Month: August 2022

Closing Thought–25Aug22

We all have our opinion of what is happening in the state of Florida…..I would like to talk about the election that just happened….the rest can wait for a later post/s

First there is the representative that is under sex crimes investigation wins his….Matt Gaetz…..

Despite the federal sex trafficking investigation he’s facing, Matt Gaetz easily won his primary Tuesday night in Florida. The Republican congressman had 67.5% of the vote with 92% of the vote in, NBC News reports. His main GOP challenger, former FedEx exec Mark Lombardo, had 26.3%. Gaetz went hard on campaigning as well as on ads, spending $1.1 million, and he was endorsed by former President Trump. The district is among Florida’s most conservative; Trump carried it in the last presidential election by more than 33 percentage points. That means Gaetz is likely to be re-elected in the general, the Hill reports.

I am trying to wrap my head around the hypocrisy here……a Dem senator pretended to touch a woman’s breast and he is forced to resign and yet someone that may well have committed sex crimes wins his primary.

Florida is the land to contradictions…..like that in Central Florida….

The US has its first Gen Z winner of a congressional primary, NPR reports. Maxwell Frost, a progressive activist, is at 25 just old enough to serve in the House of Representatives, and he won the Democratic primary to do so in a solidly blue district in Orlando, Fla., meaning he’s also likely to win in the general election this fall. Members of Gen Z, born between 1997 and 2012, were able to run for Congress for the first time in this election, and Frost, who has worked as an organizer and activist with the ACLU and March For Our Lives, is one of the first to do so. At least one other Gen Z candidate, former Trump White House aide Karoline Leavitt, is also running in the midterms in New Hampshire, which holds its primaries next month.

Frost, whose campaign issues include the cancelation of student debt, stopping gun violence, Medicare for All, and Green New Deal, said in a statement following his victory, “Today’s election is proof that Central Florida’s working families want representation that has the courage to ask for more. I share this victory with the nurses, forklift drivers, teachers, caregivers, social workers, farmers, union organizers, cashiers, and other members of this vibrant community who supported this campaign.” He’ll face off with Republican military veteran Calvin Wimbish to fill the seat of Rep. Val Demings, who is running for Senate, ABC News reports.

It would be great to have another progressive in the House….but we need many more for a difference to be made.

Florida is interesting from a political perspective…..

Watch This Blog!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Did Students Win?

For several years there has been a push to do something about all the massive student debt…..like forgive some or all of the debt that going to college has heaped upon the student.

Progressive been at the forefront of the proposals…..and Biden needs a win to boost his numbers and help Dems with the mid-terms.

And presto change-o the Dems come through…..

On Wednesday President Biden made good on his campaign promise to ease the burden of federal student loan debt. Under Biden’s plan, many Americans will be granted $10,000 in debt cancellation; those with the greatest financial need could see an additional $10,000 wiped away. The specifics, per a tweet from the president and the AP:

  • Borrowers who earn less than $125,000 a year, or families earning less than $250,000, will be eligible for the $10,000 loan forgiveness. For recipients of Pell Grants, which are reserved for undergraduates with the most significant financial need, the federal government will cancel up to an additional $10,000 in federal loan debt.
  • Biden also extended a pause on federal student loan payments for what the White House calls the “final time” through the end of 2022.
  • If his plan survives legal challenges that are almost certain to come, it could offer a windfall to a swath of the nation in the run-up to this fall’s midterm elections. More than 43 million people have federal student debt, with an average balance of $37,667, according to federal data.
  • Nearly a third of borrowers owe less than $10,000, and about half owe less than $20,000. The White House estimates that Biden’s announcement would erase the federal student debt of about 20 million people.
  • Proponents say cancellation will narrow the racial wealth gap—Black students are more likely to borrow federal student loans and at higher amounts than others. Four years after earning bachelor’s degrees, Black borrowers owe an average of nearly $25,000 more than their white peers, according to a Brookings Institution study.
  • The Washington Post cites previous estimates that put the cost of canceling $10,000 per borrower at about $230 billion; that doesn’t include the Pell Grant relief.
  • CNN points out the problem of college affordability is a big one that’s unchanged by today’s announcement. To wit, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget found total federal student loan debt, currently at $1.6 trillion, will be back at that level within four years of wiping out $10,000 per borrowers

This will be good news for most of those that accrued the massive debt to get their education.

