ELECTION OF 2024: WHAT AMERICA HAS BECOME

If I have been stupid enough to publish occasional social commentary in the past, I surely cannot ignore the recent 2024 Presidential election in the USofA. I refuse to pretend that I have a complete handle on just what the hell is going on in the country of my birth. But I have a few ideas.

* A majority of the voting citizenry of the USofA chose a lying, narcissistic, sexual predator to be the face of their nation. They chose a serial evader of the consequences of his acts to be their Chief Executive. The bankrupter of a casino will lead the American economy. A man who routinely insults the military will be their Commander in Chief. In general, these attributes were not hidden from his supporters. Character didn't matter to them. This is what America has become.

* Obama's election normalized hate. Hate is a stronger emotion in the voting booth than love. 

* Democrats have chosen to take up the causes of marginalized people. I'm not saying that's wrong, but it's a lousy electoral strategy. By definition, marginalized people do not constitute a majority. You can argue that, taken together, they do add up to a majority. The problem with that thinking is that marginalized groups have different, sometimes conflicting concerns. Being pulled in different directions does not lead to coherent electoral strategy. To address that array of concerns, you first have to get elected. And bumper stickers, not manifestos, get you elected. Snow White was a white woman who lived with seven little white men. She was kissed without her consent by a white Prince. Deal with it. Don't make it a campaign issue.

* Progressives want Democrats to double down on the Progressive agenda. But Red states are not Red because Democrats are not sufficiently woke. I fear that the opposite is true. AOC demonstrated her chops by moving to the center early, even if ever so slightly. (Did I really say that?) By the demographics, Democrats have become the party of the elites. And the concerns of people with resources sufficient so that they don't have to worry about the next rent payment or where the next meal is coming from are not the concerns of a majority of the country. It's the economy stupid.

I believe that the Western European model of democratic socialism is the proper governance model for a modern, enlightened state. I also believe that the proper economic model for such a state is properly regulated capitalism. Those two statements are not oxymoronic. Renault-Nissan is the largest automaker in the world, they make excellent cars, and it's 15% owned by the French government. That's a big enough stake to make certain that the corporate types don't screw up. The French, German and Spanish governments combined own just over 25% of Airbus and Airbus is kicking Boeing's butt. So capitalism is alive and functioning reasonably well in Western Europe. But at the same time, Europe has embraced single-payer healthcare and strong quality-of-life guarantees for workers. After 10 years and multiple hospital procedures, both day surgeries and overnights, my wife and I are convinced that French healthcare workers, first and foremost, care about helping us. We are not treated as profit points by anyone in the system.

If that's the type of system that we want for Americans, we need to be as dedicated to a long-term strategy as Republicans have been. We need to vote in every election, from local school boards on up. We need to require schools to teach basics first. When I give the clerk at the counter $1.01 for a $.51 order, there should be no head scratching about the amount of change that I'm due. Critical thinking does not seem to follow if you can't read, rite, and do rithmatic. Our elected officials, whether in the minority or the majority, must be even more ruthless than the Republicans have been since Obama was first elected, ruthless against the opposition, ruthless against distractions within our own party.

TIM WALZ: MY HOT TAKE ON HARRIS' VP CANDIDATE

FULL DISCLOSURE: I have never voted for Donald Trump. I would never vote for Donald Trump. I would rather vote for Barry Goldwater than Donald Trump and Goldwater has been dead for a while now. Even dead, he'd make a better President.

When Biden stepped back and anointed  Harris as his successor, the Veepstakes immediately began. My thinking on the matter was fairly simple. I counted five attributes/qualities that would be required to be named Harris' VP. I got four of the five right.

The two easiest qualifications to predict were political necessities. The VP candidate had to be male and had to be white. I'm not particularly proud of my country for having to say that, but as Teddy Roosevelt's favorite political commentator opined in the late 19th Century, politics ain't beanbag. The rest of the quote is highly indicative of the 10th Century male mentality, but at least the part about beanbag applies. Obama's candidacy and election unleashed a supposedly dormant racist streak in the American electorate and Hillary Clinton's candidacy added misogyny to the equation. Those two streaks run sufficiently deep in the hearts of a sufficient number of voters, even a portion of those who might otherwise be partial to a Harris candidacy, that a ticket with two persons of color or two women just does not make political sense in the real world of American politics.

If I had had Harris' ear during the decision-making process, my next two criteria would have been to choose a governor from the Midwest to add executive experience to the ticket. Although Harris holds the second highest executive office in the country, she came to it from the Senate. Senators generally value consensus. They are masters of shifting the goalposts to come to an agreement. But it's the job of the President to set the goalposts and determine how much, if any, they should be allowed to shift at all. It's a different mindset, one that neither Obama nor Biden ever mastered. A governor on the ticket might assist Harris in developing that skill. Midwestern? Geographical balance, particularly since there's a Left Coast liberal at the lead.

I got the last bit wrong though. I expected her choice to balance the ticket in another way, to be more centrist than Harris. But Walz is not a centrist, as were the main challengers for the nod. No, I think that Harris chose Walz because he was as close to her progressive leanings as anyone else in the running. She doubled down. No deep policy divides. No clashes of style - although there are clearly style differences. Just not clashes. This pairing is not JFK and LBJ, or Lyndon and Hubert for that matter. Kamala and Tim will have no problem holding hands and singing Kumbaya together all of the way to the White House.

THE ATTACKS

       Military Service: Walz enlisted in the Army National Guard as a teenager. After 24 years of service, he had risen to the rank of Command Sergeant Major. I have read interviews with both superiors and subordinates that confirm that for some time prior to his retirement, Walz had discussed with them his desire to run for Congress and his concern that doing so would require him to leave the Guard because the Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from participating in political activities. He did indeed file for his run for the House in early 2005, some time before his unit was informed that they should prepare for the possibility of being deployed to the Middle East sometime in the next two years. Before. The charge that he deserted his unit because they had been cautioned to prepare for deployment is false. I suppose that he could have withdrawn from the Congressional election or asked the Pentagon for an exception to the Hatch Act as would have been required if he stayed with his unit. He did none of that. He simply continued with his planned retirement. I suspect that those in his former unit who accuse Walz of cowardly behavior will be voting for Trump. They’re entitled. I thank them for their service.

Walz's bio said that he had retired as a Command Sergeant Major. And the day that he retired, he was addressed as a Command Sergeant Major and treated like a Command Sergeant Major. The day after his retirement, because he had failed to complete a correspondence course to confirm his promotion from Staff Sergeant Major, he was considered a Staff Sergeant Major for benefits purposes. You say to-MAY-to. I say to-MAH-to. He's changed his bio.

In supporting gun control legislation, Walz once said that he opposed civilians carrying weapons such as he carried "in war." He misspoke. Although he carried such weapons and trained with such weapons, he never served in a combat zone. It is correct to say that Walz misspoke.

        Governor of Minnesota.: Tampon Tim is the sort of sniggering teenage nickname that one might expect from immature males uncomfortable discussing women’s periods. Such men are mostly Republicans, apparently. As governor, Walz signed a bill requiring that public schools make menstruation products freely available to students beginning at fourth grade. His critics charge that the law requires such products in bathrooms for boys. Not true. The law leaves the matter of distribution up to the individual school district.  I have read of several districts that do not require such products in boys rooms. I have not read of a single one that does.

