A Disappointing Interview

 I watched the interview of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz on CNN last night at 9 pm. The experience was unsatisfying.

I mistakenly assumed that the interview would be broadcast live. Instead, it was recorded and edited somewhat. In particular, clips were aired earlier promoting the interview and giving grist to the Trump liar mill. Interviewer Dana Bash introduced segments of the interview over the notation LIVE. Those introductions were live, but the interview was not. Frustratingly, she was shown asking certain questions before commercial breaks, but the recording of the question and answer was broadcast much later in the hour. The interview ran for nearly 50 minutes, but it was interrupted by so many commercials that the actual interview was considerably shorter. I had not anticipated such a commercial production.

Bash asked some good questions, but the fact that there was little follow-up made the interview less useful than it might have been. Not surprisingly, nearly all the questions were directed to Harris, rather than her running mate.

Bash’s first question concerned what Harris planned to do on her first day in office. This was something of a stupid question prompted by Trump’s statements about what he would do on his first day. Whereas Trump wants immediately to reverse every Biden policy he can by executive action, Harris has no such need. She answered in general terms about instituting what she called the “opportunity economy.” Her first day in office will likely not be dramatic.

The next question referred to citizens who want to go back to prices of an earlier day. Harris pointed out that the Biden/Harris team inherited an economy in poor shape, and she cited some of the policies she has articulated intended to lower certain prices and provide subsidies for others. I was disappointed that she did not place more blame for inflation on the pandemic. Further, she should have declared that the general price level will not come down, and that such deflation would be a bad occurrence if it did. (People tend to associate inflation with higher prices rather than a higher rate of price increases. A brief economics lesson would have been helpful here, as inflation, even  coming down as it is, is viewed as a plus for the Trump campaign.)

The most notable Harris response came as Bash suggested that Harris’s policies have changed over the years. The candidate didn’t dispute the charge but insisted that her values haven’t changed. (She could have said more here, such as that policy positions held forever suggest that one can never change even in response to changed circumstances. Of course, when she ran for the Democratic nomination in 2020, she tried to position herself to the left of some of the other candidates. Maybe that was best left unsaid. Her suggestion that halting fracking is unnecessary at this time was less than convincing.)

Harris’s response to the inevitable Gaza question was about as good as could be expected. Were she to suggest a departure from Biden’s policy, she would be charged with failing to attempt to change it as a top member of the administration. Were she to defend Biden’s policy, she would anger those who object to that policy. In fact, she talked about “unwavering” support for Israel and the need for a deal to get hostages out. Too many innocents have been killed, she noted. (One wonders how Harris feels in her heart of hearts. Would a President Harris halt bomb shipments to Israel? Personally, I continue to be uncomfortable with statements about hostages. Can returning fewer that 200 hostages, many of whom may already be dead, justify the deaths of 30,000+ Palestinians?)

Trump suggested that Walz was present at the interview to lend support to Harris, but such joint interviews are common in presidential campaigns. In fact, Walz said little and didn’t hold Harris’s hand or pat her on the head. He was asked about Vance’s stolen valor-charge and the reaction of his son at the Democratic convention. He minimized the significance of the former and expressed pride in the latter. (Personally, I would have said that carrying a weapon “in war” actually meant “in wartime,” something Walz unquestionably did. As an Army bandsman in Atlanta and Honolulu during the Vietnam War, I believe I could truthfully say that I carried a weapon in war. I did not go to a war zone, but I could have been called to do so and was trained to respond to that eventuality.)

Harris was asked about a convention photo of her grand-niece looking up at her behind her podium. (I had not seen this beautiful picture before.) She was encouraged to comment on race and gender. She wisely avoided doing so and called the photo “humbling.”

Bash asked if Harris had any regrets about her full-throated defense of Biden prior to the president’s bowing out of the race. She answered no, enumerated desirable qualities possessed of Biden, and noted that Trump has none of them. She acknowledged no weaknesses of the president.

Harris was also asked about Biden’s telephone call to her telling of his decision to withdraw from the race. She described where she was at the time and indicated that it was clear from the beginning that he would support her candidacy.

On the whole, the interview was interesting, but just barely. It could have been longer and more probing. It could also have been less commercial. Neither Harris nor Walz made any serious mistakes.

Pronunciation Peeves

Every now and then, the pronunciation of a word drives me crazy. This post describes some of my current peeves.

Let me begin with a very simple word: school. How can anyone mispronounce such a common word? In fact, I suspect that most people, in ordinary discourse, pronounce the word just fine. Merriam-Webster represents the proper pronunciation asˈskül. One syllable, right? But I hear people on the radio saying something like ˈskü(-ə)l. It is if the word is spelled schoöl, with the two Os pronounced separately, rather than as a single sound. I think people are trying too hard to enunciate and, in the process, overdo it

Then there are the two words Arctic and Antarctic. (I’ll forego fancy notation here.) It is lamentably common to omit pronouncing the first C in each case. Admittedly, it is easier to pronounce each word as if that C isn’t there. But, of course, it is. The word Antarctic has a tendency to be even more mutilated. I am regularly hearing a commercial—excuse me, underwriting announcement—on NPR in which both the first T and the first C are silent. It’s as if the word is spelled Anartic. Ugh!

I’m a bit uncertain about this next word: vulnerable. I am especially interested in this word because I think some pronounce it as though the L is silent. I find it difficult to hear exactly how people are pronouncing it. The first syllable goes by quickly, and it’s hard to assess exactly what it is. (Perhaps readers can offer insight here.) Anyway, I have compiled a list of words with silent Ls, and I have wondered if vulnerable should be on the list, at least as a common mispronunciation. 

What I Want to See from the Democratic Convention

The Democratic convention begins today. Now is a good time to suggest the policies I would like to see announced this week. Since I’m not an advisor of anyone, I can emphasize what I think would be good for the country rather than what might help win votes. On the other hand, I will try to avoid policies I think might lose a significant number of votes.

The Economy

Polls indicate that voters have greater faith in Trump, rather than Democrats, to handle the economy. Democrats have three areas to emphasize here: (1) Trump is a poor choice to manage the economy; (2) A poor economy inherited from Trump has done well under Biden/Harris; (3) Harris/Walz policies will continue to grow the economy for the nation as a whole.

Trump is a poor businessman, though he played a successful one on TV. He had a habit of cheating customers and suppliers and declaring bankruptcy, leaving others holding the bag. Trump thinks he knows more about everything (including economics) than everyone else, but he doesn’t. He wants to control (or at least influence) the Federal Reserve, which is a terrible idea. The independence of the Federal Reserve is intended to isolate it from political influence and make economic decisions by economic experts informed by actual data. Trump’s plan for expanded tariffs will place a large tax on low- and middle-class consumers. (Trump apparently believes that tariffs are paid by foreign firms and not by ultimate consumers.) Trump’s plan to make Social Security payments tax-free will be costly and will benefit higher-income recipients. Making tips untaxable is a stupid idea that will make a bad compensation system even worse. (Harris was a fool to copy this demented idea.)

Largely because of COVID, Democrats inherited from the Trump administration an economy in free-fall. Trump did nothing to fix the supply-chain problems that drove up inflation. Under Biden/Harris, that inflation has been tamed, and the economy is experiencing an unheard-of “soft landing.” The U.S. economy has done much better than other Western economies. Wages are more than compensating for inflation, although this is not true for all families. The only way to bring the general price level down, however, is through recession, which no one thinks is a good idea.