It is a good start but I do think it is not enough.

If they want to protect students then try doing something about the predatory lending practices ….but that is not happening because of the cash that pays for a do-nothing Congress.

At least $10,000 of debt will be canceled…..

Whatcha think?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–24Aug22

We all, no matter where you live, tend to bitch and moan about the weather and the weather people…..it seems it gets louder the older we get…..and then there is the Weather Channel that most retired Americans live and breath by……

Then I read a story about Hungary….and thought it is a good answer to those that are habitually wrong day after day…..

The two top officials of Hungary’s meteorological service were fired Monday after an inaccurate rain forecast prompted the postponement of a fireworks display on the country’s most important national holiday, per the AP. The annual St. Stephen’s Day fireworks show along the Danube River in Budapest—billed as the largest display in Europe—was called off Saturday afternoon based on forecasts that said extreme weather was likely around the 9pm start time. By evening, the storms had not materialized in the capital, but the show, which typically draws more than a million spectators, already had been rescheduled for the next week due to safety concerns.

The firings were announced in a brief statement by Minister of Technology and Industry Laszlo Palkovics, a top cabinet member in the government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. The fired weather service chief, Kornelia Radics, had served in her post since 2013 and her deputy, Gyula Horvath, since 2016. While the minister did not provide a reason for the dismissals, the meteorological service had received harsh criticism in Hungary’s government-aligned media, which charged that the service’s “gravely wrong” forecast had caused a needless postponement of the fireworks display.

Critics of Orban’s government, which has been accused of corruption, nepotism, and anti-democratic tendencies, charged that the firings were politically motivated and reminiscent of Hungary’s communist past. In a Tuesday statement, the meteorological service demanded the reinstatement of its fired leaders. The agency described coming under “political pressure” concerning its assessments of weather models on the holiday and that those applying the pressure “ignored the scientifically accepted uncertainty inherent in meteorological forecasts.”

Think about it.

If that happened here there would be no one on TV to ‘predict’ our weather….and then what we have to bitch about?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Raid Makes Him Stronger

Over 300 classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago…..

The latest New York Times story about the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid revolves around a key number: 300. As in, that’s how many classified documents the government has retrieved in total from former President Trump since he left office. The first was a batch of 150 recovered by the National Archives from Trump’s Florida estate early in the year, followed by a second set turned over by Trump aides in June. The number of sensitive documents in play after these first two retrievals “ignited intense concern at the Justice Department” and prompted the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago this month, during which another 11 boxes of classified material was retrieved.

The Times account is the most specific to date on the volume of classified documents Trump took with him from the White House, some of which had the highest level of classification. Trump’s defenders have made the case that he had standing orders to declassify any such documents. The Times story doesn’t have much new on the types of documents retrieved, though previous reports have said agents were particularly concerned about nuclear information. On Monday, Trump’s eldest son joked about that while ridiculing the search itself.

“By the way, for the record, I’d say that if Donald Trump actually still had the nuclear codes, it’d probably be good,” Donald Trump Jr. said at a campaign rally for Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, per HuffPost. “Our enemies might actually be like, ‘OK, maybe let’s not mess with them,’ unlike when they look at Joe Biden and they say, ‘You know what? We should attack now.’”

The documents could signal criminal activity….and that should saw the people to realize what he has done and is possibly doing…..you would think, right?

If so then you are badly mistaken.

By now we all know of the FBI raid on the Trump property in Florida…..you have your opinion and I have mine……all that aside it seems that the raid, just before an election, has done the opposite of what you may think…..Trump has gotten stronger….