Walz also signed a bill making free breakfast and lunch available to all students. In addition to simply making certain that kids were fed properly while in their charge, the law was intended to relieve districts of the administrative burden of qualifying students for free meals and of tracking families in debt to the system. Saving children the embarrassment of being refused service due to debt or administrative error was also a consideration. The attack comes because a contractor to the state’s Department of Education was found to have  defrauded the feeding programs of the Department of over $250M. The problem with this attack is that the fraud predated the law that Walz signed. It even predated Walz’s governorship, having begun during the administration of his predecessor. Yes, the buck stops at the governor’s desk. But in this case, the buck had been being passed before Walz had anything to do with the program.

IN CONCLUSION

Walz can be shown to have made mistakes. He has spent his entire life in the public eye in one way or another, so there are nits to be picked. But Walz has done nothing so egregious as to come close to losing my vote. In fact, the more that I dig, the happier that I am with Harris’ choice. I will vote Harris/Walz enthusiastically and with a clear conscious.

BIDEN, HARRIS, TRUMP, OBAMA AND AMERICAN POLITICS 2024

I wouldn't be much of an American who blogs his opinions if I didn't chime in on the events of the past week or two in American politics. FULL DISCLOSURE: I believe Trump to be an existential threat to sanity and civility in public life. His picture appears in the OED in the definition of egotistical narcissist. Anyway, here are my quick takes:

* During the recent televised debate, Biden looked like a tired and deflated old man. Trump presented as a confident and unapologetic liar. In other words, both men came across true to their respective natures. 

* I'm 75 years old. I ain't what I used to be. The excuse that Biden was tired after flights and meetings just doesn't cut it. Presidents are not allowed to fail on the world stage at critical times because they are tired. Yes, we expect too much of the mere humans that we elect to that office. Tough cookies. That's the minimum requirement. When the phone rings at 2am, you'd better damn well be wide awake and ready to eat raw meat.

* Harris was the obvious choice. An open Democrat convention would have been a disaster. Uncontrolled chaos. Everybody who mattered understood that Harris was inevitable except, apparently, for the Obamas. If nothing else, that proves that Obama was never an executive type. A true executive makes reality-based decisions, even if their preference would be a different reality. Harris is the reality. Not acceding to that reality after 48 hours is either pettiness or delusion. Now, today, her election prospects are not an issue. Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party. (By the way, that's not a quote about politics uttered by some wag like Churchill. It was a drill created by a typing instructor a century ago.) EDIT: The endorsement from the Obamas has come. Thank you, Captain Obvious.

* Speaking of Obama, can you tell that I found him a disappointment? In today's world, nuance is not an option. The education system has failed. Analytical thought is missing in action, even on elite college campuses. Netanyahu, for all that I dislike him, was correct in his speech to Congress when he likened Gays for Gaza to Chickens for KFC. We now live in a bumper sticker world in which Obama's careful attempts to walk the lines do not bear electoral fruit. Championing a law called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) cannot compete with chanting Build the Wall. At the other end of the spectrum. the 900 pages of the Affordable Care Act cannot satisfy those who advocate Medicare for All. One can wish for a better world. One can work to create a better world. But in order to do so, it's necessary to navigate the world as it exists with open eyes and effective strategies.

* Trump will get his votes. That can't be helped. The Kool-Aid has been drunk. The election will hinge on the turnout on the Democrat side. If Harris energizes women, people of color, and those whites who have resisted the Kool-Aid, even in states that are trying to make that difficult for them, she wins. Especially in states that are trying to make it difficult. Energy and enthusiasm will decide this election. Harris' task is to create that energy and enthusiasm among her constituency. Or she will lose.

BIOLUMINESCENT PETUNIAS, MET GALA, MESSI AND MORE: #22

 ODD STUFF

I read. It's silly of me. But I read.

In Rhode Island, it is illegal to wear transparent clothing. So no Met Gala in Rhode Island.

A repeat attempt by the city of Kyle, Texas, to break the world record for the largest gathering of people with one name fell short despite 706 Kyles turning up at a park in that suburb of Austin. The current Guinness record is held by a town in Bosnia that got 2,325 people named Ivan together in 2017. 

And finally, an 81 year-old man has been arrested for busting up windows and windshields in his neighborhood for the past ten years with ball bearings fired from a slingshot. Get off his lawn! 

EDIT: Shortly after his arrest, the gentleman in question died of a heart attack. We'll never know...

BIOLUMINESCENT PETUNIAS

Lede: Scientists from the US, the UK and Russia walk into a bar.

Punch Line: Bioluminescent Petunias.

And there you have it. For a mere 29USD, a garden variety petunia that glows in the dark will be delivered to your door. Spliced genetically with a bioluminescent mushroom, the petunias need no special handling and glow naturally, whether in a light or dark environment. They don't need 'charging'  and they'll glow all night long. That way, you will be constantly reminded that whatever a person can think of, a person can do. And another person will pay for it.

MESSI'S NAPKIN

Speaking of paying for something, a 25 year-old napkin covered with the scribbled terms of a proposed contract with a 13 year-old Lionel Messi sold for just under $1,000,000 recently. There's too much money in the world.

AND FURTHERMORE 

I'm a coward. A visiting friend called the war in Gaza genocide. I said that there were probably war crimes being committed, but not genocide. She said that it was genocide and that perhaps we shouldn't talk about. And in the interest of domestic tranquility, I said, "Okay." 

I'm a coward.

NEWS FLASH

Guilty! Random thoughts:

 

*He'll never go to jail. 

*The Supreme Court will not exonerate him directly. If a lower court vacates the verdict, they simply won't agree to take New York's appeal. If the matter comes before them with the guilty verdict intact, SCOTUS will find a way to return the matter to a sympathetic court that will vacate the verdict, then refuse to take New York's appeal. At some point during the process. Elena's keyboard will burst into flames.

* He will probably be elected President in 2024.

* He will probably not be elected President in 2024.

* The above is not a contradiction. The 2024 election will be such a hot mess that there's no telling who will have won and who lost. 

* Macron is my President.

IT'S TIME TO GET REAL - ISRAEL AND JK AND LIFE AND MORE

DEEP THOUGHTS

I have not been writing blog posts for several months. I have been too timid to put pen to paper - fingers to keyboard - because Israel and Trump and gender issues are so strongly held. Those of you that I call friends may know how each of us feels about these issues, but when we disagree, we don't talk about them much. We are not the kind of voters who insist that we are undecided two weeks before an election. We've thought about things and we've decided. I hesitated to post because I knew that I have friends and family who have come to different conclusions than I have. But it's late and I'm getting old and bullshit is getting harder to tolerate. And so...

ISRAEL

Full disclosure, I'm Jewish. One of a group of us who are secure in calling ourselves Jews but who haven't been to synagogue for awhile...a long while.

Israel is where the Abraham of the Abrahamic Religions came from. Judaism started with Abraham. In Israel. Christianity started with a Jew called Jesus who lived as a Jew and died as a Jew. In Israel. According to the Quran, God gave Israel to the Jews. No, I'm not claiming that Jews owning the deed to Israel relies on certain holy books. I am claiming that until 1948, everybody knew that Israel was where Judaism began and where Jews lived. Sometimes, they were chased out, but whether they were thick on the ground or scattered to the winds. for centuries the world at large agreed that when Jews first were forced to scatter, they scattered from Israel.

