dignified man for the past eight years.  For every e-mail, there will be a tax return.  For every Benghazi, there will be a Russian interference.  For every birth certificate, there will be a conflict of interest.  And for every "he's not one of us", there will be show of corrupt and blatant incompetence, and a nod to the very obvious fact that "he's not one of us".

I continue to hold out hope that he will prove me wrong and turn out to be a great president.  That hope shrinks by the day.  I will therefore be out there today, marching for my country, our country.

I can hardly wait to see what he tweets tomorrow morning.

a betsy devos school survival guide

According to Betsy DeVos, there is no need to have gun free zones around schools.  After all, if we eliminate those gun free zones, what could possibly happen?  We do, however, need guns in the schools, if nothing else than to protect the children of Wapiti School from grizzly bears.  In light of this fact that should have been obvious to just about everyone, I would propose the following:

1.  Mountain lions occasionally are spotted in the hills near Pomona, California.  Hunting rifles at all administrative desks at Barfield Elementary School will prevent the lions from entering the schools and stealing art supplies.

2.  An AK-47 would clearly repel alligators from entering Everglades School in Everglades City, Florida.  If that doesn't work, we could always try requiring the teachers to wear alligator shoes, alligator belts, and carry alligator purses to fool the invading critters.

3.  Moose have occasionally crossed the road in Ketchikan, Alaska.  We need teams of fully armed janitors to prevent them from entering Schoenbar Middle School.  If that doesn't work, we can always try deploying a team of flying squirrels.

4.  What child at Cherokee Elementary School in Paradise Valley, Arizona does not fear an invasion of rattlesnakes in the lunch room?  Arming the cafeteria staff would certainly protect the children.  Besides, rattlesnake tastes like chicken.

5.  Fire ants have invaded the deep south.  I know, bites from fire ants put me in the hospital when we lived there during Hurricane Juan in 1985.  If only we had high powered weaponry to blow away the queen before she sent her minions into St. Anthony's School in Gretna, Lousiaiana.

6.  We need to arm all teachers in Astoria, New York to ensure the students at Long Island Public School 70 do not get attacked by droppings from pigeons passing overhead.  This would also work to ease air congestion from flights into and out of LaGuardia Airport.

Further suggestions to protect our children are gladly accepted, and will be passed along to the United States Department of Education upon the confirmation of Ms. DeVos.

mlk day

In my family, we do not make it a habit to go to the graves of loved ones who have passed on to pay respects.  The basic feeling is that our loved ones live in our hearts and minds, and if we really want to talk with them, we can do that anywhere at any time.  When we go to the cemetery, while "paying our respects", in fact, all we are doing physically at that point is talking to a stone that has a name etched on it.  Generally, the stone does not talk back.

The one exception I make for this is Martin Luther King Day.  I try to make it a habit to go to my father's grave for a few minutes every year on this date.  It's close to Dad's own birthday, January 8.  It is also a nod to the fact that my parents were passionate about civil rights, Mom still is, and instilled that passion in their children.  I have posted before about my memory of playing in the reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial while Dr. King was giving his "I Have a Dream" speech, a weekend my parents spent ferrying inner city people to Washington so that they could participate in the march.

The spirit carries on in the family.  Earlier today, my cousin posted a photograph he took of Dr. King in 1967, an inspiring image taken as he was delivering a speech in front of the United Nations building in New York protesting the Vietnam War.  My sons have both spoken passionately on line in defense of civil rights.  We are all planning on participating in the marches to come January 21.

I do intend to spend a few minutes once again with Dad today.  As always, I will run through family events over the past year or so.  Once again, I will tell him how proud he would be of all of us, even the newer members of the family he never met.  Once again, I will tell him how much we all miss him.  Once again, I will tell him about the state of the world, but this year, I am at a loss.  What do I tell him?

Do I tell him everything he worked for is being systematically taken apart?

Do I tell him an ignorant buffoon who has not earned a thing in his life is about to move into the White House?

Do I tell him that ignorant buffoon is stocking his cabinet, for the most part, with entirely unqualified people, who seem to have the same mindset as he, and who appear hellbent on destroying the very department of government they may be confirmed to head?

Do I tell him the run up to Inauguration Day has left me wondering if the ignorant buffoon about to be inaugurated is actually trying to bring the government down?

Well, yes.

I would not want Dad to lie to me.  I will not lie to him.  I will tell him all my fears.  I will beg his forgiveness.  I will ask him to watch over Mom and the rest of the family.

And then, in the spirit of my father, I will go home, and figure out how we will peacefully, but effectively protest this ignorant buffoon, and get us past the darkness and back into the light.

