OPEN LETTER TO MY REPUBLICAN FRIENDS

Dear Republicans,

Although no longer resident in the United States, my wife and I follow the news closely. We do so by faithfully scanning internet sites that aggregate news and opinion. We believe that this gives us a broad view of current events from a variety of perspectives since Flipboard, for instance, draws from sites as diverse as Fox News and Huffington Post, CNN and Al Jazeera and Business Insider and Forbes. And every November, we vote.

My point? I’m at arm’s length from the hurly-burly of the 24-hour news cycle but I’m still a reasonably knowledgeable news junkie. I am aware of the outlier sites, the ‘alt right’ and ‘progressive’ sites that claim to be presenting the real skinny on current events. I just don’t pay them much mind. Take my opinions for what they are worth but understand that they are the product of serious thought and not from having drunk someone else’s Kool-Aid. 

Trump is my President just as GWB was my President and Obama was yours. I say this even though Bush in 2000 and Trump in 2016 both lost the popular vote. I say this not because I think that Trump’s election win was illegitimate. I say this because I am tired of hearing Republicans talking about the will of the people. As of today, 2 million more people voted for Hillary than voted for Trump. The will of the people has been thwarted by a Constitutional compromise reached over 200 years ago for reasons that had nothing to do with protecting the democratic process and a great deal to do with keeping slave-holding states in the union. 

And speaking of losing the popular vote, where is the consistency in claiming that you lost the popular vote due to massive voter fraud, then damning Stein in a series of late night tweets for calling for a recount in the closest battleground states? And speaking of late night tweets, if SNL skits and actors speaking to his Vice President from a Broadway stage enrage Trump, wait until he attends a G12 summit and real heavyweights get on his case. 

But far worse, Trump is blaming the media for ‘inciting’ protest marches. He’s called in media bigwigs to excoriate them. After using the media as a puppet to provide hundreds of millions of dollars of free publicity, the worm turns. And we know what sort of leaders around the world, as their first acts in office, attempt to cow or muzzle a free press.

Trump continues to make it known that he doesn’t want the US to be spending money to address climate change at the same time that he claims to understand the importance of the availability of clean, potable water. It’s hard to reconcile those two positions. How do you protect the southern Florida aquifer from salt water incursion without addressing rising ocean levels? How do you secure potable water for the American Southwest without doing what’s necessary to ameliorate atmospheric heating conditions that have led to severe and persistent drought? And how will Pence, a notorious denier of climate change, effect Trump’s thinking?

And how can you refuse national security briefings and tell Pakistani’s head of state over the phone that he’s a terrific guy? 

So while I am willing to give Trump a chance, I am not encouraged. He has a steep learning curve to climb. He needs to demonstrate the seriousness due the Presidency.

Let’s see if the equity markets move as high as they moved under Obama. Let’s see if the dollar strengthens against the euro even half as much as it did under Obama. Let’s see if the annual deficit is reduced by the same measure and as inexorably as it has been reduced under Obama. Let’s see if he builds a wall and makes Mexico pay for it.

And for all the fear of terrorism on our shores, let’s see if the record under Obama of fewer Americans annually dying from terrorism than dying from having appliances fall on them remains intact.

Or will Trump follow the legacies of his Republican predecessors. GWB was President when the worst recession since the Great Depression began as measured by decline in GDP. Eisenhower was President at the beginning of the second worst. Nixon was President at the beginning of the third worst. Reagan was President at the beginning of the fourth worst. Republicans all. Now Trump…

I’ll be watching. I won’t be the only one.

Affectionately,

Ira

IRA'S STUPID STUFF AND BOWIE DOING PINK FLOYD - EARLY OCTOBER 2016

1. A man was arrested on a New Jersey beach wearing a 'swimsuit' made of clear plastic wrap. Island Beach State Park, my favorite Jersey beach, had the honor of hosting the show. The investigation before the arrest took two days, during which time the police report says that his genitals were clearly in full view. I guess the police had to be careful how they handled the evidence.

2. My Presidential candidates spend late nights on Twitter either ranting about sex or replying to rants about sex. I'm asleep. They should be too. If they are asleep, it's somebody from their campaigns posting on Twitter. Either way, they both should be ashamed at the depths to which this campaign has sunk. I certainly am.

3. Nigel Farage is back. That's all. Just that.
3a. Tim Tebow is now a professional baseball player. That's all. Just that.