Israel doesn't have a right to exist. Israel exists. Whether you like it or not. Period. More in a follow-on post.

TRUMP

Beyond understanding. I'll try. Later.

JK ROWLING

Words do not make reality. Words shape perception. You can argue that Earth is flat because you perceive it to be flat. But in reality, it ain't flat. JK says that there is reality in chromosomes. Others say that words alone can alter the reality that chromosomes represent. JK doesn't believe that. I don't believe that. I don't think JK is transphobic and I don't think that I am transphobic. 

And by the way, phobias are fears. So being transphobic means fear of trans people. Which means that a whole bunch of people called transphobic are not transphobic at all. They demonstrate that by not being afraid to say what they think about trans issues. 

Words matter, but they don't matter to the point that they can alter observed fact.

GETTING OLDER

If a man is not a socialist by the time he is 20, he has no heart. If he is not a conservative by the time he is 40, he has no brain.

That quote is most often attributed to Churchill. He may have said it, but he probably didn't originate it. Whatever the case, it does describe the political evolution of some people. For the record, I'm not one of them. Yes, I considered myself a liberal in my younger years, probably not a socialist. But even then, I noticed in conversations with friends that political lines were easily, and often unwittingly, crossed. 

For example, I had a very progressive friend back in the days when being a feminist was not simply progressive. It was radical. And she was a radical feminist. I'll call her Annie. We shared a common female acquaintance. That friend decided to do something that Annie thought that she shouldn't do. "Stop her," Annie said to me. "Tell her not to do it." In that one exchange, I learned that principles can easily give way to personal preferences. I understood why our friend had made her choice, I knew that she had considered the choice carefully, and I respected her. So I wasn't about stop her from pursuing her choice.

And that's where I'm going with this. I don't think that our choices are the result of embracing one end of the political spectrum over the other. I think that we choose what we choose either emotionally or logically based on preferences that are ingrained and can defy understanding. Shit happens. And we react as we do, if we are thoughtful people, reasonably and consistently.

So as I got older, I didn't get more conservative. I have gotten more confident in my beliefs. Israel exists. Deal with it. Trump was an existential threat to American democracy in 2016 and in 2020 and he is an existential threat to American democracy today. Deal with it. Sex isn't assigned at birth, it is observed at birth. Deal with it. 

THE UNIVERSE IS FINE TUNED FOR LIFE

Is it? I watch YouTube videos of serious people having long, detailed discussions to convince themselves and others that the universe seems to be fine tuned for human life. Change one little bit of our universe and its properties and it all goes away. The strength of gravity. The Cosmological Constant. Any one of dozens of numbers like those are right where they need to be.

I have never understood why no one ever argues the opposite - that human life is fine tuned to the universe. It seems obvious to me. There's one universe that we know of. The numbers are what they are. Panelists talk about what would happen if the numbers changed, but who's to say that the numbers can be changed? We evolved in the comfortable niches that those numbers provide, billions of years after our version of the universe was born, hundreds of millions of years after our Earth was formed. 

It took a hell of a long time for us to get to where we are. If there had been a designer, why did She wait billions of years to create chocolate-peanut butter ice cream. I would have whipped that up first.                   

 

DANCING AND SEXISM, JANET JACKSON, HILLARY AND DONALD, AND MORE: #16

 

 DANCING AND SEXISM

Norman and I went to the same high school at the same time, we knew each other, but we had no classes together and weren't really friends. A big, ungainly kid, as a teenager Norman played keyboards for services at a local church. I learned some years after graduation that Norman had gone to a fine arts college and had worked his way up to Resident Organist at a major, big city Protestant congregation. Fast forward to our 25th or 30th high school reunion, I don't remember which. I do remember that when the dancing started, one couple who were obviously into ballroom dancing glided and posed across the floor with serious expressions on their faces. Carefully well rehearsed. Then Norman stepped on the floor, blue suit, white shirt, red tie and all. He stomped. He twirled. His arms and legs flew in every direction. Norman truly danced like no one was watching. I envy Norman's dancing to this day.

Sanna Marin wears leather coats, goes to rock concerts, and is the Prime Minister of Finland. At a recent party, Marin danced like no one was watching. Except someone was watching, watching and recording. The leaked video caused a minor uproar, so intense that Marin felt it necessary to take a drug test to prove that you could dance with abandon without being stoned. How sad is that? And if she were a man, would there have been the same reaction? Probably not. Like my admiration for Norman's skills, Marin as a man would probably have been envied. I hope this unwarranted hubbub doesn't derail a promising political career. It shouldn't. It mustn't. 

Why are people so damned stupid?

 JANET JACKSON KILLS COMPUTERS

Microsoft software guru Raymond Chen has confirmed what we knew all along. The words 'Luck' and 'Janet Jackson' do not belong in the same sentence. Her wardrobe designer knows what I'm talking about. But Chen describes a truly X-Man super power. Chen reports that Janet's song Rhythm Nation has special properties. "It turns out that the song contained one of the natural resonant frequencies for the model 5400 rpm laptop hard drives that they and other manufacturers used," explained Chen when discussing crashed computers. The song didn't even need to be played on the computer in question. It just needed to be played nearby. We live in complicated, magical times. Janet Jackson kills computers.

GEORGE DAWSON AND RACE

George Dawson Middle School in Texas is named after a grandson of slaves who didn't learn to read until he was 98 years old. At 103, Dawson wrote the book Life Is So Good. Recently, the Texas district in which George Dawson Middle School is located decided that portions of the book that George Dawson wrote were not appropriate for George Dawson Middle School's 7th graders. My guess is that they are precisely the portions of the book that it would be important for middle school students to read. But it turns out that Texas conservatives are bigger snowflakes than northern liberals.

HILLARY AND DONALD

She turned over all of her devices. She testified before Congress, under oath, for 11 hours. She answered every question. She never once took the 5th. You may not like her, but you have to admire the sheer will that she possesses. She would have known exactly what she intended to accomplish as President and she would have set about doing it. Instead, we got Trump.

Why are people so damned stupid?

LEFT HANDEDNESS, SPANISH STONEHENGE, TWITTER, AND MORE: #15

 

THE LESSONS OF LEFT HANDEDNESS

Sandy Koufax was my sports hero growing up. I also followed and admired Bill Russell and Johnny Unitas and other big sports names of the time. But Sandy was my hero. To this day, when I'm filling out a ballot and I just don't like any of the names, I write in Sandy Koufax. On the list of the greatest lefties of all time, Sandy rules.

As it happens, I have been married for 50 years to a lefty. She complains occasionally about scissors being designed for right handed folks. But I hadn't thought about it much until I viewed an interesting TED Talk on YouTube. The presenter pointed out that, if you want a small taste of what it's like to be a person of color in the United States, a very small taste, consider the plight of the lefty.