Harris should express faith in the Federal Reserve (although the Fed should have lowered the federal funds rate this month). Democrats should have a clear policy about tariffs: they are to protect national defense industries; they are not to protect industry in general. Trump tariffs should be carefully reviewed with this policy in mind. The new administration should pursue antitrust activity aggressively. Much of inflation is the result of monopoly power. The government should carefully review subsidies of whatever sort for all industries, including agriculture. A means-tested modest subsidy for children is a good idea, as the recently expired subsidy took many children out of poverty.  Harris may have promised too much here. Her proposed housing subsidy for new homebuyers is pandering to voters. We have a housing crisis in America, but this is an expensive idea that will not solve it. Something is needed here, but I don’t know what it is. Most importantly, Harris should promise to let the Trump tax cuts expire. Wealthy people and corporations must pay more taxes, and she needs a policy to make that happen. This may require serious changes to federal tax policy.

Immigration

Polls show that this is a weakness for Democrats. It should be pointed out that unauthorized border crossings have decreased under the Biden/Harris administration. There is no “invasion” of foreigners seeking to enter the U.S. Harris needs to emphasize that we have a legal obligation to provide sanctuary to certain classes of people and that immigration provides workers to compensate for an aging (and therefor retiring) labor force. Americans are having fewer children, which is a natural consequence of economic success, and immigrants are not a drag on the economy, but a boost to it. Harris should demand that Congress increase the funding needed to deal with a reasonable level of immigration. We need, for example, many more immigration judges, so that asylum claims can be adjudicated promptly, not over years. This country has always grown by immigration, and each wave of immigration has been met with resistance. But we no longer disparage people of Irish or Italian ancestry, for example. Those people are just Americans. That process continues to work.

Medicine

Harris should promise to continue Biden’s “moon shot” to fight cancer. She should also promise more funds to research long COVID, and black maternal mortality. She should also pledge to make abortion legal throughout the nation, even if a constitutional amendment is necessary to do so. She should also urge voters in states with abortion issues on the ballot in November to opt for access to abortion in their states. Harris should not talk in terms of reviving Roe. The proper policy is to leave abortions to be a matter between patient and doctor, while asserting the illegality of infanticide. It may not be politic to advocate for this position too aggressively. The Patent Office should reject trivial variants of medicines designed to extend the terms of protection, and the government should do everything in its power to promote generic versions of popular products. Subsidies may be necessary for medicines that seem not to be moneymakers. 

Law

Harris should reassert the independence of the Justice Department and pledge not to interfere in ongoing or future cases. She should pledge to nominate competent, non-ideological jurists to the Supreme Court and other courts, judges who reject originalism explicitly. She should pledge a quick review of the Supreme Court followed by a plan to make its membership more reflective of mainstream opinion. The new administration should promote the final adoption of the Equal Rights Amendment. Harris should propose that Congress impose a mandatory code of conduct on Supreme Court justices. Given the nature of the court, it should be more strict than the regulations applied to other federal judges. Besides the Supreme Court’s outrageous decision in Dobbs, three other court decisions need to be overturned, by constitutional amendment if necessary: Citizens United, Trump, and the overturn of Chevron deference.

Defense

Harris needs to deal with Ukraine and Israel/Middle East. She should announce that we will seek a Ukrainian victory over Russia, not a standstill or a partial defeat. Restrictions on the use of U.S. weapons should be lifted, and we should accelerate the delivery of matériel, including aircraft.

The situation in the Middle East is more difficult, as it really requires a policy different from Biden’s, to which Harris is necessarily attached. We should, however, stop sending weapons that support the air war in Gaza and continue to work for a cease-fire. We should condemn a war policy design to protect IDF troops by simply bombing everything to smithereens. (The government need not label this genocide, though it arguably is.) We should demand an end to settler violence in the West Bank and continue to assert that settlements there are illegal. Although we should continue to advocate for a two-state solution in Palestine, it is unclear how to get there. Israel is not wrong in wanting to eliminate Hamas, as Hamas wants to wipe Israel off the map, but Netanyahu is opposed to a Palestinian state under any circumstances. Although supporting Israel is painful, the alternative of Iranian success is more painful still. The Middle East will likely remain America’s most difficult problem irrespective of who is in the White House.

Additional Thoughts (8/20/2024)

Two additional issues came to mind after I wrote the remarks above, and it is worthwhile mentioning them here.

Much of what presidential candidates propose cannot be directly effected by the chief executive. Congressional coöperation is needed more often than not. One issue that can only be advocated by the president is the elimination of the Senate filibuster. The filibuster is the bane of every president trying to pass legislation. For all the GOP’s fondness for originalism, it is worth noting that the filibuster was not countenanced by the founding fathers. In fact, it would likely have been viewed as anti-democratic. The mechanism intended to assure that a minority can receive a fair hearing in debate has become a mechanism for a minority to block legislation favored by the majority. It must go, at least in its current form. If not completely eliminated, it should be necessary for the minority to actually hold the floor by continuously speaking if it wants to delay legislation.

Then there is the matter of childcare. The childcare needed by working families is expensive and often inconvenient or unavailable; the so-called free market has failed to offer affordable and available child care throughout the nation. It is not uncommon for women to stay out of the workforce because having to pay for childcare would do little to increase household income while adding a good deal of daily aggravation.

This is not the place to analyze why the childcare market is broken, but it is a place to suggest that the government should do something about it. Those who directly deliver childcare need to be better paid, and the service itself needs to be less expensive and widely available. The benefits to givers and receivers are obvious here. And if Republicans are concerned that Americans are having too few children, they should consider that the cost of childcare is a major disincentive to have a child or more children. More available childcare would allow more women to participate in the workplace and to work toward improving their employment opportunities. Providing public or public-private childcare is not unlike providing public education—it has public as well as private benefits.

Democrats should add improving the quality and availability of childcare to their campaign promises.

More Thoughts (8/21/2024)

Watching the Democratic convention on MSNBC. I was reminded of two additional issues Democrats should embrace. The first is gun control. Specifically, we should re-enact the ban on assault weapons, though we should perhaps be more intelligent about it.

The other legislative matter that is long overdue is increasing the minimum wage. The minimum wage should not only be increased, but it should be indexed for inflation. Further, the special provisions for tip workers should be eliminated. Everyone should be guaranteed the same minimum wage. The minimum should be increased gradually, but as quickly as seems prudent.

Poem about the Constitution

The U.S. Constitution is a remarkable document and one that is often praised. It is far from perfect, however, and its imperfections have become increasingly apparent. I had long intended to write an essay on constitutional deficiencies, but I never got around to it. An upcoming open-mic night at Sulfur Books prompted me to write a new poem, and I decided to take the Constitution as my subject.

Read The Constitution on my Web site. Criticism is always welcome.

New Curve-stitch Designs

I have added a new page of designs to the section of my Web site on curve-stitch designs. These new designs are based on drawing parabolas on the backs of other parabolas. Doing so provides what I have called a nest of curve-stitch parabolas. You can view the new designs here.

Here is a sample of the new figures:

Early Political Rhetoric for the 2024 Campaign

Although it seems as though the 2024 presidential election has been going on for a long time, we don’t even know the names of all the major candidates yet. With the departure of Joe Biden and the entry of Kamala Harris into the race, the contest has suddenly become more exciting. I expect to write a lot about politics between now and November 5. but now seems a good time to collect a few ideas I have mostly expressed elsewhere.

I have already written about my initial reaction to the sudden rise of Kamala Harris, and I was delighted that I own KAMALA buttons left over from 2020. I look forward to having buttons that include the name of the Democratic vice presidential candidate as well, and I expect to be wearing some button daily throughout the campaign season.