After the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago earlier this month, the walls may feel like they’re closing in on former President Trump, at least from a legal standpoint. In the court of public opinion with fellow Republicans, however, that search may have helped to give Trump a boost, at least according to one new survey. An NBC News poll released Sunday, which surveyed respondents Aug. 12-16 (i.e., after the FBI visit to Mar-a-Lago), asked GOP voters if they considered themselves more supporters of Trump or of the Republican Party. When the same question was asked back in May, 34% picked Trump over party, with 58% choosing the GOP. This time around, the Trump-leaning figure jumped to 41%, while those picking the Republican Party fell to 50%.

Per Axios, other polls have been showing Trump gaining ground in recent weeks on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who’d previously been “surging in key states.” A June poll out of the University of New Hampshire, for example, showed the two men statistically tied for the GOP nomination in that state. However, a poll released by New Hampshire’s Saint Anselm College last week showed GOP voters preferred Trump over DeSantis 50% to 29%. This is all now leading some “Never Trump” GOP strategists to express concern over how the FBI search might have tipped the scales in Trump’s favor, at least in terms of Republican sentiment. In fact, one source said to be close to Trump tells Axios that fundraising after the Aug. 8 search has been “yuge.”

The NBC poll wasn’t all bad news for Dems, especially regarding how they’ve closed the enthusiasm gap: Although 68% of Republicans said they were highly interested in the midterms, Dems came in close behind at 66%, per NBC. Contrast that 2-point gap with the 8-point gap in May, still in the favor of GOP voters, and the even bigger 17-point gap in March. And last week, the Washington Post‘s Philip Bump analyzed a YouGov poll conducted for the Economist that didn’t seem to show a “a virulent pro-Trump surge.” But Axios notes that the NBC poll’s stats on how Republicans feel about Trump after the raid may signify a “Republican mindset of ‘the more “they” hate him, the more I love him’—an effect Trump instinctively recognizes and exploits.”

Although we have NO official statement from the Trump camp on running in 2024….this should give them a bit more confidence in the next general election.

Scared yet?

Any thoughts on this possibility?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–23Aug22

We all have been bitten hard by the growing inflation….food, gas, rent, etc. ….there is another area that is not getting attention in these days of high inflation….the cost of raising a child.

Inflation’s damage is being felt not just one loaf of bread or gallon of gas at a time, but in big-picture expenses—such as the cost of raising a child. A new Brookings Institution estimate puts the total for raising a child through age 17 at $310,605. The estimate is based on government data, with the effects of inflation added on, for a married, middle-income couple with two children, the Wall Street Journal reports. That’s 9% higher than the estimate two years ago, before prices took off, though it leaves out college. “A lot of people are going to think twice before they have either a first child or a subsequent child because everything is costing more,” said Isabel Sawhill, a senior fellow at Brookings.

Or parents might decide they have to work more, Sawhill said. Reducing expenses sounds like it would help, but many families already have hit that wall. “Switching cellphone plans, cutting back on eating out, helping your neighbor, buying from your local grocery store, your local farmers market,” a woman in Pittsburgh with one son said. “When you’ve done all those things naturally just to survive, you’ve run out and you’ve exhausted all of that.” The estimate, based on a child born in 2015, considers costs such as housing, food, clothing, health care, child care, diapers, haircuts, sports equipment, and dance lessons, per the Journal.

The study did not factor in race, but research has found Black families are hurt more by volatility in prices. Sawhill said lower-income families are affected by inflation more than wealthier people, per the Hill. Overall, she said, skyrocketing prices have made it “a greater burden than it used to be to have children.” One woman who just canceled her cable TV service said she and her husband had to call off an annual week long gathering at her home of the boys in her family: her three sons and their cousins. “It costs a lot to feed almost 10 boys,” she said.

Just a little something to think about….those figures do not include any college aspirations the child may have…those figures will make one start drinking.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

That Was Then….This Is Now

Since I was a young ‘whipper snapper’ I have been interested in politics…..my most fond memory was in 1956 helping my grandfather send out flyers for the GOP…….

I bet most of my regular readers will find it interesting that I helped with a GOP campaign….you have to remember back in the day the GOP stood for something….not like today….polar opposites.

1956 the GOP had great ideas to work toward….a better society.