Only 10% of humans are left handed. No one is certain why. A recent major study revealed that there are measurable differences in the brains of lefties, mostly in the right brain, but those difference are so slight that they only appear when studying large data sets. In this case, the researchers studied over 30,000 brain scans, 3,000 of which were of lefties. Even so, the researchers concluded that, not only could they not determine why people are left handed, they also could not predict just from looking at scans whether an individual was left handed or not. So lefties are just like the rest of us, only different.

But here's the kicker. Imagine that you are left handed. It's not just scissors that are designed for righties. Everything is designed for the 90% of us who are right handed. School desks, baseball gloves, guitars, EVERYTHING. Just ask your left-handed friends. Oh, for certain. You can generally buy the item that you are looking for designed especially for the left handed. But you'll pay a premium and there will be fewer choices.

And now imagine that you are a person of color in an increasingly white nationalist USofA. Of course, the system is designed in favor of the majority. That's the way that it works, isn't it? And if you are a white nationalist and looking at the numbers, you are bound to notice that your privileges are about to be revoked. In a right handed world, white nationalists are learning what it might be like to be left handed. And they are scared. And they should be.

RAND PAUL IS AN IDIOT

Senator Paul is quoted as saying that the FBI will have to justify their actions. 

The National Archives asked politely for the documents. The documents were subpoenaed. A lawyer submitted an affidavit representing that all documents had been returned. And still, the FBI found Top Secret documents in Trump's possession. Illegally.

Under those circumstances, the FBI has nothing to justify. But Trump sure as hell does. In court, I hope.

SPANISH STONEHENGE

No one expects the Spanish Stonehenge. (If you immediately thought of Monty Python, give yourself five bonus points. If you don't understand the reference, google 'no one expects the Spanish' and see what pops up.)

Climate change has resulted in severe drought in many regions around the world. Sunken boats resurface in lakes that are drying up. Ghost towns reappear. In a particular dam-created lake in the USofA, several bodies have been located, some in oil drums, clearly murder victims intended to be lost to the light of day forever. In Spain, we have something a bit different.

Thought to be from 4,000 to 7,000 years old, the Dolmen of Guadalperal have been uncovered for the first time in 60 years. First submerged in the 1930s, the result of a Franco rural development project, the standing stones are back in the sunlight. Perhaps a question greater than the purpose of their construction is the question of why it would be considered progress to submerge them in the name of progress in the first place. 

It goes to show that humans are just hairless bipeds with big, useless brains.

TWEETS AS JOURNALISM

I read the news. I have a television, but I just use it for streaming videos and movies. When I lived in the USofA, I watched the evening news on TV. It made me crazy. Now, I am in France. Now, I read the news. I subscribe to a major American newspaper and to a European wire service. I cruise two sites that aggregate news from a variety of sources - from FOX and media even farther to the right, to CNN and others farther left. And I have come to hate Twitter.

Freddy Baseball has been traded to the Yankees. Twitter has exploded. Read some examples.

Sally Popstar's new boyfriend is twenty-three yeas older than she is and the Twitterverse is in a tizzy.

I understand that the proliferation of platforms has led to a scramble for content. But please. Don't pretend that the random typing of my neighbor 's teenage son qualifies as news. It doesn't.

FRENCH MORTGAGE, RAIN, AND BITS AND BOBS: #14

 

 

FRENCH MORTGAGE

Those of you who have been paying attention will know that it has been several months since I last wrote about our mortgage application. At that time, I wrote that we were at the finish line. 

We were not. 

Innumerable twists and turns ensued before the money finally came through. I simply could not keep up. Here are the highlights:

• First met with our banker during the first week of November. By the first week of December, we were told that our request for a loan had been approved. We closed on the new house on December 15th. The loan money arrived on August 2nd of the following year.
• First, the bank called it a mortgage, then a refinance, then a loan.
• First, the banker proposed a 10-year term with life insurance for me. Now it's a 7-year term with life insurance for both of us.
• First, I proposed that the bank finance 38% of the purchase price. The bank agreed to finance 27%.
  
• First did an online medical questionnaire in November. The website didn't like Cathey's phone number for the verification code. Mailed a signed hard copy witnessed by the banker. Then the bank decided in April that the medical questionnaires were too old and had to be resubmitted. Still didn't like Cathey's phone number but her sister's number worked just fine. She called us with the verification code.
• First the bank wanted us to open a 10,000€ savings account maintained to ensure payments. Settled for 25% less, money that we can't touch until the loan is paid off. 

Each of the changes required an exchange of emails and a personal meeting with the banker. I have counted 15 separate email threads.

THE MORAL OF THE STORY: The old adage is true. The best way to obtain a loan is to prove that you don't need it. For American citizens in France, the requirements go a bit further, including making the deal worth the effort for your bank to comply with American and European banking regulations. 

Regardless of the fact that we have submitted French tax returns, in addition to our American ones, for 15 years. Regardless of the fact that we have lived permanently in France for 8 years. And regardless of the fact that we have received our ten-year residency permits, one step below French citizenship, about three years ago. We are still Americans. We must learn patience with French bureaucracy. If you don't learn that patience, living in France won't be nearly as much fun.

RAIN

Did I read recently that the folks who built that ark in Kentucky (or someplace like Kentucky) are suing their insurance company? They want to be paid for water damage. To the ark that they built. From rain. Water damage.

 OPERA SURPRISE

The conductor has led the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted the Royal Ballet of Covent Garden Orchestra at the Met in New York. The soloists are among the best in France. And for 30€, we'll be attending their performance of Donzinetti's The Elixir of Love in a small theater in a small town a few minutes away. We had no idea when we moved to the rural, politically conservative, ancient region of France, a region that traces human history back to Neanderthals and beyond, that modern players would find venues for music from Bach to the blues anywhere and everywhere that an audience could be called together. What a gift!

 UPDATE: Attended the opera last night. Unfortunately, our heat wave hadn't broken. Fortunately, the venue's tiered seating afforded everyone a clear view of the performance. And the orchestra was tight and confident from the first notes of the overture. And the set was simple but enhanced with occasional, interesting projected animations. And the principal soloists were nationally recognized professionals. And the chorus displayed enthusiasm and discipline.

And I am so grateful to live here.

TRUMP 

There has to come a point of reckoning or else why do we pretend that there is such a thing as the rule of law? You simply can't take stuff out of the Oval Office and stick it in your closet at home if it is classified certain ways or if it belongs in the National Archives. The man overtly puts the Presidential Seal on everything in sight at his resorts and on his golf courses in clear contravention of the law. His other transgressions are so numerous as to defy comprehension by reasonable, rational people. There has to come a point of reckoning.

 

STUPID STUFF IS BACK, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019: BEETLES, STONERS, GRETA, AND STATUES

Beetle Painted on a Bus. That's all. Just that.

Shakespeare, Dumas, Steven King, Quentin Tarantino, and George Carlin are just a few famous wordsmiths who smithed words while stoned on cannabis. And here I am with just a glass of rosé in my hand. No wonder only three people are reading this.

Greta Thunberg is both smarter and wiser than Donald Trump. That's all. Just that.

John Dillinger's niece thinks that someone else is buried in the grave marked with his name. She says that the FBI shot the wrong guy. The FBI tweeted a denial of the allegation. Tell the truth. Did you ever think that you could read that last sentence and take it seriously? The FBI tweeted a denial of the allegations?