Join me.  Join us.

back from the dead

I had to do it sometime.  It's been well over a month since the election, and there has been a silence from here.  Except for a couple of status statements right after election day on Facebook when my feelings were still completely raw, each time I sat down and tried to put into words something to say, and then after staring at the blank screen in front of me, nothing came.  I wanted to wait until something inspirational came along.  Nothing did.  Then I wanted to wait until maybe I thought I had something to say that might have a bit of meaning to it or perhaps be a starting point for healing, if for nobody other than myself.  Nada.  Finally, I did not want to put something out in the blogosphere that would sound whiny, sore loserish, or simply another complaint about what we can all see coming.  I am still waiting for that moment.

In the long run, however, this is my space, my thoughts.  If it sounds too bad, too whiny, too woeful, well...  too bad.  It's my space.  It's my thoughts.  I do not need to apologize for that -- ever, even if I really did want my ramblings here to be more upbeat than this.

A little less than a year before the election, we were in England for the wedding of some good friends.  I was asked at the time about our now president-elect, and told the folks there to relax.  We might be a lot of things, but we are not that dumb.  The morning after the election, I posted this:

"believe it or not, we all fervently hope we are wrong, and that he will rise to the occasion and do what is best for the country, that all of us will move forward and heal the nation and ourselves. right now, there is a rawness inside that is not quite ready. while i accept the results of elections and he is going to be the president whether i like it or not, i for one cannot yet bring myself to even say his name right now. my hope is that he will show me something very soon so that i can. believe it or not, i hope he can show me something so that i can actually become proud that he is our president".

We are now only two days away from the meeting of the electoral college.  I was wrong before the election, and it looks like I am still wrong.  Yes, he has not even been sworn in, let alone officially elected, so there is still time to think he will do something that will allow me to be proud to say he is my president, just like I thought when George W. "won" the election in 2000.  I would like to think that, but this time it feels different.

The election has unleashed a viciousness that was previously lying below the surface.  We are seeing and hearing things we never thought would reappear in America.  Bigotry has roared back, if it was ever really gone.  Our "leadership" is not only not forcefully condemning it, not only not taking action to combat it, but is encouraging it via passive-aggressive acquiesence.  In some cases, they are actually encouraging it.  We have a top advisor, who apparently puts his kkk hood on the coat rack when he arrives in the office in the morning.  Then there are the cabinet selections, almost none of them seeming to have any qualifications for the position other than the fact that they have tons of money and are willing to grovel at his feet.

So what does this election mean for me -- and the corollary, what do we do?

For one, we certainly do not participate or encourage armed insurrection, as some have done during the Obama years.  For my family and I, we return to our roots.  We marched in the 1960's against racial injustice.  We marched in the 1970's against the Vietnam War.  We then "grew up".  We raised families.  We have created careers and lives for ourselves.  We have bought cars, houses, fancy computers, cell phones and trinkets that in the long run kept us warm, safe and dry, but did not mean all that much.  Along the way, we lost ourselves and our values.  Right under our noses, we let the simmering viciousness of the past fester and the lid has been lifted allowing it into the open.  So now...

We march again today.

We march against bigotry, because when we do so, we march for all of us.

We march against ignorance, because when we do so, we march for all of us.

We march for all the women amongst us, because when we do, we march for all of us.

We march for intelligence, for education, for health care for all, for climate change, for science, for thoughtfulness and for forgiveness, and most of all, for peace.

We no longer look the other way when he appoints another rich ignoramous into office.

We finally do what we were supposed to do all along.

We do what is right.  We stand up for the values that make us who we are and made our country what it was.  I do not mean the "values" that those who call themselves "values voters" mean.  I mean we support the downtrodden, not spit on them and ask the police to remove them from our sight.  We educate our people, and start that education with the alphabet, mathematical tables, history lessons and what we used to call civics, which I take to mean teaching how to become polite and contributing members of society.  We do not start the lesson with "In the beginning..."

We remove guns from our streets, and if we cannot get the politicians to grow a spine and pass laws that remove guns from our streets, we vote and remove those politicians from office.

We heal ourselves.  We heal our people.  We pass universal health care, because that is what every person deserves.

Most of all, we learn respect, and what the word actually means.  You don't earn respect by making a ton of money and then bullying people.  You don't earn respect by twittering, tweeting or whatever it is called at three in the morning because somebody called you a silly name, or just disagreed with you.  You earn respect by honestly listening to people, hearing what they have to say, and then explaining yourself without demeaning those who disagree with you.  You earn respect by treating people with the respect you want for yourself.