  1. Provide federal assistance to low-income communities
  2. Protect Social Security
  3. Provide asylum for refugees
  4. Extend minimum wage
  5. Improve unemployment benefit system so it covers more people
  6. Strengthen labor laws so workers can easily join a union
  7. Assure equal pay for equal work regardless of sex

Can you believe the GOP was that forward looking?

You can learn more here…..https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/republican-party-platform-1956

My grandfather liked Sen. Robert Taft because of his basic non-interventionist standings.

Robert A. Taft?

Senator Robert A. Taft (1889-1953), son of President William Howard Taft, became known as “Mr. Republican” for helping to rebuild his party after the Great Depression and the Democratic dominance of the New Deal years. When the 1946 election gave the Republicans control of the Senate, Taft chose not to serve as majority leader. Instead, he chaired the Republican Policy Committee, where he helped plan his party’s legislative agenda. He also chaired the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee and sponsored the Taft-Hartley Labor Act of 1947. When President Harry Truman called Congress into extraordinary session in 1948, Taft blocked all legislative action, inadvertently contributing to Truman’s successful reelection. Taft did agree—reluctantly—to become Senate majority leader in January of 1953. Tragically, he died of cancer just seven months later, at the age of 64. In 1959 Congress dedicated the Taft Memorial Bell Tower on the Capitol grounds. That same year, his portrait was added to the Senate Reception Room, part of the Famous Five collection—perhaps the Senate’s highest honor.

In case you may be interested of a Repub with principles then this should help…..https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Taft#Distrust_by_Old_Right

Those were the days.

Fast forward to today….tell me just what does the GOP actually stand for…..I mean this group did not have a platform for the 2020 election…

The GOP is now the party of poverty, disease, and death….say what?

Republican-controlled “Red” states, almost across the board, have higher rates of:

You ask how can this be?  Well look at the history from about 1964…https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/03/01/gop-has-become-party-poverty-disease-and-death

Why would anyone vote for this group of ‘slackers’?

What could explain this…to choose a do-nothing bunch over actually ideas that would benefit everyone….why?

Decades of political decisions and policies have created a massive and growing chasm between the economic and social disaster unfolding in small-town and rural parts of the United States, and the prosperity and safety of cities and suburbs. Many of those successful urban and suburban areas have reaped the rewards of electing largely moderate, competent Democratic leaders. Meanwhile, rural areas have elected Republicans drawn from a party that is increasingly incompetent, corrupt, and willing to engage in outright racism to win elections.

https://www.rawstory.com/conservative-america/

2022 election approaches and the GOP has basically the same toothless plan they have had for 4 years or so……NOTHING.

Given how unfavorable the current national political environment is for Democrats — on top of the fact that the president’s party almost always loses House seats in midterm elections — criticizing the Biden administration for inflation and the rising cost of living could very well be a sufficient strategy for the G.O.P. to win control of Congress this year.

Republicans’ missing 2022 ingredient: A positive and constructive agenda

Sadly we no longer look to parties for good ideas….instead we vote for personalities not policies….and this has aided in the divide and chaos this country is now experiencing…..

In past elections we have had debates between candidates this allowed them to express their ideas to the whole country….but now that may be a thong of the past….the party that had NO platform in 2020 (the GOP) has decided that it no longer wants to speak to the people of this nation….

The Republican National Committee had been warning for months about no longer participating in the presidential debates organized by the commission that’s held them since 1988. Spurred on by former President Donald Trump, Republicans have picked up their criticism of the Commission on Presidential Debates as biased toward Democrats, and their leaders have told candidates to stay out of the events in future races. The RNC voted Thursday to withdraw from the nonprofit commission, the Hill reports.

“We are going to find newer, better debate platforms to ensure that future nominees are not forced to go through the biased CPD in order to make their case to the American people,” Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement. The nonprofit organization was set up by both parties, per CNN. McDaniel said the commission hasn’t enacted the “simple and commonsense reforms” her party wants, including holding the debates before any voting takes place and using moderators who haven’t worked for any of the participants.