Officials on Easter Island are contemplating ways to discourage visitors from taking pictures of themselves picking the noses of the giant statues. That's all. Just that.

I read trashy novels to pass the time. Another trashy novel, another head-scratching scene. The American good guys seeking an ancient treasure are being driven around the UK by a native Brit, who asks if they want to see a soccer game. OK, you Brits in the audience. When was the last time that you called a football match a soccer game? And that author received money from me, through Kindle Unlimited, for reading that tripe while the three people that are reading this are doing so for free. There is no justice.

IMPEACHMENT: FOR EUROPEANS AND FOR AMERICANS WHO THINK THAT THEY KNOW BUT DON'T

Talk of the possibility of impeaching President Trump is in the news. As an expat living in France, I've had occasion to explain just what impeachment means and how it works to some of my European friends. For the curious among you, here's the down and dirty version.

There are two ways that the American Constitution provides for the removal from office of a duly elected, living President.

Amendment XXV of the Constitution was ratified about 50 years ago and cleans up a couple of lingering questions including the provision of a path for succession should a living President be unable to fulfill the duties of the office through illness or other circumstance. Although there are those who would declare Trump unfit under Amendment XXV, that's really not a serious possibility.

Impeachment, however, is a serious possibility these days. Written into the body of the Constitution is the following:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. 

Note the distinction between impeachment and conviction. Impeachment roughly corresponds to an indictment. The House of Representatives impeaches (indicts) through a majority vote and supplies the managers (prosecutors). The President (defendant) chooses his/her own counsel, not necessarily elected politicians. The Senate acts as the jury. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presides. A two-thirds vote of  the Senators present is required for conviction. The only penalty for conviction is removal from office.

Note the listed causes for impeachment. Treason and bribery speak for themselves. But what is the definition of a high crime or misdemeanor? In simple, real world terms, the answer to that question is that high crimes or misdemeanors are whatever the House says that they are. The history of Presidential impeachments is instructive in this regard.

Two Presidents have been impeached. Democrat Andrew Jackson was impeached by a Republican Congress in an egregious display of partisanship, primarily because of Jackson's refusal to adhere to a law, later deemed unconstitutional, designed to limit his Presidential power. He was acquitted by one vote on three of eleven articles of impeachment. Following the third acquittal, his trial was adjourned. Democrat Bill Clinton was impeached by a Republican Congress for lying under oath concerning his sexual activity with an intern and for attempting to obstruct the investigation. Neither of the two articles of impeachment managed to gain a clear majority of Senators, much less two-thirds.

It would not be a stretch to say that both impeachments were politically motivated and not based on circumstances that the Founders had in mind. But they were, nonetheless, legitimate. They followed form. There's a saying in American jurisprudence: A good prosecutor can convince a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. Although a President is not a ham sandwich, the point is valid when it comes to impeachment. The House, sitting as a grand jury, can indict for whatever reason that it chooses.

Contrary to popular belief, Richard Nixon was not impeached, much less convicted. After the House Judiciary Committee passed articles of impeachment, it was clear that the House as a whole would vote to impeach, But it was not certain initially that the Senate would convict. After release of a particularly incriminating recording and after the Saturday Night Massacre (when Nixon fired high-level Justice Department officials who would not order an end to investigations), conviction in the Senate became a virtual certainty. Nixon resigned.

Can Trump be impeached? Certainly. Will he be impeached? Right now, that's an open question. I personally believe that he is most likely to be impeached if he continues to order that House subpoenas for testimony and documents be ignored. If that continues after a Supreme Court ruling against him, he most definitely will be impeached. If impeached, would he be convicted? Under that circumstance, defiance of a Supreme Court ruling, I have to believe that he will be. But we're not there yet. Like Speaker of the House Pelosi, my inclination is to go slowly and see if Trump obliges by putting the noose around his own neck.

STUPID STUFF - APRIL/MAY, 2019: SPEEDING PIDGEON, LYFT, US TAXES, REALITY, AND MORE

A German speed camera recently snapped a picture of a pidgeon flying 45 kph in a 30 kph zone. Law enforcement does not believe that an arrest is imminent.

In response to a lawsuit concerning the Americans with Disabilities Act, Lyft's lawyers argued in court that Lyft is not a transportation company. They are a technology platform. That's like Ben and Jerry saying that they don't make ice cream. They provide cultural commentary that tastes good. UPDATE: The EU courts have just ruled that Airbnb is not a real estate company. It's a technology platform! Live long and be amazed...

The US Congress has moved forward the (intentionally?) misnamed Taxpayer First Act that would prohibit the government from developing free tax preparation software. Sellers of for-profit software who distribute campaign contributions on a bipartisan basis helped write the legislation. But campaign contributions have nothing to do with the legislation, right? And contributions from Big Pharma had nothing to do with Congress forbidding Medicare from negotiating prescription drug prices either. Right? Or am I missing something?

"[If he] was smart, he would’ve put his name on it  You’ve got to put your name on stuff or no one remembers you."

Who said it? Where was it said? Who might we forget?

During a recent visit, Trump said that George Washington should have put his name on Mount Vernon. Otherwise, why would we remember him? I guess that Washington wasn't smart.

A scientist from Harvard says that it is likely that we are living in a computer simulation, that a sufficiently technologically advanced society could create such a simulation and that we could probably do so ourselves in 100 years or so.
      Scientists at Oxford say that they have proven, using quantum physics, that the reality that we experience could not be a simulation, that there is such a thing as a discernible, definable objective reality. Let the debate begin. Is there such a thing as objective reality or is all that we experience a shared construct? Is Schrodinger's Cat alive or dead? Is Schrodinger's Cat alive AND dead?
      A more important question might be: Will global warming effect the taste of my favorite wine or the price of my favorite wine? These are the sorts of problems that define my reality for me.

Mitch McConnell, who loves to call out Democrats for obstruction, has approved a re-election video touting his obstruction of Obama's pick of Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court.

Theresa May is the PM. Jeremy Corbyn is the leader of the opposition. Nigel Farage is running in the upcoming EU elections to represent the UK in an institution that he wants to leave. Boris Johnson could very well be the next PM, otherwise it might be Corbyn.

You can't make stuff like this up. That's why it belongs in Stupid Stuff.

PEANUT BUTTER, E-TAIL, AND YES, BREXIT AND TRUMP: JANUARY, 2019 RANT

PEANUT BUTTER

What's so hard about it? You take a pile of peanuts, you grind 'em up, you put the resulting paste in a jar, and there you have it. Peanut butter. High in protein. Calorie dense, yes. But not excessively so. It's good for you, dammit. And if you keep it simple without adding sweeteners or stirring in chocolate, it's an inexpensive, natural food.

Peanut butter is an essential part of my daily breakfast. I take a few fibrous crackers (fiber is good for you), spread some peanut butter on them (for morning protein), and cover the peanut butter with blackberry jam (high in vitamin C). In preparation for this post, I even read about a 2009 study that found that rats who were fed blackberries had improved cognitive and motor skills over a control group. So don't give me a hard time for breakfasting on PB&J. Nobody's going to mess with my cognitive skills by putting me in a control group, thank you very much.