4. Although Florida Governor Rick Scott denies having created the policy, a former lawyer for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection says that employees were banned from using such terms as 'climate change' and 'global warming'. Now, Hurricane Matthew. Certainly, Florida has been devastated by hurricanes in the past. I saw for myself the havoc wrought by Andrew. But with flooding on the streets of Miami a common occurrence when the winds blow onshore during a normal high tide, let's hope that Matthew veers away to the east or at least brushes past at low tide. Otherwise...

5. On a Sunday talk show, Trump surrogate Rudy Giuliani resented being asked about his admitted marital infidelities while speculating about Hillary and Bill. Why are we listening to Giuliani in the first place? I guess because New York's Roman Catholic former mayor had three wives and one of them forced him to sleep on the couch during his tenure, making Giuliani a leading expert on marital infidelity by public figures. Alongside Gingrich. And Trump. Maybe that's why Giuliani said 'everybody does it'. All of his political friends did.

This works. Cumberbatch? Not so much. 

(Or didn't you know that Gilmour brought Cumberbatch 

up recently to do Comfortably Numb with him?)

IRA'S STUPID STUFF AND ARETHA - MID SEPTEMBER 2016

1. Researchers looking in places with high incidences of traffic congestion have found magnetite in peoples' brains, not the natural type but the stuff that comes out of car exhausts. The natural type is found in the plaques in the brain that often accompany Alzheimer's Disease. So car exhausts may cause...

Shit!

2. My Granny could run the 100 yard dash in 9 seconds flat. Uber is a ride-sharing service. Which of these statements is true? Did you answer NOTA (None Of The Above)? Good for you. Because Nana might have been quick, but she wasn't fast. And every Uber driver travels from the mall to the grocery store to the burbs and back again and back again and back again every day and is just looking to share the cost...

3. Continuing on a car theme...Headline: Paris Police Thwart Car Bombing
A car parked in a No Parking Zone near Notre Dame Cathedral, hazard flashers flashing, without license plates, sat for two hours before the police investigated. They found that the car had seven gas canisters inside, one empty. There was no detonation device. If they'd only let the car alone for another day or two, maybe a meteorite would have hit the car and exploded the canisters.

4. Profs teaching a course entitled "Medical Humanities in the Digital Age" said that they were not going to debate the causes of global warming and that those who wished to do so should not take the course. Internet breaks. It's getting hotter. It's hotter this year than last and hotter last year than the year before. If you don't believe that the 'pause' in warming is a hoax, you don't believe math. The trend line is undeniable.

The course in question is about the effect of that undeniable heating and not its cause. Would it make sense for profs in a paleo-archeology class to suggest that persons who believe that Earth was created 6,000 years ago might not benefit from the course? You betcha! Every point of contention is not debatable in every context.

5. Apple paid an effective tax rate of 0.005% on its European profits. So, after a three-year investigation by the EU, Apple got hit with a 13,000,000,000 euro back tax bill. CEO Cook calls the ruling 'political crap'. IMHO, the definition of crap is the deal that Apple made with the Irish government. I couldn't make that deal. You couldn't make that deal. Nobody that we know could make that deal. Put on your Man Pants, Apple. Get taxed like the rest of us.

6. Geneticists have determined that human hands probably evolved from the tail fins of fish. Maybe not stupid, but interesting. Don't you think?

Carole King was honored at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She was blown away when Aretha sat at the piano to play and sing RESPECT. So were Barack and Michelle and everybody in the audience and everybody who has seen the video. Neat stuff.

#16 - BEATLES OR STONES, HIROSHIMA, DROUGHT

BEATLES OR STONES
Keith Richards is quoted in a recent interview as saying of Sgt. Pepper, “Some people think it’s a genius album, but I think it’s a mishmash of rubbish.”

Well, the First Amendment guarantees that even elderly, slightly confused Brits have a right to their opinions. And I will not dispute that The Stones are the most enduring bar band in history. (I would cede them the title of Greatest Bar Band if it weren't for the fact that Springsteen and I are both Jersey boys.) But The Beatles were different.

The Beatles were a band that honed their skills in clubs and could hold their own with kick-butt versions of tunes like Roll Over, Beethoven and You Really Got A Hold On Me and Twist and Shout and Money. But then they went a step further. They created or heavily influenced entire genres, from acid rock to thrash metal to casino crooners. Steps further. And oddly enough, those steps included paying back their roots influences by giving folks like Stevie Wonder tunes like We Can Work It Out.

I'm glad that Keith Richards is still capable of walking and chewing gum. (Kidding. He can still lay down a fine groove, too.) But let's not get huffy over a competition for hearts and minds that was over nearly 50 years ago.