Like Trump, McDaniel wants the RNC to have more to say about which journalists are chosen for the debates; C-SPAN’s Steve Scully, who had worked for Democratic nominee Joe Biden decades earlier, was picked as a moderator in 2020. Trump also complained in 2020 about the second debate being held virtually because of the pandemic, and the muting of his microphone when it wasn’t his turn to talk—a decision made in response to his interruptions in the first debate. Democrats have had complaints about the debate process over the years, as well, but are not now urging any changes.

I guess it makes sense when you have NOTHING to offer the country as a whole….only silly ideas that divide the nation into tribes.

I cannot foresee any change in this trend any time soon….unless people start caring about their neighbor and stop worrying about what bathroom someone uses or what is taught in our schools.

The future of the US is looking bleak!

These divisions are tearing the very fiber of this nation apart and sadly it could be permanent….

It may be time to stop talking about “red” and “blue” America. That’s the provocative conclusion of Michael Podhorzer, a longtime political strategist for labor unions and the chair of the Analyst Institute, a collaborative of progressive groups that studies elections. In a private newsletter that he writes for a small group of activists, Podhorzer recently laid out a detailed case for thinking of the two blocs as fundamentally different nations uneasily sharing the same geographic space.

“When we think about the United States, we make the essential error of imagining it as a single nation, a marbled mix of Red and Blue people,” Podhorzer writes. “But in truth, we have never been one nation. We are more like a federated republic of two nations: Blue Nation and Red Nation. This is not a metaphor; it is a geographic and historical reality.”

To Podhorzer, the growing divisions between red and blue states represent a reversion to the lines of separation through much of the nation’s history. The differences among states in the Donald Trump era, he writes, are “very similar, both geographically and culturally, to the divides between the Union and the Confederacy. And those dividing lines were largely set at the nation’s founding, when slave states and free states forged an uneasy alliance to become ‘one nation.’”

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/06/red-and-blue-state-divide-is-growing-michael-podhorzer-newsletter/661377/

For god sake stop being a by-stander and stand up for your country and our way of life!

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Should Veterans Choose To Act?

Veterans have a history of activism….from the Bonus Army to the antiwar protesters of the 60s and 70s…..should they choose to return to the forefront of activism?

I was one of those ‘pinko’ protesters in the 70s….I can think of no better way for a veteran serve its country.

Then I say yes they need to once again become the leaders they should be.

This is veterans that have chosen the ‘path of dissent’……

One of my heroes, Major General Smedley Butler, said “We Americans who will protect our flag should have a voice in where it is flown.” The two-time Medal of Honor recipient and author of War is a Racket exemplifies the model of a dissident soldier. 

Voices of today’s soldiers, all veterans of the Global War on Terror, have been collected in a new anthology, Paths of Dissent: Soldiers Speak Out Against America’s Misguided Wars, edited by (Ret.) Maj. Danny Sjursen and (Ret.) Col. Andrew Bacevich, President of the Quincy Institute.

The book shares fifteen individual stories of how soldiers — in some ways big, in some ways small — dissented from what their high command, their government, and in many ways society expected of them as they advocated to bring our troops home.

Their perspective should come as no surprise. “War dissent is committed by those with a deep love for the country and its soldiers, for honesty, justice, humanity, and the rule of law. They bring light to situations clouded by secrecy, lies, and propaganda,” relates contributor Kevin Tillman, whose family is intimately familiar with the government’s secrecy, lies, and propaganda.

For several years, polls have demonstrated that veterans support military withdrawals from the Middle East at higher percentages than the civilian population. We witnessed firsthand the failures of nation-building, the ineffectiveness of raw military power to solve political problems, and the lack of coherent strategy or victory conditions.

As contributor Matthew Hoh discloses, “The entire U.S. government, including our military, intelligence, and diplomatic corps, was — and is — full of people who don’t believe in America’s endless wars, don’t believe in our supposed reasons for fighting them, and don’t believe that the sacrifices and costs are worthwhile.”

Meet the veterans who chose ‘paths of dissent’

Since marches and massive protests for the good of the country and its people is not as big thing these days our vets can serve and protect the democracy we all say we love.

With the mid-terms just a mere 2 months away…..vets can get involved.

Vets can begin by becoming volunteers for their local elections….