Finally, I apologize for the length of this diatribe.  I also apologize because it probably is not as well written as I would have liked, and much of it probably makes little sense.  There were some things over the last month and  half or so, however, that just had to get off my chest and get out there so I could breathe again, let alone write.  I will try to do better next time.

As I said, it has been a while since I last posted.  I had hoped to have fun with this blog.  I still might.  After all, at the moment, the Giants have a winning record.

an apology

Sixteen years ago, on election night, before all the nonsense started, I sat before the television in the living room, seething and saying a few things that people are just not supposed to say, especially in front of their children.  In response to my son Jon, then twelve years of age, who asked why I was so upset, I told him I could not believe that this country was about to elect as its president a man who the average third grader could out think.  I owe an apology to George W. Bush.

In my opinion, George W. Bush was an absolute disaster as a president.  We will be trying to dig out of his executive decisions and policies for generations to come.  Listing them here is pointless.  We can just go to the Middle East and turn from there in any particular direction you choose.  I firmly believe, however, that as wrong on so many levels and on so many issues that George W. Bush was, he was at heart an honorable man, who was only doing what he thought was right.  I do not believe he was a malicious person at all.  His post-presidency has proven that.  I cannot say the same about the current nominee from Mr. Bush's party.

George W. Bush never bragged in public about groping women.

George W. Bush never shamed the looks of a woman in public because that woman opposed any position he took or asked him a question he had trouble answering.

George W. Bush began a war against the wrong enemy in the wrong country at the wrong time, but even in invading Iraq and then Afghanistan, never said that all Muslims are evil and should be banned from entering the United States.

George W. Bush never even hinted that Muslim-Americans should not be allowed to peacefully practice their faith in the United States.

George W. Bush, while he never attended a funeral for any fallen soldier, never publicly denigrated the family of a fallen hero simply because they disagreed with him politically, and then never doubled down on that, claiming that the mother of the fallen hero stood by her husband silently, obviously agreeing with every word he said, claiming that she did not speak simply because she was not allowed to as a Muslim.

George W. Bush never mocked the disabled under any circumstances I am aware of, even when one happened to be a journalist who had written something he disagreed with. 

While I believe his campaign to this day owes an apology to John McCain, George W. Bush never denigrated his service to this country simply because his plane was shot down and he was taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese.

George W. Bush never stayed up at the wee hours to twitter nonsense about his perceived enemies.

George W. Bush never demanded that all Mexicans be sent home, simply because they came to this country seeking a better life, something that applies to just about every single one of us, regardless of our ethnic origin, unless we are pureblood Native Americans.

George W. Bush never called all Mexicans rapist or murderers, and then fell back for a second conceding that some of them may be honorable and decent people.

George W. Bush never accused a federal judge of bias simply because the man is of Mexican heritage.  

As I recall,  George W. Bush speaks at least some Spanish. 

George W. Bush never refused to pay people who worked for him.

George W. Bush never avoided paying income taxes and then claimed it was the fault of people who could have changed the laws in order to make him pay taxes.

George W. Bush never claimed a bankruptcy filing was simply taking advantage of the laws of this country, and then claimed it was the fault of people who could have changed the laws to prevent him from doing so.

George W. Bush released his income tax returns for public scrutiny, and then never had his children claim that the tax returns were too complicated for anyone else to understand, as if there are no accountants and tax professionals in the world who could not read the returns and tell the rest of us what was in them.

George W. Bush released his health records for public scrutiny.

George W. Bush never caused an entire professional sports league to go out of business.

George W. Bush never publicly called on a foreign power to hack into his opposition in order to discover something, anything, he could then use against them in a campaign.

George W. Bush never encouraged people attending his rallies to beat up a person in the audience for disagreeing with him.

George W. Bush never called for his political opponents to be jailed simply for being his political opponents.

George W. Bush never even suggested that a way to get rid of his political opponents was to have somebody kill them.

George W. Bush never claimed the United States electoral system was rigged, unless, of course, he wins.

George W. Bush never publicly called upon his supporters to go to the polls, not to vote, but to intimidate others from doing so.

George W. Bush never stated that he would not accept the will of the American people if they did not vote in his favor, and then followed up by suggesting to his followers that they take to the streets if he did, in fact, lose the election.

No, George W. Bush never said or did any of the above.  As I said, I believe at heart that George W. Bush is an honorable and decent, though entirely misguided man.  The present presidential nominee of the republican party, however,  has done each and every one of these things, and most likely much more that I could not think of off the top of my head while writing this.  Honor and decency are not only traits that I do not believe him to be capable of, but are traits I believe he would view as weaknesses.  

As such, I owe and hereby give George W. Bush an apology.

I probably owe the average third grader an apology as well.