The Trump campaign—and just about every Republican who has anything to say about Biden’s replacement—has been referring to Harris as a “DEI hire.” She is not the typical male WASP office seeker, of course, but her selection in 2020 was not a “hire.” Whatever her heritage, she is a very accomplished public servant. As a candidate, she is

                                                Democratic
                                                Enthusiastic and
                                                Intelligent

I have, on the other hand, described Trump as 

                                                Depraved
                                                Egotistical and
                                                Ignorant

One hopes that campaigning will rise above this level of rhetorical combat, though it is unlikely that Donald Trump’s rants will advance beyond his usual puerile remarks. (I took my own extended shots at Trump as a wretched person in “A Trump Alphabet,” a collection of poems perhaps unsuitable for children.)

There is now an official, albeit terse, GOP platform. And there is the Project 2025 tome from the Heritage Foundation. Each suggests what the nation may be in for should it foolishly elect Donald Trump to a second term. Rather than analyzing either of these declarations, I have written my take on the overall direction of Republican objectives. In “The GOP Program,” I argue that the party works to benefit the wealthy class, supports social issues not out of commitment but as a way to get votes, and attempts to manipulate the political system to its own benefit.

I like buttons and have designed many of them over the years. (One of my favorites from 2016 asked “How would Jesus vote?” I discovered, however, that my answer was not necessarily everyone else’s.) Anyway, after writing “The GOP Program,” I decided to design a button for the Republicans:

Alas, I doubt the Republicans will use my design

Netanyahu and the Legitimacy of the State of Israel

This paragraph led off a story from The Times of Israel a few days ago:

Responding to the ICJ [International Court of Justice] ruling that found Israeli presence in the territories to be illegal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says: “The Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land—not in our eternal capital Jerusalem, not in the land of our ancestors in Judea and Samaria.”

The Netanyahu quote illustrates a common conception regarding the legitimacy of the State of Israel: Jews were given the land by God and have a perpetual claim on it. This charming nonsense should mean nothing in the twenty-first century, but Jews have done a fine job of selling this particular bill of goods.

Were it a principle of global politics that a people, however defined, have a perpetual claim on a piece of real estate, the Americas would now be governed by natives who inhabited the Western Hemisphere long before any Europeans landed on its shores. Likewise, the Aborigines of Australia would be governing that land. I hesitate to think who should be in power in Europe, Asia, and Africa. In short, the application of Israel’s principle of possession would lead to a very different twenty-first-century world. But Israel does not deserve unique treatment because its government claims that its god gave it the land.

Apologists for Israel indeed believe that Israel’s land should extend “from the River (Jordan) to the (Mediterranean) Sea,” though this phrase is usually associated with Palestinian partisans. This includes territory that has never been acknowledged as belonging to the State of Israel by the community of nations. Calling territory by ancient names (Judea and Samaria) is just so much propaganda.

Before the modern State of Israel was formed in 1948, none of the so-called Holy Land had been governed by Jews for two millennia. Jewish rule began centuries before, though that rule was not continuous. Moreover, the Israelites conquered people who already lived there. Should not the descendants of Philistines, Amalekites, and Canaanites govern the land now called the State of Israel?

Israel came into existence through the indulgence of existing nations, particularly the United Kingdom, for their own purposes. and by force of arms. Were prior occupation to confer legitimacy, the more recent occupation by Palestinians would seem more compelling than a Jewish occupation of two thousand years ago that, in any case, was overthrown by the power of Rome.

Given the long history of Jewish persecution, culminating in the atrocities of the Nazi regime, one can appreciate the Zionist dream of a Jewish state. But a state free of Jewish persecution does not demand a state ruled by Jews, let alone one that indulges in persecutions of its own supposedly sanctioned by God. If a Jewish state was somehow necessary, it could, in principle, be anywhere. If the State of Israel is a legitimate nation, it is so by virtue of conquest by the sword. Netanyahu should leave God and history out of it. The rest of the world doesn’t give a damn about his mythology.

Kamala for President

I was driving from Clifton Springs to Geneva yesterday when I heard on the radio that President Biden had decided to end his re-election bid and endorse Kamala Harris as the Democratic presidential candidate. Although I had been uncertain whether Biden should stay in the race, I found myself immediately relieved by the news. Subsequently heard commentary suggested that Harris was almost certain to replace Biden on the ticket. Interest quickly turned to who would become Harris’s running mate. No challenger for the top spot has emerged or is likely to do so, though there was a suggestion that Joe Manchin would like to replace Harris. (Manchin, an ex-Democrat, won’t get the nod even after hell freezes over.)

I was a supporter of Harris when she ran for the Democratic nomination in 2020. I was impressed by her prosecutor background and her sharp questioning in a Senate committee. She dropped out of the contest early, however, as she had difficulty distinguishing herself from her Democratic rivals. Her lack of success in 2020 seems of little relevance in 2024. I am eager to see her insightful and aggressive questioning directed at Donald Trump and J.D. Vance.

I don’t discard political buttons unless I have an excess supply of them. Today, I dug out my single KAMALA button, which I intend to wear today and perhaps every day until I obtain a Kamala-whoever button.

The Second Biden Post-Debate Test

President Biden held a news conference tonight at the conclusion of the NATO meeting in Washington, D.C. He faced reporters for about an hour without benefit of a teleprompter and without having been given the questions in advance. So, how did he do, and did he allay fears about his ability to win the election over Donald Trump?

In fact, his performance was better than his recent ABC interview and was orders of magnitude better than his debate performance against Trump. Has he allayed the fears of Democrats that Biden will not only lose but will also take many Democrats down with him? I don’t know.

Biden certainly made some gaffes, and his responses to questions were not always crisp. That said, he seemed like the Biden we’ve gotten used to, rather than the incoherent, bumbling old man of the recent presidential debate. Biden’s propensity for making verbal flubs is legendary. He was no more error-prone tonight than he has been over the many decades of his political career.

The president offered some opening remarks about the need for a strong NATO, and he attacked Trump on his willingness to abandon support for Ukraine. He cited recent good economic news and criticized Trump for his 10% tariff plan. He noted that fewer people are crossing our southern border. He touted his proposed framework to end the Gaza war.

Not surprisingly, several questions concerned Biden’s remaining on the top of the Democratic ticket. He admitted that there are other Democrats who would be strong candidates. Although he might have expected to be a one-term president, he decided to run for a second term because he’s had many successes but wanted to “complete the job.” (I have some Biden-Harris buttons that say “FINISH THE JOB.” We haven’t seen that message emphasized much yet, and I doubt that’s the best the campaign can do.) Biden made a few positive remarks about Vice President Harris, whom he would never have chosen if he had not thought she could handle the presidency. He suggested that convention deputies are free to vote for whomever they choose. (They aren’t at the moment.) He said that he was willing to take a neurological exam if a neurologist says that he needs one. As he has before, Biden expressed skepticism of polling, but he said that he would step down if polls definitively indicated that Democrats would lose if he did not.

Much of the news conference time was concerned with foreign policy issues. This was where Biden’s brilliance and experience shined. Trump could never put on such a display. He was asked about Ukraine, about relations with China, and about the Gaza war. His answers were thoughtful and occasionally surprising. When challenged about the use of American-supplied weapons against Russian territory, he asserted that his policy is based on recommendations by the military and intelligence communities. It wouldn’t make sense, he said, to attack Moscow. (That’s probably true, though it would be satisfying!) He gave a very long answer concerning Sino-American relations and the problem of China’s effective support of Russian aggression in Ukraine. Again, Donald Trump would only spout nonsense in response to the questions thrown at Trump. (Reporters should actually ask Trump some of those questions.)

Biden managed to throw in a few zingers related to domestic matters here and there. One of these: “Corporate greed is still at large.” Also, “when unions do better, we all do better.” He talked about Trump’s filling out his scorecard before he plays the hole. He took a swipe at the Supreme Court and at Project 2025. He cited favorably the button logo “Control guns, not girls.”