Our nation faces a critical shortfall of volunteers to administer our elections.

The COVID-19 pandemic has put a real dent in election poll volunteerism — especially among Americans 60 years of age and older who have traditionally served as poll workers. In fact, nearly two-thirds of all election poll workers are older than 61 years of age. The pandemic, combined with news reports of election-related political violence and threats to election officials, has made it difficult for many county election boards to find enough people to run election polling sites.

Why should you care? Simply put, American democracy runs on elections, and elections run on volunteers — just like our military and our national defense rely on volunteers.

Since our republic runs on a decentralized and federalized election system, it’s up to the individual states and counties to run elections, maintain voter records, count ballots, and report results.

When secretaries of state and county boards of elections can’t find enough volunteers to serve as election officials, it results in fewer polling stations, longer lines, fewer early voting days, and ultimately, less of an opportunity for you and your fellow citizens to enjoy the rights we all served in uniform to defend — primarily our right to vote. When there aren’t enough election workers, we have less democracy.

So what can you do about it? The solution is simple: Volunteer to serve your country and community again as an election poll worker.

I’ll give you 10 good reasons why you should:

Why helping others vote is a patriotic duty that appeals to US military veterans

Time for our vets to honor the oath they took when they entered the service of their country…..and volunteering to help with elections is an excellent start.

The only problem I can see is that many of our veterans have drank the vile poison of Trump-ism….so would they be good shepherds of our democracy?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Who Controls American Foreign Policy?

A question that few Americans want to ask because for the most part they do not care…..but they should for foreign policy will effect us all in some way.

Think tanks and lobbyists control everything in DC….especially foreign policy.

In a piece of news that shocked the mainstream media, but which shocked no one familiar with the academic industry writ large, retired US Army general John Allen was forced to resign as president of the Brookings Institution after it was revealed the FBI was investigating him for lobbying on behalf of the Qatari monarchy.

Of course, the real news, scarcely noted by the Washington Post, New York Times, or any other purported paper of record, is that Allen was only really in trouble because he hadn’t fulfilled the pro forma legal requirements for those lobbying the US government on behalf of a foreign agent or government.

The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), under which such activities are regulated, includes several exceptions that allow for such activities without declaring a conflict of interest. Think tanks, a misnomer if ever there was one, operate under an “academic exception” that allows for engagement in “bona fide religious, scholastic, academic, or scientific pursuits or the fine arts.”

Anyone who has ever picked up one of the many deadly dull social science journals where actual, bona fide empirical academic work is done knows this constitutes perhaps a fraction of what think tanks almost daily churn out.

Rather think tank commentary, touted as objective analysis, is regularly featured or cited by publications and outlets as apparently diverse as the Wall Street Journal and NPR.

Of course, think tanks are hardly alone. As Ben Freeman, a specialist on foreign influence on US policy, has documented, such democratic bastions of liberal values as the UAE and Saudi Arabia donate hundreds of millions, even billions, to universities around the country.

https://mises.org/wire/who-really-makes-us-foreign-policy-who-benefits-and-who-loses

If they churn out crap on the behest of any foreign government then they should be held accountable and register as a foreign agent.

Department of Justice’s Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) Unit issued guidance indicating that think tanks and non-profits doing work at the behest of a foreign government likely have an obligation to register under FARA.

In a new Advisory Opinion — the FARA Unit’s public, though heavily redacted, responses when organizations ask if they should register or not — the Chief of the FARA Unit argues that the unnamed organization in question should register under FARA as its work for foreign principals included outreach to policymakers in the defense community, facilitating “meetings and new partnerships in the United States, particularly with U.S. government officials,” and has agreed to prepare a study that would “foster bilateral exchange and cooperation between” a foreign government and the United States.

As the Chief argues, each of these actions constitutes “political activity” under the FARA statute, defined as attempts to “influence any agency or official of the United States or any section of the public within the United States with reference to . . . the domestic or foreign policy of the United States.”

Can think tanks be foreign agents?

There is your answer….Think tanks is one of the controlling agents of American foreign policy.