Apparently, however, the French don't appreciate the benefits of the humble goober and its accompanying comestibles. When we first arrived in France going on five years ago, I found jars of the heavenly paté d'arachide for under 5€/kg. Cheap as chips. Over the years, more and more imported jars became available - Skippy and Reese's and others - but they sold for 10€/kg. 14€/kg, and more. Fine. Go gourmet if you must. The cheap stuff was still available.

Until now.

Gone from E.Leclerc. Gone from Carrefour. Gone from Géant. Gone. I either have to spend way too much money or give up peanut butter altogether. The French can't keep Nutella on the shelves, for heaven's sake. They make a spreadable paste out of Speculos, the French equivalent of graham crackers. But peanut butter? Can't be bothered. As one frustrated blogger has complained, the French will slather garlic butter on snails but find peanut butter disgusting? How does that work?

There's no excuse for it. No excuse.

E-TAIL IN FRANCE

Jeff Bezos is a genius. Well, except for the prenup thing. But the idea that you don't need a brick-and-mortar store to build a retail empire was inspired. In France, Amazon's major e-tail competitor, pale by comparison, is Cdiscount. I don't use Cdiscount much, mostly to comparison shop. And sure enough, when Cathey decided that she needed another wall-mounted kitchen cabinet, Cdiscount came up with the winner. A close match to our current cabinets, which are of course no longer in production, and reasonably priced as well. Free delivery. I made the order.

Do you want to join our discount club?

No.

Free for the first month. Are you certain?

Yes. I'm certain. Can I buy the cabinet, please.

(Remember, this is all in French. At times like this, Google Translate is your friend.)

Okay. Credit card please.

And so I paid. And so I discovered that Cdiscount would not be the supplier of the cabinet. No. Cdiscount, having received payment, sent me to Comforium, a purveyor of kitchen and bathroom cabinets. Apparently Belgian. At least, it appears that the cabinet would be coming from Belgium.

I quickly received an email from Comforium confirming my order and giving me a delivery date of no later than November 27. So far so good.

On December  3, I emailed Comforium and copied Cdiscount. Where's the cabinet?

It's being prepared for shipment.

When can I expect it?

Next week.

Repeat on December 17.

Repeat on December 24. I added that if the cabinet did not arrive the following week, I would expect my money back. If that seems unduly patient of me, you must understand. This is France. Not quite Mexico, but certainly not the United States. You expect timely communication? You expect timely delivery? What planet do you live on?

You learn patience or you stroke out.

On January 7, I received an email from Comforium. The cabinet that I ordered isn't in stock any more and there's not a date certain for restock. With Google translate in reserve, I initiated an online chat with Comforium. Cathey and I had gone up on the Comforium website and had found a cabinet substantially the same as the one that we had ordered but without windows in the doors. A little icon indicated that it was in stock. Fingers crossed...

Could we order that one instead? Reference number so-and-so...

Yes. it's in stock. I'll have customer service call you to confirm.

I'd really rather have them email me. I have trouble understanding French on the phone.

Noted.

Of course, within the hour, customer service called. But I got through it. Then came an email with a link to follow to track the order.

Meanwhile, Cdiscount sent me an email. Your refund should arrive within 72 hours. Hmmm. And yes, a couple of days later a full refund appeared in my bank account. The same day, the cabinet left Belgium. And yesterday I received a voicemail announcing delivery tomorrow between 13h00 and 15h00.

Will the cabinet arrive? Will the driver expect payment? If not, will either Comforium or Cdiscount realize that they've shipped me a free cabinet?

Stay tuned.

BREXIT AND TRUMP

Holy Shit! That's all. Just that. Holy Shit!

THE CELEBRITY BOOK CLUB

My summer reading list...





Pride and Prejudice by Donald Trump: An autobiography.
  
What Kind Of Fool Am I? by Jeremy Corbyn: Speaks for itself.

The Animal Firm by Rudy Giuliani: Lawyers challenged by truthiness.

Eat, Drink, Comb by Boris Johnson: The zen of scalp maintenance.

Norwegian Wood by Madonna: Searching Scandinavia for the right man.

How Brown Was My Valley by Scott Pruitt: He tried.

The Pussy Monologues by Donald Trump: It'll grab you.

King Leer by Harvey Weinstein: Absolute power corrupts. 

Flowers in the Attic by Bill Clinton: Where else would he put her?

The Mitch in the Willows by Senator McConnell: Public service leads to Toady Hall.

The Lyin' King by Donald Trump: A political procedural.

Where the Child Things Are by Betsy DeVos: Searching to understand education.

The Magic Bus by Nigel Farage: Who?

Eat, Drink, Comb by Donald Trump: See above.

The Moose Trap by Boris and Natasha: With props to Agatha Christie.

SOUPY SALES, FACEBOOK, BREXIT, AND TRUMP: WHAT'S REALLY IMPORTANT - AUGUST, 2018

If your family in the USofA owned a television in the early days of broadcasting and as a child you were given the opportunity to watch it, you had many shows to choose from. They're considered classics now. Generally shown during late afternoons or on the weekends, kid shows included Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, Leave It to Beaver, Sky King, The Lone Ranger, Father Knows Best, Zorro, Make Room for Daddy, and a bunch more. Simple tales for a simpler time.

I didn't really enjoy the most popular kid shows that featured puppets. I was too young for Kukla, Fran and Ollie and too old for Lamb Chop.  But there was one show that featured puppets and a couple who lived in a pot-bellied stove and giant talking dogs and a guy with a big bow tie. That guy was Soupy Sales and the show was Lunch with Soupy Sales and it was positively revolutionary. Check out this clip. It's eight minutes long. Settle in for some silliness.

Other than the fact that this clip always makes me laugh out loud, there's a good bit of gentle subversion going on here. This was the mid 1960s. Did you notice the offhand dig at the military draft at the time of the Vietnam War? And Soupy was a great lover of jazz. Most folks outside of Detroit don't know that at the same time that Soupy spent his days entertaining kids (and their hip parents) on local TV when he was just starting out, at night he hosted a comedy show that featured all of the great jazz artists coming through Detroit, at the time a true jazz mecca. Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Stan Getz, Milt Jackson, Charlie Parker, and Clifford Brown were among those who appeared. I've read that Miles Davis was on Soupy's show five times. So in the above clip, on a kids show, you have an Oscar Peterson jazz piece kicking off a sketch and a John Lee Hooker blues tune finishing it off. In the middle, a pun about the draft. Heady stuff for network television back in the day.

Once we realized some years later that network television had settled into its rightful place as the home of police procedurals and reality programming, we turned to the internet. Facebook. It was new. It was hip. The kids were into it. So, like a granny wearing skinny jeans and high-heeled sandals to the beach accompanied by her Speedo-attired husband with his gut hanging out over his junk, we pretended that we were hip, too. And in the process, we chased out the kids who were the ones who made Facebook hip in the first place. They've gone elsewhere. But we're still on Facebook, posting videos of our cats, of our grandchildren, and of the signs that we waved at that march last week against (or for) something or other.