HIROSHIMA
As the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima approaches, folks are questioning anew the need to have dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese homeland. Self-examination is generally a good thing. But let's be clearheaded in our review of history.

I have no doubt that history will not look kindly on the scientists who created The Bomb and Truman for having authorized its use. "I am become Death," said Oppenheimer. Einstein rued both his scientific and political contributions to Hiroshima, however peripheral. And Truman was clearly conflicted. He had experienced war first-hand and knew its horrors. His later writings suggest that he became fully aware of how Hiroshima would shape his legacy and the future of international conflict.

But Truman viewed the Japanese through the lens of Pearl Harbor and through the Japanese treatment of prisoners of war. He had been briefed extensively on the projected cost of an American invasion of the Japanese home islands, 200,000 or more American casualties. And contrary to the current narrative, no credible proof exists that the Japanese were ready to surrender unconditionally. True, feelers from dissident Japanese had been received. But they were never officially sanctioned, never included unconditional surrender - necessary after Germany's total capitulation, never panned out, and in retrospect smelled a tad like the unofficial and ill-fated mission of  Rudolf Hess to England. The official Japanese response to peace feelers at the time was to treat them with contempt. Until Hiroshima, all the evidence points to the Japanese military planning a final, if fruitless, mortal struggle on Japanese soil.

I have often said that Americans have memories equivalent to that of fruit flies. In this case, that's assuming that they've ever heard or participated in a serious discussion of this issue at all. Our young people have difficulty locating their own navels in the dark, much less islands in the Pacific. And of all academic regimens subject to periodic mass testing, history always fares the worst. So the question should not be reduced to polling that asks random Americans their opinion of whether Hiroshima was necessary. Rather, we should do our due diligence to determine whether Truman's decision was justified by the information that he had at hand in 1945.

Yes, I think that it was. And may no American President, no world leader, no sophisticated dissident with a grudge and a handful of plutonium ever be tempted to enforce his/her will in a similar way in future.

DROUGHT
In 2014, President Obama and Governor Jerry Brown visited the farm of Joe and Maria Del Bosque in California's Central Valley. Due to the persistent California drought, portions of Del Bosque's 'viable farmland' (as described in an article on Yahoo! Politics) lay fallow. Now, one year later, Del Bosque is reportedly wondering if Obama understood his problem. Why has nothing been done? Why must he refrain from planting additional fields due to lack of water for irrigation?

Putting aside for the moment the history of rampant corruption when it comes to water policy in America's West, we have in microcosm the coming major cultural upheaval that shifting weather patterns will cause around the country and around the world. The agricultural 'viability' of Del Bosque's land was predicated on the availability of water for irrigation in a part of California where that water was not naturally available through rainfall or the aquifer. Just exactly what is government supposed to do about that? What is government capable of doing about that? And what will government be able to do when seawater pollutes the freshwater aquifer in south Florida?

'Viable' farmland will no longer be viable. Expecting politicians to bring rain or deepen the snow pack is ludicrous.

RANDOM THOUGHTS #8 - ROLLING STONES, STAIRWAY, CATHOLIC LEAGUE

ROLLING STONES
When 70 year-old Mick Jagger puts on a tight-fitting knit body suit, waves his arms in a cringe-worthy imitation of Twyla Tharp while strutting across the stage in Texas recently during the intro to Gimme Shelter, and the local newspaper critic raves about how rocking and relevant the Stones still are, can this mean anything other than that the Vandals are at the gates and Rome is about to fall?

STAIRWAY
On the other hand, just in case that you've forgotten...

CATHOLIC LEAGUE
Pope Francis is taking it from all sides.

First, very Catholic Rick Santorum says that Francis should leave discussion of climate change to the scientists, ignoring the fact that the Pope has a post-secondary certification in chemistry (although not a college degree as is sometimes reported) and that he's THE POPE, for heaven's sake. Since when do good Catholics tell the Pope to shut up?

Then Catholic League President Bill Donohue says that, although humans are clearly tasked in the Bible to be stewards of the Earth, there is nothing inherently evil about air pollution. Donohue is quoted further as saying that such issues as capital punishment and helping the poor are debatable and that the Pope is not necessarily the final word on such matters as far as Catholics are concerned, given that such topics don't involve the true purview of a Pope, faith and morals. You see, the First Amendment doesn't apply to the Pope. He's Italian. Or Argentinian. Whatever...