Generally, Joe Biden acquitted himself well tonight. I wrote this on Facebook earlier, however: “The question isn’t what Biden has done or will do but whether he can be an aggressive and effective campaigner.” I don’t know if Biden can pull that off. Personally, I am less concerned about Biden’s being a great president for another four years. I know that electing Donald Trump would be a disaster for the Republic.

Sunset in Clifton Springs

The picture above was taken at sunset from the solarium of the Spa Apartments. I have taken to going upstairs as the sun sets to enjoy the evening sky. The cloud in the picture hung over Clifton Springs suggesting how the Hindenburg might have looked had it overflew the village. The photograph is almost perfect, though it is marred by a reflection from the window on an adjacent wall. I didn’t notice the reflection when I took the picture.

The First Biden Post-Debate Test

 President Biden was interviewed earlier today by George Stephanopoulos, and the 22-minute unedited interchange was broadcast on ABC Television this evening. As I noted yesterday, this was an important test for Biden. Donald Trump declined to participate in a similar interview. He could afford to do so.

I think it fair to say that the president did not pass this crucial test with flying colors. I am reluctant to say he failed miserably, but I’m tempted.

We don’t expect the exuberance of Donald Trump from Joe Biden, of course, but Trump’s animation suggests a vigor that Biden’s performance did not.

At the beginning of the interview, Stephanopoulos asked about Biden’s debate performance. The president admitted that he had a bad night, that he was sick with a cold, and that he was distracted by Trump’s speaking after his opponent’s mic was shut off. Incredibly, Biden admitted that he has not watched video of the debate!

Stephanopoulos asked if Biden would take a cognitive test to reassure us of his mental competence. He responded that he is tested every day, by which he meant by his daily work as president. He gave no direct answer to Stephanopoulos’s question.

The president repeatedly spoke of his accomplishments in office and suggested briefly a few objectives for a second term—better health care and child care as well as tax reform, but his fundamental pitch was:

1. “I’m still in good shape.”
2. I know how to get things done.
3. Donald Trump is a pathological liar.
4. I beat Trump once; I’ll beat him again.

George Stephanopoulos asked Biden about his low poll numbers. Biden apparently doesn’t believe them. When asked what he would do if Democratic leaders came to him saying that he must step down. His response: that won’t happen.

Biden simply did not look like someone who would make a good president. His record is admirable, but he did not inspire confidence in his ability to continue executing the job of chief executive. He seems determined not to step down, however. When asked how he would feel if he lost and Democrats lost control of Congress. He said that he would feel that he did his best.

The question now: which two people should be on the 2024 Democratic ticket?

Thoughts on the Biden Candidacy

In light of Joe Biden’s appalling performance in the June 27 debate, Democrats are struggling with whether Biden should remain the party’s standard bearer. Although he is insisting publicly that he intends to continue his campaign, he has been somewhat less certain in private.

Donald Trump was leading in polls before the debate, and his lead has only increased after it. Although Kamala Harris does better than Biden against Trump in recent polling, she also trails the former president. She is, however, the most likely replacement should Biden bow out of the race. In that case, a new vice-presidential candidate would be needed.

As a Democrat who believes the survival of the Republic demands a Democratic victory in November, I am, as I am sure many or even most Democrats are, uncertain as to what Democrats should do at this critical juncture.

The problem, of course, is that it has become difficult to have confidence in Biden’s ability to do the job he is seeking. Even if you believe he has done a remarkable job in his first term and would have been even more successful had Republicans been willing to participate in effective governance, concern about Biden’s age, which has been his greatest liability, was only intensified by his dismal debate performance. Even if that performance was a fluke, it is impossible not to suspect that it presages sub-par performance in office.

In the 2020 campaign opposing a second Trump victory, Biden stepped forward as a seasoned, steady hand, albeit an elderly one. Many thought he would be—should be—a one-term president. It is rare, however, for a president, even a relatively unsuccessful one, to abjure another run for the nation’s highest office. Biden has not proved an exception to the rule.

If Biden does continue as a presidential candidate, he must shore up support among Democratic politicians, and he must reassure the public at large. He is working on the former task, spending more time with Democratic officeholders. Ultimately, the latter task is the more critical. Biden needs to display his competence in public. Presidential events are helpful—he bestowed two posthumous Medals of Honor on Union soldiers yesterday—but of greatest importance is displaying a command of issues in unscripted settings, settings analogous to a presidential debate. Tomorrow he is to be interviewed by ABC News. That will be important. But he also needs to hold press conferences where he must respond satisfactorily to spontaneous questions without the benefit of teleprompters.

I am not at all certain that Biden has the time to reassure the voting public or, in fact, whether he is competent to do so.

Given the rules of the party and the delegates pledged to the president, Biden can be replaced only if he chooses to step aside. His doing so remains unlikely, but may be becoming less unlikely.

Were Biden to bow out of the race, we would likely see an event not seen in America in years: a party convention whose outcome is not known in advance. That would assuredly add excitement to a campaign sorely in need of it. This assumes, of course, that an open convention would be a well-run, civil affair and not a donnybrook.

Should the Democrats change their ticket, what might it look like? As I noted earlier, Kamala Harris is a likely presidential candidate, though it must be said that her own run in 2020 was lackluster. (One hopes she has learned lessons and skills in her present position since then.) Moreover, the last Democratic woman to run lost to Donald Trump. If Harris doesn’t advance to the top of the ticket, should she remain the vice-presidential candidate, or would two fresh faces fire more interest and enthusiasm among both Democrats and the population at large?

I am committed to the Democratic ticket, whatever it is. I have to admit, though, that I find it difficult to work up enthusiasm for the Biden-Harris ticket, though my hatred of Donald Trump is unbridled. A new ticket would surely inspire greater passion.

Democrats are not without credible replacement candidates, but they seem to lack obvious ones. Democratic governors are the most likely candidates. I’m sure readers can name the most likely ones. My favorite of the lot is Gretchen Whitmer, though she is female and should likely not be paired with another woman. I have long thought that Adam Schiff would make a fine candidate, though he has shown no conspicuous interest. He certainly knows Trump’s weaknesses!

In the end, I don’t know what Democrats should do, though they have to make the right decision and make it soon. God help us!

What Biden Should Do

Given the Supreme Court’s immunity decision today, it looks as though Biden can have a Seal Team assassinate Donald Trump. As long as the plan is set in motion in the White House, it would appear that Biden would be immune from prosecution.

Note: I tried to post a version of this comment on Facebook and was warned that it appeared to violate community standards. Facebook does not understand irony.

Poem 27 of A “Trump Alphabet”

I have added the sonnet below to my 26 poems of A Trump Alphabet.

And there you have the ABCs
Of an American political offender,
A felon exposing a civic disease:
Support for a pernicious contender.
Donald Trump isn’t competent, caring, or nice;
He’s selfish, rapacious, and cold.
Having chosen him once, we cannot choose him twice.
He is dangerous, wicked, and old.
The Republic has stood for many a year
And survived many crises and war.
But now we must face trepidation and fear:
Can democracy endure anymore?
We have to act boldly our nation to save
Lest the flag of surrender be ours to wave.

A Trump Alphabet

For a long time, I have been working on a project called “A Trump Alphabet,” a collection of 26 poems based on properties of the former president. I invite you to read the poems and pass them along to others who might appreciate them.

As a teaser, here is a sample poem:

Happy Reading!

“W” is for Womanizer For Trump, all women are toys for his pleasure, And marriage never inhibits his ways Of seeking, between comely legs, the treasure Of those who fall victim to his lecherous gaze.

Chinese Food Comes to Clifton Springs (Sort Of)

Clifton Springs, New York, has too few restaurants. Before I moved here in 2022, there was a Chinese restaurant on Main Street, a short walk from my apartment. It had closed before I arrived. I have been craving Chinese food but have not yet left the village to find any. Friends have recommended Chinese restaurants elsewhere, however, and I found one online that none of my friends seemed to know about.