And with the onslaught of adults, politics are taking over Facebook. And like Bexit and Trump, lots of what's being said doesn't make much sense. For instance, I'm an old-fashioned liberal Democrat. I don't know what a neo-liberal is. Every time that someone tries to explain it to me, it comes out sounding like a neo-liberal is really a conservative. On one Facebook post, Margaret Thatcher was described to me as a neo-liberal. I can hear her laughing. About the only thing liberal about Thatcher was her liberally-voiced contempt for liberalism. So you can call me what you want. I'm a liberal. Period.

And that's what's really important. You can say anything about anything or anybody on Facebook and the only filters are the comments, ranting for and against, often hidden from view. A red bus proclaiming that Brexit would add £461 million per week to NHS funding found its way all over the internet, seen by millions more people than could ever have seen that bus in person. Does anybody today really think that, after Brexit, the NHS will suddenly find itself fully funded? Trump showed up at a factory in Indiana during the Presidential campaign and told the workers that he would save their jobs. I saw a clip of his speech on Facebook. The company moved operations to Mexico anyway. Do those workers get to change their vote?

Let's be clear. As much as we enjoy Facebook, as much as it has enriched our lives with videos of kittens wrestling with parrots, it has also been used by folks with less benign motives. In fact, even the most well-intentioned among us have been known to disseminate incomplete, confusing, or downright false information. But there are those of us, completely taken with this new communal toy, who will believe without reservation that there's a pedophile ring operated by Hillary Clinton located under a pizzeria in Washington DC. I understand from some of my English friends that there are those who would be perfectly happy with Boris as PM. What are we going to do with people like that? Just yesterday, Trump's lawyer said, "Truth isn't truth." That's straight out of 1984 or Animal Farm.

Look. I get it. It's not Facebook's fault that people believe lies and that pernicious governments, our own or those of our enemies, take advantage social media for their own ends. But seriously. What are we going to do about it? I don't know. Do you?



 

WHAT'S REALLY IMPORTANT - MAY, 2018: NICOLA, GIULIANI, AND MULVANEY

I've been thinking about starting a YouTube channel as a companion piece to my blog. Nothing fancy. A little political commentary, stabs at humor, tidbits about life in France. And I haven't been able to start it. And I know why. It's Nicola's fault.

Nicola Blakemore lives in Quarante. Cathey and I like her, count her as a friend. But we don't get to see her as often as we'd like. Nicola is an artist who supports herself through her art in a variety of ways. She accepts commissions. She's built a formidable presence on the internet. She gives courses in person and online, posts videos, works Facebook and other social media. It's time consuming work, a full-time job. And as a result of her hard work, Nicola's YouTube channel has 6,000 subscribers and features video after video, from a few seconds to a few minutes long, that often have several thousand views. (Check her channel out HERE. Tell her that I sent you.) Her video that teaches you to paint a pot of lavender has been viewed over 123,000 times! (I find something slightly disturbing about the image of 100,000 identical watercolors of a pot of lavender floating around in the world. Think about it.) Nicola has even set up her workspace as a little video studio complete with white umbrellas to focus light.

It's intimidating. I want to be that good. So I read and I study and I think and I don't get started.

That's going to change. I watched a video the other day on some kid's channel by accident while cruising YouTube. I was astounded. It was horrible. I mean, HORRIBLE. Cheap production, cheesy visuals, and an unfamiliarity with the English language that provides proof that, in at least this young gent's case, public education has failed miserably. Oh, he's heard of The Beatles, or at least a couple of them. And he's heard a song or two of theirs that are alright, he guesses. But what's really important is that his channel had 6,000 subscribers and the video that I'd stumbled on had over 200,000 views.

So I'm just gonna put myself out there once I get a video editing program sorted. I'll try to be as good as Nicola. I can't possibly be as bad as Millennial Dude, whatever his name was. If I land somewhere in the middle, I'll be happy. Yeah, it means settling for mediocrity. I'll own that. Stay tuned.

But that's all beside the point. The point is Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani has said that Trump knew about Cohen's payment to Stormy and that Trump paid Cohen back. Slow down. Reflect. You know which Trump I'm talking about. The Donald. Right? You know that Rudy Giuliani has joined Trump's legal team, even if you thought that Rudy's name would never come up again except in sentences containing the words Fox News or divorce proceedings. Right? You know that Michael Cohen is Trump's fixer, his consigliere. Right? You know that Stormy refers to Stormy Daniels, a woman whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, who has claimed to have had a sexual liaison with Trump, who signed a non-disclosure agreement about said affair, and who received a payment for her silence. Right? And you know that the amount of the payment was $130,000. Right?

Have you slowed down? Have you reflected?

Aren't you just the least bit embarrassed that you know all of that shit already?

But that's all beside the point. The point is Mick Mulvaney. Mulvaney is a former member of the US House of Representatives. He's Trump's former White House Budget Director. He currently serves - in the loosest definition of that term - as temporary head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Saying that Mulvaney serves in that capacity is like saying that Bonnie and Clyde worked in banking or that the Brewster sisters know fine wine. (What would an erudite blog be without an obscure movie reference? The Brewster sisters? Arsenic and Old Lace?)

Mulvaney recently said, and I quote: "We had a hierarchy in my office in Congress. If you’re a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you. If you’re a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you." Incredible. I checked with snopes.com. Twice. He really said that. He really said that he only talked to lobbyists who gave him money. HE REALLY SAID THAT! To be fair, Mulvaney also said that he always talked to a constituent whether they gave him money or not. If you believe that, I have a bridge connecting two New York City boroughs that I can let you have cheap.

What burns my butt is that the Mulvaney is still working, still spending his days protecting financial consumers like us, and still getting paid for it. How is that possible? Whatever happened to righteous indignation? The fact that the American people haven't dragged this guy out of his office, tarred and feathered him, and run him out of town on a rail says a great deal about the ability of the American public to eat shit and say that it tastes like strawberries.

So what's really important here? What's important is that we've somehow allowed the morally repugnant to become acceptable. We have been so overwhelmed by the misdeeds of the people who we have chosen to govern us that we can no longer call up the energy to do more than march once a year or so, parade around with punny signs that go viral on the internet, then get back home in time to catch the latest episode of Elementary. (I am soooo glad that the season has finally started.)

How do we fix this?  It's up to you. The top five suggestions will win a trip to Washington, a cot and a sleeping bag, and the right to camp out in Mick Mulvaney's office until he's forced to resign.

You can read more of my political commentary HERE, free and worth every penny.




 

TRUMP CLEANS HOUSE AT FBI

Frustrated that probable political fallout prevents him from firing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein or former Director of the FBI and current Special Counsel Robert Mueller, President Donald Trump announced a sweeping reorganization of the FBI, firing Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully in an early morning tweet:

"Just like Rosenstein and Mueller, Mulder and Scully have been in bed together from the beginning. BAD NEWS! YOU'RE FIRED!"

When told that Mulder and Scully were television characters who couldn't possibly be FBI agents and therefore he couldn't fire them, Trump replied,"So what? I'm a television character and I became President of the United States. If you're not careful, anything can happen."

Indeed...

(For those of you who don't watch television, Mulder and Scully were fictitious FBI agents who spent eight or ten seasons chasing extraterrestrials. And they did spend time in bed together.)

For more of my writing on American and world politics, some serious and some not so ,much, click HERE.