How do practicing Catholic's decide when to listen to the Pope and when his views are irrelevant? What is religion if not authoritarian, starting with an all-powerful God whose dictates are interpreted by his appointed earthly representatives? And who has more religious authority than the Pope? I can just imagine Santorum confronting a returning Jesus, complaining that it would cost the government too much money to feed the hungry and clothe the naked given the need to beef up the defense budget. How do you think that argument would fly with God's Son?

RANDOM THOUGHTS #7 - STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN/CLIMATE CHANGE, PEE WEE REESE, HILLARY/PROGRESSIVES

STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN/CLIMATE CHANGE

Ted Cruz is taking heat for not being willing to answer questions concerning climate change in relation to the flooding in Texas. He's right and he's wrong when he says that such questions are political and this is not the time to be debating the issue.

Cruz is right because there is simply no way to connect climate change to any single weather event. In fact, flooding in Texas is nothing new. Texas Flood, the tune made famous by Stevie Ray Vaughan on his 1983 debut album of the same name, is actually a cover. The tune was first recorded in 1958, performed and co-written by Larry Davis. (Although probably an Arkansan, Davis is considered a Texas blues man.) So Texans have been singing about flooding for more than 50 years.

Cruz is wrong because it's past time that we had serious discussions about climate change and, if the only time that we're paying attention is during these sorts of events, so be it. As is the case with so many topics of importance, the media needs a hook to anchor an in-depth report - a flood or a fire or a similar disaster. So if flooding in Texas or drought in California or streets awash in Miami is what it takes to get the ball rolling, let's get the ball rolling.

It's not political. It's survival. I have friends living in Florida. Even though the majority are SCUBA certified, I'd prefer that my next visit to them take place on dry land.

PEE WEE REESE
A sports blog that I read occasionally just posted a list of the five greatest shortstops of all time. They were, from the best first, Honus Wagner, Derek Jeter, Cal Ripkin Jr., Ozzie Smith, and Ernie Banks. Not a bad list. However, I have an addition. Pee Wee Reese.

Pee Wee's offensive stats were certainly not up there with four of the five. Pee Wee was a middling hitter at best with one .300 season and a career average of .262. Nor was he as slick a fielder as the likes of Ozzie, the defensive leader of the five, although defense was a hallmark of the Dodger teams of the mid-50s glory days. And I don't propose to include Pee Wee simply because he was the captain of my all-time favorite team - Dem Bums.

No, I include Pee Wee because he was the one guy who looked past Jackie Robinson's skin color and welcomed him to The Show in ways that made a difference. His open public acceptance of Jackie shamed many of his teammates and fans around the country. It was as important a friendship between black and white as any in the history of the civil rights movement.

Pee Wee is in the Hall of Fame as he should be. But he deserves credit for displaying skills far beyond those that he displayed between the lines. READ MORE HERE.

HILLARY/PROGRESSIVES
A funny thing happened to Hubert Humphrey on the way to the Presidency.

Humphrey, one of the most traditionally liberal Democrats ever to hold high public office, was sabotaged by the Left. Robert Kennedy hated LBJ's guts (on a visceral level and totally inappropriately, in my view) and tied Humphrey to a war that Johnson didn't start and couldn't win. Ditto Eugene McCarthy who, more than RFK, was the Peace candidate at the time. Humphrey is supposed to have asked LBJ for permission to take a more dovish public stance on Vietnam but was denied the opportunity by Johnson and decided to stay loyal to his President. Once Bobby was assassinated, Humphrey was a lock. Unfortunately, by the time the general election campaign began, Humphrey's battles with those in the Party who had positioned themselves to the Left of him left him too far behind Nixon to catch up.

Perhaps the most telling bit of irony occurred when Humphrey was booed at a Washington civil rights rally in the summer before the election, ironic because in 1948, 20 years earlier, Humphrey had been booed at the Democratic National Convention for being an early advocate of civil rights legislation and a civil rights plank in the Party platform.

And now we have Hillary who, I grant you, is not the most Progressive of Democrats. The attacks from the Left grow. If she is ultimately the candidate, she could end up in the same situation as Humphrey - too wounded to win the general election. If Hillary is not ultimately the candidate of the Democrats, the slash-and-burn that it will take for someone else to win will almost certainly weaken the Party to the point that the Republicans could walk away with the Presidency and both houses of Congress.

My hope is that Progressives will save their ire for Republicans and conduct a civil primary campaign that doesn't leave scars on the eventual winner. I also hope that Amelia Earhart is found alive and that Miley Cyrus will keep her clothes on in public. What are my chances?