I was very excited yesterday when a menu for a new Chinese restaurant turned up downstairs. Hong Kong Chinese Kitchen is opening where the old Chinese restaurant used to be. I don’t know if the old restaurant is being resurrected or whether Hong Kong is brand new. Last evening, I took a short walk to the place to check it out. I had already eaten dinner, but I thought I might have lunch there today. There was a sign on the door apologizing for not being open and referring patrons to the restaurant’s Facebook page for information about its opening. I was unable to find the restaurant on Facebook, so I telephoned one of the numbers on the menu. As I suspected, callers hear a recorded message. The restaurant needs to install a new sprinkler system, I was informed, and the projected opening date is now August 1.

Sigh.

New Hat

For a long time, I was pictured on my blog in a cream-colored hat I liked very much. I discovered that my friends associated that hat with me. Somewhere along the line, I lost the hat, probably having left it somewhere I didn’t remember. I’ve missed that hat.

For Father’s Day, my son took me to a new hat shop in Geneva and let me pick out a new hat. I found one only slightly different from my “famous” one. This hat is linen and a bit whiter—definitely a summer hat. See what you think.

Alleged Suspect

News organizations are careful to avoid suggesting the guilt of persons not convicted in a court of law. Thus, news reports often refer to “alleged” miscreants.

ABC News ran a video story on its Web site yesterday over the headline “13-year-old girl sexually assaulted at knifepoint in NYC park: Police.” The story made it clear that the police and the girl involved asserted that certain things happened. On ABC’s nightly newscast today, ABC reported that police were searching for the “alleged assault suspect.” My initial reaction to this phrase was that the use of “alleged” is unnecessary. A suspect is, after all, only someone thought to have possibly committed a crime. Police are seeking an actual assault suspect, not someone alleged to be an actual assault suspect. (Alleged by whom?) One is either a suspect or not. Being a suspect does not imply guilt.

On reflection, I began to question whether I had parsed “alleged assault suspect” properly, Perhaps, the police are looking for a suspect in an alleged assault, not assuming that the reported assault actually happened. This is a reasonable interpretation but likely not the correct one, as earlier reports suggested that the police have taken as fact that an assault actually occurred. The New York Times also framed its story by what the police asserted. Details of the story suggest, however, that the police may have physical evidence that has led them to conclude that the story told by the girl is substantially true.

I may be thinking about the phrasing used by ABC more that its reporters and editors did. Probably, “alleged” was unnecessary. It may have been added just to be safe, however.

How To Write Better Gun Laws

A far-right Supreme Court today invalidated the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives rule against bump stocks. The rule had been promulgated during Donald Trump’s presidency in response to the 2017 massacre in Las Vagas that was facilitated by the use of bump stocks.

The argument in favor of the ATF ban was that a bump stock converts a rifle into what is virtually a machine gun, the sale of which has long been severely restricted.

NPR, commenting on the court decision noted that, “Justice Thomas, speaking for the majority, said the bump stock doesn’t change the internal firing mechanism, so it can’t be classified as an illegal machine gun.”

Like so many decisions of this court, this ruling turns on minor, seemingly unimportant details.

The reason that lawmakers have had such a hard time framing gun laws is that they go about it in the wrong way. In today’s case, for example, we shouldn’t care about the gun’s trigger or its internal mechanism. What is important is (1) how fast the gun can fire a projectile and (2) how much energy is carried by that projective as it leaves the muzzle. A machine gun is a gun that can fire rounds above some specified rate carrying energy above a certain threshold. I don’t know what those parameters should be. and I doubt that muzzle velocity need be considered, as energy increases with velocity. If a gun performs like a machine gun, it is a machine gun, whatever its internal workings.

Defining firearms using what I suggest are the relevant parameters means that manufacturers cannot get around regulations using various technicalities. This is a much better way of describing what guns are illegal than, for example, listing them by model number or some other incidental characteristic. A ban on assault weapons, if we ever we enact another one, should be based on effective characteristics, not on model number, etc.

In the short term, Congress should pass a law banning bump stocks. Of course, the law must define a bump stock by what it facilitates, not by the means by which it does so. Unfortunately, in our current political climate, this won’t happen.

How Many Palestinians Is an Israeli Worth?

The big news from the Gaza war is that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have freed four hostages presumed to be held by Hamas. That operation is said to have wounded 700 Palestinians and killed nearly 200, many of them women and children. (The number of casualties has been variously reported, but it has clearly been substantial.) Israelis are jubilant. Presidents Biden and Macron praised the operation at a Saturday press conference in Paris.

Does no one see anything wrong with this picture? Are scores of deaths of innocents a moral price to pay for each Israeli rescued? Israeli leaders and citizens seem to think so. Israelis are dancing in the streets over the latest war news.

Israel, of course, was traumatized by the October 7 Hamas attack, which captured scores of hostages, of whom 120 or so are still unaccounted for. The passionate desire to repatriate those victims is understandable. But comparing IDF tactics to those of United States forces is instructive. When attempting to free hostages or to kill or capture high-value terrorist targets, the U.S. tries to avoid collateral damage, even aborting an operation likely to kill civilians. In light of this humane policy, it is distressing that President Biden seemed to give the IDF operation his unequivocal approval.

One may quibble as to whether Israel has established apartheid in the Middle East or whether the conduct of the current war amounts to genocide. Historically, however, Israelis have shown little respect or concern for their Palestinian neighbors either in war or in peacetime. Significantly, whenever there has been a prisoner exchange, dozens of Palestinians are exchanged for each Israeli released. This is possible because Israel collects Palestinian prisoners like tokens to be used as necessary and because Zionists view Palestinians more as vermins than as people deserving simple human dignity and respect.

I don’t know how many Palestinians constitute the moral equivalent of one Israeli in the Israeli mind. Whatever that number is, it is large, and that ethical calculus is a moral outrage. NPR quoted Israel’s defense minister Yoav Gallant as saying, “This morning not only did we have a successful operation but also an opportunity to fulfill the goals of this war.” A goal of the war appears to be to kill as many Palestinians as possible.

Concern for the hostages has become a justification for no-holds-barred aggression in Gaza. It is embarrassing that U.S. policy insists that hostages need to be returned but not that the killing of innocent women and children needs to stop immediately.

Why Is There a Refrigerator in My Bedroom?

The photo on the left was taken from my bed yesterday (Wednesday). It shows a refrigerator parked just inside the door of my bedroom. Therein lies a story.

I noticed recently that the freezer compartment of my refrigerator was collecting frost all around. At the same time, the compartment below seemed warmer than usual.

My Monday lunch consisted of a sandwich and some leftover potato salad. The potato salad, which was about a week old, tasted spoiled. I threw it away after one bite. Since the refrigerator seemed warmer than usual, I increased the temperature control to its maximum setting.

By Tuesday—in retrospect, I was slow on the uptake—after trying to measure the refrigerator’s temperature, I concluded that there was something seriously wrong. I reported the problem to the building’s maintenance man, Kyle, who suggested that my refrigerator had a bad fan. We went immediately to my apartment with a replacement fan in hand.

After emptying the freezer—this was an obnoxious operation—we learned that ice was blocking the passage of cold air into the compartment below. The reason for this was unclear, but the freezer was quite filled and the weather had been very humid. My adjusting the refrigerator temperature upward had only made matters worse.

At this point, it became clear that living in an apartment building has advantages I had overlooked. Kyle offered to deliver a refrigerator as a temporary replacement. Happily, he had one available that was empty but operative, so it was already cold. The plan was to transfer my food to the temporary refrigerator and defrost my own refrigerator overnight.