AN AMERICAN EXPAT'S TAKE ON WORLD POLITICS: PART 3 - TRUMP

When talk about politics among English-speaking expats here in the south of France turns to the USofA, two questions are inevitably asked.

1. How did Donald Trump manage to get himself elected President of the United States?
This is a technical question, asked by those who are aware that Clinton received 3,000,000 more votes than Trump.

2. How did Donald Trump manage to get himself elected President of the United States?
This is a philosophical question, asked by those who do not understand the current body politic in the United States or, for that matter, in much of the modern world.

Let's take these questions one at a time.

THE MECHANICS OF AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
A quick rehash of the fact that American Presidential elections are fought state by state is in order. The coastal American states are relatively few but with highly concentrated populations. The interior states are less populated but are more numerous. While Clinton racked up big wins on the two coasts, Trump nearly swept the interior. So, in simple terms, although Clinton won the popular vote, Trump won the vote in a majority of the states and therefore the Presidency.

BUT HOW DID IT HAPPEN? REALLY?
I've struggled mightily with this question. I have come to a simple, five-part answer:
Racism
Misogyny
Fear
Denial
Self-Deception

I have no explanation for the existence of racism, misogyny, or the fear that goes with them. I suspect that they are the result of manipulation by those seeking power in order that they may rule us by dividing us. I will not spend more time on that except to say that persons who exhibited those traits made up the core of Trump's base. Such seems to be the way with many Western populists.

Denial and self-deception are more interesting to me because they provide the basis for otherwise rational people to make irrational choices. And in the end, that's who elected Trump, otherwise rational people making an irrational choice. No, there were not enough racists to elect a President in the US, nor enough misogynists. But when you add those in denial, those blithely turning a blind eye, Trump becomes possible.

Denial and self-deception also explain why Trump is still revered by some. Take the budget recently passed by the American Congress. That budget includes both deep tax cuts and increased spending that combined will surely result in huge deficits. Republicans no longer even pretend differently. Yet political conservatives by and large welcome Trump with open arms. The only way that a conservative can approve of such financial brinkmanship is to jettison the policy cornerstones to which fiscal conservatives have adhered for decades. Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan must either be in denial that he ever held those principles in the first place or be deceiving himself into believing that they never mattered. I don't know Ryan. I can't say which explanation is true. But he's on record. He used to be a fiscal conservative. No other explanation for him applauding the current budget than denial and/or self-deception is possible.

Here's an example from a different but relevant conversation that has been raging online recently. How will we address gun violence in America? A picture of the black actor Samuel L. Jackson is circulating on social media accompanied by the following quote: "I grew up in the south with guns everywhere and we never shot anyone." (I've been on his site. It is apparently a valid quote.) A Southern black man who grew up during the civil rights struggle in the American South somehow fails to mention that, while he may never have shot anyone, or his friends may never have shot anyone, Emmitt Till is dead and Medgar Evers is dead and Michael Schwerner is dead and Andrew Goodman is dead and James Chaney is dead and Martin Luther King, Jr. is dead. And more. In the South. Through gun violence. The irony is stunning. The only way that a man like Jackson can own such a quote is to be so deep in denial as to be immune to reason.

Thus, Trump. There is no way to soften it. I cannot find a path to civility or, for that matter, forgiveness. I have listened closely to my American friends rationalize the circumstances that led to Trump's election. I understand the battle between Sanders and Clinton in the Democrat Party primaries took its toll. I understand that bots backed by big dollars and/or foreign governments messed with social media. But in the end, people voted. And the reason that they voted for Trump boils down to those five, simple reasons. Hard to swallow. Harder to deny.
Racism
Misogyny
Fear
Denial
Self-Deception

Read more of my political musings HERE. I'll wrap these musings up with a fourth in the series presently.

TRUMP COUNTERS PUTIN'S NUCLEAR THREAT

In response to Russian President Vladimir Putin's announcement that Russia was perfecting a nuclear-armed missile against which there could be no defense, President Trump announced that the United States had already considered its response.

"I've met with Wayne LaPierre and we agree. The only way to stop a bad guy with a nuke is by giving the good guys nukes. To that end, I have authorized the distribution of our entire nuclear arsenal to our friends in the Ukraine, where my good buddy Paul Manafort assures me that they will be put to good use, as well as to our allies in Saudi Arabia and in Taiwan. What could possibly go wrong?"

US Senator Marco Rubio commented,"Gee, I wish I had thought of that. Maybe we could get a few of those bad boys for my friends in Little Havana."

US Vice President Mike Pence could not be reached for comment. His spokesperson said Pence had traveled to Jerusalem to await the Rapture.

CALIFORNIA DEMOCRAT PARTY CHAIRWOMAN HOSPITALIZED

Heather McFeather, Chairwoman of the California Democrat Party, was admitted to Los Angeles Memorial Hospital with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The injury occurred shortly after the Party refused to endorse the re-election bid of US Senator Dianne Feinstein. The hospital reported a spate of similar hospitalizations since the Presidential election of 2016.

"More and more politicians, primarily Democrats, seem to be shooting themselves in the foot," according the hospital's press release."Our thoughts and prayers are with McFeather, for whatever they are worth."

In a related story, President Trump tweeted: Now McFeather knows how painful bone spurs in your feet can be.

ELECTION STUPIDITY CROSSES THE ATLANTIC

I tried for something light. Satire or sarcasm. I just couldn't. First the Americans. Then the French. Same song, second verse.

Trump was normalized by a media fascinated by personality. He wasn't dangerous. Oh, no. He wasn't a threat to orderly governance. Oh, no. He was at worse a fool, concerned with image and ratings. An almost lovable fool. But dangerous? Oh, no. Anyway, he'll never get elected

Clinton was not a valid alternative, they said. A tool of Wall Street. An opportunist. The candidate of the establishment. Just as bad as Trump. Forget her early work with migrants, knocking on doors for McGovern, her voter registration drives, her work for women's rights both at home and abroad. You just can't trust her. I read it on Facebook.

A pox on both their houses.

Americans are just beginning to see the result of their naivete. Let's look at two horrible examples.

America first? That's what Trump said. Then MOAB in Afghanistan, troops on the ground in Syria and Somalia. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. When has an Anglo-European intervention in the Middle East ever led to the desired result? Hundreds of years of history tell us that the answer to that question is NEVER. But somehow, this time will be different?

We are told that Trump's tax cuts will be paid for through economic growth. I repeat, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Not since Kennedy's time has a tax cut served as a significant stimulant. Of course, in those days the top individual rate was 91% and the top corporate rate 52%. There was room to provide stimulus. But both the Reagan and the GWB tax cuts resulted in huge deficits and eventually recession. Really, we need to try riding that old horse again?

You'd think that the example was there for all to see. But nooooooo......

Le Pen is smart, charismatic, good looking. Not her father. She isn't dangerous. Oh, no. She isn't a threat to orderly governance. Oh, no. She is at worse simply a socially conservative rabble rouser with Daddy issues trying to get attention. But dangerous? Oh, no. Anyway, she'll never get elected.

And who the heck is this Macron kid? A banker? Married to his teacher? Never held elective office? He is just not a valid alternative. A tool of the Rothchilds. An opportunist. The candidate of the establishment.

A pox on both their houses.

Insanity is doing the same thing...