Edition #1141

Monday. And, over the weekend, two US soldiers were killed with a third missing, after Iranian attacks on a US base in Jordan, after renewed attacks by the US, after Iranian attacks on shipping, after... I am not sure why all of this is reported as being a response to any specific attack on either side. It is just war, right?

“As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action; You liberate a city by destroying it.” Quote by Gore Vidal in The Atlantic. Yes, lots of that going around, with each side ignoring or downplaying instances by their own.

So if you were so inclined, you were glued to your preferred screen at 3:45 pm Pacific time last Thursday to watch the latest, actually the thirteenth, launch of SpaceX’s Starship. Personally, I was dragged away to assist in some errand, and so had it running on my cell phone, which is not my preferred screen. Forgetting about the trouble I got into for glancing while driving, I was stationary at a traffic light when the countdown clock displayed “three…two…one…” and then a display of smoke, a brief flash of ignition, and then…nothing. Apparently, as ignition was initiated, not all engines fired, and so an automatic abort was called by the computer. Nice to know that your safety and operational protocols work as intended…under the category of silver linings. But I assume that they have it all under control now, as there is another attempt scheduled for this afternoon at 3:45 pm Pacific time.

Which reminds me about how unrealistic many representations of the Moon in the night sky are. Here is a cute video that goes through many of the ways in which the Moon is depicted and why each misrepresents reality. The question revolves around the fact that the Moon is a ubiquitous object that we all see all of the time. We see it in all of its phases: full, crescent, half, and new. But look at how it is drawn in children’s books, in animated films, in art, and elsewhere. For one, physics would dictate that a crescent moon would have its endpoints stop at or before encompassing half of the Moon. It is a sphere that reflects light based on where three objects line up: the Moon, the Sun, and us. Aside from the way the Moon looks during an eclipse, the crescent will not extend over more than half of the disk. Next, how many times have you seen a depiction that shows stars in the space darkened due to the position of the Sun? Even if we don’t see that part of it, the Moon is still there, so that entire disk would hide any stars behind it. Geez. The last thing I will harp on here is the many times when the Moon’s depiction will not match the orientation of the Sun. Since this is merely the result of the Sun’s light reflecting off the Moon, keeping fealty to the laws of physics here should be easy, even if poetic license would like to say no.

I was reluctant to say anything about Trump’s speech last Thursday about election integrity. I mean, it was so full of new and determinative information to back up his long-repeated grievances of having won the 2020 election, but for massive fraud and voting by illegal immigrants, and claims of foreign interference, that the following morning, during the three-hour Fox News Fox & Friends, not one word of his speech was made. Wait, what? Tons of new documents were released by the White House during the speech. As I read, Trump referenced some of them as proof of his claims. But apparently not only did they not back up his claims, many of them actually contradicted them. One such document by US intelligence analysis stated: “We have no indications that any foreign actor attempted to alter any technical aspect of the voting process in the 2020 US elections, including voter registration, casting ballots, vote tabulation, or reporting results.” And this actually tracks with all prior investigations and conclusions by those inside and outside of Trump’s first administration. However, there are other means for interfering with election integrity.

………………..But for This Instance –

Here is a statement in part of a report by the NIC (National Intelligence Council): “We assess that adversaries could also make false claims about their ability to manipulate US election infrastructure as part of a broader effort to undermine confidence in US democratic processes. Much of the voting public probably knows little about the process of administering US elections, which could allow false narratives to gain traction. Government efforts to investigate and publicly invalidate such claims could take weeks or months, providing time for concerns about election security to spread.” Does this sound familiar? Does this remind you of anything that someone here in the US is and has been doing for the past six years? And can you see where this has been effective in convincing a significant percentage of those on the right that our elections have been compromised, even though there has not been a shred of evidence to support it? If this was done by a foreign power, we would be at war. If it was done by almost any individual, they would be in jail for treason. But it is the cult leader of what used to be the Republican Party. And so here we are.

Late last week, on the same day, I had two very different conversations about the state of the world. One with a very liberal friend, and the other with a somewhat conservative, but certainly not extreme, friend. And the only thing I can say is that I came away convinced that we are living in different worlds. Three worlds at least, with mine being somewhere between theirs. I first confronted my liberal friend with the stated policy priorities of the Democratic Socialists of America folk, who are becoming a growing force on the left. Open borders, defunding police, eliminating ICE (not reforming), emptying prisons, a government takeover of the means of production (ie: eliminating capitalism). And the response that I got is what I heard a lot over the years from friends on the right about Trump. “I don’t like the man, but I don’t disagree with all of his policies,” or some such other rationalization. And then in my other conversation, the dots were being connected where no line should go. It was an exercise in trying to show the four-dimensional chess player that the right would like to believe is at play. There was a description of the problems around the world that Trump’s actions are forcing some to take. NATO members are spending more money on their own defense, which I can agree is a good thing and long overdue…as long as we ignore that the credibility of the US is gone. Gulf states are looking for ways to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, which also is a good thing that will increase the cost of oil and its byproducts, and will still be vulnerable to the malicious player in the region. And on and on we went, with my friend citing all of the things that countries around the world are doing to adjust to our chaotic and irrational president to be less dependent upon us, as if that is a good thing.

…………………Known for a Long Time –

The easy thing is to point to some problem with the system. Anyone can do it, and they are usually right in that every institutional system has its issues. The hard part is to come up with rational, real-world solutions that can work. As much as most do not want to admit it, incremental changes are the most effective way to solve problems. Revolutionary actions are quick to get out of hand, result in unintended consequences, and end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I realized during the 2016 primary cycle that Trump and Sanders were tapping into the same angst. People were feeling that the system was not working for them, that changes were needed. And so, here were two individuals who were speaking to their pain. And it was the same angst. The only difference was the boogeymen that these two guys pointed to as the cause of all that ails the world. For Sanders it was the “millionaires and billionaires” (ie: the people and companies that created jobs, products, economic growth). For Trump, it was “illegal immigrants and the deep state” (ie: the dedicated public servants who merely administered the laws that our political class foisted on us. Trump has proven to be what he is, a destroyer of everything that gets in his way (not going into what he is after, as that seems pretty obvious). Sanders’ minions, represented by the DSA crowd and more, have not had their time in the sun yet, but I am certain that they would be as destructive in their own way to what our country is as Trump is proving to be. And all of this leaves me homeless in the political sense. Eating glass or drinking poison are my options. I can only hope that this increasing dichotomy in our choices will open up an opportunity for the sane middle of America, which I believe is bigger than either party controls, to come to the fore and gain some traction. Or I can up my meds.

Come to your own conclusion, friends. For today, I am done. Stay healthy and be good to each other.

Me.