When I left college I was offered a position with a think tank….I refused because they give a conclusion they want and I was to fit the research to fit that conclusion.  (BTW that refusal on my part made it possible for me to never get a gig with a think tank….I would not play ball).

Time for these people to be held up to the light.

Wake Up!  Pay attention!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Remember When Comic Books Were Dangerous?

No?

Well time for the Old Professor to drop some history.

These days comic books are a great source of entertainment and collecting them has become mainstream.

But it was not always so acceptable to read or collect these treasures.

Like today when some blame society’s ills on video games and music so it was that comics were accused as the source of juvenile delinquency in the 1950s.

Comic books are successful almost from their inception in the early 1930s, but also subject to attack by critics for the low quality of the art and writing, and for the emphasis on violent stories and images. These attacks come from adult critics, not the millions of monthly comics readers — mainly children and teenagers who love the vivid illustrations and exciting stories in the books.

After World War II, readership dwindles for popular superhero titles, such as Superman, Wonder Woman, and The Spirit, and many comics turn to gory, true-life stories, or tales of horror and the supernatural. E.C. Comics’ Vault of Horror, Crypt of Terror, and Haunt of Fear cram their pages with severed heads, drug use, and graphic violence. Some of the most popular of these extreme stories come from the pen of comic artist Jack Cole.

Throughout the decade, attacks against the violent comics mount. Citizens’ groups and religious organizations pressure publishers and news dealers to drop the most offensive lines. Newspaper editorial pages and national magazines debate the influence of comics on the young.

In 1954 the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency holds hearings on whether comic books inspire juvenile delinquency. A lead witness, psychologist Dr. Frederick Wertham, testifies that comics “create a mental readiness for temptation” and create “an atmosphere of deceit and cruelty” for children. He even attacks Superman for “arousing fantasies of sadistic joy in seeing others punished while you yourself remain immune.”

E.C. Comics publisher William Gaines speaks in the comics defense, emphasizing his stories’ endings, in which the criminals always pay for their crimes. “Good taste” is his only criterion. Senator Estes Kefauver asks if an E.C. Comics’ cover displaying a woman’s severed head and a bloody axe is Gaines’ idea of good taste. Backed into a corner, Gaines boldly answers ‘yes.’ The exchange makes the front page of the next day’s New York Times.

The committee’s subsequent report declares no proven connection between comics and delinquency. Nevertheless, the Senate calls for self-regulation by the comics industry to keep violent titles out of young hands. Seeking to diffuse the negative publicity, the comic book publishers create The Comics Magazine Association of America. The new trade group publishes a strict code of guidelines to control what content the comics will permit. The guidelines focus exclusively on crime and horror comics. Within a short time, the genre is no longer commercially viable.

The imposition of the Comic Book Code bankrupts many of the horror and crime publishers, and many of the artists and writers leave the business for good. The most notable failure is E.C. Comics,

I always wonder why the dialog in the early comics was so horribly bad….like it was written by a 4 year old on Zanax……now you know.

Class Dismissed!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

That Usual Saturday News

The weekend again….it seems like it comes around every week or so…..and news from around the world that means absolutely nothing to anyone.

I recently did a post about the bikini where it originated and why….after the bikini was introduced there came the monokini…..

Today marks what would have been Rudi Gernreich’s 100th birthday. A dancer-turned-designer, Gernreich’s designs were intensely body-focused and freeing, and noticeably lacking in prudery.

“As if I invented nudity,” the designer remarked to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 1964, on the subject of his famous breast-baring monokini. It’s mind-boggling that more than half a century later Gernreich’s most iconic design is unpostable on Instagram with its institutionalized nipple ban. Though provocative then and now, there is a rigor to the design of Gernreich’s monokini that is akin to that of Achille Castiglioni’s Arco Lamp, which was designed just a few years earlier.

Born into a Jewish family in Vienna, Gernreich was introduced to fashion through his aunt, who had a dress shop. In 1938 he escaped Europe with his mother and settled in California. He studied modern dance with Lester Horton from 1939 to 1944 (making costumes along the way). After his dance career, he got a job styling and doing advertising for Hoffman California Fabrics. In 1947 he designed dresses as a fabric promotion that were so well received he went on to develop a capsule collection.

https://www.vogue.com/article/as-if-i-invented-nudity-the-revolutionary-rudi-gernreich-of-monokini-fame-would-have-been-100-today

Water is becoming a problem in this country and across the world…..back in the day the Colorado River was ‘tamed’…..and now there is a plan to do the same to the Mississippi River…..