The matter of where to put the temporary unit was tricky. Many of my outlets were in use, and I couldn’t find an extension cord on short notice. The solution we hit upon was to unplug my portable vacuum and put the refrigerator just inside my bedroom. The placement allowed me to get in and out of the bedroom, but I couldn’t easily get to one side of the bed to make it up. This explains the unmade bed in the above photograph.

Once Kyle left, I began transferring food from one refrigerator to the other. I then cleaned the sides of my refrigerator and the floor area that had been underneath it. Mercifully, only a modest quantity of water accumulated on the floor.

On Wednesday, Kyle came back to put my refrigerator back together—he had removed a panel at the rear of the freezer—and to return it to its proper place. I cleaned the interior and, once it had cooled down, I moved food from the temporary refrigerator to my own. This gave me the opportunity to do a degree of triage, discarding old or seemingly useless leftovers. It also allowed me to better organize my refrigerator, both top and bottom. 

Today (Thursday), Kyle returned to retrieve the lent refrigerator. Having put my refrigerator back together, I now have to put my apartment back together. 

Nikki Haley Shows Her True Colors

There has long been uncertainty as to how much integrity we should attribute to erstwhile U.N. ambassador and presidential primary candidate Nikki Haley.

During her run for the Republican nomination, Haley repeatedly told everyone what a horrible candidate Donald Trump is. After dropping out of the race, she did not discourage people from voting for her in the remaining primaries—as many did—and there was hope in some circles that she might, at the very least, not support Trump’s run for the White House.

Nikki Haley
  Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0
via Wikimedia Commons

The question of Haley’s integrity, however, has now been resolved. She has revealed herself to be, in the worst sense, a politician and neither a statesperson nor a patriot. Although she has yet to endorse the former president, in the sense of telling others to vote for him, she has declared that she will do so in the contest with Joe Biden.

In a historic understatement, Haley admitted in a recent interview that Trump “has not been perfect” on policies she considers important. Those policies include reducing government debt—something Trump massively increased when he was in office—and supporting freedom—something that Trump proudly took away from American women. Remarkably, Haley declared, “But Biden has been a catastrophe.” 

No doubt, many voters who watch Fox News or Newsmax or other right-wing pseudo-news outlets find Haley’s characterization of President Biden unremarkable. In driving from Clifton Springs to Geneva, I regularly pass a house displaying a sign declaring “Biden Sucks.” And I often see Trump supporters interviewed on television attributing characteristics, policies, and actions to Biden that are provably false. One might have hoped, however, that an intelligent politician who has clearly recognized Donald Trump’s multitudinous faults would be able to acknowledge at least some virtues in a fellow politician who is virtually the opposite of Donald Trump.

What is the nature of the Biden “catastrophe”? Although Trump initiated the quest for a COVID vaccine, it was Biden who orchestrated its successful rollout that halted the mounting death toll. Is saving people from dying a catastrophe?

Infrastructure Week had become a standing joke during the Trump presidency. Under Biden, the country is finally addressing the deferred maintenance of its extensive infrastructure. A catastrophe?

Trump either doesn’t believe in climate change or doesn’t care about it. Under Biden, however, the country is taking steps—possibly small ones—but steps to counter climate change. Well, Haley might find this catastrophic. The environment be damned!

Haley wants a president who will “have the backs of our allies.” Well, Biden is supporting Ukraine as it faces Russian aggression. It has been difficult, however, as Trump wants to sue for peace and, most likely, cede Ukrainian land to Putin. He tried to prevent Congress from supporting Ukraine. Isn’t what Biden has done supporting our allies? Isn’t this opposite to Trump’s inclinations? More catastrophe, I suppose. Biden has supported longtime ally Israel. Is supporting Israel’s defense while trying to restrain Netanyahu a catastrophe?

Haley wants a president who will “secure the border.” But when the Senate reached a bipartisan agreement to do exactly that last February—an agreement Biden was ready to sign— Trump made it clear that Republican legislators needed to kill that initiative so it could be used as a Republican fund-raiser and campaign issue. Another catastrophe on Biden’s watch?

Haley wants a president who will support “capitalism.” Biden has raised tariffs to protect, for example, the electric vehicle industry. Under Biden, the government is subsidizing the revitalization of the computer chip industry. Another catastrophe, I suppose. Better that we have a president who is only interested in enriching himself and his billionaire friends. But surely that would not be a catastrophe! 

Under Biden, inflation and unemployment are down. Another catastrophe, I suppose!

Alas, like so many Republicans, Haley has turned out to be a total hypocrite. Haley’s real catastrophe is that Democrats, not Republicans, are in power. Policy really isn’t the issue. If her favored candidate wins a second term, however, we will see what a real catastrophe looks like.

A Bad Culinary Week

Things have not gone well in the cooking department this week. Two days ago I was baking banana bread for yesterday’s coffee hour at the Clifton Springs Library. I poured the batter into three small (2 × 5 × 2¼ in.) silicone pans and placed the pans in the oven on one of the wire racks. Since baking was to take about an hour, I then went into the bathroom to take a shower.

As I was drying off from my shower, I detected a burning smell, which was not how my banana bread was supposed to smell. When I opened the oven, I discovered that the soft-sided pans had listed to the side and disgorged some of their contents. I quickly decided to write off my baking project, removed the silicone pans, and assessed the damage. Some of the batter clung to the oven racks—this was cleaned up easily enough—and some of it fell to the bottom of the oven. Unfortunately, the oven floor has wide slits on either side, and some of the batter fell into one of them. I turned off the oven and, when it cooled, removed whatever semi-baked batter was visible. Later, after regaining my composure, I got out my nut driver, removed the oven floor, and cleaned up the mess under it. I put the oven back together and attended coffee hour the next day empty-handed.

Today, I had another cooking project. I had agreed to make potato salad for the Memorial Day picnic for my apartment building. As the potatoes were boiling and later cooling, I collected the other ingredients for the dish, chopping as necessary. One of my recipe’s ingredients is chopped parsley. I have been told that this is unusual, but I haven’t researched the matter. Certainly, parsley doesn’t make my potato salad seem strange. (The apple cider vinegar is another matter, but I like the recipe.) I was midway through chopping parsley and adding it to a bowl of chopped hard-boiled egg when I realized that I wasn’t chopping parsley at all. I had mistakenly bought cilantro, an ingredient of which I am not at all fond.

Realizing that not everyone has the same aversion to cilantro that I do, I stopped chopping and substituted dried parsley for the remaining “parsley” that hadn’t yet been added to the chopped egg. The resulting potato salad tastes different from my usual effort—one can definitely taste cilantro—but my hope is that people will still find it acceptable.

I’m planning to cook as little as possible this weekend.

The Ten Commandments in Louisiana

Louisiana is about to enact a law mandating that the Ten Commandments—a specified version of them—be posted in every Louisiana school classroom. The proposed law even specifies a minimum size for the Ten Commandments classroom posters.

It should be obvious to any thinking American citizen that the proposed legislation violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Louisiana lawmakers argue that recent Supreme Court decisions have so weakened the wall of separation between church and state that their latest legislative fiat may survive judicial scrutiny. They have a point, but I hope they’re wrong. Surely, the proposed law is one “respecting an establishment of religion,” as the Ten Commandments are taken directly from a text sacred to Judaism and Christianity.

Dodie Horton, a representative from District 19 in northwest Louisiana argues: “Our laws are based on the Ten Commandments. In fact, without them, a lot of our laws would not exist.” This, of course, is pure poppycock. Our laws are no more based on the Ten Commandments than on Aesop’s Fables.