Work could soon begin on the great Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion, considered the “largest ecosystem restoration project in US history,” writes Boyce Upholt for Hakai Magazine. Aspects of the $2 billion engineering scheme have been in the works for decades, ever since people began noticing the alarming pace of land loss in the Delta caused by centuries of efforts to tame the Mississippi River. If nothing is done, Louisiana stands to lose the vital marshlands that dominate the Delta. Environmentalists, shrimpers, oil companies, coastal communities, tribes, and officials at all levels of government agree that something must be done, but nobody wants to live with the consequences of the proposed solutions.

It’s all about mud. Tributaries from 32 states plus two Canadian provinces drain into the Mississippi, which carries not only water but more than 300 million tons of dirt to the Gulf of Mexico each year. Over three centuries, efforts to tame the river have resulted in an uninterrupted system of levees stretching hundreds of miles and disrupting the natural distribution of all that mud. Adding to the problem, oil companies have built a vast and under-regulated network of canals, causing up to half of the land loss across the Delta by some estimates.

The proposed diversion will punch a gap in the levee system and enable restoration of thousands of acres of marshland. An impact study by the Army Corps of Engineers suggests existing ecosystems and communities will be dramatically altered in the process. However, for all the hubbub, Upholt concludes that it might not matter much unless something is done to address rising oceans caused by climate change.

I am not sure that messing with a river and its course is always the best plan.

I take my best friend MoMo for a walk every day rain or shine….and there is a chance that I am doing my part to help fight crime in my neighborhood…..

Employing drug-sniffing canines and patrol dogs offer one potential way to combat criminal activity, but it turns out that even the simple act of walking a dog can act as a deterrent.

A new study from researchers at The Ohio State University and the University of Texas at Austin, published in the journal Social Forces, found that communities in Columbus, Ohio with greater concentrations of dog owners experienced fewer incidences of crime. Researchers examined the crime rate for 595 Census groups from 2014 to 2016, as well as data from a 2013 survey about dog ownership. They also looked at information measuring the level of trust between residents in a given neighborhood.

Areas with high levels of neighborhood trust had lowered crime; areas with high levels of trust and greater concentrations of dogs were lower still. The dog-heavy areas saw just two-thirds the number of robberies and half the number of murders compared to low-trust areas.

It’s not that the dogs are warding off scofflaws—instead, the study suggests that owning a dog brings with it a greater level of community involvement. If you own a dog, you’re walking a dog, which means having more sets of eyes in a community as well as opportunities to interact with neighbors. The dog isn’t so much the reason as the spark for creating a more tightly-knit area that makes suspicious behavior more, well, suspicious.

https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/dogs-lower-neighborhood-crime-study

Finally the probing question of the day is just how will we humans will change in the next 10,000 years…..a quick unofficial look forward……

Humanity is the unlikely result of 4 billion years of evolution.

From self-replicating molecules in Archean seas, to eyeless fish in the Cambrian deep, to mammals scurrying from dinosaurs in the dark, and then, finally, improbably, ourselves – evolution shaped us.

Organisms reproduced imperfectly. Mistakes made when copying genes sometimes made them better fit to their environments, so those genes tended to get passed on. More reproduction followed, and more mistakes, the process repeating over billions of generations. Finally, Homo sapiens appeared. But we aren’t the end of that story. Evolution won’t stop with us, and we might even be evolving faster than ever.

It’s hard to predict the future. The world will probably change in ways we can’t imagine. But we can make educated guesses. Paradoxically, the best way to predict the future is probably looking back at the past, and assuming past trends will continue going forward. This suggests some surprising things about our future.

https://www.freethink.com/science/future-human-evolution

That is the major useless news stories for this Saturday.

Do enjoy your weekend….I know I shall….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”