It is worth considering the Ten Commandments in light of our actual laws. The first four commandments are purely religious and therefore inappropriate in light of the Establishment Clause. They command that you should (1) have no god before the God of Israel, (2) not worship idols, (3) not curse using God’s name, and (4) keep the Sabbath holy. No U.S. laws are based upon these injunctions, nor should they be. Only the Fourth Commandment comes close. Though blue laws privileged Sunday, not the Jewish Sabbath, they are largely a thing of the past and have little support for their reintroduction.

Four commandments involve behavior about which the law is silent. Number 5 requires the honoring of one’s parents. Numbers 7, 9, and 10 enjoin abjuring adultery, bearing false witness against a neighbor, and coveting the property of others. Of course, bearing false witness is illicit in particular legal contexts but not in ordinary discourse.

In fact, only two commandments have any significant relation to American law at all. Number 6 prohibits murder, and number 8 prohibits theft. Such provisions have been part of virtually every legal and moral system for millennia and probably did not originate among the Israelites anyway.

Louisiana legislators argue that the Ten Commandments offer moral guidance, though guidance unlikely to be appreciated by atheist, Muslim, Sikhi, Jain, or other student religionists. And it may be tricky to explain idol worship or adultery to first graders or why non-Jews seem not to care about the Sabbath.

The Louisiana initiative is ill-conceived and, I pray to God, is destined to be struck down by the Supreme Court. If it is not, this country will be in even more trouble.

The proposed legislation follows a 2023 Louisiana law requiring “In God We Trust” to be displayed in every classroom. (Classrooms may run out of wall space if the legislature continues what is becoming a trend.) I have written about the motto elsewhere and will merely say here that the sentiment that has become our nation’s official motto is, at best, hypocritical.

One final aside: If I were allowed to post Christian propaganda in school classrooms, it would be Jesus’s admonition to love God and one’s neighbor. Or, on second thought, just

Movements in My Lifetime

I’ve lived through the Civil Rights movement and the Women’s movement, each of which achieved successes though neither achieved all its goals.

The recent Reactionary movement was suppressed by the election of Joe Biden. That movement is attempting a resurgence, threatening to usher in a Totalitarian movement.

Your vote is important to preserve the Republic.

Will We Get Better Presidential Debates This Year?

President Biden has challenged Donald Trump to participate in presidential debates this year, and the former president has accepted. Given that Mr. Trump has avoided debating his Republican challengers, it has not been clear that he would agree to debate Mr. Biden. Today’s news is therefore encouraging. Details of any debates will need to be negotiated. Neither side has been satisfied in the past with decisions made by the Commission on Presidential Debates, which apparently will have no part in structuring the 2024 presidential debates.

The Biden team has articulated its desired ground rules:

• Two debates: in June and September. This is apparently acceptable to Team Trump, but Mr. Trump has expressed a desire for more debates.
• There should be no live audience. Mr. Trump has spoken of wanting a large venue, presumable with a large audience.
• The only participants are to be the Republican and Democratic candidates.
• Only broadcast networks that have hosted recent debates (CNN, ABC News, Telemundo, and CBS News) should be eligible to host the first debate. Apparently, the same restriction has not been proposed for the second debate. It likely should be.
• The moderator should be chosen from a network’s “regular personnel.”
• There should be firm time limits on candidate responses, and the candidates should be allotted equal time.
• A candidate’s microphone should only be live when it is his turn to speak.

We may get more effective and useful presidential debates this year, but, when the presidential camps get down to serious negotiations, that goal may prove elusive. Donald Trump would certainly like a large, preferably partisan, audience, and may not take kindly to the concept of losing his microphone for any reason. That Mr. Trump has said he would like more debates is a bit surprising—he is not good at actual debate—but this may be a negotiating position to facilitate horse trading involving other matters.

I have long advocated some of the ground rules Mr. Biden is promoting—widely available debates, no audience, and time limits enforced by controlling candidate microphones. (See my October 29, 2015, post “Suggestions for Presidential Debates.”) The presence of an audience is particularly problematic. Historically, audiences told to keep quiet do not, in fact, do so. Moreover, it is virtually impossible to assemble a non-partisan audience in which everyone exercises the same level of self-control. The debates are for the American people, not for a selected debate audience.

Most important, and most likely to be fought by the Trump camp, is the idea of time-limited speech enforced by administratively controlled microphones. The former president exhibits limited self-control in general and virtually none in past debates. Clearly, the Biden campaign wants to avoid Mr. Trump’s garrulousness and his obnoxious habit of interrupting other participants. I discussed this issue in the aforementioned essay. I revisited the issue in “A Suggested Tool for Debate Moderators.”)

It has often been noted that debating skill, or whatever skill is needed for the so-called presidential debates, is not a particularly important capability needed by the President of the United States. Readers may be interested in a very different debate format I once proposed in “A Different Kind of Presidential Candidate Debate.” That essay was oriented toward debates leading up to the selection of a presidential candidate, but some of the ideas could usefully inform the contests between actual candidates.

Perhaps, we will get better presidential debates this year. But perhaps not.

Outside Agitators

The news has recently been dominated by reports of demonstrations supportive of Palestinians at U.S. colleges and universities. It is distressing that many seemingly peaceful protests have been shut down by police at the invitation of school administrators. In some cases, civil authorities have in part justified police action by asserting that “outside agitators” were among the demonstrators. Often, the “agitators” have been quite literally outside, which is to say not on campus at all.

I am greatly distressed by the term “outside agitators.” I remember this term as one used by racist Southerners to identify the brave souls from northern states who risked their lives to take a stand against Jim Crow. The present “outside agitators” may be non-students, but we have seen no evidence that they are “agitators” rather than citizens in sympathy with the goals of student demonstrators. Among this group may in fact be a few agents provocateurs with disreputable motives—not an established fact—but damning every non-student as an “outside agitator” is unfair.

As for the student demonstrators generally, I think they may be seeking the wrong objective. Imploring their institutions to disinvest in Israeli enterprises is an obvious goal, but it is difficult for the schools to implement and an objective with considerably less than universal appeal. It means to punish Israel but will not be particularly helpful to the Palestinians about whom the students purport to be concerned.

Unfortunately, President Biden seems incapable of taking any action that might discourage bad behavior by Benjamin Netanyahu. The students should adopt a more useful objective: insist that the United States cease providing any and all military and financial support to the state of Israel pending resolution of the current war against Hamas, a war that seems increasingly like a war against the Palestinian people. A less extreme objective might be to obtain an immediate ceasefire by all combatants.

Students have missed an opportunity here and, as of tonight, Israel seems to be proceeding with its military plans against Hamas and the inhabitants of Gaza.

The Out-of-Control Supreme Court

During my time in junior high school, I remember the complaints of Republicans that the Supreme Court was in the disreputable habit of “legislating from the bench.” Of course, their problem was not with “legislating” but with handing down decisions they just didn’t like, however legally justified they might be. Most especially, they railed against Brown v. Board of Education, the famous desegregation case. The court found that the Constitution logically did not permit racial segregation in conspicuously unequal public schools. Ironically, although the Warren court declared unconstitutional the long-held notion of “separate but equal”—the equal part never seemed to be achieved in practice—it failed to “legislate,” in the sense of declaring what was to be done to eliminate the unequal treatment of Negro students in Topeka schools.

Whereas the basic task of the Supreme Court is to decide what is legal and what is not, even a relatively liberal court is not about defining its own fix for what it believes is illegal. In Roe v. Wade, for example, the court need not have invented its own trimester scheme for determining when abortion is permissible. Having ascertained that the Constitution does not allow an outright abortion ban, the court could have left many details to the legislative branch.

Today, Republicans are delighted that the radically “conservative” Supreme Court engineered by Donald Trump gleefully legislates from the bench when it suites the proclivities of the most reactionary justices. In Trump v. Anderson, the court was asked whether Colorado could remove Donald Trump from a Republican primary ballot based on Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, that is, did Trump’s involvement in an insurrection prevent him from holding public office. Unsurprisingly, the court held that an individual state cannot use the Fourteenth Amendment to disqualify a candidate for federal office. The court further held, however, that only Congress, not the courts, could apply Section 3. The practical effect was to invalidate that section of the Constitution for the foreseeable future.

Now the Supreme Court is considering whether Donald Trump, a former president, can be held legally accountable for actual crimes committed while in office. That the court even granted certiorari for this case is outrageous; the president is not a king, and the Constitution establishes a republic, not a monarchy. Whereas it is unlikely that even this Republican-dominated court will agree with the Trump legal team that a president may even murder his political rivals with impunity, the justices are trying hard to delay a decision (and therefore a trial). The justices failed to put the trial on a fast track, seemed almost indifferent in oral arguments to the matter actually before them, and is worried about crafting a judgment “for the ages.” That the nation is facing the question at issue for the first time in more than two and a quarter centuries suggests that a decision “for the ages” is not an urgent need. But the court is happy to legislate, particularly if it is helpful to their political consigliere Donald Trump.

It is past time to reform the Supreme Court. Justice Thomas refuses to recuse himself on a case involving the January 6 insurrection, even though his wife was a cheerleader for that mutiny. Both Thomas and Justice Alito have received substantial gifts from wealthy Republicans who applaud and benefit from the rightward movement of the court. Although President Biden requested a commission report on court reform, nothing came of the report. It is perfectly clear that the framers of the Constitution did not anticipate that the direction of the country would be set not by Congress and the president, but by the Supreme Court. It is time to fix the court and, therefore, the Republic.

Jury Duty

 I was subpoenaed for jury duty today. As I sat during the jury selection process, I was composing an essay in my mind about my experience as a juror. As it happened, I was not chosen for the jury, and I’m unsure whether to be happy or disappointed about that. I was not happy that I had to rise earlier than usual to be in court by 8 am. However, I was able to leave for home by about 10:30.

When I arrived at the courthouse, I filled out a form requiring mostly demographic information. (This was somewhat difficult for me, as I had mistakenly left my reading glasses at home.) Potential jurors were shown a brief film about implicit bias, and the judge gave a lecture about being a juror. He also told us that the trial involved the sexual abuse of a minor and would likely last two days. Then a dozen of us—there were about 30 subpoenaed folks in the room—were seated separately to be questioned by a prosecutor and the defense attorney. Many of the questions we were asked were probing our ability to be objective. We learned during this process that several of the women had been molested as children, that one man had a religious objection to judging anybody under any circumstances, and that one man wearing a brace after knee surgery had difficulty sitting for long periods. Some of the questions by the defense attorney involved the credibility of teenagers. Apparently, one of the prosecution witnesses was to be a teenage girl. Oddly, I noticed that the defendant was better dressed than his attorney. Perhaps the lawyer was trying to look folksy.

When the questioning was over, the dozen potential jurors were given a break while the principals left to consult about who of our number would be on the jury. We had been told that the charges were only misdemeanor charges—felony charges are adjudicated in county, not municipal, courts—and the jury would consist of six regular jurors and one alternate. I thought it likely that the jury, or most of it, would be chosen from our group. I was wrong. Only three were selected; the rest were dismissed.

I was surprised by the courtroom procedure. From fictional dramas and actual trials I’d seen on television, I expected that those in the jury pool would be questioned individually by the prosecution and defense, after which they would immediately be selected for service or not. That procedure is surely more stressful for potential jurors than what I experienced today. Of course, I cannot know what transpired among judge, prosecutors—there were two—defense attorney, and defendant while they were out of the courtroom.

This was the third time I’ve been called for jury duty. The first time, I was excused because I was about to travel to a computer conference. The second time, I was asked many specific questions and made an initial cut, but not the final one. I suspect that our group today was selected based on the questions we answered on paper, so I likely made the first cut again.

I would like to know why I have never been selected. I may never serve on a jury, though I have always thought I would make a good juror because I am used to doing logical analysis. It was clear today, though, that the only evidence in the trial would be witness testimony, and jurors would need to evaluate the credibility of those witnesses. I’m not sure how good I am at that task.

Facebook Idiocy

For the second time in the past few weeks, I received this warning—reproduced here exactly—when trying to make a post on Facebook:

Your post may go against our Community Standards on violence and incitement

Your post looks similar to content that we’ve removed for going against our Community Standards. You can delete it now to avoid potential account restrictions.

What I was trying to post was this:

U.S. to Israel: Kill all the Palestinians you like, but you must feed the survivors.

Any reasonable person would understand this as ordinary political commentary, slightly exaggerated perhaps, but a normal observation about current U.S. and Israeli policy nevertheless. It certainly does not incite violence; implicitly, it deplores it.

What “community standards” does this violate? A standard about saying anything not a verifiable fact? I can cite Trump supporters who never post anything that’s true! Are any words related to violence forbidden? Would a phrase like “kill him with kindness” be flagged as inappropriate by Facebook?

I assume that an algorithm was behind my warning. If a person was, that person is an idiot. (I probably couldn’t say that on Facebook.)

The last time I received such a warning on Facebook, I said I wanted to strangle some public figure. I don’t remember who that was, but it was probably someone like Marjorie Taylor Green or Kari Lake. That wasn’t an actual threat, of course, but I see how it could be taken the wrong way is seen out of context. Facebook doesn’t appreciate irony.

Anyway, I decided not to post either comment but to write this commentary instead.

More Curve-Stitch Designs

Some readers may know of my longstanding interest in curve stitching, creating designs using only straight lines. Curve stitching began using physical objects, string and cardstock. I was introduced to such designs in junior high school, but I never employed the traditional materials. Instead, I, first drew designs with pencil and paper, then with drafting paper and India ink. The tedium of creating complex figures by hand led me to follow other pursuits for decades.

Eventually, I discovered that I could produce curve-stitch designs on my computer. I did so by programming in PostScript and began posting my work on my Web site, Lionel Deimel’s Farrago. More recently, I have converted PostScript files into Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) images that can be viewed at any level of magnification without loss of fidelity. (Earlier designs were posted as JPG or PNG files.)

The section of my Web site discussing and displaying my curve-stitch designs can be found here. In the past month or so, I have added four new pages of curve-stitch designs:

• Another Family of Designs—a group of designs based on many-sided polygons
• Some Accidental Designs—design inspired by programming mistakes
• Mystic Rose and Other Designs—various circular designs
• Millington-Inspired Designs—designs copied from or inspired by Jon Millington’s landmark book on  curve stitching

I invite readers to check out the new pages or the entire section of my Web site on curve stitching.

Sample design from “Millington-Inspired Designs”

Republican Malfeasance

In happier times, the two political parties worked together to make life better in America. Compromise was often necessary, but useful legislation actually got passed. Now, however, Republicans do not want to pass any legislation, no matter how necessary, if there is a danger that Democrats might get any credit for it. In particular, Republicans do not want to pass any popular legislation while a Democrat is in the White House.

The most blatant example of Republican malfeasance is Donald Trump’s directing his minions in Congress to reject the compromise border bill worked out in the Senate. To facilitate the passage of aid to Ukraine that is desperately needed, Democrats compromised on longstanding positions on immigration, adopting Republican policy preferences the GOP had no reason to think would ever be achieved. But Donald Trump instructed his minions in Congress to torpedo the compromise, lest President Biden get credit for passing a bill giving Republicans what they have always wanted. Being able to criticize Democrats in the upcoming presidential campaign for failing to deal with the “border crisis” was more important to Republicans than solving the reputed crisis. 

Republicans are no longer motivated by helping Americans. They are only interested in achieving and wielding political power. If we want beneficent and effective governing, we need to elect Democrats.